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Feb. 17th, 2019 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
troisoiseauxFinally got around to starting season 3 in the Doctor Who (revival) re-watch I started… last November, oops. I watched episodes 1-2 last night and just finished episode 3!
I must confess: back in my peak Doctor Who obsession at 15-16, I had kind of mentally filed Martha away as "the one between Rose and Donna," in part because I don’t think I saw that many of her episodes? (Although the first episode of Doctor Who I saw was with David Tennant and I fell in love accordingly, I didn’t discover the show until Matt Smith’s run so my access to seasons 1-4 were pretty much dependent on whatever reruns they were showing on TV.) Apparently the theme of this rewatch is realizing I wildly underappreciated certain characters the first time around, because Martha is amazing! She's fun, incredibly smart, quick-thinking, competent, and did I mention AMAZING??? How did I think she was boring??
...actually, having seen her first three episodes, I know why. "The Shakespeare Code" (S3E2) was always one of my favorite DW episodes, because, uh, Shakespeare, but compared to the episodes immediately before and after it, it definitely does Martha a disservice by shoving her into the role of Sidekick™ and playing up the whole "the Doctor is still mourning/pining for Rose and Martha is a rebound/poor replacement/will never Be Rose" angle. On the other hand, "Smith and Jones" (S3E1) and "Gridlock" (S3E3) both give Martha a chance to shine in her own right, and save the day with her ability to quickly assess completely alien (literally!) situations and come up with a workable solution. I also love the way that Martha cares about other people: blunt but ultimately kind, a la insisting that a girl* - who literally kidnapped her - get rid of her Futuristic Space Drugs when the girl mentioned she was pregnant; sitting down and refusing to move until the Doctor talked about his feelings because she could tell he was trying to hide them.
* Hi, Annie from Being Human! Another thing about this re-watch is that I recognize the actor of some random background character in almost every single episode. Doctor Who is the British equivalent of Law & Order, in that respect.
To be fair, "Smith and Jones" and "Gridlock" were both episodes where David Tennant particularly shone as well, but, like, I've adored him since I was 15 so I don't need to go on and on about it now. This season is off to a great start, though, so I'm very glad I decided to pick the show back up again!
I must confess: back in my peak Doctor Who obsession at 15-16, I had kind of mentally filed Martha away as "the one between Rose and Donna," in part because I don’t think I saw that many of her episodes? (Although the first episode of Doctor Who I saw was with David Tennant and I fell in love accordingly, I didn’t discover the show until Matt Smith’s run so my access to seasons 1-4 were pretty much dependent on whatever reruns they were showing on TV.) Apparently the theme of this rewatch is realizing I wildly underappreciated certain characters the first time around, because Martha is amazing! She's fun, incredibly smart, quick-thinking, competent, and did I mention AMAZING??? How did I think she was boring??
...actually, having seen her first three episodes, I know why. "The Shakespeare Code" (S3E2) was always one of my favorite DW episodes, because, uh, Shakespeare, but compared to the episodes immediately before and after it, it definitely does Martha a disservice by shoving her into the role of Sidekick™ and playing up the whole "the Doctor is still mourning/pining for Rose and Martha is a rebound/poor replacement/will never Be Rose" angle. On the other hand, "Smith and Jones" (S3E1) and "Gridlock" (S3E3) both give Martha a chance to shine in her own right, and save the day with her ability to quickly assess completely alien (literally!) situations and come up with a workable solution. I also love the way that Martha cares about other people: blunt but ultimately kind, a la insisting that a girl* - who literally kidnapped her - get rid of her Futuristic Space Drugs when the girl mentioned she was pregnant; sitting down and refusing to move until the Doctor talked about his feelings because she could tell he was trying to hide them.
* Hi, Annie from Being Human! Another thing about this re-watch is that I recognize the actor of some random background character in almost every single episode. Doctor Who is the British equivalent of Law & Order, in that respect.
To be fair, "Smith and Jones" and "Gridlock" were both episodes where David Tennant particularly shone as well, but, like, I've adored him since I was 15 so I don't need to go on and on about it now. This season is off to a great start, though, so I'm very glad I decided to pick the show back up again!
