Top 20 Doctor/Rose Moments - #1 through #5
So recently I decided to break down and finally take on a project I'd had at the back of my mind for months: picspams of my top 20 Doctor/Rose moments for Series 1 and 2. I made the list shortly after I'd seen those episodes for the first time, but never got around to doing it. I have to say, though, seeing that glimpse of the former companions in "Let's Kill Hitler" really affected me, and got me thinking back to all the times I'd loved with them. With that in mind, I started my countdown on my Tumblr, and I'm now bringing the currently completed five over here.
This project is agonizing at times, but also very special to me. In addition to what I feel the scene does for their relationship and tying the moment to instances in other episodes, I try to break down The Doctor and Rose's characters in that moment and, at times, defend their actions against common criticisms. They're in chronological order, as I feel trying to rank them would cause me to combust. I've had fun doing it, but wow is it an emotional process! It's been reminding me how much I miss Nine, my first Doctor, for one thing. For another, it's giving me a great deal of perspective on the characters I hadn't considered before. For a third, I'm realizing that I can quote a truly frightening amount of episodes from memory...
Livejournal is probably being incredibly finicky still, so my sincerest apologies if this ends up borked and I have to slave to fix it. This post will be image heavy! I hope the DR lovers on my flist enjoy the memories! :)
The Doctor: I'm a Time Lord. I'm the last of the Time Lords. They're all gone. I'm the only survivor. I'm left traveling on my own because there's no one else.
Rose: There's me.
Episode 1x02, "The End of the World"
One of the things I love about Rose is her absolute trust in the Doctor. At this point, she barely knows the man, but she's absolutely committed to traveling with him, to being with him for as long as he needs someone. She unhesitatingly says "There's me.", even when they barely know each other. To me, it unconsciously echoes the certainty in her voice when she tells the Doctor "Forever." in "Army of Ghosts". No matter how long or how little she's known him for, her answer is always the same: she will travel with him. She wants to travel with him, despite the danger.
And what does she do just after this? She invites him on a date. He's just admitted to her that his entire race is gone, that he's the only one, and she offers him just what he needs--contact, connection. That is Rose's compassion right there, in a nutshell. She knows this man is alone and she's willing to do just a little bit to make him feel less so. And the Doctor appreciates it so much--just look at his smile. His own attempt at a date--taking her to see the end of her planet, a reflection of his own mood after Gallifrey's destruction--failed spectacularly, so he's willing to let her take the lead and cheer him up. Given how fondly they remember the occasion in "New Earth", I think we can mark it down as a success.
Rose: We'll go down fighting, yeah?
The Doctor: Yeah.
Rose: Together?
The Doctor: Yeah! [He takes her hand.] I'm so glad I met you.
Rose: Me, too.
Episode 1x03, "The Unquiet Dead"
This episode is two things to me: the episode that sold me on liking the show, and the episode that made me a Doctor/Rose shipper. This moment in particular is when I started to really understand the Doctor, and when I came to realize that I loved their dynamic.
For the Doctor, Rose is the first person he's met after the end of the Last Great Time War who he's connected with. He is disillusioned, his faith is shattered, but he can show someone the whole of time and space and, through their innocence, maybe regain a little bit of his own. Rose could have easily been the one to say "I'm so glad I met you."--after all, the Doctor is the one who takes her away from her humdrum life, who shows her that there's good to be done and purpose to be had. But no, the Doctor gets that line. Why? Because he is glad he's met her, more than she probably knows. She gives him back his perspective. She, as the Doctor puts it in "Journey's End", makes him better.
And Rose--she's the one to suggest they go down fighting, and she seems to have no problem with that. She is willing to die by his side if it means good could come out of it, if it means she'll be with someone she likes in her last moment, if it means she's holding his hand. It was the hand-holding that did it for me. When he takes her hand in his in "Children In Need", a new man, that's what convinces her it really is him. When they're facing Davros in "Journey's End", it's his hand she grabs, still determined as ever to go down fighting. Their hands intertwined in the face of death will always be the image that seals Doctor/Rose for me.
The Doctor: There’s always been a way out.
Rose: Then why don’t we use it?
