Companions: Captain Jack Harkness, Donna Noble, Martha Jones
Just like Series 1, Series 3 takes a while to get going but kicks into high gear at the end of the season. Martha doesn’t quite live up to Rose, but she does it her way.
The Review
Here’s the scores for the stories:
Human Nature/The Family of Blood: 10/10
Blink: 10/10
Smith and Jones: 10/10
42: 9/10
Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords: 8/10
Gridlock: 8/10
The Shakespeare Code: 8/10
The Runaway Bride: 8/10
Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks: 6.75/10
The Lazarus Experiment: 6/10
I’m a sucker for introduction episodes hence the perfect score for Smith and Jones, but Human Nature/The Family of Blood and Blink are absolutely deserving. The series really stumbled in the middle with the misfire of Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks and The Lazarus Experiment, but quickly managed to find its footing again. When I first watched Series 3 in 2013, the shadow of Rose loomed large and I wasn’t able to really appreciate Martha. Freema Agyeman gets better as the season goes on, and turns in some great performances at the end. The real star though is David Tennant, who is at the absolute peak of his powers. He is wicked smart, devilishly handsome, and radiates confidence and charisma. It’s easy to see how people couldn’t help but fall head over heels in love with him.
8.375/10 Some low lows, but more than enough high highs
Story 187, Episodes 735-737, Series 3 Episodes 11-13
Doctor: The Tenth Doctor
Companions: Captain Jack Harkness, Martha Jones
The only true three-parter in the new series, the finale of Series 3 is close to being pitch-perfect, but John Simm’s Master misses the mark.
The Review
Captain Jack back in the main show!
This story gets crazier the further it goes, and it starts by going to a planet at the end of the universe in the year 100 trillion. Captain Jack grabs onto the outside of the TARDIS and the TARDIS tries to shake him off by going there. We learn that the Doctor knew well that Rose saved Jack in Series 1, but is disgusted by his permanent immortality. One of the story’s best scenes is when Jack does some work in a room with horrific radiation that would disintegrate a normal man, with him and the Doctor airing it all out. Tennant’s Doctor has never seemed older, or more wise, than he does explaining to Captain Jack what’s wrong with him. We also get our answer to how Captain Jack got from 200,100 to the present day: he had a portable time travel device that got him to 1869 before it broke. He lived out his life more or less around Cardiff waiting for a Doctor that would know him to return. The last humans are loading up on a rocket to get to the mysterious ‘Utopia’ while being menaced by ‘Futurekind’, which are just big mean humans with teeth. They do blast off, but that’s when it goes wrong.
I. Am. The Master.
There is a kind-hearted professor there, Professor Yana, who has been working on the rocket but plagued with horrible headaches. Martha then sees he has a Gallifreyan fob watch, just like the one the Doctor had in Human Nature. Yana (You Are Not Alone), opens it and is restored…as the Master. Derek Jacobi is only the Master for a few minutes but he is one of the coldest and cruelest incarnations to date, murdering his assistant Chantho. Chantho gets him back though, and the Master stumbles into the TARDIS and regenerates into young John Simm. The Doctor’s face of horror as the Master abandons him is incredible. Thankfully he is able to fix Jack’s vortex manipulator, and they arrive in present day…where the Master has just been elected freaking Prime Minister. Simm gives a delightful speech saying what the country needs is a Doctor, and then the Doctor, Martha, and Jack are forced on the run. Martha’s parents and sister are arrested, although she tells her brother to hide and we never see him again. The Sound of Drums is a fun romp leading to the Helicarrier Valiant where the Master reveals his plan to use spheres called Toclafane to rule the planet.
The Master and his wife
Here’s the biggest problem with this story: Simm’s Master in this story just isn’t good. Now, I think a lot of the blame actually falls onto RTD because Simm has gotten better and better as the Master in his subsequent appearances. Here he’s too pantomime, too much of a buffoon to be actually scary. I’m actually alright with the dancing to music, but his whole demeanor just isn’t threatening. What does help provide some menace is his wife Lucy, who disturbingly seems to be getting off on the murder of a tenth of the population. In part three after a year of the Master’s rule, her now scared demeanor and bruises suggest a deeper horror to the Master. The Doctor is turned by the Master’s laser screwdriver (yes really) into a pathetic old man, then worse, into a little Dobby the elf thing. Don’t know why that was a good idea. Martha spends a year wandering the Earth, becoming the most famous person on it as rumor spreads she can kill the Master. We think she’s been collecting parts for an anti-Time Lord gun, but the Master just arrests her. Disturbingly we find the Toclafane are what is left of the human race after going to ‘utopia’, sadistic childish killers. It is truly disturbing and a great reveal.
