I've said this many times, but I feel that Nine and Rose act as a brake to each other's worst impulses ("Dalek," "Father's Day"), while Ten and Rose exacerbate each other's worst impulses.
@@looseleafellie i;m reminded of something Russel said about 10. His accent is because he imprinted on Rose. which makes me think, what else did this new guy imprinted on? and you can see that with their relationship and by the time we get to Donna, Who i think ground Ten in a way he could never be grounded with Martha (justice for Martha) or Rose. Kind of like 11 and Amy. this is a really well constructed video and made me think of their relationship in a very different way, thank you! they really do bring the worst out of each other.
They absolutely bring out the worst in each other, but damn if it isn't fun to watch sometimes. Sometimes I just watch the beginning of The Idiot's Lantern or The Impossible Planet, just for their own sakes.
@@OneShot-nu6nj Ten's accent in this is more RP than Rose's (and Ruby's, I think) working-class accent, although he does code-switch a bit. (Martha is my favorite, though. I wish she would come back.)
Martha has more blood on her hands than the Doctor. Firstly its her loud mouth yapping about the future to Jenny in Family of Blood that cause the Family to realise Martha is the companion and John Smith the Doctor, and thus they attack the school killing countless children. Not to mention the couple at the dance and the hosts of the bodies they took over. Then, she revived the Master by not shutting the hell up again, waffling on about the TARDIS, the future and so on. When she see's the fob watch, instead of shutting her mouth, she breaks the perception filter and then leaves Yana alone in tears recalling about Time Travel aloud to her. Thus the Master returns, killed the President Elect Bill Winters (which isnt undone after the reversal of time) then he returns again and kills the burger lady, the black lad and his foreman in End of Time. Then of course the people he kills as Missy, at least a dozen on screen. And then the weird Master who genocides Gallifrey. Thats all because of Martha's fat mouth not shutting up.
@@AzguardMike The part where you talked about her being responsible in Family of Blood was kinda understandable but damn the rest devolves into the most unserious comment I've seen. Using this we can literally blame 10 for everything too. Some mfs really be hating Martha and Clara smh.
I think western culture's over emphasis on the importance of romantic relationships affects how people feel about rose and ten. Twelve is my favorite doctor and in my opinion his one episode with river song was more romantic than anything rose and ten had.
I think if you choose to interpret 12 and Clara's relationship as romantic(which I believe was Moffat's intent) it hits much, much harder than 10 and Rose as well.
This is honestly why I think Tooth and Claw from Series 2 is kind of an underrated episode. Especially taking into account how Queen Victoria openly criticises and punishes Ten and Rose for their flippant behaviour. It even lays the foundation for the finale in which Torchwood's meddling is what inevitably tears them apart.
I’ve always been a bit of a Tooth and Claw hater (I’m not sure why, it just doesn’t grab my interest as much as other episodes), but I do love this aspect of it!
Tooth and Claw, where the evil plan is to infect the royal family bloodline through Victoria ... when she was old, widowed and already given birth to her final child (who would have been in her 20s by then). Not a great plan! Also, where did those monks go?
Rewatching that episode more recently made me realise the issues with their relationship. They’re acting like a pair of giggling children the entire time. Nine and Rose would never.
@@intergalactic92 It's such a difficult episode for me to rewatch because of that, tbh. There are people LITERALLY DYING around them and they're giggling and basically treating people like they're NPCs in a video game. And I can kind of get Rose doing that, as she was always DEEPLY immature imo, but the Doctor should've 100% know better. It's really the worst. They just bring out the worst behaviour in one another.
@@NicoleM_radiantbaby Rose was immature, yes, she was a teenager. But Rose in season one was also compassionate towards others - caring about Gwen or the Dalek to the point of willing to fight the Doctor. To me it often feels like season one and season two Rose are two different people.
I want to start this off by saying I don’t hate rose but I don’t necessarily like her. That being said extrem fans of Rose act like she was the only person ever important to the doctor yes she was extremely important to him but some people down play other companions all the time just to praise rose. The second thing I really need to get off my chest is while Rose ending is sad she did not have the most tragic fate out of all the doctors companions. Her ending is sad but she’s alive, with her mom and a version of her dad plus got a human version of the doctor. People have died horribly traveling with the doctor, so I kind of roll my eyes when people say she had the most tragic end.
If Rose’s story had ended at Doomsday, I could kiiiiind of get the “one of the most tragic” argument, but as it stands she gets away with one of the best endings out of all of them. In terms of her being the most important person to the Doctor, I could agree that she was the most important person to Nine and Ten, but the Doctor as a whole?? No way (see: River, Clara, etc.)
@@looseleafellieIdk, river was also very important to most of the doctors after the 9th at some point for various reasons. their last night together also really shows that she's incredibly important to him imo, if not the most important. His last time with river was incredibly different than any of the other important women he parted with
I really think part of my dislike of 10 and rose is because of Martha. Dude can’t stop pinning after someone he knew for a year out of his centuries long life to the point he puts Martha in extremely dangerous situations with her wanting to prove she’s just as good as Rose. Especially with the master and the family of blood.
I fully agree with you there - the way Ten treated Martha was awful. The show addresses it to an extent, but I kinda wish they were even more emphatic that Ten’s behavior was not okay
@ I feel like they barely touched on it. Martha leaves her family to be tortured by the master for an entire year and then just goes and becomes a member of UNIT? Oh and she’s randomly married to Mickey when ten is doing his farewell tour? Maybe some of that story was expanded in big finish but still the only 2 POC characters ended up together? I don’t even think they ever really interacted outside of maybe walking away with Jack when the doctor dropped them off.
Rose was the first person he allowed himself to be close to after however the hell long the last time war lasted and she was the first person his 10th incarnation met. Both are important, and It's really not that surprising for him to do that especially when you know that he will repeat this twice after her with Amy and Clara.
@@looseleafellie I really disagree here and here is why . 1. It is hard to say how much time of their personal timelines Rose and 10 spent together. Remember : the Tardis is a time machine 2. Romantic relations tend to be the most intense in the first years so it is completely understandable that 10 can't just let go 3. How aware 10 is of the crush Martha has on him is debatable. IMHO much points to him just being lonely and needing a friend. 4. I think this was a typical situation of "dammed if you do, dammed if you don't" Imagine the fan reaction if 10 would have quickly gotten over Rose and happily travel with other people having all kinds of fun.
I feel like their co-dependency on each other is shown very drastically in Turn Left, where it can be implied that Ten let himself drown/die with the Archnis because of his grief over losing Rose
My favourite companions are the ones who can call the Doctor out on there sh!t. The Doctor should not be a perfect character. They should have flaws. Rose would call 9 out. Donna could call 10 out, Amy could keep 11 grounded, Clara for 12. If a companion is all “Wow Doctor you are amazing.” I don’t like it. The best example of this is actually Big Finish with 6 and Evelyn Smythe. A lady who could really call the Doc out when being a d!@k.
Rory has a very good point when he first calls out the Doctor while they’re in Venice. He says: *“You know what’s dangerous about you. It’s not that you make people take risks. It’s that you make them want to impress you. You make it so they don’t want to let you down. You have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves when you’re around.”* From the look the Doctor gets on his face during the scene, you can tell that those words definitely did hit him hard, at that moment. It was sort of undermined with how they continue to act throughout the season, but that was the most accurate thing any of the companions ever said about him in my opinion. I have said this before, but I’m glad that it was Rory who called him out on this. The Doctor is a doctor, and Rory is a nurse. You know what they say about nurses? Nurses are the ones keeping doctors from accidentally killing you.
Hot take: Nine and Rose had better chemistry. Ten and Rose had more charisma. That is to say, Nine and Rose would have made more sense if they had more than one season to develop, because their internal chemistry was fantastic. Ten and Rose I got more the vibe that they were a standard fun couple that a lot of viewers would relate to on an outward level. I never thought Ten and Rose were a particularly deep pairing and that it was part lingering feelings for Nine and the fact that Tennant is young, hot, and fast-paced so naturally she'd want to see the stars with him.
I never liked their romance. While Twelve/Clara was framed as evolving into something toxic, I felt Ten/Rose was moving in a similar manner but the show kept framing them as just so cute. I understand entirely how they got there, why they're so arrogant and what it was building up to... I just didn't like it.
Same. I was actually glad when (I thought) Rose was leaving in 'Doomsday'. I didn't cry at all. I was looking forward to the next companion in that moment instead. (But then I'd seen all of Classic Who at that point -- that's available, at least -- and so it was just another exit for a companion I wasn't that keen on mixed with excitement of who might be next)
By the time the Ponds finally managed to escape the Doctor (by living a long happy life and dying of old age), I'd long since taken the position, not entirely seriously, that modern era Companions are trying to find a way to get away from the Doctor, who keeps turning up and whisking them away on another adventure. It was what happened to Donna that drove me to stop taking the fates of Companions seriously - they took all her character growth from her time with the Doctor and erased it, resetting her to the woman in a dead-end life with no prospect of joy or purpose, and stuck a bomb in her head so that if it ever looked like she might get her act together and have something like a life, her brain would explode.
same, like i loved rose and tenrose but the second i her mom pointed out how much she was becoming like him i knew it had to end. and in the end while i felt bad for her i was glad it ended
Rose and Donna get their own personal David Tennant that will treat them right, Meta Crisis for Rose because he can be with her together, the 14th Doctor for Donna because he's grown as a person and can finally settle down and be happy as a family. Meanwhile Martha still gets the short end of the stick yet again >_>
The age issue is a problem for me. Rose was 19 with Nine (they made this an issue in one episode), and still really young with Ten (maybe 20 or 21). I know Rose is an adult. But it becomes difficult for me to see it as that romantic when I think of how young she was. I know, that makes me sound old and so forth, I'll grant all that.
ohmigods, THANK YOU!!!!! How does no-one ever bring this up?!? She fell in love with a 900-smth year old man as a 19-year old, and nobody seems to talk about it?!?!
In the ep Aliens Over London they make a joke “that’s one hell of an age gap” and it’s supposed to be played off for laughs… like, what? So they’re acknowledging the age but doing romance anyway?
@@MagretaWestbyNineteen year olds can be naive, so her falling in love with the Doctor isn’t unrealistic. What’s appalling to me and some others is that Rose’s feelings were reciprocated 😬
I really really liked nine/rose. I think they complimented each other really well and had a good relationship, one very small moment that I love is in the opening to "The Long Game", the Doctor and Rose step out of the TARDIS first and the Doctor very quickly gives her a rundown of where they've landed, then Adam steps out and Rose pretends to figure out where they are just based on context clues, acting like a very experienced time traveller. It's a really cute small scene that could easily be forgotten. I like Rose and Mickey's relationship talk in Boom Town where Mickey admits he's been seeing another girl because she's actually THERE and Rose isn't. I like the way the Doctor starts acting differently when Jack joins the team, putting on more of a brave act. I like Ten, but his scenes with Rose are framed very obviously as flirty right from the get go. One of the first lines he ever speaks is in his speech about what sort of man he could be in this regeneration, and he says "sexy" whilst listing off a bunch of adjectives, and winks at Rose. He also just has an affair with Madame de Pompadour, the Girl in the FIreplace is about Ten having a fairly romantic interaction WITH ANOTHER WOMAN? Martha's time in the show suffers from the writers making her into "jealous of Rose" and romantically pining for the doctor. Ten's first 2 seasons have this romantic relationship with Rose hanging over it, and when his character finally escapes it, we have a great character dynamic with Donna. Rose gave Nine a reason to live, she helped him love the world again. Ten runs from Rose at every opportunity, throwing himself into danger, but he's the incarnation that loves Rose? I find it hard to believe. Tennant is hotter than Ecclestone, that's what the fanbase generally looks at for their shipping.
I love the opening scene in The Long Game and I’m glad you brought it up! You also make an interesting point about how Ten sometimes pushes Rose away even as he builds his whole personality around her. I find that his actions in The Girl in the Fireplace are kind of out of character, but most of the time, I interpret any distance from Rose as him trying to deny the extent of his affection for her because he’s scared of losing her
Listening to different perspectives on the Doctor-Rose romance (and the broader concept of the Doctor engaging in romance with humans) raises these questions for me: What are the norms for Time-Lords regarding sex and romance? How do these differ from Gallifreyans in general? What does it mean that the First Doctor had a grandchild? How does living for thousands of years shape the Doctor's views on intimacy? How does his intelligence, age, and experience influence his approach to romance and sex? What does the Doctor’s view of humanity reveal about his willingness to engage romantically or sexually with humans? Did the trauma of the Time War alter his perspective? Why does his attitude toward romance vary across incarnations? How much of that change is due to regeneration versus life experience?
I have all of these questions myself! It’s pretty easy to headcanon answers to some of them, but others are more ambiguous. From a real-world perspective, of course, the writers have an incentive to give the Doctor relatively conventional modern Western views of romance, because they’re contemporary British humans writing a TV show for contemporary British humans and they want their audience to relate to the main character
As someone who is very into the expanded universe side of Doctor Who, I can answer most of these. "What are the norms for Time Lords regarding sex and romance? How do these differ from Gallifreyans in general?" Way, way back, when Time Lord society was first being established by Rassilon, Omega, and the Other (plus three others), Gallifrey had previously been ruled by the Pythia and was a matriarchy. All Gallifreyans were, until Rassilon came into power, procreating via sexual reproduction. This changed when Rassilon took power and, alternatively, wiped out the indigenous Gallifreyans and the Pythia and re-created the Gallifreyan genome from scratch, or the last of the Pythia placed a curse upon Gallifrey, rendering its population sterile/infertile. Rassilon and others developed Looms, which weave new bodies out of already-existing Gallifreyan DNA. It was decreed by Rassilon that only those born from the Looms would go on to become Time Lords. Sexual reproduction and live birth were declared illegal, and "womb-born" Gallifreyans were either executed once found out, or banned from entrance to the Academy and becoming Time Lords. Time Lords as a whole are asexual (with some being grey-asexual or demisexual depending on regenerations) and aromantic. Marriages are more to strengthen political ties between Houses than out of romance, even for non-Time Lord Gallifreyans. Leela's marriage to a male Gallifreyan supposedly lifted the Pythia's curse and brought fertility back to Gallfirey. In the novel Unnatural History, it's mentioned that the Doctor was Loomed but also remembers having parents. At the same time. Make of that what you will. It also says that Rassilon hated the fact life had come back to Gallifrey after thousands of years of sterility and made a deal with Faction Paradox to restore the Pythia's curse. "What does it mean that the First Doctor had a grandchild?" We don't even know if the Doctor had a wife back on Gallifrey, but there's the whole thing where the Doctor was the Other, one of Time Lord society's six founders, whom Rassilon attempted to murder. The Other threw themselves into the Looms before Rassilon could do the deed, and several thousands of years later, they were reborn into the House of Prydon as the Gallifreyan who would go on to become the Doctor. (Interestingly, the Other was rumored to not actually be a Gallifreyan, but something from another universe that had taken on Gallifreyan form. This ties neatly into the whole Timeless Child thing and there's also the theory that the Doctor is one of the Great Old Ones, specifically Nyarlathotep.) Anyway, according to this, Susan is actually the Other's granddaughter and may or may not have been loomed before her "parents" were. Also, time travel. And the Doctor's biodata is an absolute mess anyway. "How does living for thousands of years shape the Doctor's views on intimacy? How does his intelligence, age, and experience influence his approach to romance and sex? What does the Doctor’s view of humanity reveal about his willingness to engage romantically or sexually with humans?" For most of the Classic series, the Virgin New Adventures novels, and the Past Doctor Adventures novels, the Doctor is written as asexual and (maybe) demiromantic, generally uninterested in sex or romance and not feeling attraction to anyone (while in their Gallifreyan body, anyway). This is in line with other canon regarding the Time Lords as a whole. It's not until the Eighth Doctor where the writers begin to explore what sexuality means for the Doctor, and both Big Finish and the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels write Eight as canonically nonbinary and grey-asexual. Eight has sex (implied, off-page) more than once in the novels with both men, women, and nonbinary beings and has a heavily-implied romance with male companion Fitz Kreiner and Big Finish companion Charley Pollard. Since it's the first time the Doctor has been written as having these urges and feelings, ever, Eight is initially very confused by what it means for this body and him in particular. In the Big Finish audios, Eight flat-out tells Charley (who has fallen in love with him and he with her), that, essentially, romantic love isn't the same thing for him as it is for her, since she's human, and he can't give her what she wants from him. That his fellow Time Lords all wondered why he bothered taking humans on as companions when he's essentially immortal and humans have such short lifespans, and the Time Lords concluded that the Doctor's companions were all memento mori. All that being said, there's an erotica novel where the male lead is very obviously the Eighth Doctor with amnesia, conveniently set during the period in the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels where Eight is exiled to Earth and has amnesia, and the female lead in that book is later referenced in one of the EDAs. So... make of that what you will. "Did the trauma of the Time War alter his perspective?" Very likely, yes. Eight in the novels was also dealing with a time war (the Second War in Heaven, against an unknown Enemy--all we know about the Enemy is that it wasn't the Daleks), albeit a war that took place in Gallifrey's future compared to his current personal timeline. Eight went through some stuff in the novels, and it gets... interesting with how they explore his own personal trauma, identity, and sexuality. "Why does his attitude toward romance vary across incarnations? How much of that change is due to regeneration versus life experience?" The Doctor's biodata (4th-dimensional DNA, more or less) is an absolute mess with a whole bunch of *other* stuff in it, and that's without getting into how often xe's experienced regeneration sickness. Anyway, each incarnation showcases various aspects of the Doctor's personality and while they are the same person across incarnations, certain traits and pieces of their identity shift around. They're the same being with the same core personality and shared experiences, but each incarnation is different from previous ones and has its own personal identity. Doctors One through Seven were primarily aromantic and asexual. Eight is the first incarnation that shows interest in romance/sex, with this carrying over to NuWho. Asexuality is a spectrum, with grey-asexuality and demisexuality falling under that spectrum. Same with someone being aromantic, demiromantic, and grey-aromantic in terms of experiencing romantic attraction. Doctors Nine and Ten fell in love with Rose, Nine because she was the first person he let himself get close to after the Last Great Time War, and Ten because he regenerated out of Nine's love for Rose and basically became co-dependent on her. So, to answer your second question, it's likely a mix of both regeneration/that particular incarnation and life experience.
