My Unresolved Issues, Let Me Show You Them
I want to like this episode. I want to like this season. Unfortunately, I’m still about eighteen inches from where I need to be.
Of course, how I feel now is nothing compared to how I felt the first time I watched it. Remember Rose bouncing up and down on the apple grass? That was me, when this episode first aired. I’d mainlined the first season - I think I watched it four times between Christmas and Epiphany. And I’d flat-out adored it - in less than a season (by American standards), it had tied Babylon 5 as my all-time favorite television series. I couldn’t wait to see more of Rose and the Doctor and their wacky adventures in time and space.
And the first scene was fantastic. I’d started with “The Christmas Invasion,” back in December, so I had no trouble accepting David Tennant as the Doctor. But I still liked hearing him reminisce with Rose about their first trip together - it cemented my belief that these were the same characters I’d fallen in love with in season one. (And I loved how content the Doctor seemed. Happiness looks good on him.)
Unfortunately, this was practically their only scene together. I’m still not sure what the writers were thinking, doing a body swap in the first episode. After a three-month hiatus, I can’t have been the only one jonesing for a Doctor/Rose fix.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The lifts were where the episode started to go pear-shaped, at least for me. I felt just like Rose - like someone had dumped cold water on me. And maybe I do overidentify, but it looked to me like the writers were trying to humiliate her - to make her seem less than the Doctor.
And the Doctor didn’t seem to mind Rose going off on her own. Wasn’t he the one complaining about her “setting new records for jeopardy-friendly” in season one? And that was before she opened the heart of the Tardis and absorbed all the energy of the Time Vortex. I’d like to believe he wasn’t worried because he knew she could take care of herself, but -
Still, I liked how Rose handled herself in the basement. Picking up the pipe - it’s a little thing, but it says so much. She might be walking into a trap, but she’s not going in fat, dumb, and happy. That’s my girl.
AND THEN CASSANDRA STOLE HER BODY. I’m not posting a screencap of that - it’s too horrible. Y’know, I’m probably doomed to hate this episode - the thought of being possessed like that makes me sick to my stomach. And watching it happen to characters I care about isn’t much easier.
And being in fandom probably made this next part seem worse than it actually was. If Cassandra had been the only one calling Rose a chav, maybe I could’ve written it off to her being one of the bad guys. (Then again, in the next episode, the bad guy is practically the only one not belittling Rose, so who knows?)
And when did the Doctor start seeing himself as a god? It had to be after “Boom Town” - in that episode, he was still telling people not to worship him. But here, he just accepts that he’s the “lonely god” in Novice Hame’s story. It’s a little disturbing. *remembers the end of “The Family of Blood”* Okay, more than a little.
Ew. I’m not sure which is worse - the idea that Rose was conscious while Cassandra used her body like a sock puppet, or the idea that the only kiss she remembers is the one in “The Satan Pit.” (And how could the Doctor think this was Rose? Had it really been that long since “The Parting of the Ways”?)
I don’t have the stomach to talk about all the other things that bothered me in this episode. But there are two more that I wanted to mention. I didn’t like how little we saw of Rose - and maybe I should just come right out and admit that if I’d had to choose between forty minutes of the Doctor without Rose and forty minutes of Rose without the Doctor, I would’ve picked the latter.
But the two minutes we got her back, mid-episode, were almost worse. She didn’t really do anything. And I know she was lying, when she told Cassandra that only the Doctor knew how to use the sonic screwdriver. (We saw Rose using it in “The Doctor Dances.”) What I don’t know is why. I’d like to believe she did it so that Cassandra would leave the Doctor alone, but -
Anyway, that wasn’t the worst part of the episode. That’s a tie between the psychograft scene and the ending. “I’m the Doctor, and I cured them.” Yeah, okay. I might not have minded it so much if it hadn’t been for the “lonely god” nonsense. Or if the Doctor hadn’t claimed to be the Ultimate Authority, earlier in the episode. As it was, though… well, how is this any better than “Last of the Time Lords,” when you get right down to it?
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’d really like to see what everyone else sees in season two - that’s one of the reasons I’m rewatching it. But I still can’t stand “New Earth,” so I’m not getting my hopes up.
Disclaimer: I didn’t have what it took to rewatch “New Earth” repeatedly (which I would’ve had to do to get decent screencaps). I did try, but in the end I gave in and borrowed them from Adventures in Time and Space. I also borrowed the title of the entry from katesutton.