A Few Thoughts on Mickey Smith & Martha Jones (Doctor Who)

Last week, I talked about responses on social media from Whoniverse actors about George Floyd’s murder, police brutality protests, and Black Lives Matter. Although its history is rooted in literal decades of whiteness, Doctor Who and its surrounding shows have, since its reboot in 2005, gradually incorporated more inclusion where race, gender, orientation, and disability are concerned. Much of that began with Mickey, the first character of color to board the TARDIS, and Martha, the first full-time companion of color. However, I want to look today at ways that Who didn’t give its first major chararcters of color their due (Mickey- and Martha-related spoilers.)

For both Mickey and Martha, the big thing hindering their relationship with the Doctor is the fact that they’re not Rose. In Martha’s case, she has the unfortunate position of being something of a rebound-companion, the first person to join the Doctor on his travels after he and Rose were traumatically separated, and he spends far too much of series 3 looking backward. Rather than seeing and valuing the incredible, brilliant Martha for who she is, he keeps missing Rose and instead often sees Martha for who she isn’t. And although Mickey isn’t the only male companion of a male Doctor to be relegated to secondary status, it still feels different with him. Nine quickly warms up to Jack, and while everyone knows that Rory comes second to Amy in Eleven’s regard, that doesn’t change Eleven’s very genuine affection and appreciation for Rory. With Mickey, though, Nine initially treats him with jealous derision (either intentionally calling him “Ricky” or referring to him as an idiot,) and when Mickey asks for a place on the TARDIS in series 2, Ten (and Rose) allow it but then keep him largely at arms length.

Mickey and Martha both go on to do amazing things, on Earth as well as out in the universe, but both are frequently denied the effusive warmth of the Doctor championing their wonderful human potential. At their core, the Doctor is so often about helping people realize and recognize the brilliance in themselves, but with these two, their contributions tend to be taken for granted. Martha goes above and beyond for the Doctor as, time and time again, he “asks too much of her” (as Professor Dumbledore might say,) most notably holding things together in 1913 when he goes under the chameleon arch and braving the Master’s horrors alone in the Year That Never Was. And the start of Mickey’s final story on the TARDIS opens marked with the Doctor and Rose literally forgetting about him as they get wrapped up in one another.

I think it’s significant that these are the only two companions in new Who that choose to stop traveling with the Doctor rather than being forced apart through tragic circumstances or death, and it sucks that they’re also the first two Black companions. I can see how some would make the argument that it’s simply about the story, about the Doctor’s aforementioned hyperfocus on Rose that blinds him to Mickey and Martha’s potential – “It would have played out the same way if they were white!”, I can almost hear fans protest. But, as I said in this post about Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s Josh Chan, even if the show didn’t intend to make any racial implications with these storytelling decisions, the optics we see are still 1) the Doctor being dismissive of his white blond companion’s Black quasi-ex-boyfriend and 2) the Doctor taking his Black companion for granted because he’s still hung up on the white blond one. The Doctor may be a Time Lord and not make such distinctions, but the writers of the show are human, and they could’ve thought about how that would look. It’s sad when, in both instances, the Doctor is taken aback by Mickey and Martha’s respective decisions to leave, because it says that he still doesn’t recognize how he treated them; though he tells them how much he appreciates them as they’re about to go, it comes too late to really land.

Unfortunately, the show goes further in taking Martha and Mickey for granted in the last scene we see of them. Ten’s final episode features his pre-regeneration farewell tour, making one final visit to each of his companions and helping them out one last time. We get scenes for Donna, for Jack, for Sarah Jane, and for Rose, while Martha and Mickey share a scene. As the Doctor saves them from a Sontaran, we learn that they’ve not only gone “freelance” together, they’ve also gotten married. Now, in theory, Mickey and Martha might make a good romantic pair, bonding over their respective experiences on the TARDIS and the very same treatment that separately led both of them to leave the Doctor. But there are problems. First of all, we’d earlier seen Martha engaged to a different man with not one word about what happened to break off their engagement. Second, we’d previously seen Martha and Mickey share a scene basically once before, when Mickey calls, “Wait for me!” and follows after Jack and Martha as everyone goes their separate ways after the companion-a-palooza of “Journey’s End.” Pretty sure we never see them speak directly to each other, and the next we see of either of them, they’re married. Such an afterthought ending for two companions who were never given their full due, and it sadly demonstrates that shows with good intentions and “their hearts in the right place” can still drop the ball when it comes to how they handle diversity and inclusion.