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)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: this literally came to me just now
Date: 2010-01-08 04:59 pm (UTC)