“Who are you then, Doctor?”
I think everyone’s heard the old saw that the people who travel with the Doctor are supposed to represent the audience. I’d sort of dismissed it - I don’t love the Doctor the way Rose does, and I certainly don’t idolize him the way Martha does. But I’m starting to wonder if I was a bit hasty. How they see the Doctor might not change how I see him, but that doesn’t make it irrelevant.
What Rose saw was the Doctor’s grief. She flat-out says so during their fight in “Father’s Day” - “I know how sad you are.” I think that goes back to their first trip together, when he took her to see the end of the world and told her, “My planet’s gone… It burned like the Earth.” He added that “there was a war,” but in “Father’s Day” he compares it to the car crash that killed her dad - “My entire planet died. My whole family. Do you think it never occurred to me to go back and save them?” Really, is it any wonder that she kept “forgetting he’s not human”?
Martha, on the other hand, saw the Doctor’s glamour. A lot of people compare “The End of the World” to “The Shakespeare Code.” (And rightly so, since that was Martha’s first trip with the Doctor.) But the episode I always compare it to is “Gridlock.” Granted, that’s partly because they’re both set in the year five billion. But it’s also when Martha finds out where the Doctor is from. And he paints her quite a picture - “The sky’s a burnt orange, with the Citadel enclosed in a mighty glass dome, shining under the twin suns. Beyond that, the mountains go on forever - slopes of deep red grass, capped with snow.” And it might be a coincidence, but that’s also when Martha’s veneration of the Doctor seems to start - “You’ve got your faith… And I’ve got the Doctor.”
And we’re only on her third episode - fourth, if you count “The Runaway Bride” - but I think Donna is seeing the Doctor’s guilt. On their first trip together, they have to make “the most terrible choice” - they have to kill thousands of people in order to save billions. And if I recall correctly, he tells her that he had to make the same choice at the end of the Time War. I’m not sure Rose or Martha ever knew that.
And here’s where the rubber meets the road: When the Doctor and Rose were together, the story focused on his homelessness. The first two seasons were about his search for a home and family to replace the ones he’d lost. But when he lost Rose and started traveling with Martha, the focus shifted. Season three was about the Doctor’s “other”-ness - his estrangement from humanity. So I’m guessing - or maybe I’m just hoping - that this season will be about the Doctor’s power (and the responsibility that goes with it).
Which is not to say that I think his search for home ended in “Doomsday.” Not after “Last of the Time Lords.” What was it the Doctor said? “It’s time to change. Maybe I’ve been wandering for too long. Now I’ve got someone to care for.” I think it was sensiblecat who called that scene “a manifesto for fatherhood.” And so far, this season has been showing the Doctor that it’s not all on him - there are people who’ll help him carry that load. What I’d really like is for things to come full circle - for the Doctor’s family to come back and rescue him, the way they did in “The Parting of the Ways.”