Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Dr. Who S3 Finale/S4/Torchwood S2 (SPOILERS!)

Well...all in all, I thoroughly enjoyed our 3 episode finale arc. There were some cracking good moments in there. Also some moments here and there that irked me - especially in TLOTTL. The incidental music, especially in the final half, was too intrusive for me and too overly melodramatic. This has been a problem throughout the series for me.

And there were moments that were so cliched and so cheesy that I cringed watching. That's RTD's main problem, in writing episodes, I find. He doesn't seem to have the originality of ideas that other DW writers have and often seems to fall back on stealing well-worn plot devices. There were few surprises for me in his script.

But that said, I did thoroughly enjoy it and, dang it, I'm going to miss my Saturday evenings with the Doctor and Martha.

I think my favourite lines were the Doctor's "As if I'd ask her to kill." (Just loved that!). And the whole Face of Bo revelation. The casual, totally oblivious way that Jack dropped the bombshell and the Doctor and Martha's reactions to it were utterly priceless. I laughed so hard at that that I was sure I'd broken a rib or two. And I just thought, besides it being hilarious, that it was kind of a neat and clever idea that explains so much.

Nice to see that the Doctor has come to terms with Jack's immortality and that Jack is welcome on the TARDIS in the future. (It's almost enough for me to wish a cancellation on Torchwood so that Jack can return to the TARDIS.)

Really, my main problem with the show is that it's now way too long a wait till Christmas! And after the Christmas episode way too long a wait till S4. For pity's sake, our American cousins manage to regularly produce 22 episodes in the time it takes our guys to do 13! Surely they could produce them just a leetle bit faster? I'm dying here facing that long stretch of months!

And the Titanic might be cliched, but I'm still really looking forward to seeing Voyage of the Damned! Can't wait.

But...worrying events! As I'm not that obsessive a fan of the show that I immerse myself in the community or look for spoilers, Martha's defection took me completely by surprise. I naively assumed it was simply an end of season teaser. That that phone would ring very soon into the Christmas episode or episode 1 of S4. (I assumed, actually, that we might be missing Martha for the Christmas episode and then normal service would resume in S4).

But then I read a disturbing story in today's news. That Martha will in fact be missing from the first half of S4, we'll have a new companion for the whole of S4, that Martha will instead be teaming up with Jack for a stint in Torchwood...

While some of this sounds very interesting (I'm interested in Martha on Torchwood. Hopefully her inclusion and Jack being back to his old, wisecracking non-brooding self might inject some much needed banter and humour into the show. Lighten it up for pete's sake! So I'm looking forward to that) I'm also deeply concerned at the idea that rumours abound that Martha will be dumped.

I know there will always be die-hard Rose fans who won't accept Martha no matter what and that other fans might have issues, too, but I'd gotten the impression that she'd been mostly accepted by the fandom. Or is FA wanting out already? Is there a problem at all, or is it just unwarranted press speculation and these events are actually positive?

Any of you more deeply involved DW fans out there got any gen on the background to this?

(Worried) LabRat

PS - anyone else wondering with that phone call Martha made to check up on him, if that hunky doctor is destined to be in Torchwood, too, with some Martha-ship in the air? Can't say I'd mind...he was kind of cute. <g>

I've seen three reports on this today, all of them say she'll be in three (I think) episodes of Torchwood, then in the second half of the next season of Dr. Who. I really doubt that they'll drop her, she's been extremely popular with everyone but the "it isn't Rose so I hate her" crowd.

see e.g

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/news/cult/news/drwho/2007/07/02/46692.shtml

and

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6260374.stm

They're going to announce the name of a new companion who will be in S4 from the start ""soon", allegedly. Whoever it is will not be leaving when Martha arrives.

BTW, if you think of Dr. Who, Torchwood, and the forthcoming Sarah-Jane Adventures as one entity rather than as separate shows it isn't surprising that there's only 12 episodes per season - because between the three shows I think we're getting 34 episodes!

Thanks, Marcus!

