Ranking Doctor Who’s modern day companions
By Lacy Baugher
Martha Jones
Martha Jones is one of those companions who feels as though she might have been more successful in another era of Doctor Who. Don’t get me wrong, as a character Martha is great – smart, successful, brave and resourceful. She’s honestly incredible. But she so rarely gets her due, either during her time on the series or from the fandom itself afterward, and that’s both surprising and depressing. Especially because she deserves to be fairly high up on this list in her own right. (Justice for Martha!)
It’s nothing but poor luck that had her come on to the TARDIS just as Billie Piper’s megapopular Rose Tyler exited. The Tenth Doctor spent most of the season moping about, depressed over the fact that Rose was lost to a parallel reality, and Martha’s unrequited crush on the Doctor didn’t help matters. Instead of watching them build a real friendship through space and time, instead we saw Martha pine over a man who was definitely still hung up on his ex. With the benefit of over a decade of hindsight now, the show probably could have used a companion like Donna Noble immediately post-Rose, someone brash who might shake the Doctor out of his doldrums.
Instead, Martha largely suffered in silence, doomed to romantically long for the Doctor while he ignored her at best or was weirdly rude or just plain insensitive to her at worst. Which is a shame because Martha was brilliant in every sense of the word, and even managed to save the world all by her lonesome after Harold Saxon took over. Her decision to walk away from the TARDIS led to great things for her future, as she became a doctor and a skilled alien fighter in her own right, working with both UNIT and Torchwood to protect the Earth from danger.
Best episode: Season 3’s “The Last of the Time Lords.” Martha literally walked the earth alone for a year to save humanity and rescue Ten from Saxon’s clutches. Your fave could literally never.