The character could only be so much more with writers positively invested in her as a character in her own right rather than a response to the characters they'd like to have significance. Ultimately, she's engendered to create a disparity, a comparison - or to fill a gap.
This role has to be maintained so that her popularity or character doesn't grow so much that she ceases to adequately fulfill the roles demanded of her by said writers, or disturb the roles of others (who shall remain significant).
My point is that she's created in the first place for that purpose and as such the writers see no need that she have further potential, other than that of supeficial value adequate enough to quiet detractors of said writing, i.e. she is only given superficial *indicators* of significance to negate the fact that she very often within the plot is beside point and easily assigned a role that random character of the week can fulfill. Ultimately she's there to draw an audience but primarily to tread water before the events of *actual* significance occur. Or, of course, to draw an audience when *other characters* achieve plot significance.
A case in point, the UK DVD features not the Doctor and Martha, but the Doctor and the Master. (The US DVD manages to avoid this if only because Simm is not as significantly known as in the US - however this does not satisfactorily explain why Martha and the Doctor couldn't have been on one side with the Master and the Doctor on the other. What DOES satisfactory explain it is that Martha is not the character of significance in the writers estimations, a guess that is borne out with all subsequent and previous (mis)treatment.)
This role has to be maintained so that her popularity or character doesn't grow so much that she ceases to adequately fulfill the roles demanded of her by said writers, or disturb the roles of others (who shall remain significant).
My point is that she's created in the first place for that purpose and as such the writers see no need that she have further potential, other than that of supeficial value adequate enough to quiet detractors of said writing, i.e. she is only given superficial *indicators* of significance to negate the fact that she very often within the plot is beside point and easily assigned a role that random character of the week can fulfill. Ultimately she's there to draw an audience but primarily to tread water before the events of *actual* significance occur. Or, of course, to draw an audience when *other characters* achieve plot significance.
A case in point, the UK DVD features not the Doctor and Martha, but the Doctor and the Master. (The US DVD manages to avoid this if only because Simm is not as significantly known as in the US - however this does not satisfactorily explain why Martha and the Doctor couldn't have been on one side with the Master and the Doctor on the other. What DOES satisfactory explain it is that Martha is not the character of significance in the writers estimations, a guess that is borne out with all subsequent and previous (mis)treatment.)
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