JesusDoctor
Martha’s whole ark this story is finally gaining independence from the Doctor, and learning that she does not have to live in Rose’s large shadow. When I first watched, Rose’s shadow was large indeed, she was essentially the main character of the first two seasons and adapting to Martha was difficult. That’s why it’s kind of disappointing that her traveling the world was just to tell people to pray for the Doctor to activate the psychic network to heal the Doctor. The Doctor getting un-Dobbyfied and rising like Jesus to people’s prayers is more than a bit over the top. The story quickly rights the ship though as the Master cowers in front of DoctorJesus, and the Doctor offers an incredibly Jesus-esque response to the Master’s horrible crimes: “I forgive you”. The Master of course tries to start his intergalactic war, no dice, and Jack breaks the paradox of the Toclafane, returning the world to as it was before the Master’s reign. (The President was still killed though). Finally having enough, the Master’s wife shoots him, and the Master refuses to regenerate to spite a crushed Doctor. Jack goes back to Torchwood, and that leaves us with Martha.
Martha, getting out
Martha has found her independence, and says that he has a duty to Earth now. That’s not all though, she tells him that she’s been tired of pining after someone who can never love her back and the effect is clearly big on the Doctor. The moments where we see the Doctor alone are also so revealing, and clearly there is a lot of trauma for the Doctor still to work through. So this massive story, what’s the verdict? It’s pretty good! If it weren’t for the misfire that was the Simm Master, great even. I think people are too harsh on this story, sure the world of the Master gets reversed but did people think it wouldn’t? The emotional battle scars from our main characters are more important than anything though, especially to us narratively. As a goodbye to Martha, it is a nice one, and it helps to know we’ll see her again. I just wish her independence still didn’t revolve as much around the Doctor. As a way to introduce a new generation to the Master, I think this episode was undeniably successful. I just wish there was more serious venom there for Simm to play. All in all, a fun story.
Utopia is a straight ten though. It rules.
8/10 Series 3 ends with a fun finale with some silly missteps.
One of the most brilliant single episode stories in Doctor Who history, Steven Moffat crafts an airtight narrative about time travel.
The Review
The Angels and Sally
This episode was an afterthought, a story barely featuring the Doctor, cobbled together with some ideas Steven Moffat had bouncing around in his head. The result is stone cold brilliance. There are three components to this, one is the performances, anchored by Carey Mulligan as our hero, Sally Sparrow. Sally explores an old ruined house to photograph it, and there she meets the Weeping Angels. Her best friend is whisked to 1920, and a police officer that asks her out is sent to 1969 with the Doctor and Martha. For barely appearing in person, Tennant is ever-present as the Doctor through a recorded address that again sees him firing on all cylinders. Secondly, it’s the Weeping Angels, one of the most ingenious monsters of all time. They’re stone angels, but only when you’re looking at them, look away for an instant and they move, impossibly fast, directly toward you. The design of the Weeping Angels is chilling, going from appearing to be crying to lunging with fangs and teeth. It’s little wonder that they’ve become iconic villains now treated with the same respect as the Daleks and Cybermen. The killer bit is when you realize: the camera counts as a pair of eyes too.
The final defeat of the Angels…until that lightbulb goes out
What really elevates this episode it is all one big paradox. Sally’s future boyfriend Larry has found recordings of the Doctor speaking hidden in DVDs, but doesn’t know what they mean. It’s half of a conversation had with Sally, that the Doctor only knows because Larry writes down the conversation while Sally and the Doctor are having it. The ending completes the loop where a year later Sally happens to run into the Doctor and Martha, before they get stranded in 1969, giving him the transcript so he can make that video when he is stranded. It is all genius. The shock horror of seeing Sally’s friend Kathy taken and Sally immediately meeting her grandson after Kathy got sent back to 1920, and falling in love with a cop only to immediately see him as a dying old man is brutal stuff. The horror of the Angels: they don’t kill you, but they separate you from your life forever. Blink is a puzzle that keeps revealing himself until the loop is completed, a love story between Sally and Larry, and a horror story with the Weeping Angels. It is one of the finest scrips: period.