The Doctor: [to Jackie] Because I can’t guarantee your daughter would be safe.
Jackie: Don’t you dare. Whatever it is, don’t you dare.
The Doctor: That’s the thing-if I don’t dare, everyone dies.
Rose: Do it.
The Doctor: You don’t even know what it is. You’d just let me?
Rose: Yeah.
[The Doctor stares, amazed.]
Jackie: Please, Doctor-please! She’s my daughter! She’s just a kid!
The Doctor: Do you think I don’t know that? Because this is my life, Jackie-it’s not fun, it’s not smart… it’s just standing up and making a decision because nobody else will.
Rose: [softly] Then what are you waiting for?
The Doctor: I could save the world, but lose you.
Episode 1x05, “World War Three”
This scene is one I don't think I'll ever get over. It's a beautifully romantic and heartwarming scene in its own right, but as an exploration of the Doctor and Rose's characters, it's truly exquisite.
If there's one scene that defines exactly who the Doctor is after Gallifrey's destruction, it's this one, in my opinion. He is, to use his words, "clinging to the skin of this tiny little universe," and the person he's clinging to is Rose. She is the one person he's met after the destruction of his home planet that has given him hope, and he can barely face the thought of losing her, even after he's known her so short a time. Add to that, no matter how he feels about Jackie, he is absolutely unwilling to do something that could lead to her losing Rose--because he won't let Jackie's child die just as his did on Gallifrey. He's doing everything he can to prevent one small family from going through the anguish he went through and is still going through.
As for Rose, I think this scene is an absolutely perfect example of Russell T. Davies' immortal words: "Rose is open, honest, heartfelt, to the point of being selfish, wonderfully selfish. [...] If Rose can be selfish, then her finest moments will come when she’s selfless." She is selfless to the utmost here. It's exactly like the Doctor says: she doesn't even know what he'd do, and yet she'd let him do it anyway, without hesitating. She's not been traveling with the Doctor long at all, but she's gotten a true sense of the greater good, just as she states in her speech in "The Parting of the Ways".
I think this is one of those moments where the Doctor realizes that Rose is, like he says in "The Long Game", one of "the best," and one of those moments where Rose sees the man behind all the madness. It's a defining moment in their relationship, beautifully written and so well-played by Billie and Chris.
The Doctor: Get out of the way! [He advances on Rose and the Dalek, holding a gun and pointing it at the Dalek. Rose stares at him in shock and doesn't move.] Rose, get out of the way, now!
Rose: No, 'cause I won't let you do this!
The Doctor: That thing killed hundreds of people.
Rose: [coldly] It's not the one pointing the gun at me.
The Doctor: I've got to do this. I've got to end it! The Daleks destroyed my home, my people. I've got nothing left.
Rose: Look at it.
[She stands aside and gestures to the Dalek, who is taking in the sunlight.]
The Doctor: [confused] What's it doing?
Rose: The sunlight--that's all it wants!
The Doctor: [shakily] But it can't...
Rose: It couldn't kill Van Statten--it couldn't kill me--it's changing! What about you, Doctor? What the hell are you changing into?
[The Doctor finally lowers the gun. He's close to tears.]
The Doctor: I couldn't... I wasn't... oh, Rose, they're all dead.
Episode 1x06, "Dalek"
Who would've thought that an episode whose primary purpose was bringing back the Daleks could be so shippy it was ridiculous? That's right, I said it: this episode is perhaps one of the shippiest there is. We got a shipper Dalek; I'm not sure what else we could want from it.
At this point, Rose and the Doctor's relationship has had a few moments of truly naked honesty from the Doctor, and they start to really understand each other and feel perhaps a little more for each other than they should be feeling. There are moments earlier in this episode that really stand out to me: the Dalek's "what good are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?" line, because as I said before, shipper Dalek. Rose telling the Doctor, in the face of her supposedly imminent death, that she doesn't want him to think it's his fault--because she recognizes that the Doctor doesn't need the feeling of more blood on his hands, especially when it's hers. The Doctor's rage at Van Statten, in the beautifully played "She was nineteen years old!" speech.
