Doctor Who: in which the Doctor was too polite to... wait, what? Too polite?
I encountered an interpretation of the tenth Doctor/Rose relationship that I found baffling. Not just that it's not my personal interpretation, because that's one of those subjective things and whatnot, but a viewpoint for which I cannot see any possible canonical evidence and do see a preponderance of evidence that disproves it.
Apparently, there is a school of belief that states that, while the ninth Doctor was in love with Rose, the tenth Doctor was not and was humoring Rose throughout S2, was glad to be rid of her in S3, and wasn't thrilled to see her in "The Stolen Earth". To which I say, "Bwuh, huh?"
I have three main categories of evidence which I will show you to further illustrate why I do not understand this point of view at all.
Exhibit A. Tennant's Acting
Admittedly, facial expressions can be subjective, but I'm very confused that there is any universe where these expressions belong to a man who is not in love and is, instead, merely humoring someone (almost all screencaps courtesy time and space.co.uk; John Smith's journal and Ten II and Rose laughing are ones that I grabbed):
(Brief aside: there is the dropping of Sarah Jane's hand like a hot potato that he does in "School Reunion" that cracks me up every single time. I will show you:
Look at where Rose is looking! And then the Doctor is all: "Me, holding another woman's hand? I wouldn't dream of it! Look how completely empty my hand is of any other woman's hand!" Seriously, it cracks me up. Also, check out Sarah Jane's face -- hilarious.).
This would be the Doctor talking about having to live on after Rose has died:
Matching shots of separation from "The Girl in the Fireplace" (note the mirroring of Mickey and Reinette):
In-joke gleefulness:
I'm just going to say this once: when she is in emotional pain, he takes her home to see her mother.
Some joy directed toward Rose at the beginning of TIL:
His reaction to seeing Rose without her face:
And she's back! Yay!
After Rose makes a joke, he looks over at her with this expression:
And look how incredibly happy the Doctor is to finally get rid of Rose:
It's funny, though, I don't think that I've ever looked that way when I was happy.
I just find it very hard to believe that this is the reaction of a man seeing a girl that he was glad to get rid of (as opposed to, say, the girl that he's madly in love with):
Even after being shot by a Dalek, he's happy because she's there:
And just more gleeing on Rose:
Exhibit B. The Text
Various quotes from the show that add to my confusion regarding this particular viewpoint:
Rose: "Can you change back?"
Doctor: "Do you want me to?"
Rose: "Yeah."
Doctor: "Oh."
Rose: "Can you?"
Doctor: "No."
(Children in Need special)
compare to:
Joan: "Could you change back?"
Doctor: "Yes."
Joan: "Will you?"
Doctor: "No."
(3x09 - "Family of Blood". He's not afraid to be blunt.)
Rose: "And what about you? What are you gonna do next?"
Doctor: "Well.. back to the TARDIS... same old life."
Rose: "On- on your own?"
Doctor: "Why, don't you want to come?"
Rose: "Well, yeah."
Doctor: "Do you, though?"
Rose: "Yeah!"
Doctor: "I just thought... 'cos I changed..."
Rose: "Yeah, I... I thought, 'cos you changed... you might not want me anymore."
Doctor: "Oh, I'd love you to come!"
("The Christmas Invasion" -- my guess is, the read of this scene for the above interpretation would be that the Doctor is lying.
To me, though, this scene actually reads like a clear textual refutation of the theory. I'm baffled that anyone could listen to the words of the scene, look at David Tennant's face, and think that he's lying to Rose. Although, we actually don't have to guess what a lying Doctor looks like, because we have a canonical example of him flat-out lying to a companion:
That would be the Doctor pretending to Martha that Gallifrey is still around and kicking. You can practically see the words 'Is she buying it?' in his eyes.)
Rose: "That was our first date."
Doctor: "We had chips!"
(2x01 - "New Earth")
compare to:
Martha: "And then travel all the way across the universe just to ask me out on a date..."
Doctor: "Stop it."
(3x01 - "Smith and Jones")
We have his focus and intensity when Rose has been taken over by Cassandra and we also have him telling us one of the key things he identifies with Rose:
Doctor: "These people are dying and Rose would care."
The Doctor and Rose are so determined to protect each other that Cassandra gets left with no options.
Rose: "I thought you and me were... but obviously I got it wrong. I've been to the year five billion, right, but this... this is really seeing the future. You just leave us behind. Is that what you're going to do to me?"