Not until Heaven Sent would Moffat at last write a story that is so complete, emotionally affecting, and rewarding as this one.
10/10 Two perfect tens in a row! Series 3 on a roll.
Story 185, Episodes 732 and 733, Series 3 Episodes 8 and 9
Doctor: The Tenth Doctor
Companions: Martha Jones
An adaptation of a novel from the 90s, Human Nature/The Family of Blood is one of the most devastating stories in show history.
The Review
Martha is so in love with the Doctor she accepts three months as a cleaning girl in 1913
I first watched this story in 2013, and have held it in reverence ever since. Watching it again, I hoped it would be as good, and it delivered. It makes sense why the Doctor would choose to hide as a schoolteacher in the English countryside, there’s always been something professorial about him. Having made himself into a human, the Doctor is now John Smith, a simple teacher falling in love with Joan Redfern, the academy’s matron. He seems like the Doctor, but he isn’t the Doctor. The first person the Doctor’s choice harms is Martha, who as a black woman has no choice but to be a servant girl for three months while they wait for their pursuers, the Family, to die. There are several chirps about her status and race, and the show isn’t afraid to have even the warm Joan say that it’s impossible for a black woman to become a doctor. They are all people of 1913, for better and for worse. The first episode is really for the viewers to see who John is, an imperfect but caring man who is falling in love. He’s not a Time Lord, and that’s what Joan loves about him. Martha’s continued anguish at why even ‘John Smith’ won’t love her is painful, and she does confess to John that she loves the Doctor. When will she realize the Doctor doesn’t love her back?
Son and Mother
The Family of Blood are great villains, their actors completely selling the transformation from human to bizarre alien killers. None is better than the legendary performance of Harry Lloyd as Banes, then becoming ‘Son-of-Mine’, a true devil. The way the family can smell the Time Lord consciousness contained in the fob watch is unnerving, and their army of scarecrows is one the right side of the line between disturbing and campy. The little girl playing Daughter-of-Mine doesn’t say anything, until she does, and it might be the most unsettling of the lot. There is another thing about this school the Doctor wouldn’t love, and it’s that it is a military academy preparing young teenagers for war. With the Family attacking, John Smith rings the alarm bells to have the students prepare to defend the school. Martha cannot abide by this, but John sees no choice, the boys must fulfill their duty. For all their bluster some of the boys are now terrified to actually face combat. The Headmaster, in a great turn by who I’m now learning is Pip freaking Torrens, is told by Banes of World War I’s imminence and mocked that his students will die. Though I’m not sure I agree, the Headmaster’s speech that he saw horrors in the Boer War, but would go back in an instant for King and county sure is powerful.
Tim Latimer, the bravest of them all
The last thread is that of a boy, Tim Latimer, who has low-level psychic ability. Scrawny and undersized compared to the rest of the boys, the others use him to do their homework. He happens to pick up the fob watch containing the Doctor’s consciousness, and frequently opens it to draw the Family away. The glimpses that Tim sees of who the Doctor is scare and frighten him, but he knows that only the Doctor, and not John Smith, can save them. John starts to have a mental breakdown as he realizes that his history is a lie, and that he has to die so the Doctor can live. Joan is right, John shows true courage in willingly allowing the Doctor to return, and he lets the Family rot for eternity. When the Doctor returns to talk to Joan, the gulf between him and John is shocking. The Doctor genuinely wants to travel more with Joan, but his arrogance shows through. Joan asks the Doctor if anyone would have died if he didn’t choose this school to hide at, and the Doctor silently leaves her, both knowing the answer. For Joan, her second chance at love is gone, and a being beyond comprehension now has stolen his body. It’s devastating. However, it’s not all bad, the Doctor giving the watch to Tim allows him to survive a bomb in World War I, and him and Martha visit an old Tim at a memorial service. For someone, this story had a happy ending.