I think this scene is the most beautiful proof of what their relationship does for the Doctor, however, and Rose's actions here--calling the Doctor out on his potential cruelty--resonate for years to come, as we see exactly what happens, later on, when he's grieving Rose and has no one to stop him from doing the worst. There's "The Runaway Bride", when he commits full-scale genocide and, we know from "Turn Left", would have chosen not to regenerate and perished in the flood, essentially committing suicide over his grief at losing Rose, had Donna not been there. There's "The Family of Blood", where the Doctor gives the Family exactly what they wanted--immortality--but in ways they surely never wanted it.
Here, though, he has Rose to tell him exactly what she thinks. And oh, does she give it to him. That "what the hell are you changing into?" is scathingly delivered, and at this point, I think the audience agrees with her. I'm not terribly well-versed on Classic Who, but I'm given to understand that the classic Doctors weren't averse to guns. The Doctor after the Time War, however, is very much so, and it's telling that he's so willing to use one here--after thinking Rose was dead, after being faced with the last surviving member of the race that killed his people, he's been driven to the edge, only to be pulled back by Rose.
The Doctor's last line has so much emotion behind it, and I have to give Chris massive kudos for always bringing my tears on that one. That's another moment of naked honesty between them, I feel. The Doctor really feels the force behind Rose's words, understands how disappointed she is, and he fumbles to justify himself before realizing he can't, and that the full weight of his grief is finally hitting him. His people are all dead, killed by the Daleks among others, and earlier in the day, he almost lost Rose to the very same threat. He's not thinking rationally, but Rose is the one who gets him to take a step back and realize what he's doing, and that moment of reflection and realization seems to stay with him for quite some time.
Rose: [about Pete] He can't die on his own...
Episode 1x08, "Father's Day"
Recently, I've seen a lot of criticism of Rose's actions--saving Pete--in this episode, and while I find her actions entirely understandable for reasons other than "the plot necessitated them," I think that this episode really forwards the Doctor's understanding of Rose, and that it gets him to view her in perhaps a slightly more realistic light than he had previously.
This episode comes on the heels of "The Long Game", and while I'm extremely lukewarm on that episode, the ending has one of my favorite admissions of the Doctor's: "I only take the best. I've got Rose." I think that, until this point, the Doctor sees Rose in an incredibly idealistic light--she is one of "the best," and he hasn't really seen her do something profoundly "stupid," let's say, until now.
A lot of people harp on the Doctor's "I picked another stupid ape!" line and use it against Rose, but I don't think that's quite fair. I don't think he's calling Rose stupid, per se--he's just recognizing, albeit in an emotional way, that she is human and that she is fallible. Rose experiences an incredibly compassionate and emotional response to a situation the Doctor would probably kill to put himself in, if he could--saving a loved one from certain death, something the Doctor must at least have considered once or twice after the Time War.
The Doctor, despite his harsh criticism, does seem to genuinely care for and recognize that Rose is in an emotional place. He says in the church that he wasn't going to leave her on her own, and even hugs her when she says sincerely that she's sorry. I think that what really matters, when it comes down to it, is that the Doctor is willing to stand by Rose during what he knows will be a difficult thing for her to see, which is why I picked the moment they watch Pete's death together. The fact that he grabs her hand to comfort her as she has to see Pete die speaks volumes--he knows this moment probably wasn't the best decision, but he supports her right to see it, regardless.
Despite what he might think of Rose's actions, I think that the Doctor must recognize, in the end, that this wish of Rose's exemplified the very essence of her character: her compassion. I tend to harp on that trait a lot in my analyses of Rose, but this scene and the scene in "Love and Monsters" where Rose hugs Elton not two minutes after yelling at him are what prove it for me. Here, what really sticks it for me--and, I think, for the Doctor--is that of all the moments Rose could have chosen, she chooses to go back to the day Pete died, just so he doesn't have to die alone. She could have stopped at his and Jackie's wedding, could have been satisfied with that glimpse of him whole and happy, but instead she wanted to be there for him during his last moments, despite knowing it would hurt beyond measure to see.
