Doctor's Companions; Part 2
Jan. 8th, 2010 04:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaMartha:
I won't lie, it was tough transitioning from Rose. XD; Part of the reason this took so long was because I couldn't convince sororial unit to keep watching past the Runaway Bride special. I do wonder if the writers even then had the more nuanced S4 Donna in mind, but the viewers were obviously not going to be in the mood for nuance in a new Companion so they played up her abrasive loud side so one wouldn't feel obliged to like her (there being nothing more anathema to fan sensibility than scriptwriters obliging one to do anything). But you can't run with a whole season of that, therefore... Martha. And if Martha were really intended as a sacrificial lamb to structural impasse in this sense it would be part and parcel with the way the storylines treat her - she's got it tough, the poor girl.
I wouldn't describe Rose as essentially "a shopgirl", but I would describe Martha as essentially "a trainee doctor". There's a pun there, and truth in the pun. The Doctor and his awkward rebound period present Martha with an unreasonable challenge, to which she responds in the time-honoured manner of all med students faced with unreasonable challenges: she works hard and sucks it up and demonstrates competence and cares a lot, I mean a lot, about living up to her perception of the gold standard. Rose, in this case. The very vague image of Rose the Doctor deigns to give her. And what does he do? He entrusts Martha with long-term autonomous missions of a sort he never gives to Rose (whom he sends away to safety, upon which she disobeys common sense by coming back, and it's a measure of how much chemistry they have that it doesn't enrage me the way it does when the main girl does it in EVERY ANIME EVER) or to Donna (yet, at least), and that by strange coincidence involve sucking up unholy amounts of crap. Working as a housemaid in the 1910s? Globe-trotting while on the lam from the authorities for a year?? Sure, in a sense he trusts her more than Rose: trusts her to put up with bullshit. WORST TRAP EVER. She finally walks away when it takes a massive non-reversible toll on her family, and... yeah. Pretty much.
On the bright side, Martha walks away assured that she's been competent, that her competence was appreciated, and having acquired (via hardworking apprenticeship) a useful skill set for great career actualization. XD; And she got hit on by Shakespeare! It's probably worth it to to say you were hit on by Shakespeare. In "The Doctor's Daughter" she's again autonomous and does pretty much what the Doctor would have. Except of course she gets the thankless Frodo-and-Sam-crawling-over-smoking-pits-of-Mordor bit, I was like "why am I not surprised".
Sade - Soldier of Love
To be honest, I feel like Martha and the Doctor would have fallen into this relational mode even if she hadn't had a crush on him. She didn't need to be in love with him; she would have done it all by virtue of her personality (and being impressed with him as all Companions are). So I never completely bought that she was in love with him. =_= Initial crush, sure, who wouldn't, and incidentally OH MY GOD HE LEADS HER ON DON'T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE. I'm not entirely sure if it's because Freema didn't sell it, if the two of them didn't have chemistry, or if the alarm bells were so obvious that I couldn't buy anyone deluding themselves for more than five minutes that this was worth hoping for, let alone someone as sensible and self-assured as Martha. At the end when she gives her little speech re if this had been her girlfriend she would've been like GURL GET OUT I was like this because that was basically what I'd been yelling at my laptop screen all season.
Alternately... I don't see the Doctor as very sexual? XD; So far so canonical I'm sure. This is kind of a neat trick as I still vividly remember first clapping eyes on David Tennant (actual words: "Oh my god is that supposed to be Barty Crouch Jr. bullshit he is not meant to be hot"). It was cool with Rose because as aforementioned they had that jun'ai vibe and as per always I am for ~unspoken ambiguity~, but with Martha she was obviously romantically interested in the normal way and then he's all like nope sorry you are not my species and also I am on the rebound from a traumatic inadvertent breakup, this is all temporary, you don't get the dental plan.
