Doctor Who/Torchwood Essays that I Want to Write:

[butterfly]

a. On the terrible leadership abilities of Captain Jack Harkness and how things are better all-around when he's a follower, not the leader.

b. On Doctor/Rose and the Doctor and the Master, and similarities in their emotional impact on the Doctor.

c. Daleks and the Doctor and all the comparisons between them existing in the series, both explicit and implied.

d. On the subject of the Lonely God and its narrative purpose.

e. A full-out exploration of all of the steps that went into making Doctor/Rose work as a romance (short answer: time, chemistry, writing).

f. Regarding the evolution of Rose's clothing choices and what they mean (this may or may not dip into other characters).

g. On how Gwen and Ianto don't hate each other even the slightest bit and why they don't.

h. On the differences in how the Doctor treats each of his companions and why he does (may bring in Old School comparisons).

Comments

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

On Doctor/Rose and the Doctor and the Master, and similarities in their emotional impact on the Doctor.

Please write this one! :)

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I kept noticing how I would pair up their scenes in vids and then I started thinking about how the whole 'Rose is special' thing totally applies to the way he approaches the Master, too. And about how they really did need to have the Master appear in a series that didn't have Rose, because of the emotional overlap that would occur if they were in the same series.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Yes! I keep thinking how cool it would've been to see Rose and the Master interact, but then I can't really see how it would work in canon, because they both fulfill similar functions to the Doctor. They're central to him emotionally, though in very different ways. I honestly don't know what he'd do if he had to choose between them, which one to prioritize. He's so obsessively needy about both.

And usually the Doctor's big emotional arc is connected to the companion, but in S3 it was connected to the Master. (Martha's emotional arc was related to the Doctor, but the Doctor's really wasn't that connected to Martha). It wouldn't have worked as well if Rose had been there the whole time--the fact that the Doctor was so emotionally disconnected from everyone else made his desperate need for the Master even more intense and powerful.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

*nods*

I think of the Master and Rose as a bit like matter and anti-matter... if they actually came into contact, the universe might well implode.

It wouldn't have worked as well if Rose had been there the whole time--the fact that the Doctor was so emotionally disconnected from everyone else made his desperate need for the Master even more intense and powerful.

Exactly. They needed Rose to be gone to tell the Master's story because having her there would have distracted the Doctor from the Master and they needed the Master in S3 to show how deeply the Doctor was still capable of feeling about someone without Rose there.