The scene of her knelt by Pete as he dies is mirrored almost exactly in "The Stolen Earth", during her reunion with the Doctor, and I think that's intentional. This is such a landmark moment for Rose and the Doctor's relationship--for the Doctor's understanding of her, and for Rose as a character--that I think it only makes sense for it to recur in a later episode.
This project is agonizing at times, but also very special to me. In addition to what I feel the scene does for their relationship and tying the moment to instances in other episodes, I try to break down The Doctor and Rose's characters in that moment and, at times, defend their actions against common criticisms. They're in chronological order, as I feel trying to rank them would cause me to combust. I've had fun doing it, but wow is it an emotional process! It's been reminding me how much I miss Nine, my first Doctor, for one thing. For another, it's giving me a great deal of perspective on the characters I hadn't considered before. For a third, I'm realizing that I can quote a truly frightening amount of episodes from memory...
Livejournal is probably being incredibly finicky still, so my sincerest apologies if this ends up borked and I have to slave to fix it. This post will be image heavy! I hope the DR lovers on my flist enjoy the memories! :)
The Doctor: I'm a Time Lord. I'm the last of the Time Lords. They're all gone. I'm the only survivor. I'm left traveling on my own because there's no one else.
Rose: There's me.
Episode 1x02, "The End of the World"
One of the things I love about Rose is her absolute trust in the Doctor. At this point, she barely knows the man, but she's absolutely committed to traveling with him, to being with him for as long as he needs someone. She unhesitatingly says "There's me.", even when they barely know each other. To me, it unconsciously echoes the certainty in her voice when she tells the Doctor "Forever." in "Army of Ghosts". No matter how long or how little she's known him for, her answer is always the same: she will travel with him. She wants to travel with him, despite the danger.
And what does she do just after this? She invites him on a date. He's just admitted to her that his entire race is gone, that he's the only one, and she offers him just what he needs--contact, connection. That is Rose's compassion right there, in a nutshell. She knows this man is alone and she's willing to do just a little bit to make him feel less so. And the Doctor appreciates it so much--just look at his smile. His own attempt at a date--taking her to see the end of her planet, a reflection of his own mood after Gallifrey's destruction--failed spectacularly, so he's willing to let her take the lead and cheer him up. Given how fondly they remember the occasion in "New Earth", I think we can mark it down as a success.
Rose: We'll go down fighting, yeah?
The Doctor: Yeah.
Rose: Together?
The Doctor: Yeah! [He takes her hand.] I'm so glad I met you.
Rose: Me, too.
Episode 1x03, "The Unquiet Dead"
This episode is two things to me: the episode that sold me on liking the show, and the episode that made me a Doctor/Rose shipper. This moment in particular is when I started to really understand the Doctor, and when I came to realize that I loved their dynamic.
For the Doctor, Rose is the first person he's met after the end of the Last Great Time War who he's connected with. He is disillusioned, his faith is shattered, but he can show someone the whole of time and space and, through their innocence, maybe regain a little bit of his own. Rose could have easily been the one to say "I'm so glad I met you."--after all, the Doctor is the one who takes her away from her humdrum life, who shows her that there's good to be done and purpose to be had. But no, the Doctor gets that line. Why? Because he is glad he's met her, more than she probably knows. She gives him back his perspective. She, as the Doctor puts it in "Journey's End", makes him better.
And Rose--she's the one to suggest they go down fighting, and she seems to have no problem with that. She is willing to die by his side if it means good could come out of it, if it means she'll be with someone she likes in her last moment, if it means she's holding his hand. It was the hand-holding that did it for me. When he takes her hand in his in "Children In Need", a new man, that's what convinces her it really is him. When they're facing Davros in "Journey's End", it's his hand she grabs, still determined as ever to go down fighting. Their hands intertwined in the face of death will always be the image that seals Doctor/Rose for me.
The Doctor: There’s always been a way out.
Rose: Then why don’t we use it?
The Doctor: [to Jackie] Because I can’t guarantee your daughter would be safe.
Jackie: Don’t you dare. Whatever it is, don’t you dare.
The Doctor: That’s the thing-if I don’t dare, everyone dies.
Rose: Do it.
