Doctor Who (2005) Series 3 Review

Martha is perhaps one of the best things to happen to the revival era although I’d probably say this is Tennant’s weakest series.

A mourning Doctor isn’t new the overall series however so much time is taken for the Doctor to reflect on Rose’s departure that trample on a perfect Christmas Special that was made in part for the Doctor to move on.

By the 8th episode I realised that Martha’s relationship to the Doctor was far more established than their relationship to each other making their chemistry feel extremely one sided. On the one hand that is the point of this series however on the other it makes the Doctor much less interesting to watch.

Fortunately John Simm’s appearance as the Master, when he’s playing the character seriously, hammers home the Doctor’s purpose in this series and ramps up what I thought was a pretty good finale.

In terms of the bad, we have The Lazarus Experiment that should’ve served enough of a warning for the quality of Mark Gattis’s scripts, not to mention the over abundance of CGI that did not need to be here and serve no other purpose than to date this episode. We also have the episode that followed suite, 42. No time is spent on developing any character that swiftly get chopped off and the finale is all to abrupt.

The good on the other hand comes from Human Nature and The Family Of Blood with Tennant’s best performance in what I previously called his weakest series. These are still standout episodes today and prove that the alien godlike side behind the Doctor, and his battle with his humanity, is one of the fundamental anchors to the show overall, providing a stronger and deeper reason for him to have a companion.

8/10