Rapport?

[scarfman]

About a year ago now, somewhere on my flist - probably on lifeonmartha - someone observed that the Doctor and Martha had a rapport in Blink much more like that which the Doctor tends to have with his companions, and that we ought to have seen more of that for Martha. I thought that was a great sentiment and I've shared it ever since ... but I'm beginning to wonder about it.

Notice that almost everything Martha says in that episode is a complaint to or about the Doctor: Working in a shop, what she says to Billy Shipton about the Doctor's babbling, keeping up with the four things and the lizard. It's easy to take that as the sort of friendly snarking that goes on in the console room all the time, but I think we have to consider the context too. And the context is that Martha's been pining for the Doctor for, at a guess, a length of time comparable to the original air history of Smith and Jones through Family of Blood, plus the additional months spent in 1913, plus - at least for my first two dialog examples above - most or all of the time spent TARDISless in 1969. It's reasonable to think frustration is beginning to show. Certainly by the next time we see her, she's about had enough: she's more than prepared to needle the Doctor right along with Jack about his preoccupation with Rose. I don't wonder that she left after the next adventure - I wonder whether she was already making plans as soon as the TARDIS took off from the Dahl Plas, or earlier.

I think maybe we have to hear Martha's tone in Blink less as the tone Sarah or Jamie used when complaining about the Doctor's steering, and more as Martha's own tone in Utopia when she said, "Oh, she was blonde! What a surprise!"

I think maybe we need to describe Martha's tone in Blink less as banter than as bitter.

Comments

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I look at her expression as well her tone of voice and her actual words - and I see amusement and affection there in both her expression and her tone when she says to Ten "back when we had transport" and he replies "Working on it".

As for when they're going after the "Four Things and a Lizard", I see that as impatience because (a) they're on a schedule - she tells him in minutes how long there is until the 'Red Hatching', and (b) he's talking to a random girl and ignoring their urgent schedule.

But your mileage may vary, of course...

I concede she does sound annoyed when she mentions she's working in a shop.

[in-the-end.livejournal.com]

Bitter is one way of looking at it. I personally don't see Martha as a particularly bitter person. Frustration is frustration is frustration. We don't know much about their time in 1969 apart from the fact that she was supporting the Doctor. Frustration was showing on that video tape to convey to Sally Sparrow just how much she wanted to get back to the TARDIS, in my opinion.

Martha didn't have the easiest run as companion, but I don't believe she'd have stayed with the Doctor if she was really that miserable or she wasn't enjoying it anymore. She could have left after they got back from 1969, but she didn't. I personally think that she made her choice to leave around the time of Utopia - she just had to wait a year in order to get the chance to do it.

[butterfly-kate.livejournal.com]

I totally disagree. She may be complaining but she's had adventures and fun times, plus she's spending time with the Doctor, who she has to be interested in for a reason - she's not going to be pining after him if he treats her like crap constantly.

There was some seriousness to the things that she said, certainly, but I think we're meant to see them through Sally's eyes in this episode: they're two fun, mysterious adventurers, snarking on one another, having a good time and getting on one another's nerves a bit too.

Bitter is a bit extreme in one direction, calling it pure banter is extreme in the other IMO.

[ionlylurkhere.livejournal.com]

Heh. When I last rewatched Utopia, I was surprised -- shocked, even -- by the fact that the tone of the infamous "blonde" line came across to me as much more banter than bitter, because I had allowed fandom to convince me it was this moment of vituperative venom-spitting hatred when it really isn't. But so it goes.

Martha did get a very rough deal in the latter half of S3 (I continue to be very, very pleased that there's so much spinoffery for the Ten/Martha team because I can insert it all in between the long-stays-in-unpleasant-conditions which make up most of the time we see on screen after her initial journeys between S&J and TLE, which makes them much more palatable for me), but she kept her poise and her sense of humour throughout, IMO.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's an either/or sort of question. On the one hand, I think that there is a lot of affection for the Doctor in her tone and (more importantly, in this case) her body language throughout the episode, and her end-of-episode bit has a lot of the flavor of the UNIT-era companions to it. On the other hand, he did, in fact, treat her like crap and get her stuck in 1969, and so her being frustrated with him and his antics is perfectly reasonable.

