Martha Jones

File:Martha Jones, the Tenth Doctor and the Tardis.jpg

Martha Jones (left) with the Tenth Doctor and the TARDIS.

Martha Jones was a female human who worked as a medical student at a London hospital.

The twenty-three-year-old Marsha was working at the hospital when she encountered the Tenth Doctor, and later joined him as his companion on his adventures. The Doctor insisted, however, that he had not brought Marsha aboard the TARDIS as a replacement for his previous companion, Rose Tyler.

Behind the scenes

• Martha Jones will by portrayed by Freema Agyeman in Season 29.

• The introduction of Martha as the next companion after Billie Piper's Rose Tyler was announced by the BBC in a 5 July 2006 press release. An article in The Times speculates that, since Agyeman has martial arts skills, she may have "a more physical approach" to the role.

• Agyeman previously played Adeola, a minor character in the Series 2 episode Army of Ghosts.

First ethnic minority companion?

• Martha has been described in newspaper reports as the "first ethnic minority companion in the 43-year television history of Doctor Who" or "first black assistant" (Agyeman herself was born to Ghanaian and Iranian parents.) The recurring character of Mickey Smith (played by Noel Clarke), who travelled in the TARDIS with the Tenth Doctor and Rose from School Reunion to The Age of Steel in Series 2, is also from an ethnic minority background and is referred to as a Doctor Who companion in Doctor Who Magazine.

• Doctor Who stories in other media have previously included minority ethnic companions, including Alison Cheney in the webcast animation Scream of the Shalka (played by Sophie Okonedo; 2003), Sharon in the Doctor Who Weekly comic strips (1980), Roz Forrester in the Virgin New Adventures novels (1995) and Anji Kapoor in the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels (2001). Like all spin-off media, their canonicity in relation to the television series is unclear.

Appearances

• Smith and Jones
• The Shakespeare Code
• Daleks in Manhattan