what are your thoughts about martha in the stolen earth/journey's end, the osterhagen key storyline, her ending up with mickey? and what would you do differently if it was up to you to write her in those episodes?
I know the doctor destroying gallifrey and the osterhagen key are parellels between him and martha. to end the war against the daleks. but due to this story being over-stuffed, it's never dealt with properly. martha is the only one in the tardis team who is still on earth at this point. sarah jane, mickey, jack, rose, donna and the doctor are all on the dalek ship. so if martha goes down, everyone left behind will die. wilf, sylvia, luke, francine, everyone. it's a terrible decision, and it's supposed to show the lengths that martha will go as a member of unit to not surrender to hostile aliens. and if people were evacuated which i highly doubt they would have time for, the daleks would have pounced on the fleeing ships. a lose lose situation.
in my opinion, this is way too big a thing just to drop it. in one of my favourite tenth doctor stories, 'prisoner of the daleks' we see what the osterhagen key does. the doctor sees a planet completely destroyed, on fire, it's countries melting like lava and he nearly throws up. i honestly think it's too much, way too much especially for rose just to say "oh she's good." i'm on the doctor's side on this one.
also, mickey ending up with martha made me grimace. because it just seemed like it was just done to kill two birds with one stone, and get the doctor saying goodbye to mickey and martha out of the way. only he doesn't say goodbye, he says nothing actually. it seems too convenient, how do i focus on things i care about more. you get a frankly insulting scene with a call back to joan redfern with emotional weight and nothing for martha, except pair her up with someone she has barely interacted with. not to mention how every single love interest martha has ever had has been a white man. shakespeare. the doctor. riley. tom milligan. if tom ellis wasn't available that's fine. but to pair the two people who were ditched by rose and the doctor felt insulting honestly and stereotypical, and purely for scheduling purposes for filming convenience. and the fact that she is the first one we see him *say goodbye to* feels like they wanted to get it out of the way, as she is forgotten under all the plethora of other goodbyes. but considering all the doctor and martha have been through, for her to be just met with silence is awful to me. especially as he saves her life. it speaks for itself i suppose, but not in a good way.
one of my main issues with martha and it happens in almost all her stories is that she is seperated from the main action and has to go it alone. and i think at this point, she shouldn't have to. i don't see why she couldn't have been right there on donna's street with everyone else.
so if i were to do it differently, i would change her entire plotline for series 4. martha's plot would be that she knows the dalek invasion of earth is coming, and it's because of 'the year that never was.' maybe she is reluctant to tell the doctor because of just how well..badly he handled the master in the previous season because let's be real. he got a lot of stuff wrong. the daleks want to wipe out everyone and they don't sucee, but series 3's finale still had a bigger amount of damage than 4. 10% of the worlds population decimated, russia turned into a shipyard, the nile frozen over, caspian sea poisoned, london turned into slums and overcome by wild dogs. if the daleks had wanted to steal the earth and use the reality bomb, it probably would have ended up happening still in that timeline, only with more difficulty because they would have to face the master and toclafane. with time reversing and restoring earth without all these enemies, their plan is put back on track. or maybe martha tries to warn the doctor and is sidetracked by this project indigo. or maybe the daleks interfere and take her out of the picture themselves because they know she revived the master, saved the world, they see her as a threat. and martha escapes, trying to find the doctor to warn him but ends up in the wrong timeline - 'turn left'. maybe in a big secret reveal, martha came across dalek caan in 'the year that never was' before he found davros. they remember each other.
make her go missing all season, have her be the one trying to get the doctor's attention on the screens, then have her return in 'turn left' with the even bigger rose tyler reveal bombshell at the end of the episode.
maybe martha realises she doesn't have to go it alone anymore (remind you of anyone?). that she has people looking out for her. hell, if she's been missing for so long, have her reunite with people, have rose be the one who found her or something. have her interact and speak with the daleks more. bring up the master, the 'year that never was'. show how the stories link. i would have martha be the one next to the doctor to directly speak to them. she remembers when they were so desperate not to be wiped out that they made human hybrids. martha saw the remnants of the cult of skaro. i think she should have a more central role.
and her story to end with her more settled back into life on earth, with her real fiance. how many people she has looking out for her, just like the doctor. and for martha's goodbye to be way more poignant. maybe have the doctor give her something, that shows the similarities between the two, something really meaningul. not sure what that would be, but a much better goodbye than what we got.
i think series 3 should be much more closely linked with 4. it was way too big just to be forgotten.