@@twicebornwitchlighter7606 Thanks so much for laying all this out! I knew some of this but not all (I need to get more into expanded media for sure). It's so interesting to see which parts gel with the main show and which parts contradict. Doctor Who has a complicated relationship with the concept of canonicity
@@looseleafellie You're welcome. :) The BBC's stance on Doctor Who canon and the expanded universe, as far as I'm aware, is that everything is canon. All of it. No matter how contradictory. The Beeb's only thing is that the TV series cannot make so obscure a reference to the expanded universe that the material in question has to have been experienced in order to understand it. (And the TV series repeatedly contradicts and retcons itself anyway. Hell, the Doctor and Susan being Time Lords from Gallifrey is itself a retcon. The concept of regeneration is a retcon.) Everything yet nothing is canon. Anyway, the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels are all online for free here: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Mzg8DaJPJP9_r2bUCytbq0ZQJvO9v9b4 It's quite a vast rabbit hole to go down, but the expanded universe is worth it and a lot of fun, since there's so much of it and you can pick and choose what aspects you want to incorporate into your fanon. Personally, I'm more familiar with the novels and some of the comics (thanks to my library and local bookstore) than I am the Big Finish audios.
I'd like to think 9's jealousy of Jack Harkness stems from the fact Jack can relate more to Rose on that adventurous human level, and can be more jovial as a result. But he's The Doctor and has a responsibility he can't exactly step away from. That's where I think the 11th Doctor is the best portrayal of that Old Man of Responsibility and Maturity. His companions acted more like children and he actually gets married.
Season 2 is like watching an unhealthy relationship in the honeymoon phase. It's not obvious but the cracks are there, and poor Martha got the fall out. 😅
Personally I always thought it was weird that when the Tenth Doctor had his 'fake-out' metacrisis regeneration, Rose was all upset that he was (supposedly) changing. Like, of all the people in the console room, she'd witnessed a regeneration first hand before, so she could have at least calmed down Donna -- who was freaking out, or something -- as she knows the Doctor is going to be all right. It just really gave me a strong feeling that if the Doctor HAD changed his looks in that regeneration, especially to someone maybe much older-looking or not conventionally attractive or maybe his personality had become more brusque (see: 'The Twin Dilemna'), I was unconvinced that Rose's 'deep love' for the Doctor would've still been a thing. But that might just be me. It just felt off, as regeneration is one of the most vulnerable times for a Time Lord and she was...just making it all about her. 🙁
I think she was just upset because she was FINALLY given the chance to reunite with him after all this time...and then a Dalek had to come over and bloody ruin it for them by exterminating him, meaning that very soon, he would change his face AGAIN, meaning she'd have to get to know him all over again. Because iirc in the Children In Need minisode "Born Again", which took place directly after that last scene in "The Parting of The Ways" when the Ninth Doctor regenerated in front of her, she was scared and confused as to who this strange new man was, how he got here and why he had taken the Doctor's place. The man told her that he WAS the Doctor, just with a brand new face. Of course, she doesn't believe him at first, but the Doctor manages to convince her and as seen in "The Christmas Invasion", she finally accepts it. So when Rose gets upset that he's gonna regenerate again in "The Stolen Earth", i think that's her not wanting to go through the whole "guy you've known for quite some time gets a new face and new personality, so now you've gotta know him all over again" process. Especially when she's been separated from him for SOOO effin' long!
@@NicoleM_radiantbaby you make a good point here! I do think that Rose would prefer to keep Ten over another incarnation, because Ten is more or less a tailor-made perfect Doctor for her. That doesn’t mean she wouldn’t love the Doctor less if he regenerated - she just knows the nature of their relationship might change with a different incarnation, and she doesn’t want that
The one thing that really irked me on a rewatch is that 10 has that beautiful scene in school reunion where he explains that he is immortal and has to learn to let his companions go, or else He will see them die. But in the same season he looses rose and then spends a while season moping over her before Donna slaps some sense into him. I also hate the Doctor having a love interest in the first place and wish the showrunners would actually explore different types of relationships that arent just romantic. Because when they do that it is great, The doctor and donna being bffs is always great, 12 and bills teacher student relationship is fun and even though amy tries to seduce 11 their dynamic changes to being a platonic relationship later on and is better for it.
So THAT's why the first RTD era made so much sense as a cohesive thing; it's 9 and 10 learning to process relationships again after coming back from war. Every episode with Martha made her feels like a rebound companion, which is a shame. Mostly because Martha is a really fun character.
Rose was 19 when she travelled with the Doctor; the Doctor was _900._ Nobody seems to talk about this, but to me it makes the whole thing DEEPLY uncomfortable to say the very least.
I'm _so_ glad that you touched on the fact that Rose treated Mickey HORRIBLY. It's one of the reasons of why I could never like her character. In fact, I know that I will probably get a ton of hate on this, but I felt like both Rose _and_ the doctor were terrible people. The doctor knew after Rose that having a female companion was risky, yet even still he _selfishly_ continues collecting young, female companions knowing FULL WELL that there was a risk of the two of them falling for each other. Heck , even if he had gotten a male companion it _still_ could very well have happened. I especially felt sorry for poor Martha. ☹️ She didn't deserve the emotional turmoil the doctor put her through. He showed Rose _so_ much more respect but Martha was ultimately punished due to him not processing his feelings. She was essentially a rebound companion. 😮💨 It would have been kinder to simply _not allow_ Martha to travel with him. As for Rose, I was a little irked by her "happy ending" with the hand clone and you perfectly articulated my feelings. I really enjoyed everything about this discussion. You are the first _Doctor Who_ fan who openly admits that the relationships in this show are not perfect. I really appreciate the fact that you looked at BOTH sides rather than just the shipping side. 😊 Thank you for that. I will most DEFINITELY be subbing and watching your other vids!
@@Rose_Bride I’m so glad you enjoyed the video! I think there’s a tendency for fans to think they aren’t allowed to like the show if they admit the characters are bad people sometimes, when that couldn’t be further from the truth. Aside from the fact that the show isn’t perfect and deserves plenty of criticism for some things, flawed characters are what make a story interesting, and you can find a character enjoyable to watch without endorsing everything they do
I prefer Rose with nine and not ten. Their friendship was nicer to watch, much like twelve and Bill. I feel how Rose was used over ten's tenure shaped how the characters Martha and Donna were used and received. I also feel the backlash of Rose and the Doctor heavily shaped how the fandom viewed Clara and the Doctor, drawing parallels between them that they both finding their life's purpose with the Doctor. Though they both attempted to become like their Doctors, Clara was using it to escape the pair of losing her boyfriend while Rose pushed her boyfriend away to be with him forever.
I think one of the most disappointing things about Rose’s tenure is how it shaped fan reception to Martha. The way the show pitted them against each other had the unfortunate side effect of encouraging fans to pit them against each other too, even if the show ultimately wanted to portray that attitude as bad. And the fact that Martha was the show’s first regular non-white companion means it was extra unfair to put her in that position, imo
@@looseleafellie Martha was brilliant wasn’t she! Very underrated. I think Ten pining after Rose like he hadn’t lost friends and family before, marred Matha’s tenure. S3 wasn’t about Martha seeing the universe it was Ten recapturing the magic he had with Rose. Even Donna couldn’t escape it, with Rose coming back at the end of s4. It stinks of RTD not being able to let go of the character, which i think affected how Martha and Donna were written. Subconsciously favouring Rose, which the fandom picked up on.
I can't overstate how much this review is so accurate. From Rose and Doctor Tens relationship, to the way she treats Mickey, it's just so spot on and I've not seen anyone aptly describe this. Thank you.
@somethingtodowitho I wouldn't say he cheated on her - she left with another man, stayed away for a year (during which he was accused of murdering her), then left again almost immediately after a short visit. Rose basically dumped him without talking to him about it, and Mickey then went out with someone else, trying to get over her, but couldn't and came running as soon as Rose called. And it was Rose who body-shamed his new girlfriend.
Man, this was my reaction even back in the day. Couldn't stand them together. Hated the smugness of them both. Always felt he was a better Doctor alongside Martha and Donna. Rose worked as Nine's companion, but she and Ten brought out the worst aspects of each other. It's refreshing to finally see other people willing to say it.
I do like River Song and the Doctor so the Doctor in a relationship is clearly not something I'm against, but 10 and Rose a lot of the time felt very cringe, and I hate using that word but idk what other way to describe it. In a lot of ways Rose held Tennant back in the first series, his Doctor felt pretty underdeveloped looking back at it. Not bad but didn't fully find his stride until series 3 for me. And not since the Star Wars prequel era has someone gone from parental figure to romantic option so quick. 9 was like a father to Rose, wow interesting, they should've made an episode about that... Oh wait. And the thing is, I like series 1 Rose, but I can't stand her after that period, she sometimes just feels like she's trying to impersonate Tennant especially in series 4 and that's kinda where the cringe comes from. Not to mention she's always been bitchy and that never mellowed with age.
I find that a lot of people who don’t usually like Doctor/companion romances are willing to give River and the Doctor a pass because River is part Time Lord and has a lot of the same knowledge the Doctor does (though their relationship is sometimes screwed up and unbalanced in its own way, which is a whole other video essay!). Is that kind of where you’re coming from? You’re spot-on that series 2 is not the series to watch if you want a fully developed Tenth Doctor. While I find his dependence on Rose fascinating, I have to admit I find his character much more interesting after he loses her and starts getting even more openly toxic and messy
@@looseleafellie I think a lot of the appeal of river/doctor was how in control river was for most of it. We got to see the doctor on the back foot for once- flustered and a few steps behind (for most of it anyway). Plus the way their tls go in reverse is an interesting bit of story telling. Personally, I really liked river/the doctor the first time I watched it despite how much I dislike every other doctor romance, but I started to get tired of it as I got older. Probably because I got tired of Moffat-isms in general, and she is a walking case load of them. Nowadays it's hard to dispute that all of my favorite doctor/companion relationships have more of a best friend or mentor dynamic with no hints of romance.
@@AnonUnlimited I think the appeal of River wore off for me around the time we found out about Mel and how she was raised from birth to be obsessed with the Doctor. Her entire existence revolves around him and that freaks me out - if you give it any real thought, you realise how creepy it is.
@@rkah6187 Hard agree. My issue with Moffat is that he doesn't know when to stop while he's ahead. River started out as this super interesting enigma. Why do they keep meeting out of order? Who is she to the Doctor? How does she know him? Debuting her in the same episode she dies in was fantastic storytelling that kept you on the edge of your seat asking all these questions. Then Moffat kept going. Then she was Amy and Rory's daughter. Then she was kidnapped, groomed, and conditioned to assassinate the Doctor. Then she regenerated into a child again, found Amy and Rory as children, and grew up with them while keeping her real identity a secret. Like. What??? It kept getting more and more ridiculous, which makes me sad, because River, as a character, is SUCH a neat concept that was almost done well until Moffat mucked it up. Sigh. It would've been much cooler if he had axed "she's Amy and Rory's daughter," because I think that's where River started to lose interest for me. I always thought that plot point was weird.
@@solarydays You put it so cleanly and I absolutely agree. River was exciting and a romance I actually felt on board with because she felt like she was the Doctor's equal in a way no one else could ever be, she had agency and power in her own right, and she felt like she could hold her own in their relationship. And then suddenly I felt like she had the least agency anyone in a relationship with the doctor could ever have.
I just never liked the idea of the doctor of having a romantic relationship with his companions. I felt he just need close human connections but not the romantic kind
Only what you owe to a person you are supposedly in a relationship with; some respect. Why was Rose with Mickey if most of the time she didn't seem to even like him? I was glad that Mickey wisened up in the end and put a stop to it because Rose was happy to string him along while making eyes at another person.
We all know that The Doctor has been in romantic relationships before what is even shown in the show. He was married, had kids and those kids had kids. But I prefer the Doctor to be asexual as he was most of the time in the show.
@@MarvelX42 I mean, to be fair, we don’t know much about Time Lord marriage culture - the Doctor’s first marriage could’ve been solely for procreation or political reasons rather than romantic love. The modern show certainly shows the Doctor as capable of romantic affection, but I do think the Doctor’s sexuality is fluid and presents differently across incarnations, so some are less inclined toward romance than others
@@looseleafellie If you go to "Tomb of the Cybermen" the Second Doctor talks with great fondness about his family so obviously his first marriage was romantic love but we know little about his family background.
I love the dynamic because it really encapsulates your first great love (not necessarily the first partner but the first which truly means something). The devastating end where it’s cut short, the reconciliation and the realisation that you may have outgrown one another. The Doctor recognises in season 4 that while he misses and will miss Rose, he isn’t good for her and she is in his past. He has moved on. He isn’t devastated by their second parting as he is the first time around. His real tears come from losing Donna, with whom he had the healthiest relationship he ever had with a companion before or since. I think that’s why Donna’s departure is the most heartbreaking, and why she is the one he chooses to live with when given a second chance. I think 10 recognised that romance isn’t really the best thing for him or others around him. Which is why when 11 (matt smith) and 12 get involved with Clara it rubs me the wrong way. It felt like a rehash of Rose, which wasn’t really compelling. I loved their romance when I was younger but rewatching now Martha and Donna became my favourites as their experience and emotional maturity means they know that romantic involvement with the Doctor is a bad idea.
Couldn’t agree more! I rarely see people acknowledge that the Doctor and Roses relationship was always one built on circumstantial codependency. I think the reason the 10th Doctor is one of the more human and romantic incarnations is because of his loss of his own planet. He’s attaching himself to Earth and subsequently Rose because he truly has nowhere and nobody else.
The only thing that sucked about this relationship was the neverending repeat of people falling in love with The Doctor that followed. The show often reads more like creepy fan fiction now.
Why WOULDN’T someone fall in love with The Doctor? Joking aside I don’t think there’s anything creepy about it at all - there’s more companions that have NOT been romantically interested him than otherwise. I don’t get the recent trend of trying to paint things as creepy.
@andydietrich3689 It's creepy when the same writers use the same thing repeatedly with several companions/ransoms in a row in quick succession. At best it's poor writing.
What about Donna? Or Amy and Rory? Or Clara? Or Bill? Or Nardole? None of them fall in love with the Doctor, like, where exactly is this neverending repeat that you're talking about? Are you sure we're talking about the same show here?
They deliberately avoided doctor having a romance because it had the potential of altering the dynamics between him and companions, who could be minors. Dr who, past tense, was a show for the whole family but child focused. That started to erode to the end of the classic run but it was certainly true during its peak, which meant kids watched and the show had a future. The kids grew up and wrote sexy fanfics, and some became doctor who writers, and they wanted their sexuality onscreen. Fine for an adult only show, not great if you want to make intergenerational programming. Dr who was doomed when kids stopped watching. I don't know anyone who watches the show now. I was personally involved with people who made Daleks, who bought merch, played the rpg, read the books, even wrote the books. And it is past tense. They drove away the old fans and stopped new ones forming. The small niche left doesn't buy, so they survive solely on the tv tax. Which most British are trying to get out of.
@@Pickle_Candy Okay 'Neverending' is somewhat hyperbolic, but once Rose leaves there's a brief run where Martha, Amy and Donna all at least get a little steamy over the Doctor. Martha ends up loving him from but unreciprocated; Amy tries to get off with him despite the first meeting between her and the Doctor being when she was a Child; and I think even Donna looks him up and down at one point. In a show where that kind of relationship isn't previously addressed, to have it all laid on thick at once (often clunkerly) is weird.
Omg, I have always been an AVID Tenrose hater and never could clearly explain why I feel this way. This essay completely translates my understanding of their relationship and how toxic they were
I always preferred her with Nine. I liked season 2 and the Rose/Ten relationship, but season 1 was just so magical. In general I feel like she and Nine really brought out the best in each other, whereas she and Ten sometimes brought out the worst. Weirdly even with a visually older actor, Nine/Rose also felt more like an equal partnership to me too. She saves him as often as he saves her. I also hate that they brought her back in season 4. Her season 2 ending was perfect. I'm a huge RTD1 apologist but Journey's End just pisses me off. 😂
I love this take about her and Nine bringing out the best in each other and her and Ten bringing out the worst - spot on!! Rose and Nine’s differences helped them learn from each other, while Ten and Rose’s lack of conflict meant they enabled each other’s worst tendencies
Exactly my thoughts, I much preferred her with Nine, there was character growth there that was missing from season 2. If there really had to be romance, the relationship would have felt more earned and genuine with Nine. And I really wasn't happy when they brought her back
I never liked Rose. She was selfish (which could be excused when she was 19 but not later), and she had very little appreciation for the outstanding privilege it was to travel with The Doctor. I always just figured she would stay with the MetaDoctor for a year or two, if that long, and then be bored of him and move on because he wasn't taking her to exotic locales. Ten was much better without her.