Doctor: "No. Not to you."
Rose: "But Sarah Jane... you were that close to her once, and now... you never even mention her. Why not?"
Doctor: "I don't age. I regenerate. But humans decay. You wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone you-"
Rose: "What, Doctor?"
Doctor: "You can spend the rest of your life with me. But I can't spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on. Alone. That's the curse of the Time Lords."
(2x03 - "School Reunion")
compare to:
Jack: "You abandoned me.
Doctor: "Did I? Busy life, moving on."
and:
Martha: "But the thing is, how come you left him behind, Doctor?"
Doctor: "I was busy."
Martha: "Is that what happens, though? Seriously? Do you just get bored with us one day and disappear?"
Jack: "Not if you're blonde."
Martha: "Oh, she was blonde? What a surprise!"
Doctor: "You two! We're at the end of knowledge itself and you're busy... blogging!"
(3x10 - "Utopia". Seriously, the guy is not very nice. He's a Grade A Asshole to Jack for a lot of "Utopia".)
Mickey: "Go on then. No choice, is there? You can only chase after one of us and it's never going to be me, is it?"
(2x05 - "Rise of the Cybermen" -- spoken to the Doctor about Rose. Yeah... it kinda speaks for itself, this line. Poor Mickey. Always the bridesmaid.)
Doctor: "They took her face and just chucked her out and left her in the street. And, as a result, that makes things... simple. Very, very simple. Do you know why?"
D.I. Bishop: "No..."
Doctor: "Because now, Detective Inspector Bishop, there is no power on this Earth that can stop me!"
(2x07 - "The Idiot's Lantern" -- and then he proceeds to bypass the 'no second chances' rule and go straight to 'capture and kill')
Doctor: "If they get back in touch... if you talk to Rose... just tell her... tell her I... Oh, she knows."
(2x09 - "The Satan Pit")
Doctor: "So that's the trap. Or the test or the final judgement, I don't know. But if I kill you, I kill her. But that implies, in this big grand scheme of gods and devils, that she's just a victim. Well, I've seen a lot of this universe. I've seen fake gods and bad gods and demi-gods and would-be gods -- out of all that -- out of that whole pantheon -- if I believe in one thing... just one thing... I believe in her!"
(2x09 - "The Satan Pit")
Doctor: "How long are you going to stay with me?"
Rose: "Forever."
(2x12 - "Army of Ghosts" -- I have to say, him smiling at this moment (or, in fact, asking at all) is a really odd thing to do if he doesn't want Rose around.)
Doctor: "There's one tiny gap in the universe left, just about to close. And it takes a lot of power to send this projection, I'm in orbit around a supernova. I'm burning up a sun just to say goodbye."
(2x13 - "Doomsday" -- awful lot of trouble to go to if he was glad to be rid of her.)
Doctor: "Here you are. Living a life day after day. The one adventure I can never have."
Rose: "Am I ever going to see you again?"
Doctor: "You can't."
Rose: "What are you going to do?"
Doctor: "Oh, I've got the TARDIS. Same old life. Last of the Time Lords."
Rose: "On your own?"
The Doctor nods.
Rose: "I lo- I love you."
Doctor: "Quite right, too. And I suppose... if it's my last chance to say it... Rose Tyler..."
(2x13 - "Doomsday")
Then we have the fact that Rose's shirt from "New Earth" is just randomly lying around in the console room in "The Runaway Bride".
Doctor: "I spent Christmas Day just over there, the Powell Estate. With this... family. My friend, she had this family. Well, they were... still... gone now."
("The Runaway Bride" -- and just add the rest of his general angst-related stuff, like flashing back to Rose at the reception and the way he says her name at the end... for someone he wasn't in love with, he sure is making a big fuss over losing her.)
Doctor: "Well, sometimes I have guests. I mean... some friends, travelling alongside. I had - There was recently a friend of mine. Rose, her name was, Rose. And... we were together."
(3x01 - "Smith and Jones" -- why humor Rose when she isn't there to hear him?)
Doctor: "There's something I'm missing, Martha. Something really close, staring me right in the face and I can't see it. Rose would know. That friend of mine, Rose. Right now, she'd say exactly the right thing."
(3x02 - "The Shakespeare Code")
Doctor: "The naming won't work on me."
Lilith: "But your heart grows cold. The north wind blows and carries down the distant... Rose."