The Doctor: You don’t even know what it is. You’d just let me?
Rose: Yeah.
[The Doctor stares, amazed.]
Jackie: Please, Doctor-please! She’s my daughter! She’s just a kid!
The Doctor: Do you think I don’t know that? Because this is my life, Jackie-it’s not fun, it’s not smart… it’s just standing up and making a decision because nobody else will.
Rose: [softly] Then what are you waiting for?
The Doctor: I could save the world, but lose you.
Episode 1x05, “World War Three”
This scene is one I don't think I'll ever get over. It's a beautifully romantic and heartwarming scene in its own right, but as an exploration of the Doctor and Rose's characters, it's truly exquisite.
If there's one scene that defines exactly who the Doctor is after Gallifrey's destruction, it's this one, in my opinion. He is, to use his words, "clinging to the skin of this tiny little universe," and the person he's clinging to is Rose. She is the one person he's met after the destruction of his home planet that has given him hope, and he can barely face the thought of losing her, even after he's known her so short a time. Add to that, no matter how he feels about Jackie, he is absolutely unwilling to do something that could lead to her losing Rose--because he won't let Jackie's child die just as his did on Gallifrey. He's doing everything he can to prevent one small family from going through the anguish he went through and is still going through.
As for Rose, I think this scene is an absolutely perfect example of Russell T. Davies' immortal words: "Rose is open, honest, heartfelt, to the point of being selfish, wonderfully selfish. [...] If Rose can be selfish, then her finest moments will come when she’s selfless." She is selfless to the utmost here. It's exactly like the Doctor says: she doesn't even know what he'd do, and yet she'd let him do it anyway, without hesitating. She's not been traveling with the Doctor long at all, but she's gotten a true sense of the greater good, just as she states in her speech in "The Parting of the Ways".
I think this is one of those moments where the Doctor realizes that Rose is, like he says in "The Long Game", one of "the best," and one of those moments where Rose sees the man behind all the madness. It's a defining moment in their relationship, beautifully written and so well-played by Billie and Chris.
The Doctor: Get out of the way! [He advances on Rose and the Dalek, holding a gun and pointing it at the Dalek. Rose stares at him in shock and doesn't move.] Rose, get out of the way, now!
Rose: No, 'cause I won't let you do this!
The Doctor: That thing killed hundreds of people.
Rose: [coldly] It's not the one pointing the gun at me.
The Doctor: I've got to do this. I've got to end it! The Daleks destroyed my home, my people. I've got nothing left.
Rose: Look at it.
[She stands aside and gestures to the Dalek, who is taking in the sunlight.]
The Doctor: [confused] What's it doing?
Rose: The sunlight--that's all it wants!
The Doctor: [shakily] But it can't...
Rose: It couldn't kill Van Statten--it couldn't kill me--it's changing! What about you, Doctor? What the hell are you changing into?
[The Doctor finally lowers the gun. He's close to tears.]
The Doctor: I couldn't... I wasn't... oh, Rose, they're all dead.
Episode 1x06, "Dalek"
Who would've thought that an episode whose primary purpose was bringing back the Daleks could be so shippy it was ridiculous? That's right, I said it: this episode is perhaps one of the shippiest there is. We got a shipper Dalek; I'm not sure what else we could want from it.
At this point, Rose and the Doctor's relationship has had a few moments of truly naked honesty from the Doctor, and they start to really understand each other and feel perhaps a little more for each other than they should be feeling. There are moments earlier in this episode that really stand out to me: the Dalek's "what good are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?" line, because as I said before, shipper Dalek. Rose telling the Doctor, in the face of her supposedly imminent death, that she doesn't want him to think it's his fault--because she recognizes that the Doctor doesn't need the feeling of more blood on his hands, especially when it's hers. The Doctor's rage at Van Statten, in the beautifully played "She was nineteen years old!" speech.
