Oh, what to do with Martha Jones?

Don't get me wrong, Freema is lovely of course. You just want to say that don't you, but with it comes stacks of implied disappointment and faint praise, and unfortunately that's lovely sweet Martha Jones for you. Coming after Billie Piper's dysfunctional, emotional, frankly still underrated performance as Rose, Freema's more baggage-free, less complex portrayal of Martha should have come as light relief. Instead it reminded us how far Billie and the New Series had taken the concept of a Doctor Who companion, and how (to be brutal) uninteresting it was to have a lovely but relatively problem-free girl aboard the ship again (it didn't help that Martha's sole personality flaw was a tiresome and unconvincing romantic crush on the Doctor). Flawless people are great, if you happen to be them, but they don't make for interesting telly characters (nor good identification points, as few of us are in fact perfect). So great as she was, it was for the best that feisty, funny Donna took over this year. And now Freema's back!

It certainly looks as though she's going to be better used this time than her unsatisfying stint in "Torchwood", where she turned up for three episodes and was given plot for one, but I fear we still won't find out anything interesting about Dr Jones. It was, of course, the show's duty not to repeat the wonderful animosity we got when Sarah-Jane met Rose in Series 2 - but at the same time, that was a great scene. The one where Martha politely shook hands with Donna won't be recalled with any great fondness at the end of this run of adventures - so frankly, it would have been more entertaining if they'd just had a big fight. Still, we can't blame Helen Raynor for not putting one in. Instead of hair-pulling and fountain-wrestling, it looks like Martha is in for the dreaded 'doubles' plot, and this we can blame her for. Like Sarah Sutton in "Black Orchid", it's perhaps unwise to give the actress with least-depth to her performance the chance of being The Double, and creating a subtly different (or darker) shade of the same character. Regardless of who it was, however, a 'doubles' plot (no doubt inspired by the Sontarans being clones - you see how she got there now?) is such a cliché that it's practically retro. I only hope we don't get a crass scene where the Doctor tells apart Martha from her doppelganger by identifying a missing name badge or a sudden liking for ginger pop.

Elsewhere the rest of the plot was surprisingly functional. Free from the horrendously comic-book/musical trappings of 1930's New York, Raynor mixed in the concepts of UNIT, the Boy Genius Luke Rattigan and the Sontaran plot to "do a Terror of the Autons" with Satnav and it all came over as surprisingly fresh and enjoyable; perhaps not equipped with the emotional punch of last weeks Ood story, but certainly with the added contemporary joy de vivre of "Battlefield" (and yes, that's a compliment). And then there was the "money shot", worth the price of entry alone. That is, after all, what we've been waiting for since 1974. Also look closely. Realise that, in fact, despite what you've always thought, Lynx's mask in "The Time Warrior" was not all THAT, failing as it did to give any free facial movement outside the eyes and mouth. In 2008, General Staal's is, as it should be, better. Oh, and great title for this episode.

I only hope that the plot of the concluding part gifts the lion's share of the action to soaring Donna and her interesting Grandad, and not drippy Martha, now even less visually impressive as she's playing the emotionless card as a clone. She can go jump right back in that vat of green slime.