#re. arc ↳ rose tyler | ninth

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Oh Doctor, My Doctor

Disclaimer: This is basically me letting out all the passionate yelling about Doctor Who that I don’t want to torture my friends with like I did when I watched the show the first time round, more or less seven years ago. But I gotta let this out somewhere, I’ve been binging 10 seasons in a few weeks and my brain is full of thoughts. So, uh, sorry, I guess. I really just need to get this out of my system and get my thoughts in order. This is gonna be a long one, though, so I hope y’all are patient with me.

You know, seven years ago, when I watched Doctor Who for the first time, I was very….particular about it, I guess you could call it. With all TV shows, really. I had my favourite character, my favourite side-character, and I really didn’t love many of the other characters. I was very one-sided about it all.

With Doctor Who, that meant, that I really, really loved the Tenth Doctor, I adored David’s Doctor. I loved Rose. When Martha came along, I didn’t really like her, because Rose had only just been there. Donna, on the other hand, was already farther removed, so I really did like her. Same thing happened with the Doctor. I liked David’s Doctor so much, that when Matt came along, I couldn’t really allow myself to like him. He replaced David, so I was already prejudiced against him. I also didn’t particularly like Amy and Rory, and definitely not River. Peter on the other hand, I could like more again, because he was farther removed from David. Same with Clara. I was so *stuck* in my adoration for certain characters, that I could not see the values and great sides of others. I loved certain storylines so much, I couldn’t appreciate others. Which, to be honest, is so very crappy.

I am so very glad that I allowed myself to get into Doctor Who again, that I allowed myself to love this show again. Because I knew I would, but I was afraid I would turn out exactly like last time, that I would be awful about it. But I think I’m better about it now.

Like I have already mentioned in my blog post about February, watching that very first episode again really did feel like coming home. It felt like stepping into a room full of toys that you have loved as a child and forgot about over the years. It felt like when you re-arrange your room and you find those little things and look at them and suddenly it’s five hours later and your room is an absolute chaos because you got so distracted with all the things you forgot you owned. It felt like meeting a very old friend again. And I have enjoyed this ride tremendously.

I liked Nine even the first time round. He introduced me to this whole thing. Chris was my first Doctor, even if he is not my favourite. But he was my first. I loved his sort of dry humour, his matter-of-fact-ness, his way of just going, “yup, I’m an alien, got a problem with that?” He was smart, he was funny, and even if it maybe didn’t come out as strongly as in other Doctors, he had passion and he had heart. Think The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances. The joy, the gratefulness, the absolute overwhelming happy surprise that this once, just this once, everybody lives. He was so shocked, in a way, that this was still a possibility, that he could be somewhere, and when usually even with his best intentions he creates destruction, it didn’t happen this time. He came across something, tried his damnedest to help, and absolutely everybody lived. And it was wonderful. But not only was Chris the Doctor that introduced me to this show, he was also the one that gave me Rose. Without Chris, without Nine, there would be no Rose and Ten, there would be no “The Doctor and Rose Tyler, in the TARDIS, where they belong”. Chris walked so David could run. It was Chris who first came and grabbed Rose’s hand and said RUN! I wouldn’t have one of my favourite ships of all time, if it weren’t for Chris and what he brought to this role.

Nine, though he may not have been the War Doctor, he was the one born out of war. The survivor. Or, how he might have called himself, the coward who ran away. He was born out of a terrible decision he had to make (and yes, the Nine we meet in Season One still was born out of a Doctor who had to make that decision all by himself, not together with his future selves….), he was born thinking he had just made himself the single survivor of a massive double-genocide. He was born out of shame and regret and uncertainty, and you can tell. And then he found Rose and with her, light comes back into his life. He may have still been a helper, may have still tried to prevent Earth from being invaded by hostile alien lifeforms — it is his second home after all —, but I feel he did it from a sense of duty, not because he liked doing it. But in all that he finds Rose, and things change. And just two episodes later he’s already so far gone for that woman, if he had to die in a cellar surrounded by alien ghosts, he wouldn’t wanna have anyone else beside him than her.

