N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
Good on yer — you can do so much better than him! At least, that’s what you feel like saying to Martha at the end of Series Three.
“Thank you. Martha Jones, you saved the world.”
The Doctor, Last of the Time Lords
Admittedly, the series wasn’t quite as weighed down as I remembered it by Martha’s mooning over the Doctor while he moped around missing Rose. But it is unavoidable and Martha is absolutely right to leave.
I’ve mentioned before how I’d never truly believed in the Doctor and Rose love story, so it was always going to be a bit of a drag to have to go through a whole series with Rose’s departure hanging over the Doctor’s relationship with the next companion. Of course no-one, least of all a disgruntled onlooker such as I, should be the arbiter of whom the Doctor should and shouldn’t fall in love with, but Martha Jones has been an excellent companion — super-smart, resourceful and just as brave as Rose — and it’s a pity RTD felt the need to bog her down with an unrequited love story.
Like many a series of Doctor Who, there’s the usual mix of the great — Gridlock, Blink and Human Nature / The Family of Blood rank among my favourite Tenth Doctor stories — along with the absolute dreck — whether’s it the unintentially hilarious Nu Yoik of Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks, the dull, “real-time” excitement of 42, or the bulk of of the season finale I want to forget, but unfortunately cannot.
The wild peaks and troughs in quality make Series Three a more uneven journey than the two previous series of 21st century Who, but it remains enjoyable. I just need to put that clunker of a finale out of mind, though.