Maybe David Tennant’s finest performance of all time, we learn definitively, that the Doctor isn’t one of us, and never can be.
10/10 Part one is a bit slow, but part two elevates this story into the hallowed halls of classics
In a now historical artifact, Chris Chibnall’s first opportunity to write for Doctor Who proper gives us one of the most frenetic episodes ever.
The Review
This is one of the best-looking episodes from the RTD era right after maybe the worst
There’s now constant countdown clock, but the Doctor and Martha have arrived on a ship falling into the sun in exactly 42 minutes, the length of a normal episode. The first time I saw 42 I thought it was a bargain rip-off of The Impossible Planet, it’s still weirdly similar but the pace is turned up to 11. The problems are numerous, the crew has to get through 29 password protected doors to get to the engine controls, and deal with one of their crew saying ‘burn with me’ and frying people to dust. There is no room to breathe anywhere in this episode, by design, and it certainly leaves you gasping for breath at the end of the runtime. Crew members are rapidly killed off by the infected creatures, and Martha and one of the crew is ejected in an escape pod that slowly falls toward the sun. The Doctor withstands the wrath of the sun in his trademark orange spacesuit, managing to reverse the magnetism of the escape pod to bring Martha back home. Martha’s tearful phone call with her mom is one of the only slow moments.
Tennant looks on in horror
It turns out that the sun is actually alive and it is understandably very angry at some of its fusion energy being scooped on up by the crew. The idea of a living sun that can possess people is pretty powerful, and it becomes clear that this is the crew’s fault. Fusion scoops have been outlawed, and in their haste to sneak off with the sun’s energy the crew never checked to see that it was alive. I do enjoy classic base under siege stories (until they got too repetitive in Troughton’s time), and this is one turned all the way up until 11. When the crew finally avert catastrophe, it’s a sense of relief from us viewers that feel like we’ve been in the pressure cooker too. I certainly liked 42 more on re-watch than I expected it too, and it does make me wonder a tiny bit where this sense of action has gone from Chibnall’s current era. Did he spend too much of it here? We also get some ominous peeks into Harold Saxon, who is having Martha’s mom’s phone tapped with her permission. (Although she refuses to say she voted Saxon despite them supposedly helping save Martha from the dangerous Doctor). Who could that be?
We head back to the 21st century for an episode that is a pretty big misfire yet again.
The Review
The reborn Lazarus
After all the too on-the-nose issues of the previous story, we get another story that is far too on the nose! First off, the titular character is named Lazarus as in coming back from the dead Lazarus which is just lazy writing. Played not well by Mark Gatiss, Lazarus steps into an anti-aging device and comes out looking young and rejuvenated. The response of the people at the demonstration to not immediately lose their mind is pretty crazy considering that they saw somebody de-age fifty years in front of their eyes! Lazarus is a creepy old man, hitting on Martha’s sister Tish which she finds disgusting when he looks his age, but afterwards, hey, time to make out with him I guess. That unfortunate societal commentary aside, Lazarus then becomes a giant rage monster with maybe some of the new series’ worst CGI. Thankfully the Doctor tells us he’s not alien, but inside all humans are old genes that could turn us into whatever the hell that is.
With the gang
The story does give good development for Martha’s family, especially her sister Tish who is a character I’d like to see more of. No surprise that her actor, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, has gone on to do a lot of other cool things since. Martha’s mother is told by an operative of the ever mysterious Harold Saxon that the Doctor is dangerous, but Martha doesn’t believe her. The final fight sees Lazarus chase Martha and Tish in an empty church, and the Doctor uses loud pipe organ music for Lazarus to go and fall to his demise. Why that worked when an explosion failed to do a dent earlier, who knows. When you consider the emotional and intellectual density that some episodes manage to achieve, this one is found lacking, very lacking. Just a pretty weak story overall that could have been an effective parable, but is done in with an all kinds of unnecessary weirdness thrown on top of it. Tennant looks good in black tie, but that’s about it.
Can we get back to the good stuff?
6/10 This was worse than anything in Torchwood Season 1
The Daleks are here in New York in 1930, in a story that would’ve been good if anybody realized how ludicrous half of the elements are.
