The change-over
How will RTD leaving and Steven Moffat taking over 'Doctor Who' affect Martha?
-RTD loves writing for Martha so will he take Martha and bring her to Torchwood permanently?
-Will Martha remain a crossover figure? Will she be on 'The Sarah Jane Adventures'?
-Will ST have anything planned for Martha? What do you think he would do with her ( Read more... )
-RTD loves writing for Martha so will he take Martha and bring her to Torchwood permanently?
-Will Martha remain a crossover figure? Will she be on 'The Sarah Jane Adventures'?
-Will ST have anything planned for Martha? What do you think he would do with her ( Read more... )
If Martha won't come back as a full time companion which I believe she never will then I'd like to stay on as a crossover character. She was very good in both Torchwood and season four of Doctor Who even if her some times she had a limited role.
Spoilers for Doctor Whom and Torchwood in the black. Highlight to read at you own peril.
They seem to be keeping her on as a crossover character with this radio play with Torchwood and the three episodes at the end of this series of Doctor Who.
I'm thinking it will be possible after Martha mets Sarah Jane she could go on her show. I've only seen the first episode of the SJA but if they ever had UNIT on that show Martha would be prefect to work with Sarah Jane and the kids. I like to picture Martha and Sarah Jane getting on really well (much like Donna and Martha) without the catty start that Sarah Jane had with Rose.
I really loved Martha on Torchwood and there is a opening for a doctor at the hub. I doubt she'll be the replacement full time for Owen but I'd love to see Martha go that root and come back for crossover with Jack once (at least) every season.
RTD may love writing for Martha but I don't always loke what he writes for Martha so this change IMO could be very good. Maybe, hopefully, Steven will have Martha less defined by romantic interests. I like romance but a full season of heartbreak then coming back the next season with this "marry off the companion" feeling isn't so good. Martha finding love after the Doctor is a great thing but, I'm not sure how to word this, being in a relationship/getting married seemed to too much of the focus for her happiness. She IMO could have been shown to be just as happy because of her job, having her family back and then a man. Sorry I know I'm starting my 'Martha-marrying the companion off' rant again so I'll show up now. But I do hope Steven will of focus a little less on that part of Martha's character.
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Anyhow, I'm hoping that Moffatt will be more convincing in his portrayal of Companions on the whole, and be less biased toward one or another. Which with any luck will mean good things for Martha, if he opts to keep her around. It's hard to say just how much he plans on changing once he takes the reins.
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THANK YOU! I couldn't agree more and to me it doesn't sound bad at all because it's all true.
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I absolutely agree.
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I mean before Tom, she wasn't travelling with the Doctor because of her family, because of her job. This is a problem with the WRITERS' priorities not the character of Tom. I don't mind Tom. I do have a problem with the lack of onscreen investment in Martha as a character. She's engaged yet we're not permitted to even see this relationship develop, or even have it shown. So technically she could just be a good liar if the writers wanted to turn it around in two seconds.
The episodes we see her in (introductory episode outstanding) she is either off screen, unconscious or separated from the main characters for most of the episode and it ends up being more about new characters being introduced, past characters being referenced, or tertiary characters that just happen along and will be gone at the end of the episode.
As I see it, Martha's being used as nothing more than an advert for the show to draw viewers. We get nothing new about the character and any time that could be spent renewing her relationship with the Doctor or even having some decent dialogue with him always turns into her being more concerned about him than she is for herself or, having to defend herself physically or verbally.
It's tired.
I don't think I want to keep jumping from show to show to show just because Martha's in the episode in question because the episode in question always ends up being about some other character.
I'd rather they either gave the character some substance or just wrote her out altogether. It's far more bothersome having her eternally sidelined than whether she's married to Tom or not. The only thing the engagement does is highlight how lazy the writers are when it comes to Martha. Period.
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It also occurred to me recently (and I'm not sure how much this is relevant, but bear with me anyway) that even during Martha's season we -- and subsequently the Doctor -- were very rarely faced with losing her. There were very few times when Martha's life was left in question to the point that we seriously feared she might die. 42 is the only time that comes readily to mind. To me, this just further proves the writers' hesitation to invest any emotion in the character.
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She almost dies in the Smith & Jones, and slightly in the Shakespeare ep, then it's an anvil in Gridlock, yet again the Dalek two-parter (which was a little obnoxious because the Doctor displayed a complete lack of concern there even to the point of turning into a wanton Kamikaze with no consideration of whether he left Martha stranded in 1930s New York), then she puts herself in direct danger in The Lazarus Experiment, anvil again in 42, Human Nature/FOB is a clunker for her being stranded again, Blink - stranded again - yet according to her blog she's the one who has to calm down The Doctor, Utopia stranded/mirrored by Chanto/practically there only to draw the Doctor's ire at one point, then the last three eps when again she's directly in peril in a way that we (the audience) know won't kill her but in way that could very well kill her spirit.
Ultimately this then culminates with her ACTUALLY leaving, and the Doctor's response is so dead that he trumps it with the moment he thinks Donna might be leaving. Not when she actually is.
I felt it all through S3 and it was only at the end that we realised that these things are deliberately written into Martha's treks to ensure she doesn't want to stay for very long. You could argue this happens to Donna too but Donna's already had her moment where she decided it was too much and now is willing to come back and give it another try.
Even up to Martha's last ep, The Doctor's Daughter, for which it seemed she was only there as a draw to introduce the title character - she has yet another horrible experience that reinforces that she wants to stay where she is.
This is different from having a great time and then deciding that you want to be with your loved ones.
I always felt like Martha's season (in terms of character investment) was more like a Cliff Notes than a story and that the overtures made were developments already accepted by the viewer with another character - even the episode line up of S3 is very similar to that of S2, and then to have Martha defined largely by her apparently unrequited affection for the Doctor seemed almost entirely because they couldn't be bothered to make a more solid character should the audience take to her too hard and be unwilling to take the returning companions next season (which we found out later).
I get that they already had Tate lined up when they finished TRB but that she'd have to skip a year - but the refusal to invest in Martha went over with her to Torchwood - I now know more about Owen the about Martha, in a supposed three eps she's supposed to be in that seems a little off, particularly with Owen being dead by the end of the season.
Now even when she's back on WHO it's Cliff Notes Martha all over again.
It's becoming obnoxious.
Mainly I don't listen to what the writers say in interviews, I look at what they write, and I always wondered during S3 what the big rush was. Of course, now it's obvious. The point of the character was to tread water for a season - and now they don't know what to do with her other than keep her out of the way because they obviously didn't think they'd need a place for her. This endless crossover is just trying to make them look like they intended to keep her all along.
Frankly, I doubt it. The actual writing just doesn't back it up. What we do have is they writing stuff to back up both Donna and Rose's later appearances but Martha's recurrances carry very little enduring plot weight - not because she's not a brilliant character but because the writers don't want her to shine too hard and undermine the stuff they've been planning for all the other characters all along.
ETA: Randomly, my answer to this post is here.
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