A Martha post!

[intrikate88]

Note to self: acquire more Martha icons.

I've made a sort of peace with Series 3. A lot of my angst while watching it was based on uncertainty about where RTD and the rest of the writers were going with everything- if they were just going to give up on emotional and dramatic continuity altogether and snatch the series away from Rose and give it to Martha, without her doing anything to earn our respect as viewers. And as far as continuity went, in the season overall, it was fairly decent. Everybody learned about consequences and results; both the Doctor and Martha got to realize what they had lost, what they still had, and how that affected them.

I do have an issue with the way that many things were presented. For example, Martha was actually pretty cool. She was brave and reasonably intelligent, very patient, and also still full of human flaws, such as self-centeredness, immaturity, and lack of empathy. (And it's nobody's fault that Freema has two facial expressions. I keep telling myself that.) However, what probably should have been a character subplot, her unrequited infatuation with the Doctor, was brought too much into everything, making her appear to be selfish and unsympathetic, and possessing very little self esteem. However, after her year of traveling the world (of which I wish we could have seen more, and I hope there are flashbacks to come) she learns that when it comes to the Doctor and the invisible Rose, she isn't second best. She's good, too. And I sort of feel the same about a lot in "The Last of the Time Lords"- good ideas, presented poorly.

In any case, I write all this because of a rather fabulous picspam by retombeon lifeonmartha. It can be found here.

I don't agree with all retombehas to say- I don't think Martha was quite as brave and sympathetic as all that, and if she grosses out at a Dalek brain or whatever I can say that does not bode well for her medical career (puh-leeze. I work in Medical Records and don't interact directly with patients and I see grosser things that that.) but in many ways, this picspam makes you feel like maybe, just maybe, Martha wasn't that bad after all.

'Martha Jones, you saved the world!'
'I did. I spent a lot of time with you thinking I was second best, but you know what? I am good.'

Don't worry. I'll be back to my regularly scheduled Doctor/Rose meta shipping soon.

Comments

[goldy-dollar.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about ways to respond to this post, but I'll just say that I totally agree.

Martha's overall arc? I don't LOVE it, but I like it. I really liked her decision to leave the Doctor at the end of tLotTL. It was so... right. And not a tacked on happy ending for the sake of it.

I'm sort of iffy on how I personally feel about Martha. I wish I understood her motivations a bit more or that I had more backstory on her. Right now, I see her more as the "S3 companion," I think, than as her own person.

I'm kind of looking forward to seeing older!doctor!Martha next season, though. :D

[intrikate88.livejournal.com]

I like it too. Despite the piece-y feeling of some of it, it did have satisfactory conclusion, continuity-, narrative- and dramatic-wise. (A concept my classmates do not understand, and think I must have happy endings to be satisfied instead of just cutting things off pretty much mid-action. /grumble) She did grow as a person. I just really wish we could have seen what sort of person she was growing from and what she was growing into, and how. After a season, we know virtually nothing about her. We don't know why she needs the Doctor to be in love with her. We don't know why she chose to be a doctor. We don't know where her reserves of determination and strength and bravery to travel the world, all alone, for a year came from. Apart from "I wish the Doctor was in love with me!" we don't know what she's thinking. She's a blank, which in a way is an example in itself of the Doctor's grief and lack of interest in anything that's not Rose.

I really think she has a good chance of coming into her own next season with Torchwood and s4. And I am rather excited about that. I want to see Martha herself, the character that I felt like I could sympathise with, when I first heard about her.