Where I'm sure Freema didn't sell it to me was S03E13, and that's not entirely her fault. E11-12 were brilliant but I needed more show than skip-a-year-and-tell-me-how-awesome-Martha-was. Also, they were just hoping we'd buy the Tinkerbell Christ bit as being marginally less retarded than Martha fetchquesting a bunch of colourful MacGuffinium for a nerf gun. Also-also, I am sorry but it is not good form to make the viewer sit through a massive affecting death scene when chara in question is obviously not dead. =_= No but I mean... dude... get real... you have brought back fricking CYBERMEN approx 1,649 times and they don't have 1% of the Master's sparkling personality. It would have been more honest just to let him escape. But then the Doctor would not angst quite as much about being aloooone, all alooooooooone (and how effed up is that when you think about it) and we can't have that, can we.
It was an interesting death, mind. First time I've seen someone ACTUALLY KILL HIMSELF by the functional equivalent of that thing tantruming toddlers do when they hold their breath to spite you. XD;;;
(...Maybe I should edit this and make a separate post about the Master? It would ruin my structure though, he's not a Companion ahaha orz. The Doctor and his (fr)enemies? The Doctor and the dudes in his long and misspent life? I don't have as much to say about Jack and the Daleks don't exactly have an interpersonal relationship with the Doctor that's worthy of analysis. SPOILER THEY WOULD LIKE TO EXTERMINATE HIM IT IS DEEPLY EMOTIONAL)
I won't lie, it was tough transitioning from Rose. XD; Part of the reason this took so long was because I couldn't convince sororial unit to keep watching past the Runaway Bride special. I do wonder if the writers even then had the more nuanced S4 Donna in mind, but the viewers were obviously not going to be in the mood for nuance in a new Companion so they played up her abrasive loud side so one wouldn't feel obliged to like her (there being nothing more anathema to fan sensibility than scriptwriters obliging one to do anything). But you can't run with a whole season of that, therefore... Martha. And if Martha were really intended as a sacrificial lamb to structural impasse in this sense it would be part and parcel with the way the storylines treat her - she's got it tough, the poor girl.
I wouldn't describe Rose as essentially "a shopgirl", but I would describe Martha as essentially "a trainee doctor". There's a pun there, and truth in the pun. The Doctor and his awkward rebound period present Martha with an unreasonable challenge, to which she responds in the time-honoured manner of all med students faced with unreasonable challenges: she works hard and sucks it up and demonstrates competence and cares a lot, I mean a lot, about living up to her perception of the gold standard. Rose, in this case. The very vague image of Rose the Doctor deigns to give her. And what does he do? He entrusts Martha with long-term autonomous missions of a sort he never gives to Rose (whom he sends away to safety, upon which she disobeys common sense by coming back, and it's a measure of how much chemistry they have that it doesn't enrage me the way it does when the main girl does it in EVERY ANIME EVER) or to Donna (yet, at least), and that by strange coincidence involve sucking up unholy amounts of crap. Working as a housemaid in the 1910s? Globe-trotting while on the lam from the authorities for a year?? Sure, in a sense he trusts her more than Rose: trusts her to put up with bullshit. WORST TRAP EVER. She finally walks away when it takes a massive non-reversible toll on her family, and... yeah. Pretty much.
On the bright side, Martha walks away assured that she's been competent, that her competence was appreciated, and having acquired (via hardworking apprenticeship) a useful skill set for great career actualization. XD; And she got hit on by Shakespeare! It's probably worth it to to say you were hit on by Shakespeare. In "The Doctor's Daughter" she's again autonomous and does pretty much what the Doctor would have. Except of course she gets the thankless Frodo-and-Sam-crawling-over-smoking-pits-of-Mordor bit, I was like "why am I not surprised".
Sade - Soldier of Love
To be honest, I feel like Martha and the Doctor would have fallen into this relational mode even if she hadn't had a crush on him. She didn't need to be in love with him; she would have done it all by virtue of her personality (and being impressed with him as all Companions are). So I never completely bought that she was in love with him. =_= Initial crush, sure, who wouldn't, and incidentally OH MY GOD HE LEADS HER ON DON'T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE. I'm not entirely sure if it's because Freema didn't sell it, if the two of them didn't have chemistry, or if the alarm bells were so obvious that I couldn't buy anyone deluding themselves for more than five minutes that this was worth hoping for, let alone someone as sensible and self-assured as Martha. At the end when she gives her little speech re if this had been her girlfriend she would've been like GURL GET OUT I was like this because that was basically what I'd been yelling at my laptop screen all season.
