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"More madcap, time-traveling fun ""With equal measures of preposterousness and the epic, the new Dr. Who wraps up its 3rd season. David Tennant is back for another go around as the doctor, with a new companion, med student Martha Jones. There's a new season's-long arc involving the mysterious politician Harold Saxon (though old-school fans may have solved the secret from the first mention). Several intriguing plot arcs are developed, and iconic villains return. While there are definite signs of story-recycling, there's enough originality to keep new fans coming back, while older fans will settle into even those re-done episodes like a comfy shoe. The best part of the season, a greater willingness to center stories on supporting characters, developing the original's show great charm of writing stories based on complex guest characters never seen before or intended to reappear. Warning though - while the show keeps the whimsy of prior seasons (and the original series), season 3 is definitely darker than season's past."Smith and Jones" has the Doctor acquire a new Seinfeld complete companion - Martha Jones while hunting (and being hunted by) aliens in a London hospital inconveniently transported to Brothers and Sisters complete dvd the Moon. This is one of those episodes in which the sci-fi is just a convenient backdrop to the Doctor's interactions with his new companion."Shakespeare Code", a sci-fi riff on "Shakespeare in Love" and easily one of the few great outright fantasy stories of the series. A diversion to Elizabethan England reveals a plot by powerful aliens to use some couplets from a new play by Shakespeare to...uh, well, why spoil that?"Gridlock" returns the Doctor to "New New York", last seen in last season's "New Earth". It's a great story based on a conceit that's as funny as it is scary. In short, New Yorkers of the distant future are trapped in an eternal commute. Horrible traffic and a guest shot by "The Face of Boe" highlight this fun romp.A two-part story pits the Doctor against Daleks stranded in depression-era NY. This story could have done with a third episode, as it touches on many great ideas packed into too-little running time."The Lazarus Experiment" and "42" are filler stories of the sort familiar to the series. "Lazarus" has the doctor confront a scientist who subjects himself to revolutionary genetic experiments having unexpected and horrific consequences. It's also a good opportunity for Doc to meet his companion's family, seeing how much fun we had last season with Pete and Jackie. "42" has Doc fighting against time (42 minutes to be about precise) aboard a doomed spaceship, all the while being dogged by apparently possessed members of the crew - basically "Ark in Space" and "Impossible Planet".When is "The Doctor" not himself? When he's a schoolmaster in a proper English school in 1913. He's on the run from the malevolent "Family of Blood", an alien clan desperately in need of his Timelord energies. Why the Doctor runs rather than battles these aliens is revealed in a darkly funny twist ending, one that highlights how adult the show has become. More interesting is the fact that John Smith has only the barest memories of being the Doctor, and must choose between these two possible existences.Remember "Love and Monsters" from last season? Howzabout "random box set of The Apprentice Shoes" from "Torchwood"? Nobody else did, or maybe Tennant & Agyeman just had too-tight filming schedules - so we get "Blink", this great story of killer statues told entirely from the point of non-recurring characters. The Doctor has been stranded in 1969 and has sent messages across time to the one person who can help him. The enemies? Statues that are "quantum locked". They are only frozen when being looked at. Otherwise, they are super fast. Can you look without blinking?A three-ep arc rounds out the season, reuniting Doc with one of his greatest enemies, who turns out to be (among other things) Harold Saxon, GB's insane new PM. From the end of the universe to present-day London (and beyond), the Doctor will pursue then battle the enemy, at times suffering embarrassing reversals. There are revelations both dispiriting and inspiring as the Doctor reunites with Captain Harkness (John Barrowman) of Torchwood, and realizes the import of his last message from "The Face of Boe".This was a great season, with highpoints easily compensating for slack moments. The series may sometimes disappoint but manages to bring you back. As Martha Jones, Freema Agyeman is more than just another incarnation of Rose Tyler, and she manages to find a new chemistry with David Tennant. By any measure,"" a great season. """""