The Review
We get a full song and dance number which isn’t terrible?
A Dalek deciding that maybe the Daleks should change after years of getting their ass handed to them by the Doctor is a fine storyline. Unfortunately this misfire of a two parter adds tons of things on to it. This is the first Doctor Who episode set in America, and boy howdy do all the actors have pretty bad American accents. We’ve got Andrew Garfield’s Frank trying to do some weird Southerner thing, Mr. Diagoras, the ambitious foreman who gets absorbed into Dalek Sec, and poor Tallulah, who is one of the biggest misses on a character is show history. Miranda Raison plays her with a completely out there accent, and her character is dumb as rocks. Her boyfriend, Lazlo, was due to be turned into a pig slave by the Daleks, but somehow escaped halfway through so we get treated to the weird half-pig Lazlo throughout the story. The best character is the leader of Hooverville, Solomon, who tries to negotiate with the Daleks and gets killed. The accents are just so garbage that the characters become pastiches.
The pig slaves and Lazlo
As a result of all this bizarre stuff swirling around the story, it completely wastes the Daleks and a virtuoso performance for David Tennant, who really swings for the fences this story. He also survives a direct lightning strike, even though a Cyberman will electrocute Capaldi to death in Series 10. Oh, we get a ‘new-species’ of a Dalek/Time Lord/Human hybrid that all get killed, prompting Tennant to snarl about ‘genocide’. Martha has a fine showing, but continues to be treated poorly by the Doctor. Why some people don’t like her I’ll never get, Freema Agyeman may not be the best actor out of all the companions but she does a good job. Really, what this episode should have been is an incredibly important Dalek episode with big ramifications for Daleks in the future, but is completely brought down by all the New York-related mistakes that this episode makes. Oh, and I somehow didn’t mention the plot revolves around Dalek Sec becoming half-human, emerging as a disgusting monstrosity that starts to show compassion before the other Daleks kill him off. Fun!
This one, yikes!
6.75/10 Points for Tennant trying his best to pull this episode off.
In the final episode of the 5 billion years/Face of Boe trilogy, the Doctor and Martha fight the endless road.
The Review
The cat pilot Branigan and his wife Valerie
Gridlock is a commentary on something, but I’m just not sure what. We get introduced to these mood patch drugs that the Doctor detests, and we learn a virus spreading through them decimated New New York but that’s all we really get. The undercity of New New York is filled with people driving slowly on an infinite motorway, thinking they’ll get to the promised land. Martha is carjacked because three people means you can take the fast lane. Maybe so many people not finding even two other people to agree with to go in the fast lane to cut out years of travel could have been a commentary on social isolation, but maybe there were tons of fast laners that all got chomped by the Macra. The Macra have to be the most delightfully out of nowhere throwback the new series has done to the old, I assume someone looked up if there were giant crabs in the history of the show and was delighted that there were so threw them in. We think the story might be about rich people allowing the poor to waste away, but Gridlock does a ninety degree turn.
The endless motorway…
What really happened is a disease instantly killed everyone in New New York’s ruling elite, but left them just enough time to seal off the undercity. The all-powerful Face of Boe kept it running on automatic essentially waiting for the Doctor to come on back. Instead of a real-world allegory, we get to see the amazing self-sacrifice of a billions-year-old face in a jar which is moving but kind of weird. The Face of Boe gives the last of his life to open the motorways, and tells the Doctor that he is not alone. It’s a whammy of a line, and Martha’s demands to know more about the Doctor end with him waxing lyrically about the beauty of Gallifrey, a Gallifrey he can never return to me. Reminds me a lot of the end of Spyfall actually. Overall this is a fine episode, it has a nice revelation and some fun set pieces with the Doctor jumping down on different people’s cars. With some more fine tuning and maybe a cutting message thrown in there, this could have been WALL-E a year before WALL-E. But, solid Doctor Who is better than almost anything else.
Should I have tagged the Face of Boe trilogy with Captain Jack? Oh, no reason.
8/10 Ok but how are a cat and human’s kids just cats. And babies don’t count for the fast lane?
In an episode that emphasizes fun over history and learning, the Doctor and Martha finally meet the greatest writer of all time.