Alternately... I don't see the Doctor as very sexual? XD; So far so canonical I'm sure. This is kind of a neat trick as I still vividly remember first clapping eyes on David Tennant (actual words: "Oh my god is that supposed to be Barty Crouch Jr. bullshit he is not meant to be hot"). It was cool with Rose because as aforementioned they had that jun'ai vibe and as per always I am for ~unspoken ambiguity~, but with Martha she was obviously romantically interested in the normal way and then he's all like nope sorry you are not my species and also I am on the rebound from a traumatic inadvertent breakup, this is all temporary, you don't get the dental plan.
Where I'm sure Freema didn't sell it to me was S03E13, and that's not entirely her fault. E11-12 were brilliant but I needed more show than skip-a-year-and-tell-me-how-awesome-Martha-was. Also, they were just hoping we'd buy the Tinkerbell Christ bit as being marginally less retarded than Martha fetchquesting a bunch of colourful MacGuffinium for a nerf gun. Also-also, I am sorry but it is not good form to make the viewer sit through a massive affecting death scene when chara in question is obviously not dead. =_= No but I mean... dude... get real... you have brought back fricking CYBERMEN approx 1,649 times and they don't have 1% of the Master's sparkling personality. It would have been more honest just to let him escape. But then the Doctor would not angst quite as much about being aloooone, all alooooooooone (and how effed up is that when you think about it) and we can't have that, can we.
It was an interesting death, mind. First time I've seen someone ACTUALLY KILL HIMSELF by the functional equivalent of that thing tantruming toddlers do when they hold their breath to spite you. XD;;;
(...Maybe I should edit this and make a separate post about the Master? It would ruin my structure though, he's not a Companion ahaha orz. The Doctor and his (fr)enemies? The Doctor and the dudes in his long and misspent life? I don't have as much to say about Jack and the Daleks don't exactly have an interpersonal relationship with the Doctor that's worthy of analysis. SPOILER THEY WOULD LIKE TO EXTERMINATE HIM IT IS DEEPLY EMOTIONAL)
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this literally came to me just now
Date: 2010-01-08 10:15 am (UTC)Other than his role on Doctor Who, the sum total of what I know about this guy:
* took his stage name from one of the Pet Shop Boys
* hung out socially with John Barrowman before they worked on DW together
* fanboyed Derek Jacobi (automatic gay points, thanks a lot Sir Ian)
* knows how to stand in heels (thx Yoshi and Puu)
* that bit in Harry Potter where Alan Rickman ties him to a chair
* played Hamlet... I guess that isn't massively gay
I honestly don't pay attention to this shiz so this will either be Duh or He is married w/ 3 kids... hmm Google is so much effort
Re: this literally came to me just now
Date: 2010-01-08 12:44 pm (UTC)Re: this literally came to me just now
Date: 2010-01-08 04:26 pm (UTC)It's a testament to the sway the show currently has over my imagination that I had to explain in small words to myself that this is not incest
Re: this literally came to me just now
Date: 2010-01-08 04:59 pm (UTC)pooling information
Date: 2010-01-08 02:25 pm (UTC)On the flip side, he also likes musicals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackpool_%28TV_serial%29).
Re: this literally came to me just now
Date: 2010-01-08 08:16 pm (UTC)(...AND???)
"And...oh, look, something shiny!" (paraphrased, of course)
He didn't really address the question so much as acknowledge that he sure does give people reason to think that at times.
Re: this literally came to me just now
Date: 2010-01-09 07:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 02:54 pm (UTC)TBH I've often thought, given everything you noted about Martha getting the short end of the stick which is all trufax, that it was uhh ill-considered to cast an actor of color for that particular role. In any case the result in practice was to produce a lot of Martha fans perennially and righteously enraged on her behalf.