Doctor: "Oh, big mistake 'cos that name keeps me fighting!"
(3x02 - "The Shakespeare Code")
Then, in "Gridlock", he really gets into his series 3 depressive mope with: "What if there's no help coming, not ever? What if there's nothing? Just the motorway, with the cars going round and round and round, never stopping? Forever?" He mentions that the Daleks always survive while "I lose everything." He talks about how "a longer life isn't always a better one. In the end, you just get tired."
There's the oddness of this screencap, if you believe that the tenth Doctor didn't love Rose:
Note the 'perfect Rose' written on the page on the left side of the screen.
Doctor: "No one's ever meant to have that power. If a Time Lord did that, he'd become a god... a vengeful god. But she was human. Everything she did was so human. She brought you back to life. But she couldn't control it -- she brought you back forever. That's something, I suppose. The final act of the Time War was life."
(3x10 - "Utopia")
Donna: "The thing is, Doctor... no matter what's happening - and I'm sure it's bad, I get that. But... Rose is coming back. Isn't that good?"
Doctor: "Yeah."
Donna: "It's like... an outer-space Facebook!"
Doctor: "Everyone except Rose..."
Doctor: "There's another signal coming through, there's someone else out there. Hello? Can you hear me? Rose?"
(4x12 - "The Stolen Earth")
Rose: "And... you're still you?"
Doctor: "I'm still me."
They hug. For a while.
Doctor: "That's me. When we first met. And you made me better. And now you can do the same for him."
Rose: "But he's not you."
Doctor: "He needs you. That's very me."
Doctor (Ten II): "I'm part-human. Specifically, the aging part. I'll grow old and never regenerate. I've only got one life, Rose Tyler. I could spend it with you... if you want."
Rose: "You'll grow- you'll grow old at the same time as me?"
Doctor (Ten II): "Together."
(4x13 - "Journey's End")
Then, you know, there's the whispering and the kissing bits.
Exhibit C. The Doctor's Personality
And, of course, this entire interpretation rests on the assumption that the Doctor is too polite to break up with the girl that he's fallen out of love with. To which I say... seriously? I love and adore the Doctor but... he's not a nice guy. He doesn't humor people for very long at all (and even then, he tends to be very bad at it). There are numerous examples of his rudeness throughout series 2, 3, and 4 ("Oh, I know what it's like. It's like- It's like when you fancy someone and they don't even know you exist. That's what it's like." from "The Sound of the Drums"). If he'd fallen out of love with Rose, he would not have been tactful about it.
I can only believe that there is, in fact, another version of the show that been put out since series 2 started. One where none of the screencaps from Exhibit A exist, none of the dialogue from Exhibit B was spoken, and the Doctor is a completely different person. This may very well explain everything disparate fan groups have argued about since S2 of New Who aired -- there actually have been two versions of the show. In one of them, the Doctor was clearly in love with Rose Tyler, as exhibited by Tennant's acting, the dialogue given to the actors, and the expression of the personality traits of the characters, specifically the Doctor.
In the other show, the Doctor was only in love with Rose until he regenerated, at which point Daniel Craig took over as Tenth Doctor and he, sadly, had no romantic chemistry with Billie Piper at all. And yay, verily, Russell mourned mightily and thought wistfully and often of the Ship That Never Sailed.
Doesn't that just explain it all?
Of course, if we believe that there's only been one version of DW airing since New Who started up, then I am left confused.
As an aside, none of the above evidence takes into account the clearly stated intentions of the writers, actors, directors, and the composer, all of whom have said that the story of the Doctor and Rose is a love story (ex. David Tennant: "...if Rose is over there, and she's all you want in the universe and you've... you're desperate to get to her, you want to be able to run flat-out, don't you?"). The story should (and does) stand on its own.
But that only adds to my personal confusion in the matter. I can understand not liking Doctor/Rose -- I dislike John/Aeryn (Farscape), which makes me part of, like, the smallest fandom minority ever. I can understand thinking that their relationship is unhealthy -- again, I point to my feelings on J/A or Sam/Jack (Stargate: SG-1). I can understand thinking that they can't work out in the long run -- see my feelings on Buffy and any/all of her canon boyfriends (Buffy the Vampire Slayer). I can understand wishing that they weren't canon -- that's precisely how I feel about Harry/Ginny (Harry Potter). I can understand lots of things.
This, however, I just don't understand.