I was mentioning to parrot_knight above that it is odd that the show chooses to present the Doctor as a desirable end-point rather than a teacher or mentor who enables you to go on to better things and wondering if Moffat and Davies are both uncomfortable with the way that could be read as a commentary on how one should grow out of Doctor Who itself.
I understand what Davies was trying to do with Martha but I really dislike the parallel the show tries to draw in these early years between the Doctor/Companion relationship and a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship in part because it makes the attempt to portray a "rebound companion" so ugly. I also think it was deeply unfortunate, having decided to have a "rebound companion" that they chose a black actress to play her because the subtext that introduces is even uglier. Martha, as a woman who was more confident in herself and her own abilities before joining the Doctor and who does indeed eventually decide to walk away because although it was fun she has other things to do with her life in her own right, would have been an equally valid and much better story and we could have had that with only a slight shift in emphasis.
Moffat seems to have fallen into this idea of the companion with a secondary life about halfway through the Amy&Rory run and it is a very clever idea. It allows you to have ongoing continuity surrounding the companions off-stage life and build arcs from that (which therefore don't require time-travelling characters who can keep cropping up wherever the Doctor is) and also allows you to suggest that the companion's time with the Doctor takes up a much larger portion of their life than we see on scene implicitly lengthening and deepening the relationship. I think it gives them a lot more flexibility with the companion stories and potential with their reasons for leaving.
I didn't object to the Statue of Liberty nearly so much as the explanation for why the Doctor can't go and get Amy and Rory is about as much of a non-explanation as the show has ever forced on us. Moffat has since elaborated what was meant in interviews to explain it isn't just that the TARDIS can't land in 1930s New York but I still think there are an awful lot of obvious work arounds for the problem.
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I understand what Davies was trying to do with Martha but I really dislike the parallel the show tries to draw in these early years between the Doctor/Companion relationship and a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship in part because it makes the attempt to portray a "rebound companion" so ugly. I also think it was deeply unfortunate, having decided to have a "rebound companion" that they chose a black actress to play her because the subtext that introduces is even uglier. Martha, as a woman who was more confident in herself and her own abilities before joining the Doctor and who does indeed eventually decide to walk away because although it was fun she has other things to do with her life in her own right, would have been an equally valid and much better story and we could have had that with only a slight shift in emphasis.
Moffat seems to have fallen into this idea of the companion with a secondary life about halfway through the Amy&Rory run and it is a very clever idea. It allows you to have ongoing continuity surrounding the companions off-stage life and build arcs from that (which therefore don't require time-travelling characters who can keep cropping up wherever the Doctor is) and also allows you to suggest that the companion's time with the Doctor takes up a much larger portion of their life than we see on scene implicitly lengthening and deepening the relationship. I think it gives them a lot more flexibility with the companion stories and potential with their reasons for leaving.
I didn't object to the Statue of Liberty nearly so much as the explanation for why the Doctor can't go and get Amy and Rory is about as much of a non-explanation as the show has ever forced on us. Moffat has since elaborated what was meant in interviews to explain it isn't just that the TARDIS can't land in 1930s New York but I still think there are an awful lot of obvious work arounds for the problem.