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| "I'm the Doctor, I can do what I want." |
Then, the Doctor walks into her life and takes off his tie.
While this seems like the set up to a bad smut fanfic, the Doctor merely proclaims "Like so. See?" before he wanders off, much to Martha's (and the audience's) confusion. Heading into the hospital, she finds static electricity going haywire and some BDSM motorcycle fetishists mucking about. Making the rounds with her class, Martha sees the diagnosis of a Mrs. Finnegan (so many salads, no iron) and sees to the check up of one John Smith...the Doctor. Strangely, however, he doesn't seem to know who Martha is.
Though he does name drop knowing Ben Franklin, because reference joke.
Also, Martha finds out the Doctor has two hearts through the use of a stethoscope. This will be important later. Oddly enough, she decides to tell no one about this and reacts as though it were something moderately strange.
Afterwards, Martha is having a conversation with her sister, Tish, about the upcoming party. She makes an off-hand comment about the rain, but it's a clear sky for Tish. Turning the corner, Tish finds out why. Looking out the window, so does Martha - the rain is localized over just the hospital...and it's going up toward the sky. All of a sudden, the hospital appears on the surface of the moon!
Here, we get some good moments from Martha as she tries to help the panicking groups of people - giving reassurances and telling patients to stay in their rooms. She begins trying to suss out what's happening, reasoning that the air can't be all gone since they're still breathing - something which gets the Doctor's attention and even admiration. Of course, the Doctor has to take a slight opportunity to be a dick to Martha's panicking coworker, callously telling Martha to leave her behind.
Must be the Rose rubbing off on him.
And yes, I do take issue with the Tenth Doctor - supposedly one of the most personable and human Doctors - acting like a callous asshole to a frightened person. It makes a bit more sense with the more gruff or alien doctors like One, Four, Six, Seven, and Nine and will make sense with Twelve later on. Not so much the Tenth. For the record, One once contemplated killing a caveman because he was slowing the group down and one of his most famous scenes was abandoning his granddaughter on Earth in the 22nd century post-Dalek Invasion.
...yeah, the First Doctor was a bit of an asshole. Yet not as bad as Ten can get at times, in my opinion.
The Doctor and Martha have a nice scene on the veranda where Martha deals with some clean up from Army of Ghosts about her identical cousin (because, again, that's totally how genetics works) and they determine that the hospital is under an oxygen shell - meaning they only have a limited supply of air. Martha impresses the Doctor by working out that aliens are responsible - a statement that is proven true when a trio of cylindrical ships land on the lunar surface. As the Doctor later puts it, out comes a Judoon platoon upon the moon.
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| "Got some soda, some purple stuff, hey! Sunny D! Alright!" |
The Doctor tells Martha that the Judoon are essentially outer space police for hire. We'll later find out they work for the Shadow Proclamation, which we'll get into more with Series 4, though they have been mentioned before so far back as the beginning of Series 1. The Judoon are...honestly kind of hilarious. The suits are menacing enough in your standard Space Marines way, but the Judoon Leader (the only one who take off the helmet through the entire episode - likely due to budget) just looks hilarious. The mask looks a little bit too unreal...which I know is a bizarre complaint for a Doctor Who episode and an alien that is clearly not something that exists in real life.
It basically goes between trying to be an alien mask and an animal mask and succeeds at neither.
The voice is pretty good though, but Nicholas Briggs is absolutely fantastic at that across the board.
While this is going on, Miss Finnegan slips into the office of Mr. Stoker (Martha's instructor) and reveals herself to be a fugitive on the run. The motorcycle boys are her servants - the Slabs - and she is a vampire...who drinks blood with a straw.
...
...with a straw.
...
Sure. Whatever, Russell.