Then again in some circles around S2-3 transition time I think the logic ran: we have evidence that NuWho is a show in which the Doctor more or less dates his companion! Therefore he will date Martha as well! And then it didn't happen and the people who had formed that assumption were miffed. Or something, idk, I only report, I myself was relieved, of course. XD;
no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 04:23 pm (UTC)I felt like I'd herds of leaping teal deer'd enough to go on about Martha being POC (not to mention I aired my outrage when I wrote up the 1914 housemaid ep). I do give the makers credit for at least addressing shiz instead of being all white middle-class cast as they so easily could have done (and also eg. being aware that the basic skiffy Doctor-saves-Earth-from-rampaging-aliens setup is xenophobic). They fail hilariously hard at times, but baby steps. XD;; And okay, Martha isn't me but I feel as if I know her because she's closest to me in terms of age, being non-white, having siblings, family/class background and aspirations, etc. So I'm probably more immediately sympathetic to her due to all this.
OTOH I guess I really will have to write the Master essay cos I want to talk about how he gets all the awesome throwaway racist/homophobic/domestic abuse bits (why??? to prove he's evil??? conquering and destroying Earth not enough???).
no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 07:19 pm (UTC)The racefail really is hilariously epic at times, I think "Voyage of the Damned" was the one that made me headdesk forever because everybody dies (even Kylie!) so that the old white men may live lololol.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-09 06:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 08:26 pm (UTC)OTOH, I also saw Martha's crush as somewhat...not forced, exactly, but a fairly conscious decision on her part. That her feelings were genuine, and she had hopes it could work out; but that she was deliberately indulging those feelings for the sake of adventure and world-saving. And then as you say she gets the crap piled on, and it makes sense that she'd cling more to her crush on the Doctor because really, why else would she endure any of it? So it was self-justification as much as anything.
Ahh, the Companion wars are what keeps me from Who fandom. Even among my friends & family, folks are divided between those who love Rose (and almost stopped watching post-Doomsday) and found Martha boring, vs those who hated Rose (and almost quit watching before Doomsday) and found Martha awesome. Then, I liked both of them (though Donna best of all!) so end up doing a lot of shrugging whenever anyone's talking...
no subject
Date: 2010-01-09 08:45 am (UTC)(In light of this discussion, major inappropriate LOL from me at end S4 when everyone else congregates on the Doctor in the Crucible, and Martha teleports... to the middle of a Dalek-infested German forest in order to hike a bit then perform a really shitty task.)
For all that Fandom in its collective gets incredibly paranoid about creators' intentions, it will also refuse to step back and take a chill pill in circumstances like NuWho, where the ppl involved actually are OBVIOUSLY MESSING WITH YOU FOR THE LULZ. XD;
no subject
Date: 2010-01-09 10:32 am (UTC)Ahahah yes. See also (especially): Torchwood. In which there are moments that I could not get emotionally wound up in myself because I was too busy thinking of the havoc said moments would invariably wreak across the internet. (and wow, were they wreaked.)
A lot of people hate RTD forever for the way he hates fans, and kind of miss that he a) finds their hate & rage deliciously entertaining and b) as a fanboy himself knows exactly how to evoke it. (I actually like RTD quite a bit, in spite of his various hangups and utter inability to assemble a coherent plot. Partly because he admits outright that the Doctor & the Master should be married; and partly because somehow he's tuned to my general fannish dial - I feel what he wants me to feel, more often than not, even when I am consciously aware of the gaping holes in the story.)
no subject
Date: 2010-01-09 10:27 pm (UTC)I'm happy to go along with the handwaves and not fight the flow; it's why he and Tennant have to leave at the same time, though, the entire house of cards falls down with a different Doctor who doesn't talk as fast. XDD
no subject
Date: 2010-01-10 12:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-09 10:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-09 10:26 am (UTC)