More companion
love! Martha’s time on the TARDIS is
rough; the Doctor, reeling from saying goodbye to Rose, is forever mooning over
his lost companion and unfavorably comparing Martha to her. He’s frequently moody and dismissive of
Martha, and it doesn’t help that she has a decidedly unreciprocated crush on
him. Well, we’re off to a terrific
start, aren’t we?
But
that’s okay, because despite all of this unpleasantness, Martha herself
rocks. She has a good foundation of
basic companion traits – brave, curious, clever, adventurous, compassionate –
and she displays these and other qualities to us and the Doctor almost right
away. She wins instant points for not
going, “Aliens? Don’t be daft – there’s
no such thing!” when the hospital she’s training in gets transported to the
moon, and her first encounter with the Doctor demonstrates her perceptiveness,
quick thinking, and a remarkable ability to keep her head under pressure.
I’m not
sure if the Doctor even realizes how much he asks of her. Even in that initial adventure, he expects
her to operate complex medical equipment, leaves her to serve as a diversion
for some unfriendly space rhinos, and probably banks on her knowing how to
resuscitate someone with a binary vascular system. Her tenure of course culminates in what is
perhaps the most demanding victory for a companion in an RTD season finale;
others pack a bigger, more impressive punch, but they’re bolstered by an augmented
“specialness” that elevates the companion beyond the capabilities of a normal
human being. Martha just works, surviving a horrendously
dangerous situation, all on her own, for an incredible length of time. No help, no extra powers, and no weapons, and
when she’s brought before the most volatile foe in her season, she laughs at
him. (Let’s put it this way – if Rose
and Donna’s big wins are superhuman, like Thor or Captain America, then
Martha’s is like Black Widow, non-powered but just. That.
Good.)
And of
course, there’s “Human Nature” / “The Family of Blood,” which also sees Martha
having to work entirely on her own to keep her and the Doctor safe. Again, this is a burden placed on her
shoulders for a long period of time
in a hostile situation, and she does what needs to be done. I can’t imagine many companions doing as well
as Martha in scenarios like these, and more than that, I can’t imagine the
Doctor asking them to do it. More than
anything, they might offer and he’d argue against it as too dangerous or too
much to ask of them, ultimately insisting on doing it himself. But Martha gets put in this situations time
and again without half the kudos a lot of companions get.
As
awesome as she is, her season can be hard to watch, because seeing how little
the Doctor acknowledges her is so aggravating.
With Rose and Donna, they’re bright women who’ve yet to realize their
potential, working unimpressive jobs and living telly-and-takeaway lives. The Doctor shows them how wonderful they are,
believing in them when they can’t see it.
With Martha, though, it’s almost the opposite. She starts out as a hard-working medical
student, a cool, confident woman who’s the go-to voice of reason in her
family. Being with the Doctor actually
dents her self-esteem, when she works so hard and does such incredible things,
and he can barely see her through his Rose-angst. In the end, she comes out of all of it okay,
but to me, that’s just not something the Doctor does. It’s why I’m not a fan of Six, and after
gradually warming to Ten in season 2, it made me wary of him again. So, my biggest complaint isn’t about Martha
herself, but what the Doctor’s treatment of her says about him.
No comments:
Post a Comment