Smart Girl Review: Doctor Who Season 3

Nothing drives traffic on the Internet like references to Doctor Who, the legendary British television series.  So we have brought back our very own Smart Girl, with her review of Season 3 of the Doctor Who revival.

Hi everybody, Smart Girl here.  I’ve finished all of Doctor Who, but I haven’t been able to write any more season reviews until now, so without further ado, here’s the next one!

Season Three (Warning: there will be spoilers)

Summary:  This season begins with a Christmas special starting where the second season ended.  At the end of last season, the Doctor was saying goodbye to Rose Tyler in her parallel universe and about to tell her something, when the connection ended.  The Doctor was naturally very sad, but his moping was interrupted by the appearance of a red-headed woman in a wedding dress.  As we all know, red-heads in wedding dresses can’t just appear in the TARDIS, so the Doctor is naturally very confused.  They find out she appeared because of special particles somebody had been feeding her, and they solve the whole situation, saving the world in time for Christmas.  Sadly, the woman, Donna Noble, refuses the Doctor’s offer of traveling, and he takes off once more.

Next, he meets a young doctor-in-training (a medical doctor, not a Time Lord "Doctor") named Martha Jones and takes her along with him after saving a hospital.  They travel together, with Martha developing a crush on the Doctor and the Doctor missing Rose.  The Doctor is told he is not alone, but he doesn’t believe it.  They meet a never-before-seen enemy known as the “Weeping Angels” in one of the most famous episodes in the new series, “Blink” written by none other than Steven Moffat.  We also learn Time Lords can turn human by putting their Time Lord-ness into a pocket watch, but it makes them lose all their memories.  One day, the Doctor and Martha are in Cardiff, charging the TARDIS when a familiar face comes running up to the TARDIS yelling, “Doctor!”  He grabs onto the TARDIS as it takes off and is dragged through the vortex.  The Doctor and Martha step out into the End of the Universe to find a man the Doctor recognizes, but sadly appears to be dead.  The Doctor ignores him, apparently unconcerned, while Martha tries to give him CPR.  Soon after, he wakes up and introduces himself as Captain Jack Harkness.  The three see a man being chased by a large group of people.  They follow him to a refugee camp for humans trying to reach “Utopia”.  The Doctor volunteers to help “Professor Yana” build the rocket to Utopia.  While the Doctor and Jack discuss his immortality, Martha notices that Professor Yana has a pocket watch just like the Doctor’s when he turned human.  She goes to tell the Doctor, but it’s too late.  Yana has opened the watch and remembered that he is the Master, the Doctor’s old foe.

The Master steals the Doctor’s TARDIS, but the Doctor locks it, so it can only go between present-day Britain and the End of the Universe.  They use Jack’s Vortex Manipulator to go to present-day Britain and find that the Master has regenerated and become the Prime Minister by hypnotizing everyone.  Also, he has turned the TARDIS into a paradox machine and used it to make the humans from the End of the Universe kill the past humans.  The Doctor, Jack, and Martha are captured, but the Doctor sends Martha away with the Vortex Manipulator after giving her instructions.  She spends a year walking around the Earth, apparently gathering the parts of a gun that permanently kills Time Lords.  The Master captures her and learns that she wasn't building a gun at all.  Instead, she actually told everybody to think the Doctor’s name at the same time so the Doctor could free himself and beat the Master.  This works, and the Doctor beats the Master by . . . forgiving him?  It somehow works, and the Doctor plans to travel with the Master.  Sadly, this will never happen because the Master is shot and refuses to regenerate.  At the end, Martha realizes that the Doctor will never fall in love with her, and decides to leave. 

My Opinion:  I liked this season, but not any more than the last season.  I started out liking Martha, because she was smart, but as the season went on, her crush got more and more annoying.  I especially hated the two-parter “Human Nature/Family of Blood” where the Doctor turned into a human named “John Smith”.  John Smith was extremely annoying, and it didn’t help when he fell in love with a human.  I spent the whole time waiting for the Doctor to come back.  I also disliked the Dalek episode, because I had a hard time the Daleks would ever even consider melding with humans.  Their shtick is that Daleks are supreme.  They’re based on the Nazis for crying out loud!  Racial purity is kind of their thing.   However, I loved “Blink”, mostly because of Sally Sparrow, an amazing character.  And, as usual, the Tenth Doctor was awesome.