It's pretty crucial to the role that the companion be smart, and when we first meet Martha Jones, she's a med student preparing for her exams, so it probably goes without saying that she's pretty clever. But what struck me on my recent rewatch of series 3 was precisely how clever Martha is, both in terms of resourcefulness and in terms of the straight-up level-headed logic the average person probably couldn't apply successfully in a life-or-death situation. She comes up with the plan to use lightning as a defense against the pig slaves; she lets Lazarus kiss her hand to get a DNA sample; she thinks of telling Milo and Cheen to turn off the engines to hide from the Macra. Martha's ability to keep her head in amongst utter chaos is one of the things that makes her a perfect candidate for the role of companion, and indeed it's one of the first things the Doctor notices about her, too.
But they're not exactly air tight. If the air was going to get sucked out it would have happened straight away, but it didn't. So how come?
This scene always impresses me the way it impresses the Doctor. I'm pretty sure if my workplace spontaneously ended up on the moon, I'd collapse into panic and terror much like the other doctor. Martha doesn't. Martha winds up on the moon and her first thought is to wonder why everyone can still breathe. THAT IS AWESOME AND BRILLIANT, and the Doctor thinks so too.
Then, still on her very first outing, Martha is left to salvage the Doctor's terrible plan by being clever enough to piece it together and force the Judoon to do a second scan of Mrs Finnegan.
It's a good thing Martha Jones is so clever, because a lot of series 3 hinges on her ability to run with minimal instruction from the Doctor. She has to make sense of what he wants her to do with the psychic paper in New York, she's left on her own to protect all of them in Human Nature/Family of Blood, and in Last of the Time Lords she has a year on her own to use some very cryptic (and frankly unhelpful) advice to save the world. Fending for herself in The Doctor's Daughter, she makes friends with the Hath and comes to the same decision as the Doctor without outside guidance. She uses the Osterhagen key not as UNIT intended but as a bargaining chip.
Basically, to quote Rose Tyler, Martha Jones? Oh, she's good.
But they're not exactly air tight. If the air was going to get sucked out it would have happened straight away, but it didn't. So how come?
This scene always impresses me the way it impresses the Doctor. I'm pretty sure if my workplace spontaneously ended up on the moon, I'd collapse into panic and terror much like the other doctor. Martha doesn't. Martha winds up on the moon and her first thought is to wonder why everyone can still breathe. THAT IS AWESOME AND BRILLIANT, and the Doctor thinks so too.
Then, still on her very first outing, Martha is left to salvage the Doctor's terrible plan by being clever enough to piece it together and force the Judoon to do a second scan of Mrs Finnegan.
It's a good thing Martha Jones is so clever, because a lot of series 3 hinges on her ability to run with minimal instruction from the Doctor. She has to make sense of what he wants her to do with the psychic paper in New York, she's left on her own to protect all of them in Human Nature/Family of Blood, and in Last of the Time Lords she has a year on her own to use some very cryptic (and frankly unhelpful) advice to save the world. Fending for herself in The Doctor's Daughter, she makes friends with the Hath and comes to the same decision as the Doctor without outside guidance. She uses the Osterhagen key not as UNIT intended but as a bargaining chip.
Basically, to quote Rose Tyler, Martha Jones? Oh, she's good.
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