Finally made the jump from TikTok. Thank you so much for your videos, when I was getting into the show earlier last year your videos have been a beacon of knowledge.
My Wife HATED Rose. And what really got her was that Rose gets a complimentary Doctor as a consolation prize. Like you said, the easy way out. And I also agree.
when Rose explains how she's able to return to the main universe she basically explains in an offhand remark kind of way that their method involves punching holes between dimensions or something like that. instead of being upset about it or comment at all about how dangerous and bad that is, The Doctor seems impressed and maybe even implicitly gives his approval of it because they're back together
After he heals himself after reuniting with Rose, and he asks her why, she says "So I could come back." And he just gives her this giddy, goofy, half lauging smile. I mean, I thought it was cute, but you would have thought he would be more put off by it.
That part really made me angry. Any other person would've gotten dressed down by the Doctor for nearly destroying multiple universes. But no, he giggled? I was like WTF!?
@@NicoleM_radiantbaby the doctor did even have a go about it in Army of Ghosts at torchwood for them finding a dimensional hole and mocking them that their reaction to it was "should we leave it alone? nah, lets make it bigger!". but rose working with her world's torchwood to more actively do that? the doctor is like aww shucks
10 and Rose were great for the reintroduction of the show but for me 11/12 and Clara had a way more complex and realistic relationship, Clara was written to not be perfect and her not immediately adjusting to 11 regenerating into 12 was controversial but made absolute sense to me, imagine somebody you know changing their entire body and personality... That's why I regard 11/12 and Clara as the best Doctor/companion dynamic of the entire reboot
@@Ryysight to be fair, Rose also didn’t immediately adjust to Ten being the Doctor and it was a big point of conflict in The Christmas Invasion. But I do love the Doctor and Clara’s relationship (as evidenced by my half hour long video essay about her lol)
@@looseleafellie You're absolutely right on every point and I do agree with you but one episode to adjust didn't cut it for me, hence why in retrospect I way prefer Clara to any other companion, the only companions to go through a regeneration are Rose and Clara but I just think Moffat made a bigger deal about it emotionally than Russell did
I respectfully disagree about Clara not immediately adjusting. Clara’s whole plot her first season was that she jumped into the Doctor’s timeline (or timestream, i forget what they called it) to save him, and thus met all the iterations of the doctor, and she also met the tenth doctor in the 50th. She is the ONLY new who companion at that point who is familiar with regeneration and has met multiple doctors when her first doctor regenerates. So to me it didn’t make sense for her of all people to be the one having a difficult time adjusting to a new doctor.
@@emmepemme95 In the 50th she said that she only vaguely remembers that. Plus her main reason for almost leaving the Doctor was cuz of his changed personality.
Watching this video made me think about tons of things but the one that interests me the most is how similar this dynamic is to 12 and Clara, one of my favorite companion and Doctor dynamics, next to 10/14 with Donna. Like so many of the beats are similar but with a different tone. And that's interesting because as well written as they are I don't love 10 and Rose. Maybe it's just the baggage with Martha that drags it down? She deserved so much better. Either way it's good, just not really for me. I do however want to note that 12's situation is interesting because he's clearly learned from Rose (he insists he's not her boyfriend and tries to discourage the thrill seeking a bit) but still makes a lot of similar mistakes, and he gets punished a lot worse for it. Worse than simply feeling safe with him, Clara starts explicitly trying to *be* him without his input, and instead of being sealed in an alternate world forever, she dies because of an attempt to emulate him without knowledge of the situation. Face the Raven honestly hits me harder than Doomsday, Heaven Sent is Heaven Sent, and at least I can choose to ignore Hell Bent because most of that stuff doesn't spill over. At least 12 canonically took decades to slow down and recover before traveling with another companion, so there's been some progress. It seems like he's just really prone to this kind of trap in his old age.
One hypothesis I’ve developed offers a potential explanation for why the Doctor seems romantically inclined in his 10th incarnation but not in earlier or later ones. The Time War, and the loss of his species, might have caused neurological changes. From an evolutionary perspective, being the last of one’s species could trigger subconscious biological mechanisms to prioritize reproduction. Given how similar humans appear to Gallifreyans, this instinct may have misdirected those urges toward Rose, particularly given their strong emotional bond. This wouldn’t have been a conscious decision on the Doctor’s part but rather an unconscious effect of his biology and psychology. Neurology and endocrinology enthusiasts might see parallels in how stress and survival pressures affect hormones and attraction. Over time, as the Doctor processed his grief and moved beyond the trauma of the Time War, he may have returned to his "default" state of asexuality toward humans, as seen in the 11th Doctor and beyond. (River Song is more nuanced than a straightforward romance.) Of course, this theory isn’t something Russell T. Davies intended. But exploring these dynamics through biology and psychology offers a unique lens that moves beyond the usual narrative and emotional perspectives.
And let's not forget, the 8th doctor is stated (by the master, so it might be a lie, but who can say?) to be half human, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility, barring retcons.
@@SymbioteMullet In the TV movie, it's made explicitly clear multiple times that the Doctor is half-human, not just the Master saying. Of course, that idea was completely ignored in the revival 😆 Imagining him as only half Time-Lord would dramatically change the context of his loss after the Time War, because he'd only have lost one half of his kind, with humans still being alive, as opposed to if he's fully Time-Lord then all his kind is dead (which is how it's played in the revival).
I would find it very nice! He lost half of his kind in Gallifrey so he tries even harder to protect the other half of his people to Earth @@ashleysherlock5705
Something Ive found while rewatching new Doctor Who and all the spin offs in airing order is often the Doctor's companions exemplify a flaw the Doctor is trying to retreat into. That isn't to say the companions arent healthy for the Doctor to have. The Doctor shouldn't travel alone because it's when he is alone that his worst qualities show through, the timelord victorious, for instance. Rose is running from her life and her relationships just as much as the 9th and 10th Doctor were. At the same time while Rose genuinely helps the Doctor regain his better aspects Rose really quickly starts to take on a lot of the Doctors worst qualitys. An other worldly arrogance and Rose starts to seperate herself from their humanity. Roses mom had this hard hitting line that always stuck with me, even though im paraphrasing. "Eventually their will be this woman walking down an alien market and she will not be my daughter." You see these exemplified flaws and healing that almost every companion balances during their tenure.
What I find super interesting concerning Rose's character development, is that putting aside her reacting differently to Nine and Ten based on their personality differences, Rose didnt stop checking the Doctor's cruelty or begin sharing in his extreme arrogance or start exacerbating his worst impulses (and visa versa) etc until after she was ALSO forced into committing a genocide to save her universe (mainly the doctor, the doctor is her universe here the people of future-earth were secondary lets be real lol)
i think tenrose is like twelveclara in that they are both toxic but they're both treated very differently by the writers and that's the main thing that makes me love twelveclara and hate tenrose. twelveclara is toxic and the show knows it. tenrose is toxic and the show thinks it's super cute and romantic of them. clara getting reckless is portrayed as a flawed coping mechanism for losing her only tether to normal life in danny. but rose gets really arrogant and starts treating everything like a theme park day and this is just supposed to be fun and cute of her even when she is legitimately dismissive of real danger like in tooth and claw. they just bring out the worst in each other and the writers are either unaware of this or think it's actually super romantic anyway. i also just don't really buy tenrose romantically. i just don't see them grinning like a giddy schoolboy around a crush. it feels off to me. tbh, i don't really buy ninerose romantically either. rose is just so immature and so damn annoying that i can't get myself to comprehend a hundreds of years old man falling in love with someone who is basically petulant teenager. it's not the age gap (which i can excuse for sci fi purposes) but the insane maturity gap. i can understand human x timelord relationships more generally but the juvenile nature of tenrose is just incomprehensible personally. also, tenrose fans are just insufferable. this isn't really the writers' fault but it's so exhausting to be in this fandom and to think rose is just okay while any mention of anything even remotely rose-adjacent makes tenrose fans start foaming at the mouth. it's like they can't accept that rose is one out of dozens of companions the doctor has had before. she was undeniably important to them but then so were like 50 other people. she was not this uniquely amazing companion that no one will ever compare to and it's bad enough that martha's run was basically spoiled by the doctor sulking the whole time but it's just exhausting that even now years after rose has left the show fans simply can't let go of her or even just let her have her place as someone the doctor loved a lot. no, she has to be the most important one. she has to be the one the doctor loved more that literally everyone else. she has to be the only person the doctor ever cared deeply for in their entire hundreds of years of life. it's just ridiculous. i think rtd is at fault too i mean he literally couldn't even shut up about rose in the 60th anniversary specials going as far as to have donna's daughter named after rose too for sci fi reasons instead of giving her a personality.
Thank you for your video, their relationship is making more sense in my head now and finally made peace with the reunion. I didn't like it because I really thought it was like giving a compensation gift to Rose. I can wait to see your video around Martha
I never liked the romance. At all. I liked The Tenth Doctor and Donna, because they were true best friends. In fact Rose is not high on my list of favorite companions either.
Catherine Tate and David Tennant have amazing chemistry and can play lovers (watch Much Ado About Nothing) but I do love the fact that Donna clearly has no romantic interest in 10 because for her she is a "skinny boy in a suit" and important, she was an older character, not a 20 year old.
Mickey and Rose is that one sore spot at the beginning of reboot that I really struggled to turn a blind eye to. It really is not a flattering journey from his point of view
Russell T. Davies isn't a hopeless romantic, just hopeless. This really does highlight that Rose Tyler was a hetero self-insert for him. Christ, even by the time we get to Donna Noble, Rose is still mentioned a LOT.
This was absolutely brilliant! You hit the nail on the head and im glad it's not just me who thinks this way, and that rose was lovely but she had to go even if her and 10 where great to watch
I have to admit to having kind of loathed Ten and Rose, and that ended up making pretty much the entire Tenth Doctor era kind of unwatchable for me. I found the two of them together to be insufferable, and the fact that the Doctor (or the writer) couldn't let it go, made his other seasons unwatchable as well. Particularly the way he kept pining after Rose while treating Martha like crap. And while I enjoyed Ten and Donna's dynamic together, it was always kind of overshadowed by the season being treated as a prelude to the Doctor and Rose being reunited. As far as Doomsday goes, I admit that I never quite "got" it, or understood why I was supposed to be sad. Of course, I was coming from a Classic Who background, and had watched many previous companion departures, so for me, they were a little bit sad, but a normal part of the show. And I never saw Rose as being any more special than the other past companions. As far as her ending up with the duplicate Ten, I found that whole thing kind of problematic. We basically have a young girl, barely out of her teens, being told that it's her job to fix a man who is considered dangerous and potentially genocidal. That always felt like a kind of toxic message to be sending to the young females in the audience. Anyway, thank you for the thought provoking video.
This is exactly how I was about Doomsday. But I'm also coming from a Classic Who background, so for me, it was just the show moving on, like it always has. I mean, it wasn't like Rose was getting her memories wiped like Jamie and Zoe. She was all right. She was safe. (In another universe, but safer than the fates of some other companions) (Plus, as I didn't like Rose at all, so I was happy that we were getting a new companion and excited about who they would be. But then the show kept HARPING ON about Rose, when it'd usually move on. So, we get Martha's season that's less about Martha and more about the Doctor pining for Rose. And Donna's season, where it was less about Donna and more about Rose returning. Ick).
@NicoleM_radiantbaby Yeah, I had watched every companion departure from Jo to Tegan and Turlough and honestly, Rose ended up better off than most of them. She gets to have her dad who she's been pining for her whole life, only this version is successful and rich. She still has her mom, and has Micky at her beck and call. And she's able to get a great job applying the skills she picked up traveling with the Doctor. She didn't get left on a plague colony, or have to leave because of PTSD, or get summarily dumped in the wrong place and forgotten. They could have shown a young woman gaining her independence and autonomy but instead showed a girl who was obsessed and couldn't function without the man she had fallen for. I don't know why so many people thought she was an empowering role model for young women, but maybe I'm just too old to get it.
@@crunchyfrog63 The lack of independence and autonomy with Rose is sadly so right on! Her original arc was already not my favorite, but when we meet her again in the S4 finale. she's not moved on from losing the Doctor at all. She's still emotionally on that beach. Hasn't grown up, hasn't moved on. It was like she felt she was nothing without the Doctor. And I just didn't think that was inspirational in any way. I thought it was just sad.
Okay it's been a while since I've seen any episode of Ten's run but Donna was always my favorite and I never got the sense that her season was leading up to Rose's return? Especially not in such a blatant way that could overshadow Donna's story
@@thulesse Maybe not in the narrative itself, but it overwhelmed S4 on a fandom level. When 'Partners in Crime' aired, all people seemed to talk about was the brief glimpse of Rose, instead of the episode itself and Donna returning. And then each episode it was just people going on and on about any Rose mention or reference. And then, in the finale which should've probably been Donna's big focal point, the big culmination of her arc, it instead seems to switch more toward giving lots of time to Handy (the Metacrisis) and tRose and all that. I don't know. It was really bothersome for me at the time, personally. All these people so focused on Rose coming back and ignoring the awesome companion THAT WAS RIGHT THERE ON THE SCREEN.
My problem with Ten and Rose is that, I was just getting into Doctor Who for the first time ever in 2019 thanks to it being recommended by a friend, and Ten was awful for my mental health. My girlfriend had been murdered that summer and Ten's sad and depressed demeanor really made it hard for me to enjoy him until Series 4. I'm glad I chose Eleven's first season as my first experience with Doctor Who because Eleven managed to get through to me and help me with the grieving process. Well- Eleven and Twelve. Looking back, I recently re-watched some Ten episodes and the ones where Rose isn't around or mentioned (when he's with Donna or Martha. Donna's my all time favorite companion. Made me laugh a lot) really add a lot to Ten and show David's acting skills best because it shows the range of emotions he's capable of expressing.
@Tsukiakari-qb3tk thank you. Honestly, my gripes with Ten aside, I really LOVED Eleven and Twelve. They helped me a lot with the grieving process. By the time I was done with Twelve, I had gotten to the acceptance stage
Rose sucked. With Nine it was clear she was crushing over him. The when he regenerated to Ten she was "Oh, so you are the same person, only... not old... COOL!" They then spent their entire time together being utter pricks to everyone they met. Rose was "I'm with the Doctor and you're NOT. Loser!" while the Doctor was always - with the power of hindsight - Timelord Victorious. (rewatch Christmas Invasion and his mannerisms. He is already showing the 'No second chances cause I am the winner in this conversation' attitude. Now I don't fully believe RTD wrote him this way in advance cause I don't give RTD credit as a long game writer. I feel it is more a realisation as to what they had created.) Anyway - summary - Ten and Rose were utter pricks, gleefully enjoying their status as the Power Couple and screw the lives of everyone else. We also get the case where he gives Rose his clone... cause... he really really loves her? Yeah, nah. Look basically Rose sucked and the Tenth Doctor is in my all time top 12.
He did really love her. He sent her back with his clone so she could live a long happy life with a human version of him - this meant she would be able to marry him, have his kids. If she stayed, he knew she would’ve ended up dead.
You make good points in this video, but I will probably never stop liking Rose and Ten's romance despite all of their faults. You would have to pry them from my cold dead hands. They're so beautifully tragic to me. However, Rose is entirely in the wrong for leading Mickey on, and I'm glad you mentioned it! This is why I was so satisfied seeing Mickey finally gain some respect for himself and leave Rose when he realizes that she will never choose him over the doctor. Mickey is the type of character I expected them to throw away after a while, so i liked seeing that he got development.
Thanks so much for your thoughts! I think one of the main points I’m hoping to make in this video is that it’s okay to love Ten and Rose’s relationship, and you don’t have to justify their bad behavior to do so. They’re complicated people and that’s one of the things that make them so great
It's refreshing to hear someone speak about them with nuance! TenRose weren't without flaws both as a relationship and the characters individually. I used to view them through rose tinted glasses when I was a teenager but like you described, I can now see their co-dependency and how their involvement with each other caused them to treat other people poorly. I don't really have a problem with the age gap per se but I always did wonder whether Rose's sense of not having a purpose if she wasn't traveling with the Doctor could very well have been explained by how young she was. A lot of young adults feel aimless (speaking from experience lol) but find themselves as they grow older and have more life experiences. Martha seems like a good example since she was older and had a life of her own outside of the Doctor and eventually chooses to prioritize that life. It makes me wonder what if the Doctor had met Rose 5 or 6 years down the line, a Rose who has found herself or is closer to finding herself on her own, how different would that Rose be with the Doctor? Anyways! As far as Human x Immortal love stories go, TenRose will always have a soft spot in my heart! Thanks for the lovely video!
