Doctor Who - Season 3 (2007)

Head Writer and Executive Producer: Russel T. Davies

Cast: David Tennant, Freema Agyeman, John Barrowman, John Simm

Season 3 of Doctor Who continues the adventures of David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. In the final episode of the previous season, a tragic turn of events separates the Doctor and Rose before he can admit his love for her. The new season finds the Doctor alone but he quickly takes on a new companion, the medical student Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman). Martha is a  strong and confident character and she decides to travel with the Doctor because she wants to have great adventures, which is what what she gets.

This season features even more excellent stories than Season 2. The first of these is the season's first two-parter, consisting of Daleks in Manhattan and Evolution of the Daleks, in which the Doctor once again confronts his old enemies, the Daleks. This episode is very atmospheric as it takes place in New York at the time of the Great Depression. It presents the Doctor with a dilemma as his confrontation with the Daleks presents him with an opportunity that has never arisen before. The episode also features one of the first performances of the now well-known British actor Andrew Garfield (Never Let Me Go, The Amazing Spiderman) as a young man named Frank. The next 2-part story, which consists of Human Nature and The Family of Blood, is even better. The Doctor and Martha are being chased by a family of alien beings that wishes to consume the Doctor's life force in order to prevent its own death. In order to prevent this the Doctor turns himself human, which forces him to forget who he was, and transforms into a teacher at an independent school in England in 1913. He asks Martha to protect him but she is faced with a problem that she is not prepared for - what should she do if the Doctor falls in love? This story is followed by the standalone episode Blink, which is unanimously considered one of the greatest Doctor Who episodes of all time. It follows the adventures of the intrepid Sally Sparrow (Carrey Mulligan) who seeks to solve the mystery of the Weeping Angels, one of the most dangerous alien species introduced in the series. The Doctor and Martha play a minor but important role in this episode, which focuses on Sally who is an exciting character. The episode also includes one of the greatest dialogue exchanges in Doctor Who:

Kathy Nighingale: What did you come here for anyway?
Sally Sparrow: I love old things. They make me feel sad.
Kathy Nightingale: What's good about sad?
Sally Sparrow: It's happy for deep people.

The show's final story, which takes place in Utopia, The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords, is even more epic and it features an epic struggle between the Doctor and a rogue Time Lord, the Master. In the first episode Martha and the Doctor are recharging the TARDIS in Cardiff and as they leave Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) manages to latch on to the TARDIS and ends up with them billions of years into the future at the end of the universe. The three companions face a bleak future as humanity is struggling to escape to Utopia, where they believe that they will be safe. However, all is not as it seems and the greatest danger to humanity comes not from the carnivorous Futurekind but from someone closer to the Doctor. I don't want to reveal too much but I will mention that John Simms, who was absolutely brilliant as the detective Sam Tyler in Life on Mars, delivers a tremendous performance as the manic Master.

The rest of the Season 3 episodes are all rather good. In The Shakespeare Code the Doctor and Martha meet the famous Bard and they come to face to face with creatures from another world masquerading as witches. The episode plays with history as Martha becomes the inspiration for Shakespeare's Dark Lady. In Gridlock the Doctor is forced to engage in a frantic search for Martha in New New York after she is kidnapped and forced into a car that enters the neverending traffic on the city's highway. In this episode the Doctor also comes face to face with an important character from his past who reveals a great secret to him. In 42 the Doctor and Martha finds themselves on cargo ship hurtling towards the centre of a sun. A member of the crew is taken over by some strange creature that seems bent on destruction. However, there is more to this situation than meets the eye and the Doctor soon makes a startling discovery about the sun. The previous episode, The Lazarus Experiment, features Mark Gatiss as Professor Richard Lazarus who seems to have discovered a way to rejuvenate the human body. However, the Doctor is suspicious of his fellow scientists and soon that discovers that Lazarus has had to pay a terrible price for the return of his youth. Martha's family - her sister, brother and mother - also plays an important role in this episode and the interaction with them shows us that even early on Martha is committed to helping the Doctor. The first episode of the Season, Smith and Jones, is also rather good in introducing Martha and it features an interesting storyline in which the hospital that she works in is transported to the Moon. However, the antagonist in this story is not particularly threatening and the episode does not stand compared to the rest of the standalone stories of the season.

In short, Season 3 of Doctor Who is every bit as good as Season 2. In fact, it features even more exciting moments and build up to the best finale in the series. The Doctor's new companion, Martha Jones, is very likeable and easy to relate to, although it is annoying that she constantly pines after him and seems unwilling to accept the fact that he does not reciprocate her feelings. The return of Captain Jack Harkness is also very welcome but it is John Simm's playful performance as the Master that simply steals the spotlight. I find it difficult to criticise this season and can only recommend that you give it a go so that you can prepare yourselves for Season 4.

Image taken from Amazon.co.uk