Farewell, Rose
Following the departure of Christopher Eccleston, the continuing face of Doctor Who from Series One was Billie Piper’s “Rose Tyler” character. Previously we had seen her grow from 20-year-old, everyday shop assistant to a seasoned time-traveller and her early encounters with the aliens and spaceships would have terrified her if it had not been for the calm and confident reassurance of Eccleston’s Doctor. She went on to learn from her amazing experiences and her mistakes (most notably as seen in Father’s Day when she prevented her father’s death) until, by the end of Series One, she was holding her own with the Doctor (as an equal) and similarly with Captain Jack, the Anne-Droid and even the Daleks, she also sparkled. So much so, she refused to follow the Doctor’s instructions to stay at home and forget him, and she managed to get from being stranded on modern day Earth all the way to Satelite Five in the year 200,100 to save the day. How Rose was going to react to the regeneration from the ninth to tenth Doctor would go on to define Series Two.
By the time of “New Earth” it wasn’t an entirely new experience to see David Tennant at the helm. After his brief, post-regeneration scene at the denouement of Parting of the Ways, we’d been entertained by a 6-minute feature on BBC’s Children in Need night and a Christmas special that saw the Doctor take a back seat until the last 15 minutes. “Did you miss me?” he asked as he proceded to thwart the “Christmas Invasion” in a beat of his hearts, and then depose the Prime Minister for good measure. Rose’s inability to save the day single-handedly didn’t seem to trouble her and, after the Doctor happily did the domestic thing and spent some post-regeneration recouperation time with the Tyler’s, they headed off for further travels.
Rose’s new found confidence, her sense of fun, and her growing love of the Doctor developed. “Can I just say, travelling with you… I love it” she told him as they landed on New Earth and this confidence grew throughout the season to a become something that bordered on cockiness. As the duo travelled back to meet Queen Victoria in “Tooth and Claw” they seemed to revel in their werewolf encounter, despite the death and heartache that the creature wrought on the occupants of Torchwood House. This attitude directly led to the monarch creating an institute to defend her empire from these ‘alien’ dangers and she promptly banished the travellers from her shores.
Miss Tyler was soon to be tested again, not her assuredness in the face of monsters this time, but in her relationship with the Doctor. It had been becoming more clear throughout previous stories that there may have been a desire on one or both of their behalfs to become more than just friends. So, in “School Reunion” we were taken back to catch up with Sarah-Jane Smith, long-standing companion from the Doctor’s past. Jealousy is a strong emotion and initially, Rose was extremely antagonistic towards Sarah-Jane and she found it hard to accept that may be she was just the latest in a long line of people who had shared adventures with the mysterious Time Lord. As it became clear that Sarah was seeking closure and not a rekindling, everything mellowed between the two. However, no sooner had the Doctor said goodbye (properly, this time) to SJS, than Rose saw her man falling for the French courtisan, Madamme de Pompidour, while she was left with her ex, Mickey, who had come along for the ride much to Rose’s initial chagrin.
The Doctor and Reinette were destined never to be more than ships passing in the night and so the TARDIS crew headed off once more, only to find themselves crashing into a parallel Earth, ‘alt-Earth’ as it has been coined. A darker two-part story saw the Cybermen re-born but for Rose it was a reminder of home as she saw her alt-Mum upgraded, her alt-Dad lead the resistence, and her very own Mickey stay behind to liberate Paris. By the time they got back to the fifties for the Queen’s coronation in “The Idiot’s Lantern”, Rose’s stature had grown even more. She never hesitated as she burst into Magpie’s Electricals to investigate the oddly behaving television sets, but she never expected to find The Wire and needed the Doctor to rescue her again.
Some primal fears were faced as the Doctor descended into “The Satan Pit”. Initially, Rose was quite dismissive of the genuine concerns of the crew after one of the team had expressed his fears, she put him down with sneering aside “Who are you? Cheif dramatist?” but it wasn’t long before the scale of the problem became apparent, and the words of the beast chilled her as it predicted that she was “soon to die in battle”. It seemed her death was about to happen much sooner than anticipated, with all hope lost and careering into a black hole, but the joy and relief on her face as the Doctor facilitated a rescue was unbounded. Unfortunately, perhaps tragically, this probably only served to heighten their feeling of invincibility together. “Fear Her” was a simpler tale, with an alien misunderstanding at its centre but, as Rose and Doctor headed back to the TARDIS, the Doctor sensed impending trouble.
And so to “Army of Ghosts” and “Doomsday”. The Torchwood Institute, set up by Queen Victoria 130 years before when she banished Rose and Doctor, finally caught up with them again to close the circle of Series Two. The alt-Earth Cybermen invade the real Earth on the back a void ship, which is technology that is, initially unbeknownst to everyone, of Dalek origin. A slice of shock and awe follows as the Doctor’s biggest foes go toe-to-toe. This leaves the Doctor with an unpalletable solution: send the invaders back into their void, but first send the Rose and her family back to alt-Earth where they will not be affected by the big “void vacuum”. In a parallel that harks back to the first series’ finale, Rose refuses to accept the Doctor’s solution and travels back to work with him on solving the problem. Things finally go wrong for the Doctor and Rose and as the breach between Earth and alt-Earth is finally, totally closed, but with Rose finding herself with Jackie, Pete and Mickey on the alt-Earth side but with the Doctor still firmly in ours. Their relationship finally terminated, not through choice but circumstance. There was a final chance for a goodbye though as the Doctor managed to project an image of himself through to alt-Earth allowing a heartbreaking final farewell between him and his long-time companion.
Over 27 episodes, Billie Piper has been a revelation in the role of Rose. Critical acclaim, awards, and popular adoration have been rightly heaped upon her, but how will she be remembered? Her character was written with a strong sense of development. We saw her fall in love in a very real way. We saw her grow as a person. We saw her make mistakes and learn from them. We saw her develop from someone who ran away from the aliens on Platform One because “they’re just… so… alien” to someone who could go eye-to-eyestalk with a Dalek and not blink. And we also saw her get a little arrogant, a little bitchy, a little jealous and a little selfish. But this is how people can be sometimes, and to me that makes her more real and tangible and relevant than any character we’ve seen in sci-fi…. well, ever.
