Doctor Who: School Reunion (Tenth Doctor)

[butterfly]

So, I'm completely a new school-type fan of Doctor Who. Heard of the show through Russell Davies' Queer as Folk, never saw an episode until the ninth doctor series started over here in the States. And I fell completely in love and went ahead and got myself caught up with the UKers with regards to the new series.

But I'm just as much in love with Rose as I am the Doctor (maybe a little more).

I was intensely worried for Rose before I'd watched this episode. I was worried that she'd get her heart broken (and she still might). Because I'd read so many posts about how she needed to be 'put in her place' (god, that expression makes me shudder, always has), how she needed to see that she wasn't special at all.

She's not entirely unique, maybe, but she is special. The Doctor wouldn't have asked her along (twice!) if he didn't think that. Clearly, I agree with him. She's very brave and incredibly loyal. She's the companion who got sent home and refused to stay. She's curious and kind and eager to see new horizons. What the hell about that is so useless? What the hell about that deserves a smacking-down?

Clearly, I've gotten my emotions mixed-up in Rose. Inevitable. She reminds me of Buffy and Xander, my two best humans from Buffy. She's got insecuries and she was worried that her life was going nowhere. And now she has a chance to make her life matter. She can save the world, save the universe. She's quite right in Parting of the Ways -- it is a better life.

In a move characteristic of Buffy (oh, it explained so many things when I heard that RTD was a big fan), her great flaws are tied to her great strengths, and her flaws are visible, in micro form, from the moment we meet her.

Her loyalty and bravery can lead her into doing dangerously stupid things -- and because she isn't the Doctor, she doesn't know what kind of changes are safe to make (Prime example -- Father's Day). Her choice to want to live a better life leads her to have (in Jackie's opinion in Rose) the tendency to adopt 'airs and graces'. She's only twenty, so she's prone to acting young and thinking that she's being mature.

But she's learning. Got another lesson in this episode. She wasn't the first pretty woman that the Doctor traveled with, and she's not the first person who fell in love with him.

And yes, of course it's a shock for her. How could it be otherwise, given how the Doctor has acted over her? I could save the world but lose you. She's so young and intensity of feeling means forever to her. If he loves her so much now, how could he have loved anyone like that before? It's a false dilemma, because love doesn't have those kinds of barriers attached, but it's a very common way to think. Especially since she's a romantic twenty-year old girl, one who has wrapped up so much of her life in this older man that there's nothing left for her in her old life.

And her unfinished conversation with the Doctor made me so happy. He was so very intense about her and his feelings. Lovely. He looked on the edge of tears, near the end. Yes, he loves her.

I liked Sarah Jane quite a bit more here than I did in the snippets of old school Doctor Who that I've watched. Amusingly enough, I didn't like her because she felt immature. Sounds funny, considering that I don't hold this against Rose, but there are types of immaturity, and I hated her 'bluff' about going home. Because she was doing it on purpose, I suppose, whereas Rose just does silly things like that subconsciously -- Rose doesn't try to manipulate the Doctor, she's just young and confused. Intention matters quite a bit to me.

Loved that Mickey's along for now -- after the burst of emotion between Rose and the Doctor on that street, they need a buffer.

I can already foresee many, many tears on my part when Rose leaves (hopefully far in the future!). I'm very attached to her.