"Bumpy Third Season ""The BBC kick-started its former flagship series, "Doctor Who," in 2005 and enjoyed two tremendous initial seasons. But sooner or later, every TV series hits stones in the road, and unfortunately, the third time turned out not such a charm for head writer/ executive producer, Russell T Davies.Part of the first two seasons' success was the focus on the companion as the viewers' primary route into the Doctor's bizarre world. For two seasons, Billie Piper's Rose Tyler provided that and more: a confident, sympathetic companion to the ancient time-traveler, an ordinary young human with whom the audience could identify. But Piper (wisely) quit after two seasons, and her departure left a huge gap in the series, as Rose took much of the supporting cast with her to an alternate universe. The show also owed its success to much terrific writing, directing, and acting. By season three, though, Davies and his team were also producing a spin-off series, "Torchwood," stretching thin the staff's creative energy. In Who's third season, this strain showed most obviously with its new companion, medical student Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman). Unlike Rose, where a great deal of care and attention was put into writing the character, Martha seems to have been created on the fly, cast in haste, and then--after a terrific debut in the season opener, 'Smith and Jones'--cut adrift by the writing staff. The character's development is uneven, her motivations inconsistent, and although she comes into her own admirably by the end of the season, that development often feels contrived rather than organic.This is all a pity, because the character has a lot of potential, but the scripts rarely connect the dots. Martha's motivations--for pursuing a career in medicine, for traveling with the Doctor, for continuing to stay with him when he treats her coldly--are never explicit. Instead, the writers fall The Shield dvd box set 1-7 back on a hackneyed schoolgirl crush, undercutting the character's much-touted intelligence. Martha has a large and dysfunctional family (mostly there, ultimately, as a weapon for the season's Big Bad to use against the Doctor), but again, it's never stated outright that Martha takes off with the Doctor to escape them. Agyeman is an immanently likeable performer: warm, expressive, and funny, but she's just not skilled or experienced enough to rise above this kind of shoddy writing. She has numerous good scenes scattered over the season, but frustratingly, they add up to less than a cohesive whole.The episodes themselves are a spotty batch: many lack emotional depth ('The Shakespeare Code'), feel rushed ('42'), recycled ('Gridlock'), or are just disjointed (the Dalek two-parter). The three-part season finale ('Utopia,' 'Sound of Drums,' 'Last of the Time Lords') is terrific in some places (thanks in large part to a show-stopping guest performance by John Simm) but clumsy in many others, and the efforts to conceal the Master's rebirth were painfully coy. Jack Harkness has a welcome return, and some unanswered questions about the character are resolved at last, but otherwise, actor John Barrowman spends most of these stories propping up scenery. 'Time Lords' in particular is a wincingly awful mess, capped by the worst of all possible storytelling devices, the cosmic reset button.A handful of strong episodes makes the season worthwhile. The 2006 Christmas special, 'The Runaway Bride,' is a lot of fun, allowing the Doctor some touching (but not overwrought) moments to grieve the loss of Rose; Catherine Tate's turn as the ultimate Bridezilla is just brilliant; and viewers get a disturbing look at what the Doctor's capable of when his ire is roused. 'The Lazarus Experiment' is likewise terrific, a classic monster story with good work from the whole cast and some genuine emotional resonance. But the standout stories are the two-part 'Human Nature'/ 'Family of Blood,' a historical piece set at a pre-World War I boarding school, and 'Blink,' a mind-bending horror story. These episodes are superbly written, boasting stellar performances from the guest and main casts, thematic depth, and genuinely creepy aliens. HN/FoB is a bona-fide standout, among the best stories in the revived series, a poignant meditation on the nature of love and identity that will haunt viewers long after the credits roll.Despite the myriad writing problems, the season holds together surprisingly well, thanks in large part to the considerable talents of David Tennant. Tennant needed less than one season Big Love complete seasons 3 to establish himself as perhaps the most iconic Doctor in the history of the series--eclipsing even perennial favorite Tom Baker--and in the third season, he continues to take viewers along on the character's epic emotional journey. Tennant has any number of powerful moments, even in the weakest episodes: he knows exactly when to be funny, angry, thoughtful, curious, or lovelorn. He achieves a perfect balance between over-the-top and understated; he plays beautifully off his fellow cast members (providing needed ballast for newcomer Agyeman); he makes the character at once human (accessible) and alien (remote); he's by turns fallible, generous, heroic, petty, and exuberant. Tennant breathes life and meaning into even the most tepid dialogue, and his love for the character and the series comes across in everything he does. He deserves particular accolades for his performance in 'Human Nature'/ 'Family of Blood,' where his work as the dual Doctor/ John Smith character is nothing short of astonishing.The DVD extras will be of great interest to fans (especially the outtakes and deleted scenes), and Tennant's video diaries provide a fun look into the leading man's workday (the shot of him disco dancing around the set in old man prosthetics should not be missed). The packaging of the boxed set and the DVD booklet are beautiful, making it even more of a shame that the episodes themselves aren't stronger. Overall, the set is well-worth the money, especially for ################ fans of the show. The 2007 Christmas special, 'Voyage of the Damned' established stronger footing for the series,"" and one can only hope the fourth season is more memorable than the third. """""
