Whitney Pierce

Staff Writer

When Doctor Who made its return to television in 2005, audiences were not only treated to a new show, a new Doctor and new adventures but also a new companion. The new companion would be none other than Rose Tyler (played by Billie Piper). Rose was a 19-year-old girl from London who worked in a shop, had a boyfriend named Mickey, lived with her mum, Jackie, and basically just went day to day living an average and boring life. She wanted more. She wanted to travel, see the world, experience things no one else had and to do something with her life. Little did she know that she would be doing all that and more alongside a Time Lord while traveling through space and time in a blue phone box.

When it comes to Rose Tyler, I’ve noticed that a lot of Whovians either love her or hate her. I love Rose and believe she is a great reason as to why the Doctor is the way he is today. She met the Doctor when he was in his ninth regeneration. A regeneration that took place in the Last Great Time War in which he wiped out his entire race, along with the Daleks, to save the universe. This was a Doctor that was born in the heat of battle. When he met Rose, he was not looking for anyone to travel alongside him but with their first adventure happening in London with the Autons, or living plastic, he invited her to travel along with him. Though she would have to leave her mother and boyfriend, Rose’s desire to do something meaningful with her life trumped everything and she accepted the invitation to join the Doctor on his travels.

Before she met the Doctor, Rose didn’t even think about aliens or other lifeforms or places outside of Earth. This was all very new to her. Rose was the type of companion that wanted to help everyone she could and to try and prevent as many from death and disaster that she could. One example of this was in the episode “Dalek” when we see the Doctor come face to face with his old enemies. He thought they were all dead and gone from the time war but he was terribly mistaken. The Dalek in the episode absorbed some of Rose’s DNA which started to change it into something that was starting to have feelings rather than just hating all the time. When the Doctor approached Rose and the Dalek to destroy it once and for all, Rose stopped him and told him that this alien didn’t mean any harm and that it was changing and then asked the Doctor, who was pointing a gun at the both of them,  what he was changing into. Upon hearing that, the Doctor started to break down immediately, telling her that he wasn’t going to do anything and he put the gun down. Even though Rose knew that this alien was something that had been a part of destroying the Doctor’s past life, she believed that it could and was changing, therefore asking the Doctor to give it a second chance. Unfortunately, that was a one time deal when it came to the Dalek’s but just showed Rose’s compassion for everything and trying to see the good in all situations.

As Rose continued to travel with the Doctor, she was still keen on helping people and making sure good prevailed. Not all of that can happen without some sacrifices along the way and Rose began to realize that. In the season one finale, “The Parting of the Ways,” Rose was faced with the biggest change in her life at the time, becoming the Bad Wolf. The Daleks were back and invading Earth and in order to stop them, the Doctor believed that he would have to sacrifice himself in order to do so, thus sending Rose home to London with Jackie and Mickey. Rose wasn’t happy at all with having to leave the Doctor behind and begins to try and find a way back to him. This is when she discovers graffiti and various signs all around her reading the words “Bad Wolf”. After she sees this, it clicks in her mind that she has seen these words other places before and believes that it’s a message to tell her that she is crucial to the task at hand and needs to get back to the Doctor. She finds a way back to him by looking into the heart of the TARDIS and absorbing the time vortex that it held. This massive amount of power allows Rose to return to Nine and single handedly wipe out the entire Dalek fleet to save him and the universe. Curious as to how she returned, Rose tells the Doctor that she looked into the heart of the TARDIS and traveled through worlds to scatter the words “Bad Wolf” to lead herself here to save him. She then begins to feels the power she’s wielding tear her apart because no one should be able to harness such power. This is when Nine saves Rose one last time by kissing her and absorbing the power into himself, thus triggering his regeneration into the tenth doctor.

Photo courtesy of Tardis Wikia

Still being fairly new to the whole traveling through time and space with a Time Lord thing, Rose wasn’t aware that he would change like he did and was in shock when he changed faces and personalities. What I think Rose may not have realized was that he hadn’t changed his personality that much from what Nine was when he left.

Ten was just born in a place of knowing what love was rather than war and anger, like Nine. He was bound to be different and that was because of Rose. Rose and Ten traveled throughout the second season together, becoming closer and closer and friends and in the opinion of some, romantically. I think you have to be kind of naive to not think that Rose and the Doctor were in love.

If you couldn’t pick up on it from the beginning, by the end of Rose’s run with the Doctor, in the season two finale “Doomsday,” you should have. In the episode, there are two worlds that are at risk of ripping the whole universe apart and the gap between the two needs to be closed, forever. On one side you have the Doctor and on the other side you have Rose’s entire family, including her father. Once again Rose is faced with choosing her family and friends or the Doctor. She chooses Ten, no question. While trying to close the gap between the world’s, however, Rose almost gets sucked in to the void but is saved and taken to the world where there is no Doctor. If you think you can handle it or just want a good emotional breakdown, feel free to watch the following video of the scene.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAm5YIOU05I]

If you didn’t think that it could get more depressing than that, you’re wrong. By the end of the episode, the Doctor finds a way to project an image of him to Rose to say his final goodbyes to her, telling her that there is no way that they’ll be able to see each other again without ripping apart the universe. Because it is the last time they’ll see each other, Rose tells the Doctor that she loves him but before he can say those words back to her, his image fades away, leaving her heartbroken.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvkjthzlyV8]

After almost two full seasons away and knowing the risk of tearing the universe apart, that doesn’t stop Rose from needing to help the Doctor once again in season four. One of my favorite Rose moments happens with this return. She tells my second favorite companion, Donna Noble, that she is the most important woman in all of creation thus giving her the drive and confidence to realize that the Doctor needs her help, she’s not just a regular woman going along for the ride, he chose her for a reason. If it wouldn’t have been for Rose, Donna may not have returned to a time when she was a companion which would have caused the world to be a dark and terrible place. By the end of the episode, we see Rose returned back to the alternate universe but this time she gets to keep Ten with her, in some sense. Amidst all the chaos that happened towards the end of the season, somewhat of a clone of the Ten was created, dubbed Meta-Crisis Doctor or Tentoo. He wasn’t the actual Doctor but looked like him and loved Rose just the way Ten did. He couldn’t travel with The Doctor and Donna because he was created in a time of war and fighting, just like Nine. Ten tells Rose that Tentoo needs her, which is very much like him. So Rose finally gets her Doctor, in some way, which I think definitely makes up for the heartache from before.

Gif courtesy of Tumblr

Rose changed the Doctor’s life for the better and he did the same for her. She took him from being an angry man to becoming someone who wasn’t always out for revenge against the people that did him wrong but to helping people and believing in humanity again. She went from working in a shop in London, believing that she would never make anything with her life to working with the Torchwood Institute. She went from being stuck in London to traveling across time and space fighting things she never knew existed. She fought against some of the Doctor’s most fierce enemies and prevailed in the end. Just like when people say “You never forget your first Doctor,” well, I’ll never forget my first companion.

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