The Review
Which Witch? Get it?
This is probably the RTD episode that has aged the worst in terms of its content, but it is still quite fun. It is written by soon to be prolific Doctor Who writer Gareth Roberts, and contains many overtures to JK Rowling who have both recently outed themselves as transphobes. Lovely! Some also draw concern with the Doctor brushing away Martha’s race, I actually am fine with that but do think the episode might have been better if it tried to actually engage with it any. I don’t need my Doctor Who episodes to constantly grapple with extremely thorny and important issues in meaningful ways, but it’s nice when they do. The setting is London 1599, as we solve two mysteries of Shakespeare: the fate of Love’s Labour’s Won as well as who the ‘Dark Lady’ was in his sonnets. The villains are Carrionites, aka straight up alien witches, which is well in line with typical historicals. So, not much going on there with the villains, although the lead witch puts up a fun performance. So, what’s the problem?
Words are magic. A good message!
The problem is also what makes it fun, for RTD the setting is just a playground for the Doctor and Martha to muck around in. If going to the past was this easy every time, the Doctor would do it more often. There isn’t much of a sense of weight, everything is fun but there’s a throwaway quality to it. Some good moments are establishing that Shakespeare’s intellect beats the psychic paper, and him being able to see through the Doctor and Martha. Better than him guessing their origins, he identifies the Tenth Doctor’s persona as an act, which allows us a peak at the true, intense tragic burning soul that is the Doctor. What the problems come down to is the cringe factor, ‘expelliarmus’ being the word to save the day, the Doctor saying famous Shakespeare lines too early. The Doctor also is clearly stringing Martha along when she’s very attracted to him, and he has to know that he’s doing it. Her first trip out with him and Shakespeare’s already telling her he’ll never kiss her. That said, it’s a fun episode, hard to completely ruin Shakespeare.
Despite ample amounts of cringe, this is a fun episode. However, Series 3 will do a historical much much better…
8/10 The world will end here, now, in 1599!
It becomes ever clear that the 10th Doctor is not close to being over the Time War
In an absolute blast of an episode and maybe the best companion introduction ever, the Doctor and Martha go to the moon.
The Review
The Judoon! An immediately iconic design
I am a sucker for these RTD-style fast-paced companion introduction episodes, but I think that they are the best example of what makes Doctor Who so special. Compared to other sci-fi features taking place in the future, Doctor Who takes place now. At any moment you could be living your life, the next the Doctor could be grabbing your hand and whisking you away. It’s magical. We get glimpses of Martha’s family life, currently featuring a very fractured relationship between her now divorced parents. (Her father has an embarrassing new girlfriend). Martha is a medical student at a hospital, and the Doctor is hanging out undercover as a patient. All of a sudden the hospital is on the moon and Judoon are stomping their way toward the building. The Judoon have reappeared because they are an inspired design, incredibly imposing space rhinos inhabiting lawful neutral to a tee. They are here to find a criminal on the hospital, and if anyone gets in their way, they kill them without compunction. The Judoon are some of the best aliens in show history.
Drinking blood through a plastic straw
The idea of having the real villain be an older woman who is a vampire in disguise is pretty genius, and a good subversion to not have the Judoon as the antagonists of the story. All the fun though comes from Martha and the Doctor, with David Tennant having never been more charming. He is on the top of his game, acting like a crazy man but with intoxicating charisma. With a handsome man like David Tennant swooping in and kissing you, what woman wouldn’t be swept away? The trick of having the Doctor take his tie off at the episode’s beginning then do it to prove he has a time machine to Martha at the end is a great narrative link. There are few Doctor Who episodes that are as purely fun as this one is, and shows us how fun the Tenth Doctor really is. As having seen Series 3 before, I know the problems that are going to crop up with Martha. For now, she is a lightning bolt of energy, and this whole episode crackles with it. It’s a less ambitious The Eleventh Hour, but it’s just as much fun.
Smith and Jones is a lightning bolt of energy. Bring on Series 3!
10/10 Yes, I really love the Judoon’s costuming this much
The religious imagery of the 10th Doctor in 2007 starts here
Reviewing Doctor Who from Start to Finish 