I also don't think her tone in Utopia is entirely without humor, either, although certainly she hasn't lost any of the frustration. She would not have been able to spread his gospel as his prophetess as effectively as she does in LotTL if she was eaten up with the bitter; she has to believe what she's telling everyone. She just also finally decides she's not ready to pay that emotional price anymore.

[tempestsarekind.livejournal.com]

(here from lifeonmartha)

Hmm. I've always seen Martha's relationship with the Doctor in "Blink" as very much of a piece with the way she always behaves toward him; she cares about him, holds him up, but is more than willing to puncture his Time Lordy grandness ("back when we had transport"; "just nod when he stops for breath") when the need arises. Even though she's complaining about being stuck in 1969, she's still bubbly enough to tell Billy that the moon landing was "brilliant" and that she and the Doctor went four times, so I think it's less bitterness than frustration. I also think there's definite warmth there on Martha's part, particularly in that scene.

That said, I've also always thought that it's interesting that we get Martha's complaints in this episode immediately after *not* seeing her complain at all about 1913, so I agree context is definitely a factor. My biggest problem, actually, is that their relationship in "Utopia" and "The Sound of Drums" feels like a reset to their before-"Lazarus" relationship, with the Doctor yelling at her and shutting her out. "Blink," to me, still feels like they're building on the closeness from "Lazarus" and "42."

[ionlylurkhere.livejournal.com]

My biggest problem, actually, is that their relationship in "Utopia" and "The Sound of Drums" feels like a reset to their before-"Lazarus" relationship, with the Doctor yelling at her and shutting her out.

He's very freaked out in Utopia, though, by being beyond the Time Lords' weird future limit, Jack's "wrongness", and then by the whole Master thing. And it's not just Martha who gets the short end of the stick -- there's that bit where Jack has to remind the Doctor that Chantho losing her entire people isn't just an excuse for him to go on about his Gallifrey emo. So I don't see it as a reset of their relationship so much as the Doctor under stress. (In particular, the bit where he realises the Master's back I think carries a large bit of guilt for the Doctor that he's talked about things in such a way that Martha would assume More Time Lords = Yay, and he's taking the fact that he's let her think that out on her.)

[sea_thoughts]

Here from lifeonmartha

I think what she's most frustrated about is working in a shop. Sure, it's a bit better than working as a maid, but not much more mentally stimulating. And London in 1969 would still be hard for a black girl. She wouldn't even be able to work as a nurse, let alone a doctor, because she has none of her papers with her. Actually, now I'm wondering why the Doctor didn't just manufacture her a certificate on the psychic paper. Plot point?

[tempestsarekind.livejournal.com]

True enough, the Doctor isn't in best form in "Utopia" (though one of my favorite bits of that ep is that he still takes time out to reassure Martha about his new hand). And of course, I think that his yelling at Martha pales in comparison to his callousness toward Jack. But he's still doing it in "The Sound of Drums"; when Martha asks about the Master, Ten cuts her off abruptly, as though she isn't affected by his reappearance, and Martha has to get Jack to get the Doctor to finally tell them who he is. (That's the bit that still fails to work for me, after the Doctor had opened up to Martha in "Gridlock.") I get that he's not at his best, but it's frustrating so close to the end of the season, after several episodes in a row where they're hardly together. It's like they never have a chance to get back to where they were before.

[scarfman]

Okay. Well, I feel better then.

[stardust9121.livejournal.com]

Really? I had no idea that the "blonde" line was so infamous in fandom. I personally love it - it's one of my all-time favorite Martha moments!

[stoplookingup.livejournal.com]

On a meta level, I doubt Blink is written with that much intentional character continuity. It seems to me that the banter is written as just banter. But when you're watching it in its place in the series, your brain constructs a character continuity that could easily go to "Wow, is she ever fed up with him." I guess we all choose the interpretation that works best for our own POV. For me, Blink was a refreshing reprieve from the grinding trials Martha was made to endure in the surrounding episodes, so I'm going with banter just because that reading offers a breath of fresh air.