Oh god you know what else makes that scene in Bad Wolf Bay so devastating? Rose had gone through this exact experience once already when Nine sent her back to her time in the season 1 finale and said goodbye in the TARDIS via a hologram she couldnt interact with. So when she went to touch the Ten hologram and he said she couldn't? BRO 😭 Like no wonder she was so sure she could get back to him via time vortex tomfoolery in Turn Left-it worked last time.
My favourite doctor-companion duos tend to lean on the professor and the student: 7 + Ace 2 + Jamie 12 + Bill In a way it’s a nice callback to the initial goal of the show being education. It’s well noted that Buffy was a huge inspiration behind New-Who but one of the aspects that doesn’t work as well in the format personally, was easily the romance aspect. While RTD certainly is the most consistent show-runner of the revival, his writing is rarely subtle & like a sledgehammer to the face, which lead to some really powerful moments that stuck with audiences, but loses its impact when leaned on again and again… *Murray Gold starts playing*
It is great to hear some intelligent and articulate explanation about this relationship. For me over the years I find Ten rather irritating and with Rose they became like a pair of spoilt, smartarse teenagers. He feels like everyones favourite kid in the school but you are one of few who can see through into the flaws of Mr Popular.
That's what was weird to me about the whole isn't-it-funny-Jackie-is-flirting-with-the-Doctor thing in the first episode with Nine, because Camille and Chris are like one year apart in age, so even with the Time Lord in-story difference in age in the show, it made more sense to me for Nine to be with Jackie over Rose, age-wise.
Your video got recommended and I was curious and clicked... and so happy I did. Fantastic analysis! I [like you] enjoyed the relationship Rose had with both her Doctors while realising it wasn't healthy and I think the writers were clever in hinting how co-dependant they were on each other so when Doomsday happened I was torn up but wasn't surprised that it happened. It was a tragedy from the start to me, and I'm happily surprised to see someone else sees the intentional darkness underlying it. - Rose felt so insignificant that when this amazing being appears and choses her to travel the stars and time with him it's not surprising a 19yr old teenager who felt she had nothing else to live for and no future on Earth would dive and crash head first, and yes while that negatively affected her relationship with Mickey I liked how it pushed them both out of a potentially unsuccessful relationship and that Mickey got to grow, gain self-respect and realise his own strength. His development was unexpected but I loved it! - I could see that 9 latched onto Rose and while I never thought an alien being like the Dr would fall in love with a human I could see why he did and I believe it was despite himself since he had lost everything and the only thing he had was now his new companion Rose Tyler. I could see 9 beginning to feel romantic feelings for Rose and think kissed her because he knew it would be his last chance to act upon these new feelings before his death and regeneration. - With 10 these feelings definitely heightened and I could see him wanting to not let Rose know he loves her but unwilling to give her up and I liked your point on how he's more human because of losing everything and just only having Rose he of course would become more human and thus more dependant on Rose. She's all his has. And in return Rose after accepting the regeneration naturally becomes possessive of the Doctor as her romantic feelings grow, and I think she kept Mickey as backup in case she ever had to leave and because she's still holding onto something "normal" in her human in (as you said have her cake and eat it too) but when Mickey confronts and leaves her then she throws her all in and fully commits her life to her travels in the TARDIS and to the Doctor. That even Jackie her mother comments on how much she's changed in the Army of Ghosts episode. Overall the separation HAD to happen. The Dr had to realise how to go on without his security post time-war blanket to cover his pain he found in Rose. Rose needed to learn how find purpose in herself without being in the TARDIS. And I never really saw the meta-Doctor as a cop out. I think with Rose having grown and the Doctor fully accepting now he can't give Rose what she really wants it really was the best solution and now he can move on, and Rose can have a more mature and stable relationship with the man she loves who can actually stay with her, and that meta-doctor can commit to her the way he can't as well as get the help from Rose he once gained. Your points from 17:30 to 18:31 was chef's kiss. And I can see Rose and the meta-doctor having a good relationship from then on and doing their own travelling together whether on Earth helping UNIT or just travelling for fun (or I personally go by the head-cannon of the deleted scene where they're given a piece of the TARDIS to grow their own and begin travelling in that). You can also see this mirrored a bit in Clara's last few stories where after losing the man she loves she throws her all into her travels with the Doctor, becomes more reckless and like him and tries to be the Doctor. Does show how much the Doctor affects his companions. And that was much longer than I meant to be whoops. But thanks again for the analysis!
I really preferred 9 and roses relationship as opposed to 10. Their relationship felt much more wholesome and whimsical. Nine seemed like the perfect “magic man that will whisk you away and show you wonders of the universe” character that the story of Doctor Who was built on. I also really liked that nine was this complicated and gruff character that didn’t always understand human nature. I enjoyed watching him and rose butt heads. Nines story felt complete and it was beautiful watching him find his humanity. 10 had a lot of great episodes but his relationship with rose and other companions felt messy. I hated the way ten/rose treated Martha and micky. After rose is gone, 10’s constant pining for rose almost felt selfish. My favorite 10 episodes were the ones with Donna or with none of the companions.
If I disected and analyzed all my favorite ships (probably most of them) they would be seen as problematic in real life. I watch/read fiction with a different lens than real life. As for the age difference, I see it as similar to vampire/human romances. Not real, so why is complaining about the age difference a thing? And Rose was immature in her handling of Mickey. He was also a little immature for putting up with it as long as he did. I thought it was a little weird that Mickey ended up with Martha. Did they bond over being cast aside by the ones they really wanted? What happened to Martha's doctor? The one she was engaged to?
The Doctor is a massive hypocrite to the meta-crisis Doctor. Not only has the Doctor himself already committed genocide against multiple species by this point, including the daleks (not knowingly failing), but in their case he was actually ordered to by the Timelords. And what did Rose do at the end of season 1? And did the Doctor throw accusations at her?
Also the Doctor claims the metacrisis was "born in battle." What was the doctor doing when he was shot by the dalek, prompting his regeneration that lead to the creation of the metacrisis? He was running to Rose because he was so happy to see her he wasn't even thinking about anything else. One could argue the metacrisis was born out of love for her. I think the Doctor's speech about why the metacrisis and Rose needed to stay in the alternate universe just to try to rationalize leaving them there. If he actually thought his metacrisis was dangerous to Rose he would not have left them there together. The who rationale seemed bogus to me.
I still think the whole metacrisis thing was soooo soapy and bleh, and it would have been far more impactful if their relationship ended at series 2. Exploring Rose's impact on the doctor via his treatment of other characters (Martha) was more interesting to me. We didn't need Stolen Earth/Journey's End at all.
@@robertslipek7311There’s a reason why people remember Doomsday more than The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End. I like the latter more than a lot of people do, but IMO most of the enjoyment from Doomsday comes from great character writing and emotional resonance, and most of the enjoyment of Stolen Earth/Journey’s End comes from fan service
Im VERY exicted to see your take on the Doctor's overall character arc as its something i think a lot about too. I woyld recommemd listening to Dalek Universe, Timelord Victorious, and the 11th Doctor Chronicles too fill in some of the key New Who gaps
I always hated Rose. She struck me as mind-numbingly unaware and self absorbed. She treated Mickey like crap, and everything else was about her wants (take me to see my dad, I'd get involved with Captain Jack, who's this Sarah Jane person, WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M NOT THE FIRST PERSON TO TRAVEL WITH YOU).
I actually agree with most of this video. I just take it as more proof as to why they’re the ultimate fictional romance. I like the mutual codependency. And I like the selfishness. It’s love at its most raw. I do think Rose is his most important relationship. He’s loved again, but not to this raw deep unabashed extent. And really, he couldn’t survive another love and loss like this. And nor could the universe because he would’ve torn time and space apart for her.
I mean. There was that one time he punched his way through a wall while dying horrifically for 4.5 billion years then risked breaking the web of time to orpheus-and-eurydice Clara back from the dead, then they had to wipe his memories of her because there was no other way to stop him from being unhinged about it. That was certainly a thing that happened.
@ he wasn’t conscious of doing that for 4.5 billion years. And Clara died. He saw Clara die. He never saw Rose die. Seeing Rose die would’ve been even worse for him. Way worse.
@@natashaclare34 I don’t know if he would have, to sincerely analyse it. Or more, I don’t know if it’s fair to compare the two. I think Ten and Twelve are the Doctor at such different times in their life. The way Twelve reacts to Clara’s death is hugely informed by the losses he’s already sustained at that point - including Rose, but equally other people he had a very traumatic parting from like Amy. I think part of the reason he’s driven to the point of possibly becoming the Hybrid is because he cannot psychologically handle another loss of a close companion. Isolating things to just New Who with the justification of the Time War, Rose was his first new companion. Losing her was painful because she was his first after a very long time and had functionally rehabilitated him. As you say, they had a codependency by their later stages, and losing her was a kind of death. Ten had his Time Lord Victorious stuff, but I think that was prompted BY losing Rose - as well as losing Donna and driving away Martha. He was a version of the Doctor typified by regret, one of his catchphrases was literally “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry”. His “ripping the universe apart” took on the form of doing things over, eg Waters of Mars. If he was at that point when he lost Rose I think we would have seen him, well, actually rip the universe apart. I can see it like you say, that if she had actually literally died that’s what would have tipped him over the edge. But my thought is 1) when their relationship was so “being alive means being together”, being parted meant she functionally, narratively died, he lost her permanently or so he thought at the time. And 2) he says something in Heavensent along the lines of the worst thing about someone you love dying isn’t the day they die, but all the days they stay dead. That’s the trauma, as he experiences it. So the trauma that pushed him to becoming the kind of person who would break the universe was the days Rose stayed gone. The day he lost her, he wasn’t that person yet. None of this is to downplay the importance these characters have to him as individuals, he loved Rose for who she was and he loved Clara for who she was, as he many others, but I think it shows how pitting the various relationships and characters against each other in a bid to prove that one is the most important can disregard the character development of the Doctor and how that influences things. It flattens things out and ends up actually downplaying the effect these characters had on the Doctor.
I like Rose, and of course I like Ten, but I am not convinced the best love interest for a 900-year-old alien is a teenage girl. Of course she gets jealous. She's a kid. She's a kid without much going on in her life and the Doctor offers her a purpose. I love that for a companion. I was so annoyed by Clara's indifference to travelling with the Doctor. It was clear she was just fine without which made her time with the Doctor much less compelling. For a romance, though, I don't see much good there. The actors had chemistry but the set-up was off-putting for me. You're right about the co-dependency but they're not even close to being on the same page so it ends up being super uneven.
Actually my reaction on Doomsday was like "At least" and "Good riddance". Little did I know that it wasn't actually the end but the beginning of the cringe "pining for Rose" era. Actually your video made me tolerate them a little more
I think the Doctor's romance isn't like human romance. He's super into people but they rarely slow down enough for a quiet night of kissy kissy. I'm fine with arguments of trauma but it seems more like superintelligent ADHD to me. and happily so.
If you read the Day of the Doctor novelization you find out the 11th Doctor one time cloned River Song, did some umm… things with her, and then went back in time to erase it from history, so no one would find out.
I certainly don’t think the Doctor has to be traumatized to experience romance in a different way. Heck, even humans don’t all experience romance in the same way! And the Doctor is an alien from a totally different culture, so in some ways it would be weird if he experienced romance like our standard human idea of it
Great video! Looking forward to more! I had mixed feelings on their relationship when I first watched the RTD era. Last year I rewatched those episodes for the first time in about 10 years. I expected that maybe I’d like the romance more now that I wasn’t a cynical teenager, but during my rewatch it still felt… off. I couldn’t put my finger on why but I think you hit the nail on the head in this vid- especially the part about how cavalier they are about other people. Great stuff!
The romance between The Doctor and Rose was always my least favorite aspect of their era. Rose was jealous and possessive, and often negligent, particularly of Mickey. Yes, Mickey tends to be a pandering puppy, (okay, tin dog...) but she keeps him in her back pocket, just in case... I always felt bad for Mickey. I dislike Rose more and more, as the show progressed. She is my absolute least favorite companion. Billie Piper, however, was, well, "Fantastic!" as Rose: she played all of her positive and negative traits brilliantly. So, in short, Rose was horribke, Billy was Terrific.
Really great video. I definitely have mixed feelings on TenRose and Doctor romance in general. I definitely understand why they chose to explore it in the season and I do think it's done well, I think it's just not my favourite, but this video definitely has me thinking about it so maybe next watch I'll be a bit more of a fan. In general I'm definitely a Doctor and besties guy though
Interesting video. I hadn't really thought about their relationship in this way, but It's difficult to disagree with your points. I do really like the two of them, but I do wish Rose had an extra season with 9.
I never shipped them. For me It makes no sense for the doctor to fall for a companion: he's 900 years old, an alien, super inteligent, and had like a dozen of companions before. Rose is not more special that any of them, so, why would he fall for her? I just couldn't buy it. Rose is also my least favourite companion and it's precisely because of her treatment of Micky. Her face when the doctor asked Micky to join them, omg, afer that I couldn't stand her. Good video.
Big Finish did a great "Companion Chronicle" which explains what happened to Jackie Tyler: she went to work for UNIT, in the canteen. She knows exactly how everyone takes their tea, and exactly when they need it. As always, BFP does a better job of Doctor Who than the BBC.
Another great video!!! I remember thinking a lot of the Rose-Doctor (both 9 and 10) relationship was really cute when I first watched the show as a teen. Now, at nearly 30, I feel very differently. Rose reads as so much younger and so much less self-actualized than other companions, and for me it’s that part of things, more than the human-Time Lord age gap specifically, that really stands out now. I’m very much not anti-Doctor-in-a-romantic-situation as a viewer (big fan of River Song, absolutely love the viewing experience of the intense and codependent devotion, romantic or otherwise, between 12 and Clara) but everything you’ve detailed here is definitely a big part of why I really don’t like the Doctor+Rose together romantically.
I've said this many times, but I feel that Nine and Rose act as a brake to each other's worst impulses ("Dalek," "Father's Day"), while Ten and Rose exacerbate each other's worst impulses.
I agree with this completely!
@@looseleafellie i;m reminded of something Russel said about 10. His accent is because he imprinted on Rose. which makes me think, what else did this new guy imprinted on? and you can see that with their relationship and by the time we get to Donna, Who i think ground Ten in a way he could never be grounded with Martha (justice for Martha) or Rose. Kind of like 11 and Amy. this is a really well constructed video and made me think of their relationship in a very different way, thank you! they really do bring the worst out of each other.
Like 12 and Clara
They absolutely bring out the worst in each other, but damn if it isn't fun to watch sometimes. Sometimes I just watch the beginning of The Idiot's Lantern or The Impossible Planet, just for their own sakes.
@@OneShot-nu6nj Ten's accent in this is more RP than Rose's (and Ruby's, I think) working-class accent, although he does code-switch a bit. (Martha is my favorite, though. I wish she would come back.)
Justice for Martha!
Totally agree.
Martha has more blood on her hands than the Doctor.
Firstly its her loud mouth yapping about the future to Jenny in Family of Blood that cause the Family to realise Martha is the companion and John Smith the Doctor, and thus they attack the school killing countless children. Not to mention the couple at the dance and the hosts of the bodies they took over.
Then, she revived the Master by not shutting the hell up again, waffling on about the TARDIS, the future and so on. When she see's the fob watch, instead of shutting her mouth, she breaks the perception filter and then leaves Yana alone in tears recalling about Time Travel aloud to her. Thus the Master returns, killed the President Elect Bill Winters (which isnt undone after the reversal of time) then he returns again and kills the burger lady, the black lad and his foreman in End of Time. Then of course the people he kills as Missy, at least a dozen on screen. And then the weird Master who genocides Gallifrey. Thats all because of Martha's fat mouth not shutting up.
@@AzguardMike The part where you talked about her being responsible in Family of Blood was kinda understandable but damn the rest devolves into the most unserious comment I've seen. Using this we can literally blame 10 for everything too. Some mfs really be hating Martha and Clara smh.
Martha is my favorite
@@AzguardMike😅😅😅
I think western culture's over emphasis on the importance of romantic relationships affects how people feel about rose and ten. Twelve is my favorite doctor and in my opinion his one episode with river song was more romantic than anything rose and ten had.
@@ruthiebee11 Twelve and River are fabulous together and I’m so sad we only got them for one episode
I think if you choose to interpret 12 and Clara's relationship as romantic(which I believe was Moffat's intent) it hits much, much harder than 10 and Rose as well.
This is honestly why I think Tooth and Claw from Series 2 is kind of an underrated episode. Especially taking into account how Queen Victoria openly criticises and punishes Ten and Rose for their flippant behaviour. It even lays the foundation for the finale in which Torchwood's meddling is what inevitably tears them apart.
I’ve always been a bit of a Tooth and Claw hater (I’m not sure why, it just doesn’t grab my interest as much as other episodes), but I do love this aspect of it!
Tooth and Claw, where the evil plan is to infect the royal family bloodline through Victoria ... when she was old, widowed and already given birth to her final child (who would have been in her 20s by then). Not a great plan! Also, where did those monks go?
Rewatching that episode more recently made me realise the issues with their relationship. They’re acting like a pair of giggling children the entire time. Nine and Rose would never.
