Top Ten Episodes of Doctor Who (According to Me) #6-10
My top five episodes were really easy to choose, but numbers 6-10 were a LOT harder, so here's a list of some episodes that almost made the final cut.
Honorable mentions: School Reunion. I REALLY enjoy this episode and I cannot understand people who use this episode to hate on Rose. She was not the only one acting petty and immature in this ( Read more... )
Honorable mentions: School Reunion. I REALLY enjoy this episode and I cannot understand people who use this episode to hate on Rose. She was not the only one acting petty and immature in this ( Read more... )
I think that there was a bit more to Rose's reaction in this episode than just the stuff with the Doctor. I think Rose was extra tetchy in this episode because she'd just spent the past three days getting up close and personal look at what her life could had been had she not met the Doctor. In the first episode of the series after the Doctor blows up the shop she worked at, Mickey or Jackie (can't remember which) suggest that Rose try to get a job working at the canteen in the hospital, so working as a dinner lady in a school is the kind of job that Rose could have looked forward to before she met the Doctor and he opened her eyes to the rest of the universe. In that context, traveling with the Doctor is what is giving her a direction in life. When she meets Sarah Jane, Rose is suddenly confronted with the fact that maybe this life isn't forever. To her it seems like the Doctor just left Sarah Jane behind and never even thinks about her anymore, and the fact that this might now happen to Rose is terrifying to her, especially since she just spent the last three days working at the kind of job she was looking forward to in her old life. THAT'S why she's tetchy and insecure in this episode and gets into petty argument with Sarah Jane. And I think this is shown by the fact that the conversation Rose and the Doctor have in the parking lot isn't a "do you love me?" conversation. It's a "are you going to just leave me behind?" conversation.
So while this is about the Doctor because he is the catalyst in both Rose and Sarah Jane's life, it's not about him as a man, but about him as the central protagonist to the show who travels in time and space and is also male.
The idea of the Doctor as an experience vs the Doctor as a man in this episode is further supported by Sarah Jane's story in this episode. She put her life on hold, waiting to travel with the Doctor again. There was nothing even remotely romantic between the Doctor and Sarah Jane when they traveled together, so that's not why she couldn't move on. (The reason SARAH is tetchy and petty in this episode is that she's been waiting for the Doctor and now sees that he's just moved on without her and left her behind, not because she's competing for the Doctor romantically.) She was having trouble moving on because she had seen the stars and didn't know what to do with herself now that she was back on Earth. This is resolved by the end of the episode where she realizes that she can save the world and do similar Doctor-type stuff on her own spin-off show on Earth, now that she has a purpose and isn't waiting around for the Doctor anymore.
Regarding what Sarah Jane says to Rose at the end, I think what she says "Yes. Some things are worth getting your heart broken for." is MUCH less problematic to me than what Reinette says to the Rose ("But you and I both know, don't we, Rose? The Doctor is worth the monsters.") Sarah Jane is saying that the EXPERIENCES of traveling with the Doctor (and to me, this is very clear because Rose and Sarah's one-up-man-ship of the things they've seen) is worth the possibility of getting your heart broken by leaving the Doctor later. Reinette on the other hand is saying that THE DOCTOR HIMSELF is worth the scary monsters.
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There were other vibes though - not so much in the straightforward cafeteria scenes as in her bitch-fights with Sarah Jane - that did set off vibes of a different sort. Fairly or not, I think comparison to a romantic scene is inevitable for a lot of people when faced with two women who are arguing basically about (1) who's had the cooler time with a man (2) who the man likes more. The Sarah Jane and Rose bonding scene also has strong parallels to the sorts of romantic comedy stories where 2 women (often the ex and the current significant other) end up unexpectedly bonding and then the guy comes in and is afraid of their combined power, etc. To someone who's read a lot of romances and watched them it was a very close match, so close that I'd find it very hard to believe it was coincidental on the part of the writers.
Also, for new!Who fans, this was the first time we'd seen Sarah Jane. From that pov I read her as quite likely pining over the Doctor (because, let's be honest, at that point what companion reference do we have? pining Rose and - since I'd skipped ahead - pining Martha).
I can't find the quote I referenced, but it's not the one you mentioned (I have no problem with that end line - or with Reinette's really since adventures and the Doctor are an inseparable package deal). I think the one I want happens after Rose and Sarah Jane are trying to one-up each other, and Sarah Jane says something moronic like how Rose is just as smart as the doctor, blah blah blah.
No. No. No. Rose is not an idiot, but she's not as smart as the Doctor (I'm not either). And that is ok. Sometimes being smart is not the most important thing! Sometimes it actually screws you over! Rose has strengths! But it was just so condescendingly stupid on the part of SJ and then it made Rose look stupid to accept it. :/
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