Trainee
doctor Martha Jones thinks this is just another ordinary
day at the hospital, that is until the Judoon invade and
teleport the building to the surface of the moon. Searching
for a fugitive from the law, the intergalactic police force
start scanning the patients for non-human DNA. This puts
one of Martha’s patients into action but she cannot
understand why Mr. John Smith keeps telling her that he
is the Doctor and while he might not exactly be from Earth
it isn’t him that the Judoon are looking for.
With
the lovely Billie Piper leaving at the end of the last season
and Catherine Tate’s
Donna not wanting to join him on another adventure,
the Doctor is looking for a new travelling companion and
he might just have found her.
Martha
Jones is the latest human to enter the TARDIS, but she has
some very big shoes to fill. The good news is that Freema
Agyeman makes a real effort to make them fit. Having appeared
in last season’s explosive double episode finale in
which she met a grizzly end at the hands of the Cybermen
(the other role getting explained away here really well),
Freema Agyeman returns to the Whovian universe and gains
herself a much bigger role, one that will make her a superstar.
Martha
is very different than Rose. Coming from a successful family
and training to become a doctor, this educated beautiful
woman is a different kind of foil to the current Doctor’s
persona. Where Rose made the Doctor more human by pointing
out the right and wrong and bringing him back from the brink
after his war with the Daleks, Martha challenges him intellectually,
asking scientific questions about the wonders he presents
to her.
Of course,
Freema Agyeman is just as beautiful as Billie Piper, which
is probably why the chemistry between Martha and the Doctor
is evident even in this very first episode.
As they
did with Billie Piper’s first episode, Russell T.
Davies and his creative team tell the story from the point
of view of the new assistant. ‘Smith and Jones’
sees trainee doctor Martha Jones have a day that will change
her life forever.
Along
with an invasion by rhinoceros-like creatures called the
Judoon and a life-sucking shape-shifter determined to drink
the essence of every intelligent human in the hospital,
she has to cope with a patient she knows as John Smith,
who keeps referring to himself as the Doctor.
The
show gives Freema Agyeman the chance to show what she can
do and that she can hold her own against David Tennant’s
brilliant Doctor. We are also introduced briefly to Martha’s
family, as Martha and her sister try and get their divorced
parents together for a party.
‘Smith
and Jones’ does a good job of introducing Martha Jones
to the Doctor Who Universe. Ann Reid’s shape-shifting
vampire-esque (okay -- Whovian term "plasmavore")
Florence isn’t really much of a villain, but the Judoon
make their presence known and hopefully will show up again.
The adventure is just starting for Freema Agyeman and she
is going on one hell of a ride.