Without Chris and his Ninth Doctor, there would be no Doctor Who. It was his first season that brought this show back from its hiatus, it was him who introduced this show to a whole new generation. And I am so grateful for that. Many of my favourite moments came out of his arc. The whole introduction of Captain Jack Harkness, that little family moment in Boom Town where they all sit together in that restaurant and have a good time before they have to save the world again. Chris’ absolute joy when Rose gets names of other planets right. Rose reminding him that if he kills a vulnerable changed Dalek, he is not better than any of them. Again, as I already mentioned, his utter disbelief, wonder, and happiness at everyone living at the end of The Doctor Dances. Jack kissing both Rose and the Doctor in the season finale. Chris brought so much to this show. His Doctor, born from war, from uncertainty and shame, dies in an act of love, of his love for Rose. And from that love he is re-born, Ten is born from that one act of true love that Chris had in his arc, and it’s something that will define David’s entire four seasons.

David, even now, is my absolute favourite Doctor. He didn’t just have heart and passion, he wasn’t just smart and funny and a bit snarky, he wasn’t just dashing and handsome and a bit of a flirt— he was filled, to the brim, with unsolicited, unchallenged, absolute boundless and unconditional love. And not just for Rose, but for everyone he came across. He was compassionate without measure. It was this intense love that made him so wonderful and it would also be the one thing that would completely, utterly destroy him in the end.

To watch David again in this role, to come back to a version of this character that I have loved so much, was….oh, it was healing, it was so incredibly soothing to just be able to let myself fall in love with this character all over again. Because I knew what was gonna happen, I knew these stories already, these characters, and even if it was heartbreaking, it was so relaxing to let myself go and enjoy this without fearing to be disappointed by something. Oh, it was a joy. To just see that great love between David and Rose play out again before my eyes, to watch all these little stories of them being so smitten with each other while making each other better people and saving the various civilisations over and over again. I want to say I’m speechless, but I could honestly wax on poetically about these two forever. Absolute OTP, nearly unchallenged.

But even after Rose was gone, David kept being a version of the Doctor that was basically the incarnation of love. He may not have loved Martha the way she would have liked, but he did love her tremendously. I didn’t like Martha, not in my first run, because she just came and tried to filled this empty space that Rose left behind in a way that neither the Doctor nor I were having it. She bothered me so much, because she was so desperate to be loved by him the same way he loved Rose, that she didn’t see that he cared for her so much already. But now, I was able to appreciate Martha for who she was and what she did. I think, in a way, she saved the Doctor. He became a lot more reckless after he lost Rose. He would get even worse later on, but at that moment, Martha saved him. Sure, the immediate distraction from having just lost Rose was Donna and her little wedding (mis-)adventure, but that was only a short moment. Martha was the one to drag David out of the mud and into the light, was the one to make sure he would not get himself killed somewhere.

There’s a moment in Matt’s arc as the Doctor, where he’s interacting with the TARDIS interface that looks like him at first, and then, once he says “give me someone I like” turns into Rose. He says “guilt” and it changes to Martha and he says “also guilt”, and it then moves on through his companions, but I want to focus on Martha here. Guilt. The Doctor knew, or at least felt like he did not do right by her. I feel like, he would have loved to be able to give her what she wanted, but he just couldn’t. He tried his best to be a good man, a good friend, but he was so oblivious to her needs or wants, outside of the fact that she would’ve liked him to love her, because he was still basically digging his own grave after the loss of Rose. David, for a moment there, he lost all direction, he didn’t know what to do. He had wished, hoped, thought he would spend so many more years travelling with his love, and now she was gone and he had no idea what to do, and along comes this brilliant woman, this incredibly smart and perceptive person who was able to stand her ground and keep up with him and his wits most of the time, and he just can’t appreciate her for who she is. I mean, he tries, don’t get me wrong, and he does, but he is not able to show that to her. So guilt it is.

Martha, who drags his reckless ass out of many a dangerous situation. Martha, who watches over him while he doesn’t even remember who he is, trusting him to remember once he needs to. Martha, who travels across the entire planet, endangering herself, to spread the word, to make sure that the Doctor, once more, can return to his full power and overcome the Master and his evil plans. Martha, who has done so much for him, and he just can’t really appreciate her. And I get it now, I really do. Seven years ago, I disliked her for it, for wanting that attention, for looking for that validation. But now, now I see it. She was a good companion and she deserves to be recognised as such. I liked that she was able to clap back at Ten’s sass, that she was able to keep up with him, that she was strong, and vulnerable, and smart, and compassionate.