I think this scene is the most beautiful proof of what their relationship does for the Doctor, however, and Rose's actions here--calling the Doctor out on his potential cruelty--resonate for years to come, as we see exactly what happens, later on, when he's grieving Rose and has no one to stop him from doing the worst. There's "The Runaway Bride", when he commits full-scale genocide and, we know from "Turn Left", would have chosen not to regenerate and perished in the flood, essentially committing suicide over his grief at losing Rose, had Donna not been there. There's "The Family of Blood", where the Doctor gives the Family exactly what they wanted--immortality--but in ways they surely never wanted it.
Here, though, he has Rose to tell him exactly what she thinks. And oh, does she give it to him. That "what the hell are you changing into?" is scathingly delivered, and at this point, I think the audience agrees with her. I'm not terribly well-versed on Classic Who, but I'm given to understand that the classic Doctors weren't averse to guns. The Doctor after the Time War, however, is very much so, and it's telling that he's so willing to use one here--after thinking Rose was dead, after being faced with the last surviving member of the race that killed his people, he's been driven to the edge, only to be pulled back by Rose.
The Doctor's last line has so much emotion behind it, and I have to give Chris massive kudos for always bringing my tears on that one. That's another moment of naked honesty between them, I feel. The Doctor really feels the force behind Rose's words, understands how disappointed she is, and he fumbles to justify himself before realizing he can't, and that the full weight of his grief is finally hitting him. His people are all dead, killed by the Daleks among others, and earlier in the day, he almost lost Rose to the very same threat. He's not thinking rationally, but Rose is the one who gets him to take a step back and realize what he's doing, and that moment of reflection and realization seems to stay with him for quite some time.
Rose: [about Pete] He can't die on his own...
Episode 1x08, "Father's Day"
Recently, I've seen a lot of criticism of Rose's actions--saving Pete--in this episode, and while I find her actions entirely understandable for reasons other than "the plot necessitated them," I think that this episode really forwards the Doctor's understanding of Rose, and that it gets him to view her in perhaps a slightly more realistic light than he had previously.
This episode comes on the heels of "The Long Game", and while I'm extremely lukewarm on that episode, the ending has one of my favorite admissions of the Doctor's: "I only take the best. I've got Rose." I think that, until this point, the Doctor sees Rose in an incredibly idealistic light--she is one of "the best," and he hasn't really seen her do something profoundly "stupid," let's say, until now.
A lot of people harp on the Doctor's "I picked another stupid ape!" line and use it against Rose, but I don't think that's quite fair. I don't think he's calling Rose stupid, per se--he's just recognizing, albeit in an emotional way, that she is human and that she is fallible. Rose experiences an incredibly compassionate and emotional response to a situation the Doctor would probably kill to put himself in, if he could--saving a loved one from certain death, something the Doctor must at least have considered once or twice after the Time War.
The Doctor, despite his harsh criticism, does seem to genuinely care for and recognize that Rose is in an emotional place. He says in the church that he wasn't going to leave her on her own, and even hugs her when she says sincerely that she's sorry. I think that what really matters, when it comes down to it, is that the Doctor is willing to stand by Rose during what he knows will be a difficult thing for her to see, which is why I picked the moment they watch Pete's death together. The fact that he grabs her hand to comfort her as she has to see Pete die speaks volumes--he knows this moment probably wasn't the best decision, but he supports her right to see it, regardless.
Despite what he might think of Rose's actions, I think that the Doctor must recognize, in the end, that this wish of Rose's exemplified the very essence of her character: her compassion. I tend to harp on that trait a lot in my analyses of Rose, but this scene and the scene in "Love and Monsters" where Rose hugs Elton not two minutes after yelling at him are what prove it for me. Here, what really sticks it for me--and, I think, for the Doctor--is that of all the moments Rose could have chosen, she chooses to go back to the day Pete died, just so he doesn't have to die alone. She could have stopped at his and Jackie's wedding, could have been satisfied with that glimpse of him whole and happy, but instead she wanted to be there for him during his last moments, despite knowing it would hurt beyond measure to see.
The scene of her knelt by Pete as he dies is mirrored almost exactly in "The Stolen Earth", during her reunion with the Doctor, and I think that's intentional. This is such a landmark moment for Rose and the Doctor's relationship--for the Doctor's understanding of her, and for Rose as a character--that I think it only makes sense for it to recur in a later episode.