Doctor Who: Did we need Martha?

[butterfly]

Because Russell T Davies seemed to feel that the show needed to have a character who would fall in (unrequited) love with the Doctor, thus illustrating the difference between Rose and everyone else. Did it?

In some superficial ways, Martha is quite a lot like Rose -- pretty, clever Londoner girls, both of them. They even get some echo dialogue in the early episodes. The show puts them in comparable situations frequently. There are both parallels to draw and contrasts to mark.

Mostly, though, there's the Doctor.

I wasn't surprised about Martha's emotional arc. And, though it was heavy-handed at times ("He had to fall in love with a human... and it wasn't me."), I actually do agree with RTD that it was necessary. In order to establish someone as One Thing, you need to establish someone else as Other Thing. And, in this particular context, he wanted to make a distinction between one character and the entire history and future of characters to come.

Yes -- Martha was, in part, all about how special Rose was. Which sucks if you hate Rose. If you hate Rose Tyler, then a series of television that is basically saying, "Yeah, that blonde chick? One of a kind," is pretty much guaranteed to piss you off (and, of course, to the person desperately missing Rose, having episode after episode point out how irreplaceable she was is hardly going to help in the process of getting over her).

But... as the show makes very, very clear -- Rose isn't special in the ultimate 'best person ever' way. She's special in the 'best person for this one specific character/relationship' way. The Doctor writes out that she's 'perfect Rose' and, to him, she is. Now, was Rose actually portrayed as a 'perfect' character?

*bursts out laughing*

She could be petty and jealous. She wandered off. She had a tendency to throw herself into dangerous situations for personal reasons. She nearly destroyed the world because she couldn't listen to instructions. Rose Tyler was flawed.

In a lot of ways, Martha is a 'better' person. Higher class (which matters to some people). More education. Better at staying put and following instructions. Tends to do the right thing. Not so apt to get into trouble. Again, not a perfect person (she, too, had the flaw of 'jealousy'), but from an objective standpoint, probably a better bet to make. But, as they say, the heart has reasons that reason cannot know.

Now, Martha is not the first time that New Who made the distinction between Rose and Other Companions. In fact, every time that the Doctor took on someone else, it was made clear that the Doctor and Rose were a unit and other folk were nice but not necessary (something that Jack took much more easily than Mickey). Rose is the person who invites Adam and Jack on board and is also clearly the impetus for the Doctor inviting Sarah Jane on board.

There are two pre-S3 examples of the difference between Rose and Everyone Else. The first is in The Parting of the Ways, when the Doctor sends Rose home, keeps her out of danger, while everyone else is involved in the fighting (made very clear when he calls her over to help him with the wiring and takes her out of the 'active fighter' count). The second is in School Reunion and the conversation in the street that ends with the Doctor telling Rose that she won't be left behind and very nearly telling her that he loves her ("Imagine watching that happen to someone you-").

And SR, of course, has Sarah Jane -- who serves as our stand-in for Old School Companions. The Doctor very clearly has both admiration and affection for Sarah Jane (just as he does for Martha), but he's utterly thrown by the notion that he was her 'life' and that she couldn't move on without him (we see this echoed when Martha says that the Doctor is 'everything' to her, while she's basically a side-note to him -- a fun, smart, lovable side-note, but a side-note nonetheless). And both Sarah Jane and Martha have to choose to say good-bye to the Doctor in order to start getting over him.

Back when S3 was first airing, I pondered the notion that RTD was using Martha to 'ramp down' from the idea of the Doctor as a sexual/romantic person. Grace was the ramp up, a person that the Doctor was interested in who liked him not his life; Rose was the bridge (the apex; the climax; the transformation), someone he adored who adored both him and the life he offered; and Martha was someone who liked the life he offered, thought he was attractive, but didn't seem to know or like him very much as a person. Going right from Grace and Rose to a Doctor/companion relationship that was completely lacking in romance/sexuality would either be a bit of a harsh break or possibly lead to confusion. So, in order to make his divisions clear, RTD put in an intermediary position where the Doctor was clearly still a sexual/romantic figure ('lost prince') but had no interest in pursuing sex or romance (and I find it so fascinating that both of the 'unsuitable' choices were doctors -- it may show that the Doctor needs someone who complements him, not someone who echoes him).

RTD appears to believe that Martha was a necessary character to show the difference between Rose and the rest of the Doctor's companions. In balance, though I think her part could have been more strongly written, I agree.

ETA: In the end, I think the real problem with Martha is that they only had a six-episode story to tell with her (Smith & Jones through Gridlock and Utopia through Last of the Time Lords). She would have worked better if she hadn't stayed the whole season.

Comments

[avendya.livejournal.com]

As I responded above, I cited the rules of smith_n_jones and lifeonmartha. They do not allow bashing. I'm sure that there are small Martha-centric communities that do allow Rose-bashing, but the major ones do not, just as the major Rose-centric communities will not allow Martha-bashing.

If you believe there's such a difference, please cite.

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

Having such rules and actually enforcing them are two different things. To be honest, I haven't looked at either in months, because while I initially subscribed to them when I started watching Series 3 about halfway into the UK run, I quickly grew tired of constantly reading comment threads that degenerated into name-calling about Rose and/or fans of that character. It may be that the mods have eventually listened to complaints and started nipping such things in the bud, but it just wasn't worth it to me to keep having to sift through all the dross to find something worthwhile. And it's not just the Martha-specific comms. It comes up in general-purpose comms like doctor_who as well.

I just don't understand why there has to be so much hating on Rose to make people feel better about their fave companion o'choice. I mean, no-one's under any obligation to like Rose, just as no-one's under any obligation to like any other companion, supporting character, or even Doctor, but I haven't seen the level of open hostility towards any other characters and their fans welcomed/tolerated like it is with Rose.

[avendya.livejournal.com]

I haven't noticed overt Rose-bashing. I've noticed member preference for S3 over S2, and Rose over Martha, but that does not constitute bashing (and would probably be case for Rose in Rose-centric comms).

I don't see the persecution that you are complaining about. However, if you would like to cite a verifiable case that was ignored or encouraged by the mods, I defer to you.

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but I'm not going back and sifting through months-old entries to look for stuff which may or may not have been deleted in the meantime. It's not as though I've been archiving things off-line in an effort to build up some sort of legal case or whatever.

If you're having a more positive experience with the Martha communities than I was seeing, I'm glad things have improved. I can definitely understand why people might prefer Series 3 to Series 2 depending on personal tastes - even without bringing the different companions into it. For my part I think Series 3 had some really bad episodes (DiM/EotD), and was generally more uneven than either Series 1 or 2. I don't know if that was attributable to some of the head honchos' attentions being diverted to Torchwood or what, but I can't say I'm terribly encouraged by Helen Raynor being given another 2-parter for Series 4.