10.16: Smith and Jones
In which there’s a Judoon platoon on the moon, and RTD has a new companion fall for the Doctor again too soon.
Broadcast: March 2007
Watched: August 2021
“Not that you’re replacing her!”
Glorious. One of those episodes you never think about now because it’s just your bog standard, non-show-y, workaday Doctor Who episode. But it has great ideas and great moments and does what it needs to do perfectly.
Firstly, it lives up to its name: the two leads are together in more scenes than not and save the world as a team. Martha proves her worth by staying calm when everyone else is panicking. The Judoon are an amazing creation – not evil, just a pain in the arse – and Anne Reid is so brilliant as both lovely old lady and sinister vampire creature (“I’ve even brought a straw”) that it’s hard to remember how it felt first realising she was the villain. And the imagery! The H2O scoop and the stolen hospital and the lunar landscape.
The other minor characters are perfectly cast, too. The consultant Mr Stoker (oh, vampire, that’s deliberate isn’t it) is exactly the right kind of self-regarding but basically decent type you find in hospitals. The male med student who looks like Michael York is instantly likeable, and is very clearly a baby Stoker from the decent-but-arrogant way he comports himself. (I googled the actor. He now works in sales.)
There are a couple of niggles. The decision to play Martha’s interest in the Doctor as romantic hasn’t aged well, which is odd as it was pretty bad at the time (the Doctor kisses her, putting her life at risk, while acting like he isn’t aware of her interest; eesh). At one point Reid’s character (who dies at minute 32, by the way – huh) says someone was “begging for it”. And not for the first time, there’s a largely unnecessary threat to the entire Earth thrown into the last act.
The biggest problem is that Freema is sometimes not that good at delivering the lines – she can’t sell the opening, where she’s juggling her family, at all. It doesn’t matter as it might, because she’s very watchable and Martha is a brilliant character, but she’s still quite wooden.
But all this is pretty minor stuff. It’s an absolute joy, and RTD Who is entering its imperial period.
Other things:
The Joneses are clearly rich. Tish is worried about her inheritance. Leo has a lovely flat before turning 21. Annalise. Etc.
In RTD Who, hospitals are always light and modern; in Moffat Who they’re mostly old and always creepy.
Using the tie to prove the TARDIS travels in time is fun, but I’m not sure it entirely makes sense.
When Martha talks about her cousin, the Doctor says “I was there”; he doesn’t say “Also I was the guy who ripped part of her brain out to prove a point”, for some reason.
It’s not obvious how the Doctor got himself a hospital bed, even in 2007 the NHS wasn’t *that* well resourced.
The slabs feel vaguely pervy (“Someone has got one hell of a fetish”). The “Planet Zovirax” reference is a funny line that fans of the future have no hope of understanding.
Mr Saxon gets his namecheck, warning about enemy aliens.
“We’d be a bit intimate” Martha is clearly filthy.
I’ve also written “Blue suit, messy hair”. No idea why I thought that was relevant. One for the fangirls maybe.