Martha vs Rose vs Donna

[Barney]

I have a few more thoughts on this burning issue, prompted by Rose's reappearance in the last episode.
Whilst I was watching I noticed Billie Piper seemed to deliver a lot of her lines in a curiously strangled way, as if she was speaking through a clenched jaw. I watched a few series 2 episodes and noticed she was just the same then, but I hadn't really noticed it before for some reason.
I think she is a very good "face actor" in that her face is very expressive (and very attractive of course) and she can communicate emotion and the undercurrents of what she is thinking with that marvellous instrument.
However her delivery lags a bit behind. In "School Reunion" when she was giggling about the Doctor with Sarah Jane all I could think was how fake is that laughter?
Maybe it's the director's fault for not getting a take where he actually elicited a genuine laugh, or created the right mood of merriment before they shot the scene.

 

[Brian G Turner]

We're five episodes into Season 3 (series 27) at the moment - and the kids really don't like Martha.

Their big complaint is that she does nothing, except pine about the Doctor and how much she fancies him. Whenever she meets anyone else, all she does is talk about is how much she fancies the Doctor. She's a one-dimensional character at the moment with no real drive or ideas of her own.

And she also keeps forgetting that she's actually a doctor herself. We just watched the Daleks in Manhattan two-parter - when she discovers the Doctor unconscious at the top of the Empire State Building she just kneels by him, without feeling for a pulse or anything. When Lazlo collapses, she just stands by and ignores him. The kids shouted "But you're a doctor! Do something!" Alas, she didn't.

Maybe she's going to get better, but at the moment she's hampered by weak directing and poor character development. I daresay she's also got a limited emotional range by comparison to Billie Piper, who was/is a fantastic actress.

 

[AlexH]

I don't remember much about Martha. My favourite companion (of the modern series') was probably Donna. I thought I was going to hate her, as I wasn't a fan of anything I'd seen Catherine Tate do before, but she won me over.

Clara was good too, and I liked Rose. I sort of liked Amy Pond, but she was a bit too moany I think, though with Rory, I enjoyed having the two along for the ride.