Docto Who 3.1: Smith and Jones
Apr. 1st, 2007 12:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenayI have in no way watched this twice. Promise.
*g*
It took a lot of work, but I managed to stay unspoiled completely for this episode. Yay! And I plan to remain this way for the next thirteen weeks *look severely at f-list* Therefore, please try not to discuss future episodes (except maybe for speculation or "I hope that...") in comments. Thank you :-)
Moving rapidly on...
I loved this :-))) Most importantly, I like Martha already and I have high hopes that I'll be adoring her within a few episodes. I like the fact that she's completely different to Rose, in background, personality and approach to everything. She has Rose's eagerness to see what's out there, but that's it and that's pretty much a requirement for a good companion in this series. If the TARDIS had more trouble returning people to their own times/places then a reluctant companion would work (see Tegan, from the 80s) but this TARDIS can at least get to approximately the right destination, give or take a few months and a few miles. Therefore the companion needs to be someone who wants to travel and wants to see what's out there.
One of the contrasts I liked, and it's something that I didn't think about much until afterwards, is that the Doctor isn't intended (at this point) to keep Martha around. It was quite obvious that when the Doctor invited Rose along, he already wanted her to stay for as long as she wanted. This time he's inviting Martha long on a thank-you trip (which I'm sure will be extended...) and there hasn't been that instant kind of connection that he had with Rose. It's going to be a very different relationship.
Martha's background makes her a more intellectually educated companion than Rose, which is something that the Doctor seems to appreciate. I have a feeling that she'll be demanding more explanations of the technical side of things than Rose did and she'll question that side of things much more. RTD said in the Confidential that Rose had more emotional intelligence and I think that I agree with that. Martha is more analytical and reasoning and I'm looking forward to seeing how that will affect their adventures as the series goes on.
The relationship between Martha and the Doctor, as I noted, is quite different to the relationship between Rose and the Doctor. I think that's very important, both to differentiate Martha and to help us accept her better. On her side, there does seem to be a spark (nicely done dreamy face after that kiss) and I'm wondering where they're going to go with this.
All in all, I think this could be a very interesting companion-Doctor dynamic building.
As for the episode...
I really did enjoy it. The story did everything it was supposed to do - introduce Martha, have an adventure, re-state the way things are on Doctor Who - without feeling like an introduction episode. Smith and Jones had an advantage over Rose in that the audience is already familiar with the core ideas of Doctor Who and the story didn't have to work as hard on that side of things. This allowed the action to start earlier in the story and get moving quickly. Martha's family, at least on the surface, are easily summarise so the series of phone calls at the start was enough to give us a good idea of what her home life is like. As much as I loved Rose, it did always have the problem that there was so much to introduce and explain that the core plot couldn't be as strong.
I loved the sense of fun in this episode. The Doctor in the hospital bed having fun playing with Martha's mind just a teensy bit and babbling about Benjamin Franklin had me giggling despite my best efforts. That trick with the tie was both fun and gave us an intriguing start to the episode that paid off in the final minutes.
Mixed with that there was genuine horror at what Miss Finnegan was doing and I think the little straw just made that worse. Not because we saw very much, but because out imaginations (mine, at least) could work on it so well. This little old lady with a straw drinking people's blood. Definitely a shudder moment. If she'd had big teeth and been more obviously vampiric then I think it would have lessened the impact, odd as that sounds.
The idea of the Judoon looking like the bad guys, but not really being the bad guys, worked well in this episode. Their indifference to the chaos they have caused and casual dismissal of the killer MRI machine as "no longer being their jurisdiction" emphasised their alienness and at the same time were a subtle poke at some of the less savoury sides of police work in our world. It was interesting that they were such sticklers for the law that they returned the hospital to Earth just in time to prevent everyone suffocating. I wonder whether they would have returned a hospital full of dead people if they hadn't found the plasmivore in time?
It's an interesting speculation and I'm now wondering whether we'll be seeing the Judoon again.
I did like those final moments in the hospital, with the Doctor carrying Martha and looking devastated. He may be telling himself that he's only taking her on the one trip, but I think he's already considering her to be good companion material.
All in all, I loved this episode and I haven't got any niggles, although this is Doctor Who and I generally try not to spot niggles anyway :-) As much as I enjoyed Torchwood, seeing new adventures Doctor Who again reminded me that the main show is by far the best and I am, at heart, a devoted Doctor Who fan. And hopefully always will be.
