As we begin Season Three, we're introduced to Martha (Freema Agyeman), a normal young woman who makes lots of phone calls. I hope she has a good plan with lots of minutes. Or do cell phone plans work that way in England? I have no idea. Then she runs into the Doctor who mysteriously shows her his tie. And then she runs into a guy without a face, which on this show is never good.
Our new friend Martha is apparently a med student. Or an intern. Something like that. I'm not even sure how all that works in the US, much less in the UK. Anyway, so the Doctor is the Doctor, and Martha is almost a Doctor. Heh. Lots of guys without faces are runing around the hospital. Oh, and the doctor is in the hospital, too, complaining of abdominal pains. Martha's a pretty sharp student--she notices our dear Doctor has two hearts. Also there's a lot of static electricity in this hospital. I hope it doesn't short out any monitoring devices or accidentally defib somebody. And there's a thunderstorm right on top of the hospital and nowhere else. Oh, and the rain is going up instead of down. Dude, that's weird. And then there's an earthquake. The entire hospital is transported to the moon. This could be a problem. I'm not sure my insurance would cover that, though, again, not sure how these things work in the UK.
Everybody in the hospital starts to scream and wail. The Doctor clues in that Martha is fairly sharp, and recruits her for help. Martha lost a cousin in the Cybermen fiasco of last season. I like that they maintain that kind of continuity in this show, rather than having all the humans unaware of what's going on in the Doctor's world. The hospital is, inside a force field that's holding the air in. Of course, this means they have a limited supply. The hospital has been abducted by the guys in the shiny suits and motorcycle helmets, and one of the old lady patients is after the blood of one of the hospital administrators. She even has a straw. Eww.
The aliens enter the hospital. They're like big rhinos in black leather. Kind of disturbing, frankly. They run around "cataloging" everybody by drawing black X's on their hands. I guess that's so they can get back into the hospital later if they leave. They also kill one of the patients when he attacks one of them. So not cool.
The Doctor tries to work out what's going on, whilst making his own hair messier and messier. Seriously, it's like its own character this episode. Martha walks in on Old Lady Ms. Finnegan having her sip o' blood. Pursuit ensues. They kill one of the aliens with an X-ray machine. The Doctor dances around like a dork to get the radiation out of his body. The Doctor's sonic screwdriver gets screwed up. He's sad. Martha tells him about Ms. Finnegan snacking on the hospital administrator. The rhino people--Jidoon--are looking for someone who looks human but isn't. The Doctor figures it's Ms. Finnegan, who's a plasmavore, assimilating blood so she can pass as human. They catalog the Doctor as non human.
As the Jidoon descend again, the Doctor smooches Martha, then pursues Ms Finnegan. His kiss residue makes her register as not-quite human, which distracts the Jidoon while they scan her. The Doctor uses the word Ginormous. Heh. Ms. Finnegan is rigging the MRI machine to kill off everybody on the moon and the moonside of the Earth. They never do that on House. The Doctor scams Ms. Finnegan into assimilating his blood. She uses a bendy straw. This is hysterical. The Doctor drops dead. Supposedly.
Of course now Ms. Finnegan scans as non-human. Ms. Finnegan is totally busted. She starts the MRI explosion, but the Jidoon shoot her with their big rhino ray guns. The Jidoon decide to evacuate without bothering to fix the MRI or take care of the hospital's lack of air. Martha administers CPR on the Doctor, and remembers to do compressions on both his hearts. He revives. The Doctor manages to shut down the MRI, even without his sonic screwdriver. As the Jidoon depart, they reverse the transportation of the hospital, and it's returned to Earth. The Doctor departs.
Martha's family party goes awry, largely due to her dad's slutty girlfriend. The Doctor reappears and makes come-hither eyes at Martha. She meets up with him and takes him up on his offer to travel with him.
This was a very strong and completely fun introduction to the third season. The outside-looiking-in perspective served very well for the introduction of a new companion, and Martha is a great addition to the cast. I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of this season.
