I was watching the Master trilogy last night and I was just wondering what the story would have been like if Rose was in Martha's position. Would have been much better coming from Rose rather than Martha walking the earth telling everyone about the Doctor and how much she loves him. But that's just fan fic and Martha was good in that role.

Part of the reason series 3 works for me is the fact Rose wasn't in it. It gave a new dynamic to the Doctor/Companion relationship. Martha's doe-eyed crush aside, it felt more like a classic series relationship.

Very difficult decision but I'm going with

1. Blink
2. Turn Left
3. Dalek
4. Family of Blood
5. Human Nature

I thought that at the time that the dialogue sounded as if it had been written for Rose and she would have been more convincing saying it, and I also think that the best season 3 episodes were despite Martha rather than because of her. (but then obviously I'm not her biggest fan)It's also interesting that a lot of people are voting for Blink which was the Doctor-lite episode.

On reflection the best for me was Dalek, though there are about 7 or 8 joint second choices. Including Blink.

1. Blink
2. Love And Monsters

That's about it really. I always love the acting, the special effects, the dialogue can be snappy... but the stories don't tend to resolve very well.

In terms of the acting, Human Nature/Family of Blood has to be the best, Tennat carries off the unassuming John Smith personna unbelievably, a world away from cockiness of his portrayal of the Doctor. I also like the way the plot asks questions of the Doctor's way of life and attitude.
However, for shear drama and edge of the seat excitement, I suppose it would have to be Turn Left, Blink and Midnight. I have a feeling I might like TWOM a lot if it lives up to the mood shown in the trailer.
Having said that, apart from a 'dip in form' at the beginning and end of series 2 (the less said about the pathetic 'Fear Her' the bettter), It's bloody difficult choosing from such an excellent range of episodes, and my choice will probably be different on Wednesday morning, having watched the excellent SITL/FOTD 2-parter...

I think that the whole story of Marth walking the Earth and saying those things were very much written with Martha in mind....
You just have to see the way she does it, like a soldier, like a doctor, helping people, freeing people, healing them....and she did love the Doctor, she believed in him enough to know that he was what the world needed, this was very obvious in Gridlock, and Human Nature and Family of Blood where she gets annoyed of John Smith, because he isn't like the Doctor.....and if she can become a maid for him, I think she would walk the earth for him, and her family lets not forget....
And then not only does that story show that she did all that, but through the Master, RTD showed that yet many didn't consider Martha as much, and were undermining her efforts as nothing when the Master said to the Doctor that past companions would look into the vortex for him....can you see the Master making that quip to Rose? No....because it showed how despite all that Martha did, she was never really given the value she deserved.....even if she did walk to ends of the Earth.....so basically, I would say that it was very much written with Martha in mind....

Strange how you've picked my favourite and my least favourite there!

1. Human Nature/Family of Blood
2. Blink.
3. The Girl In The Fireplace.

I'm probably the only one in the world....but I would rate Love and Monsters much, much higher than Blink.....

Each to their own, but I'll never get why anyone would like Love and Monsters so much. OK, a couple of good performances from Marc Warren and Shirley Henderson, who are never bad in anything. But the Abzorbaloff? That Scooby Doo chase at the beginning? Rose walking up to someone clearly in terrible danger and ranting about how they upset her mum? The paving slab?

The negatives outweigh any positives for me. But, as I say, each to their own Personally, I quite liked Fear Her, and that seems to be generally hated on here.

For me the only weakest thing about LAM was the Absorbaloff, and even then I still don't hate it....as I see it as what it is....not a monster to send you behind the sofa, but a joke about monsters in itself.....

