There are cogs in my brain, and they are whirring.
Under the cut, because it's always scary when I have thoughts, and it's very, very long and rambling and also there are Journey's End spoilers:
First, I don't actually have huge problems with how the Doctor/Rose story was left in Journey's End. Much as I love the Doctor and Rose together, they are two separate characters who I love very much as individuals. I want them both to be happy. Of course, that didn't happen with the Doctor, and it broke my heart, but I believe Rose will be happy with one-hearted Ten, and so surely one of them being happy is better than them both being alone and pining for each other.
Except that I wonder if it's going to last? It's very clear that everyone expects Rose and the Doctor to be together. Mickey says that he "knows what happens next", and there is definitely a hint in his "There's nothing for me there...certainly not Rose." Sarah Jane is certainly not expecting the Doctor to be left alone at the end there, claiming that he has "the biggest family on Earth."
Then there's Jack. I was really disappointed at the lack of interaction between Jack and Rose, but I'm wondering if it was deliberate? It just seems so, so unlikely that Rose wouldn't want to know how Jack was still alive. Perhaps RTD avoided the mention of this because if she'd asked that and found out the truth, it would have got her wondering whether she had been affected as well. It has never sat right with me that Rose would be unaffected by the Vortex when it had such drastic effects on the Doctor and Jack, both of whom held it for far less time than she did. The Doctor says he removed it all, but he expelled it all from himself before he regenerated; and as for Jack, surely we can assume that Jack doesn't still have a speck of the Vortex inside him? Surely no matter how "wrong" the Doctor found him, he wouldn't condemn Jack to an immortal life, knowing how sad and lonely it is, if it was a simple matter of removing the Vortex the way he removed it from Rose? Hence, how did Rose avoid being affected? Why would Rose want to avoid being affected? She sees everything, the whole of time and space (and I couldn't help seeing the parallel between Bad Wolf!Rose and Crazy!Caan - both saw the whole of time, and Caan knew things about the future as a result of that).
The appearance of the Bad Wolf writing at the end of Turn Left must have been as a result of her holding the Vortex before (or she's still got that power, or she's going to have it again in the future, both of which also point towards the idea I'm trying to get across), proof that her return to the Game Station wasn't the only thing she planned for when she wrote the words throughout the universe. She wanted her Doctor safe then. After that, she starts promising him forever. She seems to me to be as upset at the prospect of the Doctor being alone as at her own loss, that first time on the beach. And if she saw everything, she saw him alone again, after she left with her one-hearted, human Doctor.
Even if post-S4 Rose can make her peace with that, S1 Rose wouldn't have been able to. S1 Rose would have wanted someone to be with him. S1 Rose, who could control life and death - she could have affected herself, couldn't she? More to the point, wouldn't she? Wouldn't she make herself like Jack, or like the Doctor, so that the Doctor wouldn't have to be alone? Which means that even if, later on, Rose's feelings changed, she would be a person who could match the Doctor's lifespan.
Billie Piper said she didn't feel it was ever really the end for the Doctor and Rose. She told DWM to "watch this space" when they asked about the possibility of her returning in the future. It's obvious now that the Doctor Who team enjoy heaping angst on the Doctor, and are never going to allow him to be happy while the show is still running. We know that next up is probably River Song, and the Doctor and the viewers already know that that relationship, whatever it is, is doomed from the start. But what about at the end of it all, after River, after any other future companions, as the Doctor's time - whether his life or his time on-screen - comes to an end? If they ended it with the Doctor alone, it would just feel so hopeless. I think I would actually need to go and get therapy. If Doctor Who were to finish, it would be then that they would allow a real happy ending. And for the Doctor, that happy ending would be with Rose. Say what you will about other companions that mean a lot to him, but the one-hearted Doctor and the two-hearted Doctor have the same desires, and since the one-hearted Doctor wants to grow old with Rose, we know the two-hearted Doctor wants the same thing.
So, in a nutshell, what I imagine is that Rose will have her life with the one-hearted Doctor, but they will quickly realise the boot is on the other foot now - it is Rose who has to watch the person she loves grow old and die. After that happens, it is Rose who is left to wander alone, as Jackie predicted: "There'll be this woman, this strange woman, wandering through the market place on some planet a billion miles from Earth. But she's not Rose Tyler. Not anymore. She's not even human." And at the end of it all, she returns to the other Doctor. She healed him - twice - but then, at the end, it is him who heals her.
Despite what it seems, I'm not completely convinced of this myself. I think it's certainly a possibility, though. I can easily see them getting to Doctor Number Thirteen before the show is cancelled again, and I can't imagine that Billie would have major problems with reprising her role briefly one last time. Of course, since control of the show is changing hands, even if RTD did have a plan like this in place, there's no guarantee that Moffat or any future head writers will stick to it, but it wouldn't really have much effect on anything else they wanted to do.
