Doctor Who – “Smith and Jones”

Me like.

I haven’t got long here, but in a nutshell Martha Jones worked a hell of a lot better in person than I was expecting from the photos (in which, somehow, I’d decided that she failed to exude much charm.) If we never see any member of her horribly annoying family again it will be too soon, but I liked the sense of the Doctor sizing her up, liked her scepticism, and generally thought she was a good fit for the show. They even worked in an explanation for her identical twin cousin from Canary Wharf.

The plot was nothing special but miraculously managed to feel like something we haven’t seen before on the show. The Judoon may look like Sontarans with indifferent animatronic Rhino-heads but their “interstellar cop” angle was a little bit different from the usual random invasion of the week, and suited the story. The effects were lovely and I particularly enjoyed the Hospital on the Moon, both as an image and in the various reactions it evoked.

Nothing stood out as annoying or overly comedic (unlike the S2 opener which I found smug, glib and irritating) and even the typically thundering music wasn’t too out of place.

I think I would categorise this as an unspectacular mid-range episode that did what it needed to with pleasant dollops of vim and vigour. The plot wasn’t too clever at all, really, but since this was effectively a Martha Jones pilot episode it simply needed to be fast-paced but not too cluttered and let the two lead characters shine. It managed that well.