Martha Jones

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Doctor Who character <tr> <td align="center" colspan="2">Image:Marthajones.jpg</td> </tr>
Martha Jones <tr> <th>Affiliated with</th> <td>Tenth Doctor</td> </tr><tr> <th>First appearance</th> <td>Smith and Jones</td> </tr><tr> <th>Portrayed by</th> <td>Freema Agyeman</td> </tr>

Martha Jones is a fictional character to be played by Freema Agyeman in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. She will be the third companion of the Tenth Doctor (after Rose Tyler and Mickey Smith) and will make her debut in Series 3, to be broadcast in the UK in spring 2007.

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.<ref>"Freema Agyeman confirmed as new companion to Doctor Who", BBC, 2006-07-05. Retrieved on 2006-07-05.</ref><ref>"Doctor's next assistant is named", BBC News, 2006-07-05. Retrieved on 2006-07-05.</ref> The character is a 23-year-old medical student.<ref>Who's new. bbc.co.uk (2006-08-10). Retrieved on 2006-08-10..</ref> <ref name="DWM373">Cook, Benjamin (2006-09-13 cover date). "BRAVE NEW WORLDS". Doctor Who Magazine (373): 28–35.</ref> Like Rose, Martha will have family members who are seen in the programme: Adjoa Andoh has been cast as her mother, Francine,<ref name ="MEN">"?", Manchester Evening News, 2006-08-31.</ref> with Trevor Laird as her father Clive, Gugu Mbatha-Raw as her sister Tish and Reggie Yates as her brother, Leo.<ref>Meet the Joneses. bbc.co.uk (2006-09-03). Retrieved on 2006-09-03.</ref> She will not have an ex-boyfriend, but writer Russell T. Davies notes that she will not be a lesbian, as had been rumoured in some quarters. <ref name="DWM373" /> No further details are available about Martha's character or how she meets the Doctor, save that she will not be appearing in the 2006 Christmas special. An article in The Times speculates that, since Agyeman has martial arts skills, she may have "a more physical approach" to the role.<ref name="times">Adam Sherwin. "Sidekick whose time has come", The Times, 2006-07-05. Retrieved on 2006-07-05.</ref>

Agyeman previously played Adeola, a minor character who was killed in the Series 2 episode Army of Ghosts. The resemblance between the characters may have an on-screen explanation, according to Agyeman.<ref name="DWM372"> (16 August 2006 cover date) "It's more than I ever dreamed". Doctor Who Magazine (372): 10.</ref> Davies claimed in a Newsround interview that the resemblance will be subtly touched on.<ref>Davies, Russell T. Interview with Lizo Mzimba. "Exclusive Q&A: The brains behind Dr Who (Q&A)." CBBC Newsround. 2006-09-12.

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[edit] 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"<ref name="times" /> or "first black assistant" <ref>Richard Simpson. "Doctor Who gets first black assistant", Daily Mail, 2006-07-05. Retrieved on 2006-07-05.</ref> (Agyeman herself was born to Ghanaian and Iranian parents.) However, 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.<ref>Cook, Benjamin (29 March 2006 cover date). "The Urban Spaceman". Doctor Who Magazine (367): 13–21.</ref>

Doctor Who stories in other media have previously included ethnic minority 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.

Additionally, the Chinese-American character Chang Lee in the 1996 Doctor Who television movie is occasionally treated as a companion. However, this does not reflect the generally understood usage of the term.