Yeah, I've been hitting some of the forum sites - finally tracked some down! I was amused and intrigued by the host of speculation (and lots of jumping up and down with potential glee should it come to pass ) that the new companion might be Sally Sparrow. Oh, if only! I'd definitely go for that! <g> Although, they'd have to bring along her boyfriend, too, so I can't see it happening.

Just glad that Martha's not being dumped. I've really grown to like her and I think her character is shaping up to be even better in the future. I liked the fact that at the end of this season she left the TARDIS feeling very much on an equal footing with the doctor - a heroine in her own right - rather than, as she said herself, feeling secondbest and inferior to him. That bodes well for how they interact in S4 and I'm looking forward to seeing how that dynamic plays out.

That's a point. The Sarah Jane stuff doesn't tend to register with me, but it's true that the same team is working on TORCHWOOD, so they're really working on the same schedule. Although, it still seems to me that 22 episodes comes around much more quickly with US series than these two! I was dismayed to realise that we don't get S2 of TORCHWOOD till January next year. Which seems an awfully long way away.

LabRat

You lovely people have answered some of the questions I was left with on Saturday night, so thanks, guys!

It's probably too late to do this on this thread, but...

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Like LabRat, I was really taken by surprise with the whole Martha thing. (Also like LabRat, I loved the Face of Bo stuff. I found myself grinning very stupidly at that and thinking, yes, that was perfect! )

But <sigh>, I really didn't like Torchwood last season, so have very little enthusiasm for watching any of the next one. Which is a shame, because Captain Jack is great in his Dr Who episodes. Oh, how I liked him in these last few! And I would like to see Martha again.

My heartfelt admiration to the Dr Who writers, though, who made the last three episodes mesh with Torchwood while allowing them to stand very well on their own.

I confess, at the beginning, I wasn't too taken with this season of Dr Who, but I'm glad that I stuck with it, because I thought it got better as time went on, and became fantastic towards the end. As for Martha, I really came to love her character, and FA's portrayal.

(As an aside, when this latest series started, there was a complete lack of water-cooler conversation about Dr Who at work, which contrasted very sharply with the first two series. However, for the last half of the season, that 'buzz' has been back -- a noticeable change.)

As I said earlier, I was really taken by surprise by Martha's choice at the end of the series, but I thought the writers did it very, very well. Martha's family do need her. Moreover, with Rose, I got the impression that travelling with the Doctor was a way out of her mundane, Earth-bound life. With Martha, it was more of an... interlude... in the middle of her medical training. I get the feeling that Martha has more to go back to.

Plus the reasons Martha gives to the Doctor for going back to her old life... Yeah. I'm glad she told him / the viewers. I was struck very strongly with the contrast between Martha's actions here and the backstory we were given for Sarah Jane Smith last(?) season. Martha's getting out. She'll survive. She -- hopefully -- won't be scarred by the experience for years to come.

Why did Martha phone the pediatrician? I suspected she was thinking that maybe they might have a future together, so she wanted to know where he was, maybe to get a placement at the hospital where he worked. (Mind you, I also thought that smacked of stalking, but, hey.)

LabRat, you said:
You know, I didn't think Martha had been feeling second best and inferior to the Doctor so much as to Rose. All the way through the series, there have been mentions of Rose, and even in the last few episodes there have been digs. ('Good old Rose'; 'Oh, she was blonde', and the like.) Plus, there had been the whole thing about the Doctor being pretty much blind to Martha's attraction to him.

(I guess I should say a big 'kudos' to the writers for continuing to mention Rose this last season. Maybe she wasn't there in person, but we haven't been able to forget her, just as the characters haven't. Rose hasn't been brushed under the proverbial carpet, never to be heard of again. That, for me, is good writing.)

Anyway...

Fingers crossed that this year's Christmas special turns out to be much, much better than the last one! (Please, no more Catherine Tate and no more trees flowering in December...)

Chris <who can't believe she's said so much...>

P.S. I rather enjoyed the main plot, too.

I was very disappointed with TORCHWOOD and, frankly, if it wasn't for the fact that Martha will be in it (plus, if speculation is right James Marsters guesting in one episode) and that we should have a much lighter-hearted Jack in there, I wouldn't be watching S2 either.

