DW: Smith and Jones, Rose

[usuallyhats]

I was thinking about parallels between the introductions of Martha and Rose...

...and thought of a few. Bullet points, yay!

• What the Doctor initially likes about them: they both think about what they've seen and try and work out what's going on. OK, Martha is right and Rose is wrong, but that's because Martha has more of the facts. "Students" is a pretty good guess; nine times out of ten she would have been right. Martha has more information so her guess is better, but basically they're both doing the same thing, thinking for themselves, asking questions, rather than panicking or expecting someone else to deal with it.
• They both remind the Doctor that he's supposed to care about people: Rose yells at Nine about Mickey - "he's dead, and you just forgot about him. Again!" - and Martha goes back to close the doctor's (small d :-)) eyes. The look that Ten gives her at that point makes me think that he's thinking "I should've thought of that." It's a Doctor-ish thing to do.
• They both focus on what they can actually do themselves. Rose can't defeat the Nestene Consciousness on her own, but she can help Nine get free. Martha can't shut down the magnetic thingy but she can try and save Ten. Again, it's a not panicking thing: they look for helpful things they can do rather than focussing on what they can't.

...and a couple of differences.

• Ten involves Martha a lot more than Nine involved Rose. Nine just wanted to be left alone to get on with things; Ten recognises that yes, help would be nice, gives Martha things to do and trusts that she'll do them.
• Ten tests Martha, whereas Rose is tested by the way the story is set up, if that makes sense. Ten is constantly asking Martha things and giving her challenges, seeing what she knows, how she thinks, what she can do. For Rose, her challenges arise out of the plot (as far as I recall, it's been a while since I've seen it).
• Martha asks for proof of what Ten's saying whereas Rose is more willing to take Nine at his word. She's much more instinctive, trusting him because she feels (correctly) that he's trustworthy, while Martha is more of a scientist, preferring to see things with her own eyes and then draw conclusions.

I really like the way the two companions are set up, similar but not identical, different but not opposed. I think I prefer Martha, but that's because I identify with her more!