First, I don't actually have huge problems with how the Doctor/Rose story was left in Journey's End. Much as I love the Doctor and Rose together, they are two separate characters who I love very much as individuals. I want them both to be happy. Of course, that didn't happen with the Doctor, and it broke my heart, but I believe Rose will be happy with one-hearted Ten, and so surely one of them being happy is better than them both being alone and pining for each other.
Except that I wonder if it's going to last? It's very clear that everyone expects Rose and the Doctor to be together. Mickey says that he "knows what happens next", and there is definitely a hint in his "There's nothing for me there...certainly not Rose." Sarah Jane is certainly not expecting the Doctor to be left alone at the end there, claiming that he has "the biggest family on Earth."
Then there's Jack. I was really disappointed at the lack of interaction between Jack and Rose, but I'm wondering if it was deliberate? It just seems so, so unlikely that Rose wouldn't want to know how Jack was still alive. Perhaps RTD avoided the mention of this because if she'd asked that and found out the truth, it would have got her wondering whether she had been affected as well. It has never sat right with me that Rose would be unaffected by the Vortex when it had such drastic effects on the Doctor and Jack, both of whom held it for far less time than she did. The Doctor says he removed it all, but he expelled it all from himself before he regenerated; and as for Jack, surely we can assume that Jack doesn't still have a speck of the Vortex inside him? Surely no matter how "wrong" the Doctor found him, he wouldn't condemn Jack to an immortal life, knowing how sad and lonely it is, if it was a simple matter of removing the Vortex the way he removed it from Rose? Hence, how did Rose avoid being affected? Why would Rose want to avoid being affected? She sees everything, the whole of time and space (and I couldn't help seeing the parallel between Bad Wolf!Rose and Crazy!Caan - both saw the whole of time, and Caan knew things about the future as a result of that).
The appearance of the Bad Wolf writing at the end of Turn Left must have been as a result of her holding the Vortex before (or she's still got that power, or she's going to have it again in the future, both of which also point towards the idea I'm trying to get across), proof that her return to the Game Station wasn't the only thing she planned for when she wrote the words throughout the universe. She wanted her Doctor safe then. After that, she starts promising him forever. She seems to me to be as upset at the prospect of the Doctor being alone as at her own loss, that first time on the beach. And if she saw everything, she saw him alone again, after she left with her one-hearted, human Doctor.
Even if post-S4 Rose can make her peace with that, S1 Rose wouldn't have been able to. S1 Rose would have wanted someone to be with him. S1 Rose, who could control life and death - she could have affected herself, couldn't she? More to the point, wouldn't she? Wouldn't she make herself like Jack, or like the Doctor, so that the Doctor wouldn't have to be alone? Which means that even if, later on, Rose's feelings changed, she would be a person who could match the Doctor's lifespan.
Billie Piper said she didn't feel it was ever really the end for the Doctor and Rose. She told DWM to "watch this space" when they asked about the possibility of her returning in the future. It's obvious now that the Doctor Who team enjoy heaping angst on the Doctor, and are never going to allow him to be happy while the show is still running. We know that next up is probably River Song, and the Doctor and the viewers already know that that relationship, whatever it is, is doomed from the start. But what about at the end of it all, after River, after any other future companions, as the Doctor's time - whether his life or his time on-screen - comes to an end? If they ended it with the Doctor alone, it would just feel so hopeless. I think I would actually need to go and get therapy. If Doctor Who were to finish, it would be then that they would allow a real happy ending. And for the Doctor, that happy ending would be with Rose. Say what you will about other companions that mean a lot to him, but the one-hearted Doctor and the two-hearted Doctor have the same desires, and since the one-hearted Doctor wants to grow old with Rose, we know the two-hearted Doctor wants the same thing.
So, in a nutshell, what I imagine is that Rose will have her life with the one-hearted Doctor, but they will quickly realise the boot is on the other foot now - it is Rose who has to watch the person she loves grow old and die. After that happens, it is Rose who is left to wander alone, as Jackie predicted: "There'll be this woman, this strange woman, wandering through the market place on some planet a billion miles from Earth. But she's not Rose Tyler. Not anymore. She's not even human." And at the end of it all, she returns to the other Doctor. She healed him - twice - but then, at the end, it is him who heals her.
Despite what it seems, I'm not completely convinced of this myself. I think it's certainly a possibility, though. I can easily see them getting to Doctor Number Thirteen before the show is cancelled again, and I can't imagine that Billie would have major problems with reprising her role briefly one last time. Of course, since control of the show is changing hands, even if RTD did have a plan like this in place, there's no guarantee that Moffat or any future head writers will stick to it, but it wouldn't really have much effect on anything else they wanted to do.