Doctor Who, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love School Reunion/Girl in the Fireplace

[surrexi]

(Warning! Extreme Verbosity Ahead! Proceed With Caution!)

I'm going to perhaps not strictly follow the rules (they're more like guidelines, anyway?) because I want to briefly touch on Tooth & Claw and then I can't really address the things I want to address about School Reunion and Girl in the Fireplace without taking them together.

First,

Comments

[surrexi]

that moment between them outside the chip shop really is HUGE.

Exactly! That is THE MOMENT when the Doctor finally acknowledges that they ARE in a relationship, that there is something more going on between them than just being best friends, even if they (almost) never allow themselves to discuss it.

While I can see where you're coming from on GitF being OOC, I don't see it as strongly as you do. I do think that the Doctor (a) does have a tendency to get distracted by shiny things/people and by his own whims/passing-fancies-that-don't-pass-but-stop and (b) trusted Rose enough to hold down the fort (so to speak) on the spaceship whilst he investigated in France. But mostly he was distracted by the shiny, and while it is not his best trait, I do think it is part of who he is, though thankfully he usually manages to keep it more controlled.

As for Rose, I do think she was jealous - she was just also being admirably grown-up about the whole thing. She was quite miffed when the Doctor came back from inventing the banana daiquiri and acted all drunk whilst she was strapped to a table about to get made into spare parts. And yes, she was kind to Reinette, but (a) Rose is an incredibly kind person, particularly towards people in peril whom she and the Doctor are trying to help and (b) she'd just gone through the jealousy thing with Sarah Jane and was either tired of feeling that way or better at keeping a damper on it. But I did feel like she was not pleased with the Doctor throughout the episode - see her gazing off into space while he was gone, the look on her face when he races back for Reinette after the "always wait five and half hours" hug, etc.

And Mickey, well... I actually never thought it was out of character for him to poke at her over the Doctor. In The Christmas Invasion, when Rose was obviously incredibly upset about the state the Doctor was in, all Mickey could do was insist she not talk or think about the Doctor while saying things like "you can count on me, I don't go around changing my face." And in School Reunion he was saying "I told you so" as soon as the moment to do so presented itself.

I really had to work to get to the point where I actually can sit down and watch GitF without wanting to throw something at the Doctor. And I freely admit that I only made the effort because I love Steven Moffatt's other episodes SO MUCH, I just couldn't believe that GitF could be completely useless, lol. And it's definetely nowhere near my favorite episode of S2... though still not my least favorite, either. But yeah, I totally get why you'd hold a grudge against it. Until my Steven Moffatt realisation I was pretty convinced I would as well.

Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed all my rambling! :D