The Judoon pop in and start cataloging everyone in the hospital - looking for a non-human. Since they're rather indiscriminate about who they take, the Doctor aims to avoid them. He also attempts to hack the hospital's database to find any patients with strange conditions, but the Judoon have already wiped the records for some reason. Martha decides to find Mr. Stoker and runs into Finnegan chowing down on him with her straw. Finnegan, predictably, orders the Slabs to kill the witness. Martha bolts, heading off with the Doctor.
They run and get to an X-Ray room, where the Doctor kills the Slab by souping up the machine with his sonic. The Doctor gets some physical comedy done to remove the radiation from himself and, barefoot as the day he was born (or loomed, or whatever), he deduces from the death of Stoker that Finnegan is a (space) vampire and assimilates blood to appear human, something which fools the Judoon scanner. A scanner that gets used on the Doctor, confirming his alien-ness much to Martha's shock, as they flee the Judoon to go and check Stoker's body.
The Doctor examines it, confirming the diagnosis, and Martha gets a very humanizing moment as she has the Doctor stop long enough for her to close Stoker's eyes. Upon leaving the office, the Doctor works out Finnegan's plan - using an MRI for...something. Then, Russell throws in his ship teasing when the Doctor kisses Martha for the trailer...I mean, to do a "genetic transfer" and throw the Judoon off his trail.
Yeah. That's it. Genetic transfer. I'll have to use that as the excuse for Tina next time I go in for a ninja snog and see how well that goes.
The Doctor uses some obfuscating stupidity in the MRI room to have Finnegan think he's a gibbering idiot, the remaining Slab holding him for a snack.
Martha gets scanned, and the Judoon are confused when she appears as both alien and human.
Again, acting like a moron, the Doctor manages to talk Finnegan into revealing her plan - short version, she's going to use the overcharged MRI and use it to kill everyone in the hospital and one side of the Earth in order to escape the Judoon. With a bit of a bluff, the Doctor makes Finnegan think she's in danger of being scanned again and she...uses...her straw...to drink his blood.
Sigh.
Can I just type sigh? I'm sighing. It's my blog.
The Judoon let Martha go, and she heads off with them to the MRI room. The Doctor is drained of blood and seemingly dead on the ground. Martha protests, Finnegan protests her innocence, and Martha puts two and two together about the Doctor's plan. She snatches a Judoon scanner...revealing Finnegan took a big gulp of Time Lord. In her death throes, she activates the MRI, and declares in a completely over the top manner that the Judoon will burn with her in HELLLLLLLLL!!!
The Judoon scan the MRI and find that it's about to blow but, much to Martha's horror, they don't care and GTFO. Martha does the only thing she can think of, with the air running out and everything about to go to Hell, and does CPR and chest compressions on the Doctor - particularly on his second heart.
See? I told you it'd be important.
She gives the last of her air to get the Doctor up again, and the Doctor manages to deactivate the MRI machine. Carrying an unconscious Martha back to the veranda area, the Doctor watches the window as the Judoon ships leave. In what is a truly awesome moment in the episode, rain splatters against the window pane as the Doctor grins from ear to ear, gleefully telling the unconscious future companion that it's raining on the moon.
I don't know why, maybe it's just David Tennant's delivery of the line, but that always puts a smile on my face. Absolutely defining moment for the Tenth Doctor and one of the first things I think of when I remember him.
...yeah, I'm really going left and right on Ten in this review, aren't I?
Royal Hope gets returned to Earth none the worse for wear besides are much more dehydrated Mr. Stoker and the atoms of that guy who got disintegrated earlier, and Martha reunites with Tish, being distracted after seeing the Doctor walk toward the TARDIS and only hearing the engines. When she looks back, it has vanished along with him as though neither had ever been there at all.
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| "Damn it, where is Aziraphale when I need him?" |
That night, Martha gets prepared for Leo's party and we get a Mr. Saxon reference (take a drink - or don't, you'll lose your liver). The party seems to go well until Martha's father's girlfriend takes offense at Martha's mother calling her orange.
The family wanders off to continue the drama, while an exhausted Martha spies the Doctor in a nearby alley. He gives her a smile before ducking back around the corner, and she follows him.