"Three glorious episodes, and many more that are great. ""I don't have the DVDs (hope they're under the Christmas Tree) but watching the series over the waning summer months was one of the most pleasurable TV-watching experiences I have ever had. My children and I thrilled to some amazing episodes, and even the weaker episodes are better than most television being broadcast today. In fact, the only disappointment is that the season had to end, and that it will be so long until season 4 starts up again. Martha Jones was a wonderful companion; just the antidote needed after Rose departed in last season's tearful finale. She's smart and funny, a doctor (in a nice bit of symmetry) and in love with the Doctor. Unrequited though it may be, through her eyes we see him as a man worth spending time with, for all he ignores her crush. It also give us a chance to say goodbye to Rose as the Doctor comes to grip with his loss.The superlative episodes mentioned by so many (Blink, Human Nature, The Sound of Drums) are not to be missed. In the two week period I saw Human Nature and Blink, I believe I witnessed two of television's finest hours. The three-part season finale was exceptional, though the third episode was weaker than the second, which was in turn weaker than the second, for all that I love the sublime John Simm. However,"" the season as a whole was wonderful. Can't wait for more from the creative and inventive cast and crew. """""
"DR WHO THIRD SERIES ""<a href=""""http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000UVV2GA"""">Doctor Who - The Complete Third Series</a>The family is hooked. We love it. We are Martha fans. "" http://www.amazon.com/review/R32B6Z3KHUF8S1,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"
"A quick revisit to what made the first season so special. ""Wow, in a word was how I felt watching the first episode of the new Doctor Who's 3rd season. Smith &amp; Jones that is (and not that the Runaway Bride wasn't great, as it was) which was the first pairing of Tennant and his new companion Martha Jones, played superbly by Freema Agyeman. The breakneck speed that threw me for a loop in Season One's opener Rose was back. Again, it offered a highly enjoyable and tightly scripted lead-in, to where the Doctor has to explain and open the eyes of a new Earth companion, to his many dimensions of both time and space.If you read my review of Season 2, I explained how I felt that with Series 1, there was simply nothing better on TV at that time, either a sci-fi or other genre show, but during Series 2, while still a The Simpsons seasons one dvd very good watch and excellent season of Who, I couldn't safely say there was nothing better on televison. Well, now I am back to my original thought, that with Series 3, there isn't anything I'd rather be watching on television, and nothing more entertaining. I couldn't help but quickly make a comparison of Martha Jones to Mary Tamm's Romana in the original Who series, as someone of a high intellect and someone constantly keeping up to the Doctor in terms of wit, composure, and sophistication. While even though she is just a medical student, and not yet a Doctor when she's swept up into the Tardis, she's as sharp as a surgeon's blade in playing the part of a new Who companion. There were quite the shoes to fill with Rose's departure, and Freema has just about (but not fully) made me forget about Rose. Speaking of Rose, she is recollected in this series, through the Doctor's alouds, and it really sets the tone for a new Doctor-Companion relationship that we may have never seen before. Martha shares a kiss already with the Doc in the first episode, and is lying in bed with him in the second! Oh, Martha! Anyway, with the Daleks, the Master, and the Face of Boe, the surprises just keep coming in this season. It really rivals the first in terms of the best of the new Doctor Who, and after seeing all 3, unfortunately makes season 2 seem all the more weaker than 1 and 3. Again, I revert to my opinion that it's the writing that was at fault in series 2, and the scripts, dialogue, and character interaction weren't quite as enjoyable as what came before, and what has obviously come now. Some call 2 the sophomore slump, or as one Amazon.co.uk reveiwer put it, that &quot;second album&quot;, where there was just something a little less in keeping it from receiving the gem status that I give 1 &amp; 3. This is a must have season of Who. It also sees David Tennant really settling into his role and upping his status as one of the best of the Doctors. Amazingly, the weakest episodes in the series (if you can call any weak, as they are all quite entertaining) are the Daleks two parter and the series finale. I was a little sad to see that Martha is only returning for Series 4 in a more limited role, and that Catherine Tate was set to become a companion again (from the Runaway Bride Xmas episode). I liked Tate a lot in that one show, but I am not sure I want her as a continued regular, as she sort of gets on your nerves. We'll just have to wait and see, but Martha being relegated to a lesser role is definitely a minus in my opinion.As of this writing, audio commentaries, deleted scenes, video diaries,"" and the Doctor Who Confidential episodes are on slate as box set extras. """""