Why did she start off with a whole season and then only get guest appearances? It's clear the actress who played her wasn't very good and there were rumours that the BBC execs didn't really rate the character highly.

So why did she not do as well as Billie? What counted against her? Was it the writers not writing an interesting character? Was it the unrequited love thing? Was it just the fact she was unconvincing?


Why did Martha flop?

Actually, the question is, did Martha flop? Because I would say the answer to that is no.

From what I can gather the character was only written for one season, and all future appearances are down to the popularity of the character, despite what has been said on this forum.

I thought Freema was a good actress, but her character wasn't allowed to shine because she was overshadowed by Rose. She was also weighed down by her annoying family (particularly the mother) and her unnecessary crush on the Doctor.

She didn't. Next!

And that is the question I would have asked as well, with the answer that I would have given

Actually I would say the opposite because of her guest appearances. Could it be possible that she didn't want to do another full series like Billie did?

There definately seems to be a closing of an arc coming in Series 4 (what with all of the Doc's previous companions returning, possibly at the same time). She could just be a part of that.

If the powers that Be were unhappy with the work Freema did then she would be out on her ear they would have had no reason to ask her back for another series of DW or indeed have her appear on Torchwood.

Series 2 of Torchwood would have been written before DW Series 3 aired (probably even before it finished filming) so obviously the plan to have Martha on Torchwood is something that was planned a fair while ago.

She didn't flop. Donna's leaving at the end of next series as well. They haven't seen the reactions from fans for her yet.

I think the real question is why didn't she flop?

Considering RTD's weird obsessive love for Rose and his inablity to move on from her, the rubbish unrequited love character arch plus the whole 'omg Rose is da best Martha u suc' thing the doctor (and weirdly the Master who had never met Rose ) did throughout the series it seems weird that she was well recieved at all (the fact that the Sun didn't like her is a definite plus in my eyes.

I'd say it's because Martha was a) more competent than Rose (who despite being 'the special one' was really just a modern Jo Grant with an Ace-like backstory) b) more likeable than Rose (she didn't have a nice boyfriend to mess around for a start).

I wonder if that's true. If she was that successful (there's nothing to indicate that she was) then surely she would have been given another full season rather than only five episodes.

She's not more liked than Billie, though, who has won public voted awards and industry nods. Freema lost at the NTAs to Stacey sodding Slater!

Maybe that's something to do with Eastenders is on numerous times of the week all year, while Docotr who is on every Saturday for a couple of months.

Well I never expected Freema to win the NTA's, Billie Piper was always going to though, she's just more compatible with that kind of demographic (the kind that like eastenders), Freema is less mainstream. It's hardly indicative to how popular Martha is compared to Rose with the whole of the Doctor Who audience.

Fans seem to like Martha more (probably because she is more like classic companions) but I expected the general audience like Rose more (becuase people like love stories... even creepy ones with a terribly uneven powerbalance). However neither of them were flops, now Adric? he was a flop but Rose and Martha? not so much.

I don't think her being less popular was down to her acting abilities. The problem as I see it was that Billie had a free run at her role. She was the first companion after the resuming of the series, so barring crap acting she was going to look good. It was novel showing her family life and baseing the series around Rose. It hadn't ever been done that way before. Sadly Freema was saddled with exactly the same set up and it simply wasn't original anymore. It would have been far better to have had Martha as an orphan or simply not that close to her family. My big fear for Catherine Tate is that Donna will be written with a 'family' and the whole shtick will repeat again. It does seem to be a bit of an obsession of RTD's to include his characters 'home lives'. It's becoming a bit of a 'touchy-feely' one trick pony!

She started off really great full of idea and open to ideas.
the foundations set in place for a great assistant,THEN they realised piper leaving meant no love interest so forced the viewers to belive martha has bang on the same love for the dr as rose had...ofc it was doomed and imo thats when marthas character became a joke,for people who saw the film 'airplane' remeber the guy on the plane talking to anyone that would listen about his undying love for elaine,thats who martha endedup sounding like.
ive got a sneaky feeling come next year we will all be screaming bring back martha,tate as a one off was watchable but a whole series i think shes going to grate on people.

Martha Jones is my fav character on Dr Who. I have an illogical dislike of Billie Piper/Rose and Catherine Tate.

Nancy_Drew, have you seen this Thread I wonder?

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...d.php?t=715282

Reading that Thread she doesn't seem like "a flop" to me!


Jocko Homo, I think you have just hit a nail on the head with that Post of yours.
Last edited by Red-Eye : 23-12-2007 at 00:32

I love Martha, and I only realised how much I liked her after recently watching repeats of series 3. I can't imagine her not being there! I really hope she will be the main companion in the 2009 specials and beyond (although that rumoured wedding ring on the pic with the Sontaran may prevent that from happening)

The character was originally written to leave at the end of series 3 and then come back for a few episodes of both Doctor Who and Torchwood. This would have happened had every person in the country hand-written RTD a letter saying how much they love Martha and delivered it to his doorstep by hand. It has no connection to her popularity whatsoever.

i prefer martha loads more than rose. i think it was the simple fact that in this new series rose was the first companion to leave so there was a lot of pressure on freema at the start.

If Martha flopped...

Would she be going back?

Would she be in Torchwood?

What you have in Martha Jones is a far better companion. More depth, more independence (own career, own flat, own car)

The only people who thought she flopped was the Rose fans who refused to let go.

her character was always going to leave after the series, and go to torchwood, she is a great actress and i suspect one that will be starring in dr who for years to come....what a silly forum subject 'why did she flop' ..... perhaps the fact that the ecclestone dr appeared in only one series meant that he flopped? and the character of the master flopped as they killed him off ? flop flop flops the lot of them eh>?

she did flop I just didnt believe her character mainly for the stupid way she fancied him, like the kiss in episode 1 when the Doctor says this is nothing and she says, that was nothing.
badly acted imo.

Exactly.

While we may not like some of the things he does sometimes and agree with him he's very true to his characters. He has pretty much stated that for Martha to just have gone 'ok' and continue travelling with the Doctor would have been a betrayal to her character. There would have been no resoluton to the arc.

Also Russell has stated that the theme for next series is the Doctors extended surragate family of friends and that is what the final Martha/Doctor scene was setting up. That it wasn't the usual 'I'm off, you're on your own again', with Martha it wasn't over, that although they were parting they still shared a relationship and a responsibilty for each other. I personally thought this was one of the most important and changing moments in the series. The Doctor has always just moved on, when something ends it ends, it has always been key to his loneliness but for the first time he wasn't allowed to do this and like I said from Russells comments about series 4 this is gonna be one of the big themes.

I think that yes, it is those two things that added to her downfall, but i think it's also because the actress wasn't very good (although i'm sure Freema herself is lovely) and that the character just wasn't very good. To me, she was just a 'assistant'. She didn't seem to have much to her. She wasn't very relatable either IMO, and the storyline of the unrequited love was just depressing.