@@intergalactic92 It's such a difficult episode for me to rewatch because of that, tbh. There are people LITERALLY DYING around them and they're giggling and basically treating people like they're NPCs in a video game. And I can kind of get Rose doing that, as she was always DEEPLY immature imo, but the Doctor should've 100% know better. It's really the worst. They just bring out the worst behaviour in one another.
@@NicoleM_radiantbaby Rose was immature, yes, she was a teenager. But Rose in season one was also compassionate towards others - caring about Gwen or the Dalek to the point of willing to fight the Doctor. To me it often feels like season one and season two Rose are two different people.
I want to start this off by saying I don’t hate rose but I don’t necessarily like her. That being said extrem fans of Rose act like she was the only person ever important to the doctor yes she was extremely important to him but some people down play other companions all the time just to praise rose. The second thing I really need to get off my chest is while Rose ending is sad she did not have the most tragic fate out of all the doctors companions. Her ending is sad but she’s alive, with her mom and a version of her dad plus got a human version of the doctor. People have died horribly traveling with the doctor, so I kind of roll my eyes when people say she had the most tragic end.
If Rose’s story had ended at Doomsday, I could kiiiiind of get the “one of the most tragic” argument, but as it stands she gets away with one of the best endings out of all of them. In terms of her being the most important person to the Doctor, I could agree that she was the most important person to Nine and Ten, but the Doctor as a whole?? No way (see: River, Clara, etc.)
See: Nardole
I think Katarina and Adric would like a word about the "most tragic" label.
Cough cough cyber bill
@@looseleafellieIdk, river was also very important to most of the doctors after the 9th at some point for various reasons. their last night together also really shows that she's incredibly important to him imo, if not the most important. His last time with river was incredibly different than any of the other important women he parted with
I really think part of my dislike of 10 and rose is because of Martha. Dude can’t stop pinning after someone he knew for a year out of his centuries long life to the point he puts Martha in extremely dangerous situations with her wanting to prove she’s just as good as Rose. Especially with the master and the family of blood.
I fully agree with you there - the way Ten treated Martha was awful. The show addresses it to an extent, but I kinda wish they were even more emphatic that Ten’s behavior was not okay
@ I feel like they barely touched on it. Martha leaves her family to be tortured by the master for an entire year and then just goes and becomes a member of UNIT? Oh and she’s randomly married to Mickey when ten is doing his farewell tour? Maybe some of that story was expanded in big finish but still the only 2 POC characters ended up together? I don’t even think they ever really interacted outside of maybe walking away with Jack when the doctor dropped them off.
Rose was the first person he allowed himself to be close to after however the hell long the last time war lasted and she was the first person his 10th incarnation met. Both are important, and It's really not that surprising for him to do that especially when you know that he will repeat this twice after her with Amy and Clara.
* Closer to Two Years.
@@looseleafellie I really disagree here and here is why .
1. It is hard to say how much time of their personal timelines Rose and 10 spent together. Remember : the Tardis is a time machine
2. Romantic relations tend to be the most intense in the first years so it is completely understandable that 10 can't just let go
3. How aware 10 is of the crush Martha has on him is debatable. IMHO much points to him just being lonely and needing a friend.
4. I think this was a typical situation of "dammed if you do, dammed if you don't" Imagine the fan reaction if 10 would have quickly gotten over Rose and happily travel with other people having all kinds of fun.
I feel like their co-dependency on each other is shown very drastically in Turn Left, where it can be implied that Ten let himself drown/die with the Archnis because of his grief over losing Rose
Yes, this is a great point!
And Rose basically gets Donna to kill herself to save the Doctor
@@rkah6187 damn I never thought of it like that
My favourite companions are the ones who can call the Doctor out on there sh!t. The Doctor should not be a perfect character. They should have flaws. Rose would call 9 out. Donna could call 10 out, Amy could keep 11 grounded, Clara for 12. If a companion is all “Wow Doctor you are amazing.” I don’t like it. The best example of this is actually Big Finish with 6 and Evelyn Smythe. A lady who could really call the Doc out when being a d!@k.
Totally agree!!! I like doctor companions to have independence!
Rory has a very good point when he first calls out the Doctor while they’re in Venice.
He says:
*“You know what’s dangerous about you. It’s not that you make people take risks. It’s that you make them want to impress you. You make it so they don’t want to let you down. You have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves when you’re around.”*
From the look the Doctor gets on his face during the scene, you can tell that those words definitely did hit him hard, at that moment. It was sort of undermined with how they continue to act throughout the season, but that was the most accurate thing any of the companions ever said about him in my opinion.
I have said this before, but I’m glad that it was Rory who called him out on this. The Doctor is a doctor, and Rory is a nurse. You know what they say about nurses?
Nurses are the ones keeping doctors from accidentally killing you.
@@julesking1303 Reason #638373 to love Rory!
@@Bryan-d8j I’m right there with you! Donna is my favorite companion partly for this reason
Hot take: Nine and Rose had better chemistry. Ten and Rose had more charisma. That is to say, Nine and Rose would have made more sense if they had more than one season to develop, because their internal chemistry was fantastic. Ten and Rose I got more the vibe that they were a standard fun couple that a lot of viewers would relate to on an outward level. I never thought Ten and Rose were a particularly deep pairing and that it was part lingering feelings for Nine and the fact that Tennant is young, hot, and fast-paced so naturally she'd want to see the stars with him.
Yes! Spot on.
I liked them way better too. And I also liked the looks and personality of nine better. Who doesn't love a grumpy guy with a heart of gold?
as a kid I didn't like rose because of the way she treated mickey
I never liked their romance. While Twelve/Clara was framed as evolving into something toxic, I felt Ten/Rose was moving in a similar manner but the show kept framing them as just so cute. I understand entirely how they got there, why they're so arrogant and what it was building up to... I just didn't like it.
@@Dalek97 That’s totally fair!
Doctor Who isn't even supposed to have romance. It makes no sense to have romance between an ancient character and mortal. It's always wrong.
Exactly how i feel! The show felt self aware with Twelve/Clara while it seemed to romanticize Ten/Rose.
I never saw the departure of Rose as devastating. I find the end of the Ponds more devastating
It probably depends which companion you like better, but Angels Take Manhattan is also a devastating episode
Same. I was actually glad when (I thought) Rose was leaving in 'Doomsday'. I didn't cry at all. I was looking forward to the next companion in that moment instead.
(But then I'd seen all of Classic Who at that point -- that's available, at least -- and so it was just another exit for a companion I wasn't that keen on mixed with excitement of who might be next)
By the time the Ponds finally managed to escape the Doctor (by living a long happy life and dying of old age), I'd long since taken the position, not entirely seriously, that modern era Companions are trying to find a way to get away from the Doctor, who keeps turning up and whisking them away on another adventure.
It was what happened to Donna that drove me to stop taking the fates of Companions seriously - they took all her character growth from her time with the Doctor and erased it, resetting her to the woman in a dead-end life with no prospect of joy or purpose, and stuck a bomb in her head so that if it ever looked like she might get her act together and have something like a life, her brain would explode.
same, like i loved rose and tenrose but the second i her mom pointed out how much she was becoming like him i knew it had to end. and in the end while i felt bad for her i was glad it ended
Rose and Donna get their own personal David Tennant that will treat them right, Meta Crisis for Rose because he can be with her together, the 14th Doctor for Donna because he's grown as a person and can finally settle down and be happy as a family.
Meanwhile Martha still gets the short end of the stick yet again >_>
Good, Martha deserves better than him
@@gryotharian true. She outgrew this manchild even before she met him. She just needed time to see it for herself
Martha got a matured Mickey. She’s good.
@@carrastealth Martha didn’t deserve to be stuck with Ten after how badly he treated her, let’s be honest 😅
The age issue is a problem for me. Rose was 19 with Nine (they made this an issue in one episode), and still really young with Ten (maybe 20 or 21). I know Rose is an adult. But it becomes difficult for me to see it as that romantic when I think of how young she was. I know, that makes me sound old and so forth, I'll grant all that.
he was 1000 years old, she could have been 30 and it would still be weird 😂
Agreed. The doctor is over 1000 years old. What works with River later on is that she has an extended age range.
ohmigods, THANK YOU!!!!! How does no-one ever bring this up?!? She fell in love with a 900-smth year old man as a 19-year old, and nobody seems to talk about it?!?!
In the ep Aliens Over London they make a joke “that’s one hell of an age gap” and it’s supposed to be played off for laughs… like, what? So they’re acknowledging the age but doing romance anyway?
@@MagretaWestbyNineteen year olds can be naive, so her falling in love with the Doctor isn’t unrealistic. What’s appalling to me and some others is that Rose’s feelings were reciprocated 😬
I really really liked nine/rose. I think they complimented each other really well and had a good relationship, one very small moment that I love is in the opening to "The Long Game", the Doctor and Rose step out of the TARDIS first and the Doctor very quickly gives her a rundown of where they've landed, then Adam steps out and Rose pretends to figure out where they are just based on context clues, acting like a very experienced time traveller. It's a really cute small scene that could easily be forgotten. I like Rose and Mickey's relationship talk in Boom Town where Mickey admits he's been seeing another girl because she's actually THERE and Rose isn't. I like the way the Doctor starts acting differently when Jack joins the team, putting on more of a brave act.
I like Ten, but his scenes with Rose are framed very obviously as flirty right from the get go. One of the first lines he ever speaks is in his speech about what sort of man he could be in this regeneration, and he says "sexy" whilst listing off a bunch of adjectives, and winks at Rose. He also just has an affair with Madame de Pompadour, the Girl in the FIreplace is about Ten having a fairly romantic interaction WITH ANOTHER WOMAN? Martha's time in the show suffers from the writers making her into "jealous of Rose" and romantically pining for the doctor. Ten's first 2 seasons have this romantic relationship with Rose hanging over it, and when his character finally escapes it, we have a great character dynamic with Donna.
Rose gave Nine a reason to live, she helped him love the world again. Ten runs from Rose at every opportunity, throwing himself into danger, but he's the incarnation that loves Rose? I find it hard to believe. Tennant is hotter than Ecclestone, that's what the fanbase generally looks at for their shipping.
I love the opening scene in The Long Game and I’m glad you brought it up! You also make an interesting point about how Ten sometimes pushes Rose away even as he builds his whole personality around her. I find that his actions in The Girl in the Fireplace are kind of out of character, but most of the time, I interpret any distance from Rose as him trying to deny the extent of his affection for her because he’s scared of losing her
@@looseleafellie Isn't the problem of this episode just that it was written by Steven Moffat and that it clashed with Davies idea of the doctor?
@@Ziguard31 Didn't Davies see Rose as his avatar?
Listening to different perspectives on the Doctor-Rose romance (and the broader concept of the Doctor engaging in romance with humans) raises these questions for me:
What are the norms for Time-Lords regarding sex and romance?
How do these differ from Gallifreyans in general?
What does it mean that the First Doctor had a grandchild?
How does living for thousands of years shape the Doctor's views on intimacy?
How does his intelligence, age, and experience influence his approach to romance and sex?
What does the Doctor’s view of humanity reveal about his willingness to engage romantically or sexually with humans?
Did the trauma of the Time War alter his perspective?
Why does his attitude toward romance vary across incarnations?
How much of that change is due to regeneration versus life experience?
I have all of these questions myself! It’s pretty easy to headcanon answers to some of them, but others are more ambiguous. From a real-world perspective, of course, the writers have an incentive to give the Doctor relatively conventional modern Western views of romance, because they’re contemporary British humans writing a TV show for contemporary British humans and they want their audience to relate to the main character
As someone who is very into the expanded universe side of Doctor Who, I can answer most of these.
"What are the norms for Time Lords regarding sex and romance? How do these differ from Gallifreyans in general?"
Way, way back, when Time Lord society was first being established by Rassilon, Omega, and the Other (plus three others), Gallifrey had previously been ruled by the Pythia and was a matriarchy. All Gallifreyans were, until Rassilon came into power, procreating via sexual reproduction. This changed when Rassilon took power and, alternatively, wiped out the indigenous Gallifreyans and the Pythia and re-created the Gallifreyan genome from scratch, or the last of the Pythia placed a curse upon Gallifrey, rendering its population sterile/infertile.
Rassilon and others developed Looms, which weave new bodies out of already-existing Gallifreyan DNA. It was decreed by Rassilon that only those born from the Looms would go on to become Time Lords. Sexual reproduction and live birth were declared illegal, and "womb-born" Gallifreyans were either executed once found out, or banned from entrance to the Academy and becoming Time Lords.
Time Lords as a whole are asexual (with some being grey-asexual or demisexual depending on regenerations) and aromantic. Marriages are more to strengthen political ties between Houses than out of romance, even for non-Time Lord Gallifreyans. Leela's marriage to a male Gallifreyan supposedly lifted the Pythia's curse and brought fertility back to Gallfirey.
In the novel Unnatural History, it's mentioned that the Doctor was Loomed but also remembers having parents. At the same time. Make of that what you will. It also says that Rassilon hated the fact life had come back to Gallifrey after thousands of years of sterility and made a deal with Faction Paradox to restore the Pythia's curse.
"What does it mean that the First Doctor had a grandchild?"
We don't even know if the Doctor had a wife back on Gallifrey, but there's the whole thing where the Doctor was the Other, one of Time Lord society's six founders, whom Rassilon attempted to murder. The Other threw themselves into the Looms before Rassilon could do the deed, and several thousands of years later, they were reborn into the House of Prydon as the Gallifreyan who would go on to become the Doctor. (Interestingly, the Other was rumored to not actually be a Gallifreyan, but something from another universe that had taken on Gallifreyan form. This ties neatly into the whole Timeless Child thing and there's also the theory that the Doctor is one of the Great Old Ones, specifically Nyarlathotep.)
Anyway, according to this, Susan is actually the Other's granddaughter and may or may not have been loomed before her "parents" were. Also, time travel. And the Doctor's biodata is an absolute mess anyway.
"How does living for thousands of years shape the Doctor's views on intimacy? How does his intelligence, age, and experience influence his approach to romance and sex? What does the Doctor’s view of humanity reveal about his willingness to engage romantically or sexually with humans?"
For most of the Classic series, the Virgin New Adventures novels, and the Past Doctor Adventures novels, the Doctor is written as asexual and (maybe) demiromantic, generally uninterested in sex or romance and not feeling attraction to anyone (while in their Gallifreyan body, anyway). This is in line with other canon regarding the Time Lords as a whole. It's not until the Eighth Doctor where the writers begin to explore what sexuality means for the Doctor, and both Big Finish and the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels write Eight as canonically nonbinary and grey-asexual. Eight has sex (implied, off-page) more than once in the novels with both men, women, and nonbinary beings and has a heavily-implied romance with male companion Fitz Kreiner and Big Finish companion Charley Pollard. Since it's the first time the Doctor has been written as having these urges and feelings, ever, Eight is initially very confused by what it means for this body and him in particular.
In the Big Finish audios, Eight flat-out tells Charley (who has fallen in love with him and he with her), that, essentially, romantic love isn't the same thing for him as it is for her, since she's human, and he can't give her what she wants from him. That his fellow Time Lords all wondered why he bothered taking humans on as companions when he's essentially immortal and humans have such short lifespans, and the Time Lords concluded that the Doctor's companions were all memento mori.
All that being said, there's an erotica novel where the male lead is very obviously the Eighth Doctor with amnesia, conveniently set during the period in the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels where Eight is exiled to Earth and has amnesia, and the female lead in that book is later referenced in one of the EDAs. So... make of that what you will.
"Did the trauma of the Time War alter his perspective?"
Very likely, yes. Eight in the novels was also dealing with a time war (the Second War in Heaven, against an unknown Enemy--all we know about the Enemy is that it wasn't the Daleks), albeit a war that took place in Gallifrey's future compared to his current personal timeline. Eight went through some stuff in the novels, and it gets... interesting with how they explore his own personal trauma, identity, and sexuality.
"Why does his attitude toward romance vary across incarnations? How much of that change is due to regeneration versus life experience?"
The Doctor's biodata (4th-dimensional DNA, more or less) is an absolute mess with a whole bunch of *other* stuff in it, and that's without getting into how often xe's experienced regeneration sickness. Anyway, each incarnation showcases various aspects of the Doctor's personality and while they are the same person across incarnations, certain traits and pieces of their identity shift around. They're the same being with the same core personality and shared experiences, but each incarnation is different from previous ones and has its own personal identity.
Doctors One through Seven were primarily aromantic and asexual. Eight is the first incarnation that shows interest in romance/sex, with this carrying over to NuWho. Asexuality is a spectrum, with grey-asexuality and demisexuality falling under that spectrum. Same with someone being aromantic, demiromantic, and grey-aromantic in terms of experiencing romantic attraction. Doctors Nine and Ten fell in love with Rose, Nine because she was the first person he let himself get close to after the Last Great Time War, and Ten because he regenerated out of Nine's love for Rose and basically became co-dependent on her.
So, to answer your second question, it's likely a mix of both regeneration/that particular incarnation and life experience.
