I can truly see why martha didnt work and in fairness its all the scriptwriters fault.
Martha starts off as this powerhouse brains and braun,by ep 2 shes already been reduced to a love sick puppy willing to tell anyone that will listen how much she loves the doctor and it just gets worse and worse.
They tried to replace the love Rose felt for the doctor within martha,the love rose has for the doctor was a long simmering thing and thats why we could belive it.
I truly hope they make martha into the powerhouse she SHOULD have been from the start imo its the worst destruction of a character in a long long time

They didn't develop the 'unrequited love' storyline very well did they? She allready seems to have deep feelings for him by Gridlock which can only have been a couple of days after she first met him!

Certainly the crush storyline weakened her character, and actualy contradicted some of her actions and personality (i.e the confident side to her character). I still liked her though: she had a lot of great moments (mainly in HN/FoB) and also Martha and Ten were a great team when they were allowed to be and worked a LOT better than the eternal smugfest that was Rose and ten.

The other problem was that having a 'one sided' love basically means the doctor rejects her (he's actually a bit of a bastward to her throughout the series tbh). Having that sort of character-arch after 'the greatest love story ever' () that was Rose and the Doctor coupled with the fact the doctor doesn't actually accept her as a companion until the 6th episode, AND the constant Rose-emo just sends out the message that no companion before or after Rose matters and that a companion is only 'special' if the doctor has romantic feelings for them .

Still Martha's character was a lot better realised than Series 2 Rose was, mainly because Martha was actually likeable (imo) and seemed to care about other things and not just the Doctor. Also she got a far better leaving scene than Rose did; the bad wolf bay scene just showed how much Rose had degenerated from quite an interesting character in her own right in series one, to a pathetic mess who couldn't function with out the doctor but seemingly didn't care about anything or anyone else (see T&C).

I'm very much looking forward to seeing Martha next series with all the elements that made her great (because she did have great moments in series 3) but without the stupid unrequited love angle which tied her down.

The unrequited love plot was a horrible idea and all it did was degrade Martha. It did not need to be done and I wish it hadn't been.

Another problem is that I also find Martha too squeaky clean. Her backstory isn't that interesting and where as Rose's was very real. Rose also had lots of emotional moments that made people able to connect with her (especially in The End Of The World and Father's Day), Martha was lacking in these. Also, Rose's family unit felt more real than Martha's...I loved Jackie and Mickey but I just couldn't feel anything for Martha's relatives because we saw so little of them and they were so under developed.

I love Martha though, because I can see all the potential that is there, and I think the way Freema plays her saves her for me too. Freema has a lot of charisma and that helped me to like Martha a lot more than most of the writing did.

Here's hoping that Martha will be better devloped in Torchwood and in series four. I like her enough to want her back and I want to see her more fleshed out, because even though she could be quite kick arse in series three, she lacked depth and I felt no emotional connection with her.

when you watch the episodes again - do the effects become more visible and you can see all the mistakes more clearly.

I think comparing the development of Rose compared to Martha is a bit unfair really. Rose was always going to have more focus on her, why? because she is the first companion of the new series. To hook the audience in (the majority of whom wouldn't have seen the original series) you need that 'touch stone' character for people to relate too, and Rose was created for that very purpose.

Martha on the other hand, enters when the series is fully established, she has to 'hit the ground running' as it were, because if they spent the same ammount of time showing Martha's reactions to certain situations like they did with Rose it would be a rehash and pretty boring.

The same thing happened in the original series (although fans who talk about 'the Rose Show' would disagree i'm sure), Ian and Barbara were very well developed characters, whilst the Doctor was something of an enigma, and Barbara in particular carried many of the stories in the first two series. However the companions that came after (Steven, Vicki, Dodo *shudders* et all) were pretty 'Cookie cutter' and we didn't get another great companion till Jamie*. In that respect I think RTD has been a lot more sucessful in moving the focus from the companion to the Doctor, but still making the companion(s) fleshed out characters in their own right.

The Tyler clan were definitely better realised than the Jones', but I don't think having a well developed family equates to a well developed character (Ian and Barbara didn't visit their families every 5 minutes) , infact I think it was rather worrying that by the end of series 2 Rose's family were much more likeable and/or well developed than Rose was (IMO)... especially Mickey who is one of the best developed character in NuWho in that he is the only companion who actually became a better person and stronger character through meeting the doctor (this is a big failing of RTD's: Rose pretty much lost all her humanity, Martha was at her strongest when the doctor wasn't around, Jack became a better person but then speant 100 years emo-ing after the doctor).

Martha was not badly developed, (it wasn't great either mind you) she at least didn't regress like Rose did in series 2, the 'unrequited love' angle was ill concieved but that wasn't the only aspect of her character. I would say that for me, Martha was a character that was more than the sum of her parts, and that as Time lady says is down to Freema, her presence and her chemistry with David. She reminds me of Sarah Jane in that respect. From watching the old series I'm used to the companion's sucess being all about the actor having to do the best with what they are given, for me Freema/Martha succeded where Bille/Rose failed to in series 2 (and thats not me saying Freema is a better actress than Billie, because I don't think one needs to be a fantastic actress to be a good companion, just a reasonable one who is likeable and has good chemistry with their doctor).

Actually what is interesting watching series 3 back is how much the Doctor trust Martha, he trusts her to work out what to do with the phsycic paper in EoD, he trusts her to hold everything together in HN/FoB, and then of course there is LotTL, Martha saves his life about a billion times: they really were more of a team than Rose and him were and in terms of competency and kick-arseness she really is one of the best companions (only Romana and Ace clearly beat her really). The writers should have ditched the 'unrequited love' bilge and just focussed on that, perhaps having a more tutor/protegée relationship a la Ace/Doctor, with a bit of flirty verbal sparring a la the end of Smith and Jones.

* I always felt as if RTD pretty much based Rose on Jamie and was always trying to recreate the Jamie/two dynamic with Rose (with the added romance of course). He failed .