|
|
It seems to me that part of the point of the end of season three, in terms of Martha's arc, was for so many viewers to be wanting her to stay, and for the Doctor to be wanting her to stay, but for leaving to be the only thing she could do, really. It was nice to see some real consequences being shown, in terms of how utterly shellshocked her poor family is - I shudder to think what a year working as the Master's serving staff might have been like - and it was nice that both Jack and Martha took the same lesson from the whole experience. I'm sure plenty of people wanted to make "Haha, Jack thought of his team at Torchwood when he was being tortured" jokes, but the serious point is that in as much as they might be fuck-ups who nearly destroyed the world, they are indeed his responsibility (like the Master, do you see): he has to go back, if only to limit the damage they can do next season.
Not that they learnt about responsibility from the Doctor's example, of course. The other reason both Jack and Martha might want to take a break is to get away from being stuck in an absurdly dysfunctional relationship with someone who continually neglects them. Y'know, he even says "I've been wandering too long, maybe it's time for a change now I finally have someone to look after - the Master!" Okay, you can say that the Doctor can't get too attached to his companions because he'll outlive them - except, er, Jack is immortal now, more or less? - okay then, maybe he just needs someone who's the same species... But still. Both of them should have been a bit "standing RIGHT HERE, dude!" during that scene.
I thought it was a particularly sad touch to have the Doctor do his whole "Ooh, where shall we go next?" routine and for it to not cut the mustard. That "Cor, lawks, we could go back and meet Henry the Eighth, or to the planet Zoglon!" stuff might have worked with Rose, but Ms Jones has had enough. While we don't know how long Martha spent having relatively fun if still dangerous adventures with the Doctor prior to 'Utopia' ('Blink' makes it clear there are more adventures than we've seen), I think it was almost certainly less than a year - maybe a LOT less, which means Martha has more experience of wandering an apocalyptically ravaged nightmare Earth than she does of merry jaunts in the Tardis. So no wonder she wants out.
The question is whether she'll get it, but that's for another thread. |
|
|