The whole episode and story is like (as someone described, can't remember who) a love letter to the fans....LINDA are basically us...our obsession with the Doctor, they way we look so much into something so small sometimes, all of us here, we are only talking to each other because we are fans or watch the show.....and that is what LINDA represents....I love that idea...
The so called Scooby Doo Chase scene, can be seen as something very tongue in cheek, but I see it as something which Elton is seeing.....its almost like what we see is what he is describing to the camera (his camcorder that is) You can imagine him saying "so the Doctor ran into one corridor and Rose went to the opposite corrider and then the monster went the other way...and then Rose was chasing him......" and so on....just like when at the beginning of the episode just before the credits he goes "raaaarrah" to describe how the alien had sounded when he opend the door.....
This is the first Doctor lite story, so it is more daring, and more risky....and I applaud RTD for it....
I know people go on about how Blink weaves in the Doctor clevery.....but personally, i think Blink could become part of any time travellers story....the only mega thing that makes it part of DW is that in the end the Tardis is used to trick the Angels.....
But LaM is about the Doctor, without the Doctor being in it....in fact much less than Blink.....these people lives are affected just by being interested in the Doctor...that really makes what Elton says at the end about how your whole life changes even if the Doctor touches you for a second, send shivers down my back.....
I love how ELO are used so brilliantly with the story....going with every mood properly....
I love how that within a few minutes of the last scene with Jackie we actually see she feels about Rose not being with her and travelling around the universe, and yet how loyal she is to both of them....
As for the "Nobody upsets my mum"....well that is Rose...good old selfish Rose.....and the Doctor being the Doctor....not showing panic, and pretending he doesn't care....and also made for comedy affect......

All in all....everytime I watch Love and Monsters, it grows further on me....and I see a more thought out, and very deep episode.....moreso than Blink....which for me, the more I watch it, the more it screams "look at how clever I am"....



And on top of that all I loved Marc Warren as Elton....and it was great to be able to see all the events we had seen with the Doctor and Rose, from someone else's eyes who wasn't even with the Doctor....the Autons, the Siltheen space ship and the Christmas events too.....such fan moments.....


Love Love and Monsters

Well, if you like it, you like it, and it would be dull if we all liked the same things. However, I must just answer a couple of your points.


The question of how the Doctor is relevant to the proceedings is a minor consideration for me. It's how good the episode is.


But that's just it. It's utterly unlike Rose. I don't make a saint out of her; she can be jealous, sulky, with a young person's carefree thoughtlessness. But this is something else; she's either so monumentally stupid she can't see Elton's situation, or she's so wickedly selfish she doesn't care. And that's simply irreconcilable with Rose in any other episode.

Oh I am not asking you to like it....was just pointing out the reasons why i love it.....and making comparisons to Blink because people tend to do that as both were Doctor lite episodes.....

For me the Doctor's revelance is important because this is Doctor Who....I am watching a show about the Doctor and his journey....so if a story succesfully does that, while being a Doctor lite one, again something which I see very much in Turn Left too.....it really adds to its plus points, and cleverness.....

As for Rose....on a personal level, I would say that billie probably overacted that scene....and the way she did, the mouthy way, is something I could see Donna doing.....but other than that, I do feel that Rose is that self absorbed (no pun intended) to talk about her mum even though Elton is in danger.....for me this is the same Rose that said to Mickey that she has nothing left for her here in TPOTW, because she was too focused on wanting to return to the Doctor....this was the same Rose who didn't want to accept the fact that the Doctor had companions before her, and almost seemed disgusted at the idea, she was the same Rose who was willing to never see her mum again (who brought her up 19 years of her life) just so she could be with the Doctor.....personally I would say that scene in Love and Monsters doesn't seem odd at all....because sometimes she becomes so self absorbed, that she wants her answers.....and when she calm down, she wants Elton to be saved....so yes I still feel that is very much Rose....and I love her for it.....very normal girl....

I have no doubt it was written with Martha in mind but I still think Rose would have been more convincing (to me, at any rate). Simply because I think Rose was the more interesting companion and Billie the better actress. I enjoyed the series generally and there were some brilliant episodes with Martha in but I never did quite see what the Doctor saw in her other than a 'rebound' companion.

But isn't that exactly what she was, that was the whole purpose of the Martha 'story arc' in series 3, not the often trotted out gooey eyed puppy stuff which completely misses the point of the Character by miles, but a companion led on by the Doctor that had become used to flirting with his companions.

Your exactly right Martha was a rebound companion, and there are times when the Doctor was pretty nasty to her.

Like the line in TSC, 'If Rose were here she'd know what to do'

At times he has very little patience for her because she simply isn't Rose. If watched with that angle series 3 throws up a few little eye openers about the Doctors character.




Anyway back on topic.


Cant pick a fave episode as it is always changing.

But at the moment it is the Master Trilogy.

Last week it was Midnight.

Not sure what it will be next week

I agree with everything there.....unfortunatly....I think that story arc of hers played so much against Martha and Freema for many of the audience too, as they didn't view it as an arc, but more or less were doing the same thing as the Doctor...too busy comparing her with Rose....that they don't really notice Martha.....