While this would usually lead to something not at all appropriate for a family show, Martha instead finds the Doctor at the TARDIS. He gives her the basics of who he is - namely his alias of the Doctor and his race - and offers her a trip in his TARDIS. When she starts to turn him down, referencing her commitments, he mentions that it's a time machine...which she doesn't believe.
So he enters it, leaves, and then returns...holding his tie in his hand. When Martha asks him why he couldn't tell her not to go into work, the Doctor tells her that crossing into established events is strictly forbidden...except for cheap tricks.
We get the "bigger on the inside" line as Martha is shocked that the TARDIS is just that, though the Doctor's so expecting it by this point that he mouths the words as she says them.
And now, to countenance the wonder of the moment, Russell brings back that drama. Martha asks about a crew...and we get a Rose reference. Martha takes the opportunity after to tease the Doctor about the "genetic transfer", but makes it clear that she's not interested - she's only into humans.
She is, of course, lying as we'll find out. But more on that later.
The Doctor sends them off into time and space, welcoming Miss Jones aboard with a hardy handshake as the TARDIS enters the Vortex.
Smith and Jones is a pretty good episode on the whole. A great deal of it is, like Rose, told from the perspective of the companion rather than the Doctor. We get to see some of Martha's family life that will be touched upon in later episodes and we get a good gauge on who she is as a person. She's quick-thinking, level-headed, and does well under pressure. She also shows a great deal of care for the people around her (common for someone who wants to be a doctor), showing a desire to keep the peace and mediate the drama between the various members of her family.
She's also pretty much consistently this way and we're shown rather than told what a great person she is...unlike someone who's name rhymes with Smose Syler.
Now, you might think that I'm going to use bits of Martha's good nature to take shots at Rose, but no. Being a good person isn't a contest and keeping a tally of the good things someone does isn't something I have any interest in. The Rose Tyler is Awful Count gag was to illustrate Russell T. Davies' constant need to inform us how perfect and wonderful a person that Rose is while reality was screaming so hard to the contrary that it was falling apart from the strain by the end of Series 2.
Martha, like Donna after her, will be judged on her own merits. Yes, I will say that Martha is a better person than Rose, but that isn't a Herculean feat by any stretch.
Adric was a better person than Rose.
...
I said what I said.
Speaking of saying what I said, the vampire idea in the story was fine. It worked very well up until the straw came out. I'm not one of those types who wants full on blood and gore so much in things and Doctor Who is actually a kid's show primarily (for better or for worse). If you've read any of my horror reviews, you know that I believe the spectacular of someone getting disemboweled is often used to (poorly) make up for substance in a story. The only time I really like gore is when it's something like the body horror and paranoia in John Carpenter's The Thing, where an alien force is twisting and distorting host bodies to serve its purposes.
Something that shows horror.
That being said, while I do understand Doctor Who is a show for kids (that can ultimately be enjoyed by everyone - sometimes the best kind of entertainment), the horror factor could have been upped just a bit here. Prosthetic fangs might have been cheesy, but not nearly as cheesy as a straw. There was a chance here to at least make the villain memorable and possibly even terrifying, and they blew it. If you want a good example of an "old lady is really a monster" trope done well, check out Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Doublemeat Palace.
Although by telling you that, I just ruined the twist.
Oops.
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| In another universe, Rose Tyler screams out in ineffectual rage and she doesn't know why. |
Beyond those minor complaints, however, Smith and Jones does its job of introducing the companion and introducing her well. We're meant to like Martha, and we are actually given reasons to other than the fact that she's pretty and blonde. Also, unlike people who are pretty and blonde, she's mostly fairly consistent. Or, at the very least, consistent in a way that doesn't make us want to pound nails into our eyes whenever she appears onscreen.
Next time, we'll be hitting on a much better episode that does the horror theme much better. By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes! Next week, we begin to divine The Shakespeare Code. See you then!
Doctor Who is the property of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
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