Martha Jones

Oooh boys.  So I watched the entirety of season three in, I believe, less than two weeks (after taking about a month each for the first two). I wish I had had the presence of mind to blog it as I went, because I feel like there is a lot that I want to say about this season.  I suspect that I will probably end up doing a huge mind dump over the next few days, the way I have been sort of doing with Rose, I guess.

So.  First and foremost: Martha.  I really really liked Martha at first.  She was smart and sensible and capable, and maybe some of that had to do with how good she looked in comparison to Donna in "The Runaway Bride", but she had me hooked in "Smith and Jones" immediately.

Actually, if I can go on an aside just for a moment, she had me hooked in "Army of Ghosts".  Given that I had already seen a few episodes with Martha in them ("Gridlock", "Blink", "The Stolen Earth", and "Journey's End"), I was so confused by that episode.  "Oh cool, I didn't know the doctor met Martha even before Rose was gone... why do they keep calling her that name, does she have a secret identity or something... but if she gets cyberfied, the how does... gosh she looks awfully dead... Hmm.  I think maybe this isn't Martha."  It was mildly hilarious, really.

Anyway.  I liked her right away, but then pretty soon I sort of stopped liking her.  It was because she fell in love with the Doctor.  I think that's what did it for me.  I suspect that at least partly I was mad at her for being jealous of Rose, and not understanding how hurt the Doctor was, because I hadn't gotten over Rose yet myself.  Partly, though, I think it was also because we had just had a companion-in-love-with-the-Doctor thing the season before and I wanted something different.  Either way, I wasn't happy about it.

She did, however, continue to be smart and capable, and that much, at least, I still approved of.  In the season finale(s) she won me back.  Hard.  A year.  A whole year, she spent.  Travelling by herself, through danger, to save the entire world from something they wouldn't even remember happening.  Oh sure, she was a hero to those who knew her for much of that year, but after that, it was just gone.  I feel like she almost didn't get enough recognition in the show, from the writers, for how difficult that year must have been, and the hardships she must have gone through.

That strength is what won me back to her.  I feel as though her quote at the end was very appropriate.

I spent a lot of time with you thinking I was second best, but you know what? I am good.

Because I spent a lot of time thinking she was second best too (maybe even third... I do love Donna).  But she was good.