@@twicebornwitchlighter7606 Thanks so much for laying all this out! I knew some of this but not all (I need to get more into expanded media for sure). It's so interesting to see which parts gel with the main show and which parts contradict. Doctor Who has a complicated relationship with the concept of canonicity
@@looseleafellie You're welcome. :) The BBC's stance on Doctor Who canon and the expanded universe, as far as I'm aware, is that everything is canon. All of it. No matter how contradictory. The Beeb's only thing is that the TV series cannot make so obscure a reference to the expanded universe that the material in question has to have been experienced in order to understand it. (And the TV series repeatedly contradicts and retcons itself anyway. Hell, the Doctor and Susan being Time Lords from Gallifrey is itself a retcon. The concept of regeneration is a retcon.) Everything yet nothing is canon.
Anyway, the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels are all online for free here: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Mzg8DaJPJP9_r2bUCytbq0ZQJvO9v9b4
It's quite a vast rabbit hole to go down, but the expanded universe is worth it and a lot of fun, since there's so much of it and you can pick and choose what aspects you want to incorporate into your fanon. Personally, I'm more familiar with the novels and some of the comics (thanks to my library and local bookstore) than I am the Big Finish audios.
@@twicebornwitchlighter7606 That's my understanding of the franchise's stance on canon too! And thanks for the link!
I'd like to think 9's jealousy of Jack Harkness stems from the fact Jack can relate more to Rose on that adventurous human level, and can be more jovial as a result. But he's The Doctor and has a responsibility he can't exactly step away from. That's where I think the 11th Doctor is the best portrayal of that Old Man of Responsibility and Maturity. His companions acted more like children and he actually gets married.
Season 2 is like watching an unhealthy relationship in the honeymoon phase. It's not obvious but the cracks are there, and poor Martha got the fall out. 😅
Personally I always thought it was weird that when the Tenth Doctor had his 'fake-out' metacrisis regeneration, Rose was all upset that he was (supposedly) changing. Like, of all the people in the console room, she'd witnessed a regeneration first hand before, so she could have at least calmed down Donna -- who was freaking out, or something -- as she knows the Doctor is going to be all right.
It just really gave me a strong feeling that if the Doctor HAD changed his looks in that regeneration, especially to someone maybe much older-looking or not conventionally attractive or maybe his personality had become more brusque (see: 'The Twin Dilemna'), I was unconvinced that Rose's 'deep love' for the Doctor would've still been a thing.
But that might just be me.
It just felt off, as regeneration is one of the most vulnerable times for a Time Lord and she was...just making it all about her. 🙁
I think she was just upset because she was FINALLY given the chance to reunite with him after all this time...and then a Dalek had to come over and bloody ruin it for them by exterminating him, meaning that very soon, he would change his face AGAIN, meaning she'd have to get to know him all over again. Because iirc in the Children In Need minisode "Born Again", which took place directly after that last scene in "The Parting of The Ways" when the Ninth Doctor regenerated in front of her, she was scared and confused as to who this strange new man was, how he got here and why he had taken the Doctor's place.
The man told her that he WAS the Doctor, just with a brand new face.
Of course, she doesn't believe him at first, but the Doctor manages to convince her and as seen in "The Christmas Invasion", she finally accepts it.
So when Rose gets upset that he's gonna regenerate again in "The Stolen Earth", i think that's her not wanting to go through the whole "guy you've known for quite some time gets a new face and new personality, so now you've gotta know him all over again" process. Especially when she's been separated from him for SOOO effin' long!
@@NicoleM_radiantbaby you make a good point here! I do think that Rose would prefer to keep Ten over another incarnation, because Ten is more or less a tailor-made perfect Doctor for her. That doesn’t mean she wouldn’t love the Doctor less if he regenerated - she just knows the nature of their relationship might change with a different incarnation, and she doesn’t want that
The one thing that really irked me on a rewatch is that 10 has that beautiful scene in school reunion where he explains that he is immortal and has to learn to let his companions go, or else He will see them die. But in the same season he looses rose and then spends a while season moping over her before Donna slaps some sense into him.
I also hate the Doctor having a love interest in the first place and wish the showrunners would actually explore different types of relationships that arent just romantic.
Because when they do that it is great, The doctor and donna being bffs is always great, 12 and bills teacher student relationship is fun and even though amy tries to seduce 11 their dynamic changes to being a platonic relationship later on and is better for it.
So THAT's why the first RTD era made so much sense as a cohesive thing; it's 9 and 10 learning to process relationships again after coming back from war.
Every episode with Martha made her feels like a rebound companion, which is a shame. Mostly because Martha is a really fun character.
I’d argue that Doctors 9-12 have a surprisingly cohesive character arc, but that’s a video for another time. And yes, justice for Martha!
Rose was 19 when she travelled with the Doctor; the Doctor was _900._ Nobody seems to talk about this, but to me it makes the whole thing DEEPLY uncomfortable to say the very least.
I'm _so_ glad that you touched on the fact that Rose treated Mickey HORRIBLY. It's one of the reasons of why I could never like her character. In fact, I know that I will probably get a ton of hate on this, but I felt like both Rose _and_ the doctor were terrible people. The doctor knew after Rose that having a female companion was risky, yet even still he _selfishly_ continues collecting young, female companions knowing FULL WELL that there was a risk of the two of them falling for each other. Heck , even if he had gotten a male companion it _still_ could very well have happened. I especially felt sorry for poor Martha. ☹️ She didn't deserve the emotional turmoil the doctor put her through. He showed Rose _so_ much more respect but Martha was ultimately punished due to him not processing his feelings. She was essentially a rebound companion. 😮💨 It would have been kinder to simply _not allow_ Martha to travel with him.
As for Rose, I was a little irked by her "happy ending" with the hand clone and you perfectly articulated my feelings. I really enjoyed everything about this discussion. You are the first _Doctor Who_ fan who openly admits that the relationships in this show are not perfect. I really appreciate the fact that you looked at BOTH sides rather than just the shipping side. 😊 Thank you for that.
I will most DEFINITELY be subbing and watching your other vids!
@@Rose_Bride I’m so glad you enjoyed the video! I think there’s a tendency for fans to think they aren’t allowed to like the show if they admit the characters are bad people sometimes, when that couldn’t be further from the truth. Aside from the fact that the show isn’t perfect and deserves plenty of criticism for some things, flawed characters are what make a story interesting, and you can find a character enjoyable to watch without endorsing everything they do
Tbh i feel like his true star crossed lover role was river, with their timelines being opposite and all
For me it’s rose
Definitely agree about River!
Everyone knows the best Doctor Who romance is the Second Doctor and Jamie McCrimmon. They are couple goals.
Oh for god's sake.
The Doctor was the brains, and Jamie was the legs.
I was gonna comment this exact thing
I'm glad someone said it.
Yes! Two and Jamie were 100% 'space married', imo!
Amazing video MARTHA DESERVED BETTTAAAAA Im re watching parts of the show and then watching people's analysis and its all very entertaining x💝☺️
I prefer Rose with nine and not ten. Their friendship was nicer to watch, much like twelve and Bill. I feel how Rose was used over ten's tenure shaped how the characters Martha and Donna were used and received. I also feel the backlash of Rose and the Doctor heavily shaped how the fandom viewed Clara and the Doctor, drawing parallels between them that they both finding their life's purpose with the Doctor. Though they both attempted to become like their Doctors, Clara was using it to escape the pair of losing her boyfriend while Rose pushed her boyfriend away to be with him forever.
I think one of the most disappointing things about Rose’s tenure is how it shaped fan reception to Martha. The way the show pitted them against each other had the unfortunate side effect of encouraging fans to pit them against each other too, even if the show ultimately wanted to portray that attitude as bad. And the fact that Martha was the show’s first regular non-white companion means it was extra unfair to put her in that position, imo
@@looseleafellie Martha was brilliant wasn’t she! Very underrated. I think Ten pining after Rose like he hadn’t lost friends and family before, marred Matha’s tenure. S3 wasn’t about Martha seeing the universe it was Ten recapturing the magic he had with Rose. Even Donna couldn’t escape it, with Rose coming back at the end of s4. It stinks of RTD not being able to let go of the character, which i think affected how Martha and Donna were written. Subconsciously favouring Rose, which the fandom picked up on.
I can't overstate how much this review is so accurate. From Rose and Doctor Tens relationship, to the way she treats Mickey, it's just so spot on and I've not seen anyone aptly describe this. Thank you.
@@mgrizzyyyy I’m glad you liked it!
I am so glad you said many of the things I also said about Ten and Rose’s relationship.
Totally agreed, very clearly presented and on point.
Mickey wasn’t a saint to her. He admitted to cheating on her and body shamed her. My doctor who memory is a little off but this is true.
@somethingtodowitho I wouldn't say he cheated on her - she left with another man, stayed away for a year (during which he was accused of murdering her), then left again almost immediately after a short visit. Rose basically dumped him without talking to him about it, and Mickey then went out with someone else, trying to get over her, but couldn't and came running as soon as Rose called. And it was Rose who body-shamed his new girlfriend.
Man, I never liked 10/Rose dynamic. 9/rose was always a better dynamic.
Man, this was my reaction even back in the day. Couldn't stand them together. Hated the smugness of them both. Always felt he was a better Doctor alongside Martha and Donna. Rose worked as Nine's companion, but she and Ten brought out the worst aspects of each other. It's refreshing to finally see other people willing to say it.
I do like River Song and the Doctor so the Doctor in a relationship is clearly not something I'm against, but 10 and Rose a lot of the time felt very cringe, and I hate using that word but idk what other way to describe it.
In a lot of ways Rose held Tennant back in the first series, his Doctor felt pretty underdeveloped looking back at it. Not bad but didn't fully find his stride until series 3 for me. And not since the Star Wars prequel era has someone gone from parental figure to romantic option so quick. 9 was like a father to Rose, wow interesting, they should've made an episode about that... Oh wait.
And the thing is, I like series 1 Rose, but I can't stand her after that period, she sometimes just feels like she's trying to impersonate Tennant especially in series 4 and that's kinda where the cringe comes from. Not to mention she's always been bitchy and that never mellowed with age.
I find that a lot of people who don’t usually like Doctor/companion romances are willing to give River and the Doctor a pass because River is part Time Lord and has a lot of the same knowledge the Doctor does (though their relationship is sometimes screwed up and unbalanced in its own way, which is a whole other video essay!). Is that kind of where you’re coming from?
You’re spot-on that series 2 is not the series to watch if you want a fully developed Tenth Doctor. While I find his dependence on Rose fascinating, I have to admit I find his character much more interesting after he loses her and starts getting even more openly toxic and messy
@@looseleafellie I think a lot of the appeal of river/doctor was how in control river was for most of it. We got to see the doctor on the back foot for once- flustered and a few steps behind (for most of it anyway). Plus the way their tls go in reverse is an interesting bit of story telling. Personally, I really liked river/the doctor the first time I watched it despite how much I dislike every other doctor romance, but I started to get tired of it as I got older. Probably because I got tired of Moffat-isms in general, and she is a walking case load of them. Nowadays it's hard to dispute that all of my favorite doctor/companion relationships have more of a best friend or mentor dynamic with no hints of romance.
@@AnonUnlimited I think the appeal of River wore off for me around the time we found out about Mel and how she was raised from birth to be obsessed with the Doctor. Her entire existence revolves around him and that freaks me out - if you give it any real thought, you realise how creepy it is.
@@rkah6187 Hard agree. My issue with Moffat is that he doesn't know when to stop while he's ahead. River started out as this super interesting enigma. Why do they keep meeting out of order? Who is she to the Doctor? How does she know him? Debuting her in the same episode she dies in was fantastic storytelling that kept you on the edge of your seat asking all these questions.
Then Moffat kept going. Then she was Amy and Rory's daughter. Then she was kidnapped, groomed, and conditioned to assassinate the Doctor. Then she regenerated into a child again, found Amy and Rory as children, and grew up with them while keeping her real identity a secret. Like. What??? It kept getting more and more ridiculous, which makes me sad, because River, as a character, is SUCH a neat concept that was almost done well until Moffat mucked it up. Sigh.
It would've been much cooler if he had axed "she's Amy and Rory's daughter," because I think that's where River started to lose interest for me. I always thought that plot point was weird.
@@solarydays You put it so cleanly and I absolutely agree. River was exciting and a romance I actually felt on board with because she felt like she was the Doctor's equal in a way no one else could ever be, she had agency and power in her own right, and she felt like she could hold her own in their relationship.
And then suddenly I felt like she had the least agency anyone in a relationship with the doctor could ever have.
Half your age plus seven, Doctor!
I really feel sorry for Mickey because he mentioned being hauled into the police station a couple times when Rose was gone for a year.
just binged all your doctor who vids and it’s scratching that itch in my brain!! can’t wait for more!
I just never liked the idea of the doctor of having a romantic relationship with his companions. I felt he just need close human connections but not the romantic kind
Rose doesn't owe Mickey anything.
Only what you owe to a person you are supposedly in a relationship with; some respect. Why was Rose with Mickey if most of the time she didn't seem to even like him? I was glad that Mickey wisened up in the end and put a stop to it because Rose was happy to string him along while making eyes at another person.
@@rkah6187 I see your point but didn't he canonically cheat on her before the events?? That email scene
I like how arrogant they both are because it highlights how self destructive their relationship is
We all know that The Doctor has been in romantic relationships before what is even shown in the show. He was married, had kids and those kids had kids. But I prefer the Doctor to be asexual as he was most of the time in the show.
@@MarvelX42 I mean, to be fair, we don’t know much about Time Lord marriage culture - the Doctor’s first marriage could’ve been solely for procreation or political reasons rather than romantic love. The modern show certainly shows the Doctor as capable of romantic affection, but I do think the Doctor’s sexuality is fluid and presents differently across incarnations, so some are less inclined toward romance than others
@@looseleafellie If you go to "Tomb of the Cybermen" the Second Doctor talks with great fondness about his family so obviously his first marriage was romantic love but we know little about his family background.
I love the dynamic because it really encapsulates your first great love (not necessarily the first partner but the first which truly means something). The devastating end where it’s cut short, the reconciliation and the realisation that you may have outgrown one another.
The Doctor recognises in season 4 that while he misses and will miss Rose, he isn’t good for her and she is in his past. He has moved on. He isn’t devastated by their second parting as he is the first time around. His real tears come from losing Donna, with whom he had the healthiest relationship he ever had with a companion before or since. I think that’s why Donna’s departure is the most heartbreaking, and why she is the one he chooses to live with when given a second chance. I think 10 recognised that romance isn’t really the best thing for him or others around him. Which is why when 11 (matt smith) and 12 get involved with Clara it rubs me the wrong way. It felt like a rehash of Rose, which wasn’t really compelling. I loved their romance when I was younger but rewatching now Martha and Donna became my favourites as their experience and emotional maturity means they know that romantic involvement with the Doctor is a bad idea.
When I say healthiest I mean in new who.
In classic who his more parental roles were much much healthier than the dynamics we saw in the reboot
Agree to disagree.
The Doctor is like an eldritch being. A mortal loving him is like watching "Let the Right One In" and shipping those two.
Couldn’t agree more! I rarely see people acknowledge that the Doctor and Roses relationship was always one built on circumstantial codependency. I think the reason the 10th Doctor is one of the more human and romantic incarnations is because of his loss of his own planet. He’s attaching himself to Earth and subsequently Rose because he truly has nowhere and nobody else.
This video was absolutely Fantastic. I can't wait to hear more if your analysis videos
So glad you liked it! Plenty more where that came from :)
The only thing that sucked about this relationship was the neverending repeat of people falling in love with The Doctor that followed. The show often reads more like creepy fan fiction now.
Why WOULDN’T someone fall in love with The Doctor? Joking aside I don’t think there’s anything creepy about it at all - there’s more companions that have NOT been romantically interested him than otherwise. I don’t get the recent trend of trying to paint things as creepy.
@andydietrich3689 It's creepy when the same writers use the same thing repeatedly with several companions/ransoms in a row in quick succession.
At best it's poor writing.
What about Donna? Or Amy and Rory? Or Clara? Or Bill? Or Nardole? None of them fall in love with the Doctor, like, where exactly is this neverending repeat that you're talking about? Are you sure we're talking about the same show here?
They deliberately avoided doctor having a romance because it had the potential of altering the dynamics between him and companions, who could be minors.
Dr who, past tense, was a show for the whole family but child focused.
That started to erode to the end of the classic run but it was certainly true during its peak, which meant kids watched and the show had a future.
The kids grew up and wrote sexy fanfics, and some became doctor who writers, and they wanted their sexuality onscreen.
Fine for an adult only show, not great if you want to make intergenerational programming.
Dr who was doomed when kids stopped watching.
I don't know anyone who watches the show now. I was personally involved with people who made Daleks, who bought merch, played the rpg, read the books, even wrote the books.
And it is past tense.
They drove away the old fans and stopped new ones forming. The small niche left doesn't buy, so they survive solely on the tv tax. Which most British are trying to get out of.
@@Pickle_Candy Okay 'Neverending' is somewhat hyperbolic, but once Rose leaves there's a brief run where Martha, Amy and Donna all at least get a little steamy over the Doctor. Martha ends up loving him from but unreciprocated; Amy tries to get off with him despite the first meeting between her and the Doctor being when she was a Child; and I think even Donna looks him up and down at one point.
In a show where that kind of relationship isn't previously addressed, to have it all laid on thick at once (often clunkerly) is weird.
Obviously Martha is the best character/companion in the whole show.