By the end of S1 I was still recording it, but only for the sake of background, should I decide during a later season that I actually enjoyed it. I seriously doubt I'll rewatch any of it for enjoyment.

But I have hope that S2 will be a vast improvement. Here's hoping so. If they stick to the same dreary, depressing format as S1, which for me was very much 'TV to slit your wrists to', and the very unlikable characters therein, then I won't be tuning in.


LabRat

Some people have already seen my reaction to this finale, which is up at my LiveJournal . I won't repeat it here; if anyone really cares, you can click the link!

Martha saying she wasn't staying really was a surprise; I hang around a lot of the DW fansites and communities and, although there've been Sun rumours here and there, no-one really believed she was going. More power to her for what she said to the Doctor, though. He's not been good to her at all. As you've said, she'll be back in the second half of DW next year; I'm just hoping it won't negate the character development she had in those final few minutes, where she refused to be treated as second-best and where she decided she won't stay with a man who'll never return her feelings for him.

Besides, I never saw Martha as a companion for the long-term; unlike Rose, she has a life to go back to and a career to start.

Jack... I absolutely and utterly hated the hint that he could become the Face of Boe, as did most of online fandom. Personally, I like to believe that he was winding the Doctor up. That, as soon as he gets back into the Hub, he's going to crease up with laughter. It's a stupid idea which really doesn't hold up very plausibly, as well as not being an outcome I'd like to see for the character. It doesn't work with what has been established for Jack, because:

• Jack heard Martha mention the Face of Boe to the Doctor in Utopia and there was not a flicker of reaction. If he really had been known as the 'Face of Boe' when he was younger, he'd have at least had some sort of doubletake. This tells me that he used what he heard to wind the Doctor up.
• I'm pretty sure that the Face of Boe even said to the Doctor in their second encounter that they don't know each other at all well
• More fundamentally, Jack can't die and seems incapable of ageing - it's been 140 years since the Game Station and he doesn't look a day older, despite his quip about grey hairs. The Doctor confirmed that he cannot die, as per Rose's command (because she couldn't control the power of the Vortex). So how can he turn into a bodiless head, and how could he die in Gridlock?

Apparently - though I haven't listened to it - in the episode commentary there's suggestion that it's just a joke and that Russell T Davies wasn't serious. I certainly hope so.


Wendy

*cringes*

The new companion for next year has been announced . I'm rapidly going off DW at this rate...


Wendy

You know, I did wonder about that. As a casual fan I don't find the details as irksome as die-hard fans obviously - that's the nature of the difference between the two groups. Casual fans are easy pleased. But I'm sure there are a ton of reasons why this doesn't fit with canon. I just thought it was a hilarious moment - and still do. But if at a later date we find out it's not true or that your theory that Jack was just teasing is correct, Wendy, I won't be disappointed either.

As for the new companion....bloody hell. I saw it on Teletext last night and my heart sank. I did enjoy last year's Christmas episode, I have to say. Which was despite my earlier reservations when I heard CT had been booked for that. I was surprised by it, but I did enjoy her and her character. I really don't know if I could take both for a whole season though. Perhaps there have been changes to the character in the time that's passed since she last saw the Doctor, leading off from what she's learned and how she's grown after the events of Christmas, which may help, but still...

Just going to have to hope that this time is the same as the first and my reservations turn out to be unfounded and I find myself enjoying her. But for the moment...deeply disappointed and have had a dent to my enthusiasm for next year.

Thank goodness there was also terrific news on Teletext last night - the release of Alan Johnston - which somewhat negated this!

LabRat

I think that a companion who has a history of being critical of the Doctor's motives and behaviour might be a refreshing change - Rose and Martha were both just a little too much in love with him, and he really needs someone to kick him up the backside occasionally. And Martha will be back at some point, so their confrontations ought to be interesting.

There is that. So long as she tones down the shrieking and running around and slapping (although I loved the slapping in the Christmas ep, thought it was hilarious, but it could get old very fast), she might not be so bad.

And I think that may well happen. I'm sure that Donna must have changed in the interim between the events of the Christmas episode and when she next meets the Doctor. She learned a lot and went through a lot and grew up a little too, I think.

Anyway...here's hoping!

LabRat