*g*
It took a lot of work, but I managed to stay unspoiled completely for this episode. Yay! And I plan to remain this way for the next thirteen weeks *look severely at f-list* Therefore, please try not to discuss future episodes (except maybe for speculation or "I hope that...") in comments. Thank you :-)
Moving rapidly on...
I loved this :-))) Most importantly, I like Martha already and I have high hopes that I'll be adoring her within a few episodes. I like the fact that she's completely different to Rose, in background, personality and approach to everything. She has Rose's eagerness to see what's out there, but that's it and that's pretty much a requirement for a good companion in this series. If the TARDIS had more trouble returning people to their own times/places then a reluctant companion would work (see Tegan, from the 80s) but this TARDIS can at least get to approximately the right destination, give or take a few months and a few miles. Therefore the companion needs to be someone who wants to travel and wants to see what's out there.
One of the contrasts I liked, and it's something that I didn't think about much until afterwards, is that the Doctor isn't intended (at this point) to keep Martha around. It was quite obvious that when the Doctor invited Rose along, he already wanted her to stay for as long as she wanted. This time he's inviting Martha long on a thank-you trip (which I'm sure will be extended...) and there hasn't been that instant kind of connection that he had with Rose. It's going to be a very different relationship.
Martha's background makes her a more intellectually educated companion than Rose, which is something that the Doctor seems to appreciate. I have a feeling that she'll be demanding more explanations of the technical side of things than Rose did and she'll question that side of things much more. RTD said in the Confidential that Rose had more emotional intelligence and I think that I agree with that. Martha is more analytical and reasoning and I'm looking forward to seeing how that will affect their adventures as the series goes on.
The relationship between Martha and the Doctor, as I noted, is quite different to the relationship between Rose and the Doctor. I think that's very important, both to differentiate Martha and to help us accept her better. On her side, there does seem to be a spark (nicely done dreamy face after that kiss) and I'm wondering where they're going to go with this.
All in all, I think this could be a very interesting companion-Doctor dynamic building.
As for the episode...
I really did enjoy it. The story did everything it was supposed to do - introduce Martha, have an adventure, re-state the way things are on Doctor Who - without feeling like an introduction episode. Smith and Jones had an advantage over Rose in that the audience is already familiar with the core ideas of Doctor Who and the story didn't have to work as hard on that side of things. This allowed the action to start earlier in the story and get moving quickly. Martha's family, at least on the surface, are easily summarise so the series of phone calls at the start was enough to give us a good idea of what her home life is like. As much as I loved Rose, it did always have the problem that there was so much to introduce and explain that the core plot couldn't be as strong.
I loved the sense of fun in this episode. The Doctor in the hospital bed having fun playing with Martha's mind just a teensy bit and babbling about Benjamin Franklin had me giggling despite my best efforts. That trick with the tie was both fun and gave us an intriguing start to the episode that paid off in the final minutes.
Mixed with that there was genuine horror at what Miss Finnegan was doing and I think the little straw just made that worse. Not because we saw very much, but because out imaginations (mine, at least) could work on it so well. This little old lady with a straw drinking people's blood. Definitely a shudder moment. If she'd had big teeth and been more obviously vampiric then I think it would have lessened the impact, odd as that sounds.
The idea of the Judoon looking like the bad guys, but not really being the bad guys, worked well in this episode. Their indifference to the chaos they have caused and casual dismissal of the killer MRI machine as "no longer being their jurisdiction" emphasised their alienness and at the same time were a subtle poke at some of the less savoury sides of police work in our world. It was interesting that they were such sticklers for the law that they returned the hospital to Earth just in time to prevent everyone suffocating. I wonder whether they would have returned a hospital full of dead people if they hadn't found the plasmivore in time?
It's an interesting speculation and I'm now wondering whether we'll be seeing the Judoon again.
I did like those final moments in the hospital, with the Doctor carrying Martha and looking devastated. He may be telling himself that he's only taking her on the one trip, but I think he's already considering her to be good companion material.
All in all, I loved this episode and I haven't got any niggles, although this is Doctor Who and I generally try not to spot niggles anyway :-) As much as I enjoyed Torchwood, seeing new adventures Doctor Who again reminded me that the main show is by far the best and I am, at heart, a devoted Doctor Who fan. And hopefully always will be.
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-01 04:21 pm (UTC)'I used to have a brother' (or something like that) ... Now the speculation has always been that the Master may be the doc's brother (and in fact I believe that was going to happen - untill delgardo died) ...
and wasn't Saxon the guy who ordered the tank comander to file at the Racnoss ship - or did I imagine that ...
no subject
Date: 2007-04-02 08:02 am (UTC)