Yes !
Omg, I have always been an AVID Tenrose hater and never could clearly explain why I feel this way. This essay completely translates my understanding of their relationship and how toxic they were
I always preferred her with Nine. I liked season 2 and the Rose/Ten relationship, but season 1 was just so magical. In general I feel like she and Nine really brought out the best in each other, whereas she and Ten sometimes brought out the worst. Weirdly even with a visually older actor, Nine/Rose also felt more like an equal partnership to me too. She saves him as often as he saves her.
I also hate that they brought her back in season 4. Her season 2 ending was perfect. I'm a huge RTD1 apologist but Journey's End just pisses me off. 😂
I love this take about her and Nine bringing out the best in each other and her and Ten bringing out the worst - spot on!! Rose and Nine’s differences helped them learn from each other, while Ten and Rose’s lack of conflict meant they enabled each other’s worst tendencies
Exactly my thoughts, I much preferred her with Nine, there was character growth there that was missing from season 2. If there really had to be romance, the relationship would have felt more earned and genuine with Nine.
And I really wasn't happy when they brought her back
I never liked Rose. She was selfish (which could be excused when she was 19 but not later), and she had very little appreciation for the outstanding privilege it was to travel with The Doctor. I always just figured she would stay with the MetaDoctor for a year or two, if that long, and then be bored of him and move on because he wasn't taking her to exotic locales. Ten was much better without her.
Finally made the jump from TikTok. Thank you so much for your videos, when I was getting into the show earlier last year your videos have been a beacon of knowledge.
Ahhh I’m so glad you like my videos! Thank you so much for following along 😄
My Wife HATED Rose. And what really got her was that Rose gets a complimentary Doctor as a consolation prize. Like you said, the easy way out. And I also agree.
when Rose explains how she's able to return to the main universe she basically explains in an offhand remark kind of way that their method involves punching holes between dimensions or something like that. instead of being upset about it or comment at all about how dangerous and bad that is, The Doctor seems impressed and maybe even implicitly gives his approval of it because they're back together
After he heals himself after reuniting with Rose, and he asks her why, she says "So I could come back." And he just gives her this giddy, goofy, half lauging smile. I mean, I thought it was cute, but you would have thought he would be more put off by it.
That part really made me angry. Any other person would've gotten dressed down by the Doctor for nearly destroying multiple universes. But no, he giggled? I was like WTF!?
@@NicoleM_radiantbaby the doctor did even have a go about it in Army of Ghosts at torchwood for them finding a dimensional hole and mocking them that their reaction to it was "should we leave it alone? nah, lets make it bigger!". but rose working with her world's torchwood to more actively do that? the doctor is like aww shucks
10 and Rose were great for the reintroduction of the show but for me 11/12 and Clara had a way more complex and realistic relationship, Clara was written to not be perfect and her not immediately adjusting to 11 regenerating into 12 was controversial but made absolute sense to me, imagine somebody you know changing their entire body and personality... That's why I regard 11/12 and Clara as the best Doctor/companion dynamic of the entire reboot
@@Ryysight to be fair, Rose also didn’t immediately adjust to Ten being the Doctor and it was a big point of conflict in The Christmas Invasion. But I do love the Doctor and Clara’s relationship (as evidenced by my half hour long video essay about her lol)
@@looseleafellie You're absolutely right on every point and I do agree with you but one episode to adjust didn't cut it for me, hence why in retrospect I way prefer Clara to any other companion, the only companions to go through a regeneration are Rose and Clara but I just think Moffat made a bigger deal about it emotionally than Russell did
@@looseleafellieYeah, she was afraid at first. It took her time.
I respectfully disagree about Clara not immediately adjusting. Clara’s whole plot her first season was that she jumped into the Doctor’s timeline (or timestream, i forget what they called it) to save him, and thus met all the iterations of the doctor, and she also met the tenth doctor in the 50th. She is the ONLY new who companion at that point who is familiar with regeneration and has met multiple doctors when her first doctor regenerates. So to me it didn’t make sense for her of all people to be the one having a difficult time adjusting to a new doctor.
@@emmepemme95 In the 50th she said that she only vaguely remembers that. Plus her main reason for almost leaving the Doctor was cuz of his changed personality.
Watching this video made me think about tons of things but the one that interests me the most is how similar this dynamic is to 12 and Clara, one of my favorite companion and Doctor dynamics, next to 10/14 with Donna. Like so many of the beats are similar but with a different tone.
And that's interesting because as well written as they are I don't love 10 and Rose. Maybe it's just the baggage with Martha that drags it down? She deserved so much better. Either way it's good, just not really for me.
I do however want to note that 12's situation is interesting because he's clearly learned from Rose (he insists he's not her boyfriend and tries to discourage the thrill seeking a bit) but still makes a lot of similar mistakes, and he gets punished a lot worse for it. Worse than simply feeling safe with him, Clara starts explicitly trying to *be* him without his input, and instead of being sealed in an alternate world forever, she dies because of an attempt to emulate him without knowledge of the situation. Face the Raven honestly hits me harder than Doomsday, Heaven Sent is Heaven Sent, and at least I can choose to ignore Hell Bent because most of that stuff doesn't spill over. At least 12 canonically took decades to slow down and recover before traveling with another companion, so there's been some progress. It seems like he's just really prone to this kind of trap in his old age.
One hypothesis I’ve developed offers a potential explanation for why the Doctor seems romantically inclined in his 10th incarnation but not in earlier or later ones.
The Time War, and the loss of his species, might have caused neurological changes. From an evolutionary perspective, being the last of one’s species could trigger subconscious biological mechanisms to prioritize reproduction. Given how similar humans appear to Gallifreyans, this instinct may have misdirected those urges toward Rose, particularly given their strong emotional bond.
This wouldn’t have been a conscious decision on the Doctor’s part but rather an unconscious effect of his biology and psychology. Neurology and endocrinology enthusiasts might see parallels in how stress and survival pressures affect hormones and attraction. Over time, as the Doctor processed his grief and moved beyond the trauma of the Time War, he may have returned to his "default" state of asexuality toward humans, as seen in the 11th Doctor and beyond. (River Song is more nuanced than a straightforward romance.)
Of course, this theory isn’t something Russell T. Davies intended. But exploring these dynamics through biology and psychology offers a unique lens that moves beyond the usual narrative and emotional perspectives.
And let's not forget, the 8th doctor is stated (by the master, so it might be a lie, but who can say?) to be half human, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility, barring retcons.
@@SymbioteMullet In the TV movie, it's made explicitly clear multiple times that the Doctor is half-human, not just the Master saying. Of course, that idea was completely ignored in the revival 😆
Imagining him as only half Time-Lord would dramatically change the context of his loss after the Time War, because he'd only have lost one half of his kind, with humans still being alive, as opposed to if he's fully Time-Lord then all his kind is dead (which is how it's played in the revival).
@@ashleysherlock5705 maybe the half human part is the thing that really makes The Doctor the Timeless Child?
I would find it very nice! He lost half of his kind in Gallifrey so he tries even harder to protect the other half of his people to Earth @@ashleysherlock5705
Something Ive found while rewatching new Doctor Who and all the spin offs in airing order is often the Doctor's companions exemplify a flaw the Doctor is trying to retreat into. That isn't to say the companions arent healthy for the Doctor to have. The Doctor shouldn't travel alone because it's when he is alone that his worst qualities show through, the timelord victorious, for instance. Rose is running from her life and her relationships just as much as the 9th and 10th Doctor were. At the same time while Rose genuinely helps the Doctor regain his better aspects Rose really quickly starts to take on a lot of the Doctors worst qualitys. An other worldly arrogance and Rose starts to seperate herself from their humanity. Roses mom had this hard hitting line that always stuck with me, even though im paraphrasing. "Eventually their will be this woman walking down an alien market and she will not be my daughter." You see these exemplified flaws and healing that almost every companion balances during their tenure.
Thank God the Moffat era never had that problem, even then Chibnall era the Doctor forgot that she had companions.
Donna and River, and Bill then and Martha. My favourite companions in order
Amy/Rory and Bill, for me. Martha, but only after she’s over Ten.
What I find super interesting concerning Rose's character development, is that putting aside her reacting differently to Nine and Ten based on their personality differences, Rose didnt stop checking the Doctor's cruelty or begin sharing in his extreme arrogance or start exacerbating his worst impulses (and visa versa) etc until after she was ALSO forced into committing a genocide to save her universe (mainly the doctor, the doctor is her universe here the people of future-earth were secondary lets be real lol)
i think tenrose is like twelveclara in that they are both toxic but they're both treated very differently by the writers and that's the main thing that makes me love twelveclara and hate tenrose. twelveclara is toxic and the show knows it. tenrose is toxic and the show thinks it's super cute and romantic of them. clara getting reckless is portrayed as a flawed coping mechanism for losing her only tether to normal life in danny. but rose gets really arrogant and starts treating everything like a theme park day and this is just supposed to be fun and cute of her even when she is legitimately dismissive of real danger like in tooth and claw. they just bring out the worst in each other and the writers are either unaware of this or think it's actually super romantic anyway.
i also just don't really buy tenrose romantically. i just don't see them grinning like a giddy schoolboy around a crush. it feels off to me. tbh, i don't really buy ninerose romantically either. rose is just so immature and so damn annoying that i can't get myself to comprehend a hundreds of years old man falling in love with someone who is basically petulant teenager. it's not the age gap (which i can excuse for sci fi purposes) but the insane maturity gap. i can understand human x timelord relationships more generally but the juvenile nature of tenrose is just incomprehensible personally.
also, tenrose fans are just insufferable. this isn't really the writers' fault but it's so exhausting to be in this fandom and to think rose is just okay while any mention of anything even remotely rose-adjacent makes tenrose fans start foaming at the mouth. it's like they can't accept that rose is one out of dozens of companions the doctor has had before. she was undeniably important to them but then so were like 50 other people. she was not this uniquely amazing companion that no one will ever compare to and it's bad enough that martha's run was basically spoiled by the doctor sulking the whole time but it's just exhausting that even now years after rose has left the show fans simply can't let go of her or even just let her have her place as someone the doctor loved a lot. no, she has to be the most important one. she has to be the one the doctor loved more that literally everyone else. she has to be the only person the doctor ever cared deeply for in their entire hundreds of years of life. it's just ridiculous. i think rtd is at fault too i mean he literally couldn't even shut up about rose in the 60th anniversary specials going as far as to have donna's daughter named after rose too for sci fi reasons instead of giving her a personality.
THIS.
IIRC, Rose was RTD's self-insertion into the Who universe, so no wonder he can't let go.
An excellent video, and articulates my personal feelings about Ten and Rose together. Keep up the good work.
Thank you, I’m so glad you liked it!
Thank you for your video, their relationship is making more sense in my head now and finally made peace with the reunion. I didn't like it because I really thought it was like giving a compensation gift to Rose. I can wait to see your video around Martha
I never liked the romance. At all. I liked The Tenth Doctor and Donna, because they were true best friends. In fact Rose is not high on my list of favorite companions either.
Catherine Tate and David Tennant have amazing chemistry and can play lovers (watch Much Ado About Nothing) but I do love the fact that Donna clearly has no romantic interest in 10 because for her she is a "skinny boy in a suit" and important, she was an older character, not a 20 year old.
Mickey and Rose is that one sore spot at the beginning of reboot that I really struggled to turn a blind eye to.
It really is not a flattering journey from his point of view
Russell T. Davies isn't a hopeless romantic, just hopeless. This really does highlight that Rose Tyler was a hetero self-insert for him. Christ, even by the time we get to Donna Noble, Rose is still mentioned a LOT.
i am an absolute rose tyler stan but the way her and the dr in any form treat ppl when they’re together is actually criminal
This was absolutely brilliant! You hit the nail on the head and im glad it's not just me who thinks this way, and that rose was lovely but she had to go even if her and 10 where great to watch
@@TheHowdyBeansPodcast thank you! I’m so glad you liked the video 😄
@@looseleafellie i did it was amazing! I subscribed and i look forward to seeing what you do next 🤗
I have to admit to having kind of loathed Ten and Rose, and that ended up making pretty much the entire Tenth Doctor era kind of unwatchable for me. I found the two of them together to be insufferable, and the fact that the Doctor (or the writer) couldn't let it go, made his other seasons unwatchable as well. Particularly the way he kept pining after Rose while treating Martha like crap. And while I enjoyed Ten and Donna's dynamic together, it was always kind of overshadowed by the season being treated as a prelude to the Doctor and Rose being reunited.
As far as Doomsday goes, I admit that I never quite "got" it, or understood why I was supposed to be sad. Of course, I was coming from a Classic Who background, and had watched many previous companion departures, so for me, they were a little bit sad, but a normal part of the show. And I never saw Rose as being any more special than the other past companions.
As far as her ending up with the duplicate Ten, I found that whole thing kind of problematic. We basically have a young girl, barely out of her teens, being told that it's her job to fix a man who is considered dangerous and potentially genocidal. That always felt like a kind of toxic message to be sending to the young females in the audience.
Anyway, thank you for the thought provoking video.
This is exactly how I was about Doomsday. But I'm also coming from a Classic Who background, so for me, it was just the show moving on, like it always has.
I mean, it wasn't like Rose was getting her memories wiped like Jamie and Zoe. She was all right. She was safe. (In another universe, but safer than the fates of some other companions)
(Plus, as I didn't like Rose at all, so I was happy that we were getting a new companion and excited about who they would be. But then the show kept HARPING ON about Rose, when it'd usually move on. So, we get Martha's season that's less about Martha and more about the Doctor pining for Rose. And Donna's season, where it was less about Donna and more about Rose returning. Ick).
@NicoleM_radiantbaby Yeah, I had watched every companion departure from Jo to Tegan and Turlough and honestly, Rose ended up better off than most of them. She gets to have her dad who she's been pining for her whole life, only this version is successful and rich. She still has her mom, and has Micky at her beck and call. And she's able to get a great job applying the skills she picked up traveling with the Doctor.
She didn't get left on a plague colony, or have to leave because of PTSD, or get summarily dumped in the wrong place and forgotten.
They could have shown a young woman gaining her independence and autonomy but instead showed a girl who was obsessed and couldn't function without the man she had fallen for.
I don't know why so many people thought she was an empowering role model for young women, but maybe I'm just too old to get it.
@@crunchyfrog63 The lack of independence and autonomy with Rose is sadly so right on!
Her original arc was already not my favorite, but when we meet her again in the S4 finale. she's not moved on from losing the Doctor at all. She's still emotionally on that beach. Hasn't grown up, hasn't moved on.
It was like she felt she was nothing without the Doctor. And I just didn't think that was inspirational in any way. I thought it was just sad.
Okay it's been a while since I've seen any episode of Ten's run but Donna was always my favorite and I never got the sense that her season was leading up to Rose's return? Especially not in such a blatant way that could overshadow Donna's story
@@thulesse Maybe not in the narrative itself, but it overwhelmed S4 on a fandom level.
When 'Partners in Crime' aired, all people seemed to talk about was the brief glimpse of Rose, instead of the episode itself and Donna returning. And then each episode it was just people going on and on about any Rose mention or reference.
And then, in the finale which should've probably been Donna's big focal point, the big culmination of her arc, it instead seems to switch more toward giving lots of time to Handy (the Metacrisis) and tRose and all that.
I don't know. It was really bothersome for me at the time, personally. All these people so focused on Rose coming back and ignoring the awesome companion THAT WAS RIGHT THERE ON THE SCREEN.
My problem with Ten and Rose is that, I was just getting into Doctor Who for the first time ever in 2019 thanks to it being recommended by a friend, and Ten was awful for my mental health. My girlfriend had been murdered that summer and Ten's sad and depressed demeanor really made it hard for me to enjoy him until Series 4.
I'm glad I chose Eleven's first season as my first experience with Doctor Who because Eleven managed to get through to me and help me with the grieving process. Well- Eleven and Twelve.
Looking back, I recently re-watched some Ten episodes and the ones where Rose isn't around or mentioned (when he's with Donna or Martha. Donna's my all time favorite companion. Made me laugh a lot) really add a lot to Ten and show David's acting skills best because it shows the range of emotions he's capable of expressing.
I’m so sorry to hear that about your girlfriend
@Tsukiakari-qb3tk thank you. Honestly, my gripes with Ten aside, I really LOVED Eleven and Twelve. They helped me a lot with the grieving process. By the time I was done with Twelve, I had gotten to the acceptance stage
Rose sucked.
With Nine it was clear she was crushing over him. The when he regenerated to Ten she was "Oh, so you are the same person, only... not old... COOL!"
They then spent their entire time together being utter pricks to everyone they met. Rose was "I'm with the Doctor and you're NOT. Loser!" while the Doctor was always - with the power of hindsight - Timelord Victorious. (rewatch Christmas Invasion and his mannerisms. He is already showing the 'No second chances cause I am the winner in this conversation' attitude. Now I don't fully believe RTD wrote him this way in advance cause I don't give RTD credit as a long game writer. I feel it is more a realisation as to what they had created.)
Anyway - summary - Ten and Rose were utter pricks, gleefully enjoying their status as the Power Couple and screw the lives of everyone else.
We also get the case where he gives Rose his clone... cause... he really really loves her? Yeah, nah.
