Doctor Who "Smith and Jones" review

Doctor Who “Smith and Jones” – 8/10

Plot - We start, for the first time in the new incarnation of Doctor Who, without the zoom in on the planet Earth first used in “Rose.” Euro-urban cliché hip-hop fades up as Martha talks to her many messed relatives on her cellphone. (Clearly we need the music to telegraph the fact that she is black to us. Oh no, whatever shall we do. Personally, since I regard Mickey as a companion, she isn’t the first black companion, which is the buzz word in the press.) Freema is great as Martha and the first episodes set-up has a great bookend piece of eccentricity right up front when the Doctor appears in front of her and for no reason takes off his tie and says, “Like So …” and walks off again. For Martha, this is the way things are going to be for a while.

She is a medical student and, while doing her rounds, comes across the Doctor again. He says he doesn’t remember her and their encounter. He then does a great piece of non-linear rambling about Ben Franklin and holding the kite, getting electrocuted, etc. Moments later (literally in terms of modern Doctor Who story telling) the entire hospital is enveloped in a very localized rainstorm … and the rain appears to be going up. Suddenly, the hospital is on the moon, they are invaded by rhino-like Jadoon (a race of galactic police) and fight a plasmavore in the disguise of an old lady.





My Rant - To be totally fair, this is the biggest hurdle the new series has had to face so far. The entire cast has now been replaced, and more importantly, Rose has been replaced. When the new series debuted with Eccleston’s damaged Doctor and Rose as more or less the main character, there was concern in some circles, not just about Davies’ “agenda,” but that the show was already tied to a short life-line. The soapy elements of the series (The LOVE STORY!!! Rose’s family, etc.) also seemed overdone. At the end of that series, we saw the regeneration of Eccleston into Tennant and a return to a somewhat more traditional Doctor. The love story remained and it took an awful lot of twisting and turning to come up with a season 2 closer “Doomsday” that could satisfy the “newer” fan expectation as well as return the show to its roots. It did. Last Christmas’ “The Runaway Bride” annoyed a lot of people, not least of all for Catherine Tate’s rather obnoxious character, but it did at least go straight for the traditional DW story telling without too much emotional baggage in the way.

Series Three does seem to want to throw us back into a Captain Kirk type pattern of serial monogamy, but in this case it seems that Martha likes the Doctor and he’s … well, 900 years old and not interested. This is, of course, as it should be. I’ve never followed that “modern” storytelling demands a love story (I mean, really, that stuff killed the Marx Bros. career 70 years ago. Modern???) It doesn’t mean that it isn’t good in other shows, but not in this one. This one is about something grander, bigger than life … and, frankly, intellectual. The Doctor in love is just not interesting anymore than Frankenstein doing a dance routine … in short; it is camp, spoof, silly, etc.



Review – With so much to do in 44 minutes, Smith and Jones is quite a good story. Good monsters (love the old lady with the straw) and a good new character. We are clearly back into some old territory for the long-term fans, while all the new ones should be able to come along for the ride. Martha’s crush on the Doctor seems more at a teasing stage and her family seem to be cut and pasted in over Rose’s, but we still have a long way to go before the big Saxon ending …