However I will add, that as time went by, he was beginning to accept Martha more, and more as Martha....especially at the end....I do think he saw her worth, and really realised his own mistakes on leading her on......hence why he feels and say in PIC to Donna that he destroyed half of her life....and the interesting thing to pick up in PIC, is that Martha is mentioned by the Doctor, more than Rose is....in fact Rose is only mentioned because Donna brings her up....so she to did have an affect on him.....more than what people realise....

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'd always expect the Doctor to figure in some way. But the quality of the story seems more important to me than the degree to which the Doctor figures.


I don't think that quite compares. Rose is desperately concerned for the Doctor and wants to get back to him in POTW, and is not focused on sparing Mickey and Jackie's feelings. She often treats her mum very thoughtlessly; a common affliction among children, as parents will testify, but there is no doubt that she loves her mum. As for her jealousy of other companions, that's Rose all over; I wouldn't deny that part of her character for an instant.

But to berate a man who is very obviously in deadly peril for hurting her mum's feelings - that is unlike any of these.

Sorry, I never intended to hijack the thread

You haven't hijacked anything...its a discussion about episodes/stories that work....or don't work....

I have to say that for me I still would think it is the same Rose....and three reasons only now...one as you say she loves her mother very much....and just like she was thinking about nothing but the Doctor when she said that to Mickey in POTW, in this case she was thinking of her Mother rather than Elton.....and secondly, Elton was'nt really in great moral danger, at least not to an outsider who walked in on to the scene...I mean the absorbaloff didn't exactly have a menacing gum in his hand, or even look menacing himself....but all rose would have seen when walking out of the tardis, is Elton kneeling on the floor, and a stupid Slitheen like Creature's hand out stretched towards him....hardly a man in dealy peril...and by now Rose has become smug enough not to show that she is scared of monsters, and probably isn't much...and thirdly, thinking about it, I feel that this scene of Rose shouting at Elton in the way she does, again I think like the scooby doo chase scene, its through Elton's eyes...and the way he is describing it to the camera.....

series four outdid itself -- LOVED planet of the ood, the sontaran stratagem, the poison sky, silence in the library, forest of the dead, midnight and the finale.

the only ones i didnt like were the doctor's daughter, unicorn and the wasp and the pompeii one.

partners in crime wasnt bad

Well, admittedly the Absorbaloff was a really really rubbish monster, so I suppose you have a point there. I think the danger was still pretty clear though.

I liked The Doctor's Daughter and The Fires of Pompeii. The Unicorn and the Wasp was a bit weak, but I did enjoy spotting the Agatha Christie titles, so it was fun overall.

I really didn't like Partners In Crime much, especially that scene of the Doctor and Donna making gurning faces at each other that everyone seemed to think was so good.

Maybe I was too lost in the comic aspect of that scene to see the danger.....now whether that is a good or bad thing depends all on RTD and what he was aiming for with that scene....to make us laugh, or to get us worried about Elton....so if it is the former, then he has succeded for me, but if the latter then it has failed for me....and vice versa for you....


You know what I am going to say......


Yep I loved that scene!!!!!! never fails to make me laugh

Of course, the Absorbaloff was an allegory for the 'nastier side of Doctor Who fandom', so it had to look stupid/laughable in some sense.

Some nice analysis of the story there, crazzyaz7!

'Love & Monsters' is one of those Who stories (like 'Kinda', for example) that's brimming with themes and subtexts that take multiple viewings to unlock, all hidden beneath an outwardly silly and light-hearted exterior.

But, that's RTD's style all over for you.

Nearly all of his episodes are two stories running side-by-side, or rather one underneath the other. There's the obvious narrative - the surface gloss, if you like - then there's the story he's really telling, the one that's bubbling under the surface, which is not always quite so obvious.

If you can get past that surface gloss which does, quite deliberately, break genre conventions and plays up to the pet peeves from some corners of fandom (e.g. silly monsters looking and behaving silly), then there's a lot to enjoy there.

Regards,

Cypher

The thing with me is I never start to get into Series 4 until Sontaran Strategem. For the reason that I think Series 3 was a hard act to follow. After The Master Trilogy, Blink, Family of Blood, when you follow it up with Planet of the Ood, Partners in Crime and even the Pompeii episode which admittedly was alrightb I just couldn't help but feel... i dunno underwhelmed.

I did enjoy it towards the end though and by the Stolen Earth I was hooked on the story then. I remember this time last year everyone was speculating whether The Doctor would regenerate. Pure Gold!