Look basically Rose sucked and the Tenth Doctor is in my all time top 12.
He did really love her. He sent her back with his clone so she could live a long happy life with a human version of him - this meant she would be able to marry him, have his kids.
If she stayed, he knew she would’ve ended up dead.
You make good points in this video, but I will probably never stop liking Rose and Ten's romance despite all of their faults. You would have to pry them from my cold dead hands. They're so beautifully tragic to me. However, Rose is entirely in the wrong for leading Mickey on, and I'm glad you mentioned it! This is why I was so satisfied seeing Mickey finally gain some respect for himself and leave Rose when he realizes that she will never choose him over the doctor. Mickey is the type of character I expected them to throw away after a while, so i liked seeing that he got development.
Thanks so much for your thoughts! I think one of the main points I’m hoping to make in this video is that it’s okay to love Ten and Rose’s relationship, and you don’t have to justify their bad behavior to do so. They’re complicated people and that’s one of the things that make them so great
@looseleafellie Love how you reply to all the comments, it's nice to discuss. Your videos are great. Keep it up!
@@ashleynunnally5262 haha I don’t usually get around to responding to all of them, but I try. Thank you so much!
Your hair looks great btw! Just wanted to mention it
It's refreshing to hear someone speak about them with nuance! TenRose weren't without flaws both as a relationship and the characters individually. I used to view them through rose tinted glasses when I was a teenager but like you described, I can now see their co-dependency and how their involvement with each other caused them to treat other people poorly.
I don't really have a problem with the age gap per se but I always did wonder whether Rose's sense of not having a purpose if she wasn't traveling with the Doctor could very well have been explained by how young she was. A lot of young adults feel aimless (speaking from experience lol) but find themselves as they grow older and have more life experiences. Martha seems like a good example since she was older and had a life of her own outside of the Doctor and eventually chooses to prioritize that life. It makes me wonder what if the Doctor had met Rose 5 or 6 years down the line, a Rose who has found herself or is closer to finding herself on her own, how different would that Rose be with the Doctor?
Anyways! As far as Human x Immortal love stories go, TenRose will always have a soft spot in my heart! Thanks for the lovely video!
Oh god you know what else makes that scene in Bad Wolf Bay so devastating? Rose had gone through this exact experience once already when Nine sent her back to her time in the season 1 finale and said goodbye in the TARDIS via a hologram she couldnt interact with. So when she went to touch the Ten hologram and he said she couldn't? BRO 😭
Like no wonder she was so sure she could get back to him via time vortex tomfoolery in Turn Left-it worked last time.
My favourite doctor-companion duos tend to lean on the professor and the student:
7 + Ace
2 + Jamie
12 + Bill
In a way it’s a nice callback to the initial goal of the show being education.
It’s well noted that Buffy was a huge inspiration behind New-Who but one of the aspects that doesn’t work as well in the format personally, was easily the romance aspect.
While RTD certainly is the most consistent show-runner of the revival, his writing is rarely subtle & like a sledgehammer to the face, which lead to some really powerful moments that stuck with audiences, but loses its impact when leaned on again and again…
*Murray Gold starts playing*
Finally! Someone who understands Ten and Rose! This was an excellent video.
@@JennyDuncan-o3r thanks for watching! I’m glad you liked it
It is great to hear some intelligent and articulate explanation about this relationship. For me over the years I find Ten rather irritating and with Rose they became like a pair of spoilt, smartarse teenagers. He feels like everyones favourite kid in the school but you are one of few who can see through into the flaws of Mr Popular.
@@triplejazzmusicisall1883 I agree with this so hard!
So satisfying to see this take, finally!
Let's see, Rose is 19, and the Doctor is 903, divide by 2, add 7, and... oh, oh dear.
That's what was weird to me about the whole isn't-it-funny-Jackie-is-flirting-with-the-Doctor thing in the first episode with Nine, because Camille and Chris are like one year apart in age, so even with the Time Lord in-story difference in age in the show, it made more sense to me for Nine to be with Jackie over Rose, age-wise.
Your video got recommended and I was curious and clicked... and so happy I did. Fantastic analysis! I [like you] enjoyed the relationship Rose had with both her Doctors while realising it wasn't healthy and I think the writers were clever in hinting how co-dependant they were on each other so when Doomsday happened I was torn up but wasn't surprised that it happened. It was a tragedy from the start to me, and I'm happily surprised to see someone else sees the intentional darkness underlying it.
- Rose felt so insignificant that when this amazing being appears and choses her to travel the stars and time with him it's not surprising a 19yr old teenager who felt she had nothing else to live for and no future on Earth would dive and crash head first, and yes while that negatively affected her relationship with Mickey I liked how it pushed them both out of a potentially unsuccessful relationship and that Mickey got to grow, gain self-respect and realise his own strength. His development was unexpected but I loved it!
- I could see that 9 latched onto Rose and while I never thought an alien being like the Dr would fall in love with a human I could see why he did and I believe it was despite himself since he had lost everything and the only thing he had was now his new companion Rose Tyler. I could see 9 beginning to feel romantic feelings for Rose and think kissed her because he knew it would be his last chance to act upon these new feelings before his death and regeneration.
- With 10 these feelings definitely heightened and I could see him wanting to not let Rose know he loves her but unwilling to give her up and I liked your point on how he's more human because of losing everything and just only having Rose he of course would become more human and thus more dependant on Rose. She's all his has. And in return Rose after accepting the regeneration naturally becomes possessive of the Doctor as her romantic feelings grow, and I think she kept Mickey as backup in case she ever had to leave and because she's still holding onto something "normal" in her human in (as you said have her cake and eat it too) but when Mickey confronts and leaves her then she throws her all in and fully commits her life to her travels in the TARDIS and to the Doctor. That even Jackie her mother comments on how much she's changed in the Army of Ghosts episode.
Overall the separation HAD to happen. The Dr had to realise how to go on without his security post time-war blanket to cover his pain he found in Rose. Rose needed to learn how find purpose in herself without being in the TARDIS. And I never really saw the meta-Doctor as a cop out. I think with Rose having grown and the Doctor fully accepting now he can't give Rose what she really wants it really was the best solution and now he can move on, and Rose can have a more mature and stable relationship with the man she loves who can actually stay with her, and that meta-doctor can commit to her the way he can't as well as get the help from Rose he once gained. Your points from 17:30 to 18:31 was chef's kiss. And I can see Rose and the meta-doctor having a good relationship from then on and doing their own travelling together whether on Earth helping UNIT or just travelling for fun (or I personally go by the head-cannon of the deleted scene where they're given a piece of the TARDIS to grow their own and begin travelling in that).
You can also see this mirrored a bit in Clara's last few stories where after losing the man she loves she throws her all into her travels with the Doctor, becomes more reckless and like him and tries to be the Doctor. Does show how much the Doctor affects his companions.
And that was much longer than I meant to be whoops. But thanks again for the analysis!
Thanks so much for your thoughts! I’m so glad you resonated with the video 😄
I really preferred 9 and roses relationship as opposed to 10. Their relationship felt much more wholesome and whimsical. Nine seemed like the perfect “magic man that will whisk you away and show you wonders of the universe” character that the story of Doctor Who was built on. I also really liked that nine was this complicated and gruff character that didn’t always understand human nature. I enjoyed watching him and rose butt heads. Nines story felt complete and it was beautiful watching him find his humanity.
10 had a lot of great episodes but his relationship with rose and other companions felt messy. I hated the way ten/rose treated Martha and micky. After rose is gone, 10’s constant pining for rose almost felt selfish. My favorite 10 episodes were the ones with Donna or with none of the companions.
I liked Rose and the Doctor’s story but it was Donna Noble’s separation from the Doctor that killed me. Their friendship for me is relationship goals.
Wouldn’t that be friendship goals?
@ correct. It’s still a relationship.
If I disected and analyzed all my favorite ships (probably most of them) they would be seen as problematic in real life. I watch/read fiction with a different lens than real life. As for the age difference, I see it as similar to vampire/human romances. Not real, so why is complaining about the age difference a thing? And Rose was immature in her handling of Mickey. He was also a little immature for putting up with it as long as he did. I thought it was a little weird that Mickey ended up with Martha. Did they bond over being cast aside by the ones they really wanted? What happened to Martha's doctor? The one she was engaged to?
I loved Sara & Rose becoming friends & laughing about the drs behavior with the Tardis
The Doctor is a massive hypocrite to the meta-crisis Doctor. Not only has the Doctor himself already committed genocide against multiple species by this point, including the daleks (not knowingly failing), but in their case he was actually ordered to by the Timelords. And what did Rose do at the end of season 1? And did the Doctor throw accusations at her?
Also the Doctor claims the metacrisis was "born in battle." What was the doctor doing when he was shot by the dalek, prompting his regeneration that lead to the creation of the metacrisis? He was running to Rose because he was so happy to see her he wasn't even thinking about anything else. One could argue the metacrisis was born out of love for her. I think the Doctor's speech about why the metacrisis and Rose needed to stay in the alternate universe just to try to rationalize leaving them there. If he actually thought his metacrisis was dangerous to Rose he would not have left them there together. The who rationale seemed bogus to me.
Danny Devito voice: oh... I get it now
I still think the whole metacrisis thing was soooo soapy and bleh, and it would have been far more impactful if their relationship ended at series 2. Exploring Rose's impact on the doctor via his treatment of other characters (Martha) was more interesting to me. We didn't need Stolen Earth/Journey's End at all.
@@robertslipek7311There’s a reason why people remember Doomsday more than The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End. I like the latter more than a lot of people do, but IMO most of the enjoyment from Doomsday comes from great character writing and emotional resonance, and most of the enjoyment of Stolen Earth/Journey’s End comes from fan service
Im VERY exicted to see your take on the Doctor's overall character arc as its something i think a lot about too. I woyld recommemd listening to Dalek Universe, Timelord Victorious, and the 11th Doctor Chronicles too fill in some of the key New Who gaps
I always hated Rose. She struck me as mind-numbingly unaware and self absorbed. She treated Mickey like crap, and everything else was about her wants (take me to see my dad, I'd get involved with Captain Jack, who's this Sarah Jane person, WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M NOT THE FIRST PERSON TO TRAVEL WITH YOU).
I actually agree with most of this video. I just take it as more proof as to why they’re the ultimate fictional romance. I like the mutual codependency. And I like the selfishness. It’s love at its most raw. I do think Rose is his most important relationship. He’s loved again, but not to this raw deep unabashed extent. And really, he couldn’t survive another love and loss like this. And nor could the universe because he would’ve torn time and space apart for her.
I mean. There was that one time he punched his way through a wall while dying horrifically for 4.5 billion years then risked breaking the web of time to orpheus-and-eurydice Clara back from the dead, then they had to wipe his memories of her because there was no other way to stop him from being unhinged about it. That was certainly a thing that happened.
@ he wasn’t conscious of doing that for 4.5 billion years. And Clara died. He saw Clara die. He never saw Rose die. Seeing Rose die would’ve been even worse for him. Way worse.
@@natashaclare34 I don’t know if he would have, to sincerely analyse it. Or more, I don’t know if it’s fair to compare the two. I think Ten and Twelve are the Doctor at such different times in their life. The way Twelve reacts to Clara’s death is hugely informed by the losses he’s already sustained at that point - including Rose, but equally other people he had a very traumatic parting from like Amy. I think part of the reason he’s driven to the point of possibly becoming the Hybrid is because he cannot psychologically handle another loss of a close companion.
Isolating things to just New Who with the justification of the Time War, Rose was his first new companion. Losing her was painful because she was his first after a very long time and had functionally rehabilitated him. As you say, they had a codependency by their later stages, and losing her was a kind of death. Ten had his Time Lord Victorious stuff, but I think that was prompted BY losing Rose - as well as losing Donna and driving away Martha. He was a version of the Doctor typified by regret, one of his catchphrases was literally “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry”. His “ripping the universe apart” took on the form of doing things over, eg Waters of Mars. If he was at that point when he lost Rose I think we would have seen him, well, actually rip the universe apart.
I can see it like you say, that if she had actually literally died that’s what would have tipped him over the edge. But my thought is 1) when their relationship was so “being alive means being together”, being parted meant she functionally, narratively died, he lost her permanently or so he thought at the time. And 2) he says something in Heavensent along the lines of the worst thing about someone you love dying isn’t the day they die, but all the days they stay dead. That’s the trauma, as he experiences it. So the trauma that pushed him to becoming the kind of person who would break the universe was the days Rose stayed gone. The day he lost her, he wasn’t that person yet.
None of this is to downplay the importance these characters have to him as individuals, he loved Rose for who she was and he loved Clara for who she was, as he many others, but I think it shows how pitting the various relationships and characters against each other in a bid to prove that one is the most important can disregard the character development of the Doctor and how that influences things. It flattens things out and ends up actually downplaying the effect these characters had on the Doctor.
I like Rose, and of course I like Ten, but I am not convinced the best love interest for a 900-year-old alien is a teenage girl. Of course she gets jealous. She's a kid. She's a kid without much going on in her life and the Doctor offers her a purpose. I love that for a companion. I was so annoyed by Clara's indifference to travelling with the Doctor. It was clear she was just fine without which made her time with the Doctor much less compelling.
For a romance, though, I don't see much good there. The actors had chemistry but the set-up was off-putting for me. You're right about the co-dependency but they're not even close to being on the same page so it ends up being super uneven.
Actually my reaction on Doomsday was like "At least" and "Good riddance". Little did I know that it wasn't actually the end but the beginning of the cringe "pining for Rose" era. Actually your video made me tolerate them a little more
I think the Doctor's romance isn't like human romance. He's super into people but they rarely slow down enough for a quiet night of kissy kissy. I'm fine with arguments of trauma but it seems more like superintelligent ADHD to me. and happily so.
If you read the Day of the Doctor novelization you find out the 11th Doctor one time cloned River Song, did some umm… things with her, and then went back in time to erase it from history, so no one would find out.
I certainly don’t think the Doctor has to be traumatized to experience romance in a different way. Heck, even humans don’t all experience romance in the same way! And the Doctor is an alien from a totally different culture, so in some ways it would be weird if he experienced romance like our standard human idea of it
@@looseleafellie I have seen a lot of peopel headcannon him As aroace
@@brewster_4bro he had the real deal why did he need a clone 😨😨
@My_Lifeshow Both the clone and the original were involved with the incident.
Great video! Looking forward to more! I had mixed feelings on their relationship when I first watched the RTD era. Last year I rewatched those episodes for the first time in about 10 years. I expected that maybe I’d like the romance more now that I wasn’t a cynical teenager, but during my rewatch it still felt… off. I couldn’t put my finger on why but I think you hit the nail on the head in this vid- especially the part about how cavalier they are about other people. Great stuff!
The romance between The Doctor and Rose was always my least favorite aspect of their era. Rose was jealous and possessive, and often negligent, particularly of Mickey. Yes, Mickey tends to be a pandering puppy, (okay, tin dog...) but she keeps him in her back pocket, just in case... I always felt bad for Mickey. I dislike Rose more and more, as the show progressed. She is my absolute least favorite companion.
Billie Piper, however, was, well, "Fantastic!" as Rose: she played all of her positive and negative traits brilliantly.
So, in short, Rose was horribke, Billy was Terrific.
That down bad reference is sooooooo wild
Just remember that Christopher Eccleston’s career was destroyed because he stood up to the leadership on set over Noel’s misconduct.
Really great video. I definitely have mixed feelings on TenRose and Doctor romance in general. I definitely understand why they chose to explore it in the season and I do think it's done well, I think it's just not my favourite, but this video definitely has me thinking about it so maybe next watch I'll be a bit more of a fan. In general I'm definitely a Doctor and besties guy though
Some really nice analysis here, looking forward to checking out more of your stuff!
Thank you! I’m glad you liked it!
Really enjoyed this analysis ❤
Interesting video. I hadn't really thought about their relationship in this way, but It's difficult to disagree with your points.
I do really like the two of them, but I do wish Rose had an extra season with 9.
No one ever talks about Micky being 5-6 years older than Rose.
I never shipped them. For me It makes no sense for the doctor to fall for a companion: he's 900 years old, an alien, super inteligent, and had like a dozen of companions before. Rose is not more special that any of them, so, why would he fall for her? I just couldn't buy it. Rose is also my least favourite companion and it's precisely because of her treatment of Micky. Her face when the doctor asked Micky to join them, omg, afer that I couldn't stand her. Good video.
Big Finish did a great "Companion Chronicle" which explains what happened to Jackie Tyler: she went to work for UNIT, in the canteen. She knows exactly how everyone takes their tea, and exactly when they need it. As always, BFP does a better job of Doctor Who than the BBC.
Another great video!!! I remember thinking a lot of the Rose-Doctor (both 9 and 10) relationship was really cute when I first watched the show as a teen. Now, at nearly 30, I feel very differently. Rose reads as so much younger and so much less self-actualized than other companions, and for me it’s that part of things, more than the human-Time Lord age gap specifically, that really stands out now. I’m very much not anti-Doctor-in-a-romantic-situation as a viewer (big fan of River Song, absolutely love the viewing experience of the intense and codependent devotion, romantic or otherwise, between 12 and Clara) but everything you’ve detailed here is definitely a big part of why I really don’t like the Doctor+Rose together romantically.