Confessions of a Doctor/Rose Shipper
Yesterday, mrv3000 was talking about feeling left out of fandom because she doesn’t think “The Fires of Pompeii” was “the best episode Doctor Who ever had!” I’ve been there. I was in the Doctor Who fandom for more than a year before I stumbled across the SPDN. And there are times when I’m not sure I fit in here, either.
It’s just… I can’t always feel the Ten/Rose squee. Don’t get me wrong - I know that Nine and Ten are the same person. I know that Nine/Rose and Ten/Rose are the same relationship. And I’m glad the writers made it clear that the Doctor’s feelings for Rose weren’t (as Michelle put it last year) “some sort of one-incarnation crush.” But sometimes the squee just isn’t there. And I can’t help wondering if that makes me a bad shipper.
Why I Can’t Always Feel the Ten/Rose Squee
The only time we see Rose ask Ten about Jack, he lies and tells her, “He’s busy! He’s got plenty to do rebuilding the Earth!” And considering the bombshell the writers dropped on us in “Utopia,” I have a hard time believing he ever told her the truth. The Doctor and Rose might be cuter than a basketful of kittens in season two, but he was lying to her the entire time.
And part of me still wants to slap him when Rose tells him that it matters to her if she’s “just the latest in a long line,” and he says, “As opposed to what?” He’d never told her about Sarah Jane (or any of the other people he’d traveled with). And this was just about the worst way she could’ve found out. But he didn’t want to talk about it. So I think he deliberately hurt her in the hopes that she would drop the subject.
There’s nothing in “The Girl in the Fireplace” that makes me half as angry as that part of “School Reunion.” The Doctor sending Rose and Mickey back to the ship to keep an eye on the droids just rubs me the wrong way, that’s all. I’d call it out of character, but he didn’t seem to mind Rose going off on her own in “New Earth” or “Tooth and Claw,” either. Still, it’s not like he was out partying while she and Mickey were in danger - oh, wait.
And I still grit my teeth when Rose tells Jackie, “He does it alone, Mum. But not anymore. ’Cause now he’s got me.” I might be the only shipper in the fandom who doesn’t like that scene. But if I had to choose between Rose being the heroine of Doctor Who and Rose being the Doctor’s girlfriend, I’d jump ship tomorrow. This is the woman who ended the Time War. And she thinks the only thing she’s good for is keeping the Doctor company?
And then he sent her to Pete’s World against her will. Y’know, I hate what the Doctor did to Jack. But I think trapped in an alternate universe might trump abandoned on a space station full of corpses. (And there’s a part of me that thinks it’s only fair he’s had to live with that choice. She’s right where he put her.)
Why I Ship Them Anyway
Because the Doctor is the Doctor. In the Pudsey Cutaway, he tells Rose that he’s the same man who took her hand in the basement of Henricks and told her to run, and I believe him. Of course, that’s not always a good thing - he’s also the same man that told her the fight on the Game Station ended when he “sang a song and the Daleks ran away.” But I ship Doctor/Rose because I think the structure of the story demands it. They’re not perfect people, and it isn’t a perfect relationship, but that doesn’t change the story RTD is telling.
And in “School Reunion,” when Rose asks him if he’s going to abandon her the way he did Sarah Jane, the Doctor says no. I’ll admit, that didn’t help much the first time I watched the episode. It’s not that I thought he was lying, exactly. But from what I could tell, he had more baggage than Donna at the end of “Partners in Crime.” I figured he’d fold like a deck of cards when things got difficult. But then I realized - that’s how marriage vows work, too. Can anyone really be sure they have what it takes to keep a promise like that?
What made me all right with the Doctor swanning off in “The Girl in the Fireplace” was Rose calling him on it. (And she does the same thing when he finally gets to the cellar in “Tooth and Claw” - after she frees herself and all the other prisoners.) I love that girl more than is strictly decent.
I think that’s why her little speech in “Doomsday” scared me, the first time I heard it. I was afraid the writers were making her less than she’d been in season one. But I was wrong. In some ways, I think the choice she makes in “Doomsday” is braver than the one she made in “The Parting of the Ways.” When she went back to the Game Station, Mickey warned her that she might die, and she said, “That’s a risk I’ve gotta take. ’Cause there’s nothing left for me here.” That’s not true when she lets go of the Magnaclamp. But she does it anyway. Falling in love with the Doctor made Rose more of a hero, not less.
It made the Doctor braver, too. He left Jack without a word in “The Parting of the Ways.” He couldn’t bring himself to say a proper farewell to Sarah Jane the first time around, and she nearly has to beg him for one in “School Reunion.” But at the end of “Doomsday,” he’s “burning up a sun just to say goodbye.” And I think that’s fantastic.