Smith and Jones

The Doctor is a (pretend) patient in a London hospital when the heavens open and suck (H2O scoop) the wards and theatres, the whole building in fact, up to the lunar landscape where, before you know it...

There's a Judoon platoon upon the moon, they're looking for something in the hospital's rooms, a Plasmavore who's been hiding away, an alien patiently looking for prey.

Meeting up with Martha Jones for the first time, on this occasion it is a lack of magnetism that saves the day, but there is definitely a spark and a last straw for someone.

Martha Jones had huge shoes to fill as the Doctor's companion, with everyone loving Rose so much, but this is a decent episode in which to introduce her.

There's lots of promising signs that the dynamic between The Doctor and Martha, with some nice dialogue and moments. David Tennant is on top form too.

It's not all perfect, the villain gets defeated quite easily, and the less said about Martha's annoying family the better, but this proves to be a nice first episode of the 3rd series, and a good introduction to Freema Agyeman's Martha.

As an introduction to Martha Jones "Smith and Jones" worked well. As a science fiction action show this was fairly good. As an episode of Doctor Who this was passable.

Firstly, a brief rant about the recent two series of Doctor Who as a whole: too much action not enough build-up. The old serials of Doctor Who often had 3-6 episodes to build a story. In the modern era we get the occasional 2-parter. a single episode is seldom enough to build emotional involvement in the story. It is not enough that the individual stories may fit into an all-encompassing series arc.

"Smith and Jones" fit this category, in that the storyline felt rushed with events contrived to propel it along and to introduce the new assistant. The Vogons (sorry, I mean the Judoon) seemed to be very patchily characterised. The aliens in Doctor Who and other SF shouldn't just be comical caricatures (longer or slower-paced story lines might help). Similarly the villain of the piece never really gets more than a couple of brush-strokes of characterisation.

That said, David Tennant still seems to fill the Doctor's shoes brilliantly and the new assistant looks promising. The relationship of these two was convincingly scripted as were Martha Jones' family ties, and the Doctor's encounter with the villain was typically very clever, albeit a little broadcast to anyone with more than a minimal knowledge of SF.

I hope for improvement as the series gets into its story arc and the longer/slower-paced story lines start to appear.

Verdict: solid enough start but could do better.

Season 3 opener introducing new companion Martha Jones. The Doctor visits a hospital where an alien fugitive is hiding and attacking patients. The Judoon, a kind of alien police force, quarantine the hospital by transporting it to the moon (with a limited oxygen supply) to try to capture the alien criminal. The Doctor must try to save the people in the hospital with the help of medical student Martha.

This story is fun and entertaining with some lovely touches. Martha is a great companion straight away and her performance alongside the ever brilliant David Tennant lift this episode to an excellent level. It may not be one of the great stories of Doctor Who but it is a very enjoyable second tier story which does everything you could want in terms of action, humour, danger and introducing a new main character. The script is largely very good and the villain is a great mixture of sinister, funny and interesting.

A satisfying series starter maintaining the very fine standards Russell T. Davies had established with the 10th Doctor era. 9/10.

A good start for the new companion in the TARDIS (or companion to be next episode). I was very impressed with this episode unlike some others, I liked the Judoon even if they are narrow minded. What I didn't like however was the villain not getting enough screen time, really not much at all but well and truly a solid enough episode