But even this time, even though I learned to like Martha Jones, I was really looking forward to seeing David together with Donna, because Donna is hilarious and wonderful. Donna was normal. She was not extraordinary and talented and incredibly beautiful. Not to the uninitiated or general observer. And I think that’s exactly what I, as a viewer, needed at that point. Someone, who doesn’t strive for greatness, but is still capable of it. Donna had sass, she had snark, she was loud and showy and a bomb. But also, I feel, incredibly self-conscious. And the thing about Donna is, that was what made her so great. She wasn’t “The Girl Who Waited” or “Born to Save the Doctor”, she was just Donna. Donna Noble. From Chiswick. A temp. Who thought she was nothing extraordinary, who thought that the even if she wasn’t there, the world would keep turning. But in all that, she had this one adventure with this madman, and months later she purposely sought out weird occurrences and dangerous situation, because she knew that everything she thought she was not, that madman was and she needed to feel like that again.

The thing is, though. Donna was none of these things. She was extraordinary. She was talented and beautiful, and so, so important. And she would have been, even if she did not end up being the key in bringing Rose back into this universe and creating TenToo. She would have been all these things anyway. I adore Donna. And so did Ten. He saw the mistakes he made with Martha and he tried to do better by Donna, and I think he did. He really did.

One of my favourite moments from the Doctor-Donna arc, is in The Fires of Pompeii, when Donna convinces David to save just one person. Just the one. Because that moment will define a big part of why I have come to adore the Twelfth Doctor. Because Ten and Donna save Caesilius and his family in Pompeii, the Twelfth Doctor becomes just a little bit more interesting than he already is, but more about that later.

I know I said Martha drags the Doctor out of the mud and sees to it that he doesn’t recklessly kill himself, but so does Donna. Donna keeps him in check, and he needs it desperately. Because the love that he was born out of, is burning him up from inside, and it is going to destroy him soon. Because even though he lost Rose, he continued to love so much, to care so much, to have this massively strong compassion for all beings. That’s why he still runs, that’s why he still travels and saves people, creatures, everyone. Donna helps him to care just the right amount, to care when he doesn’t want to (Fire of Pompeii, The Doctor’s Daughter) and to slow down when he is overwhelmed because he can’t stop caring (Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead).

Ten is….a volcano, if you wanna think about it that way. David was born from love, cared deeply and passionately and strongly for four season, and kept loving and loving, and it ends in him, finally, getting back what he lost: Rose. Or, at least, in a way. He doesn’t get to be the one to settle down and live his life with her, but she does. She gets to live a life with him, even if he doesn’t. And i think that gives him a certain ease. He can let go now, in a way. Not that he ever does, not completely, but he can be sure that she will have him, and that part of him also has her. It allows him to move on, which explains everything about Matt’s Doctor to me. It’s something that needed to happen before Ten regenerates, because otherwise they would’ve never been able to move onto new stories, new adventures completely. He needed to be able to let Rose go, and I think he was. He was able to let her go, but not himself, not yet. And it is still love that keeps him going. He travels alone, this time. Doesn’t want to get attached anymore. And it is that which ultimately destroys him here. The need to love, this strong emotion still dominating him entirely, but his unwillingness, and his inability to let it happen. Which is why he begins to fall apart completely, which is why The Waters of Mars happen the way it does. He keeps saying that he should go, that he should leave, because this is a fixed part of history that he is not allowed to change, and yet, he sticks around, and sees himself becoming the worst version of himself: the one who wants to win, the one who thinks he can outsmart anything and anyone, the one who thinks the universe owes him something, the one who, slowly but surely, thinks he can become a God. His love is his downfall.

The point is for me here, that he realises that he has gone too far. He knows and it is that knowledge that allows him to ultimately make that sacrifice for Wilfred which will cost him his life. It is one last act of love. Well, not quite last. What I am eternally grateful for, is that they let Ten go on a sort of victory lap, in a way. It’s not a victory lap, but more of a, last goodbye. He gets to see all the lives he tremendously touched again. He gets to see Donna and her family, gets to see her happy and married, make her and her family one last gift. He gets to see Martha with Mickey, happy at last, the two of them together, who both had lost love at the hands of the Doctor, even if he didn’t intend for it. He gets to see Jack. And Sarah Jane. And, lastly and most importantly, of course, he gets to see Rose, right before her adventure with him begins. And it is with that last moment with the woman he loved, that he finally lets go, even if he doesn’t want to. Last moments are so incredibly defining in this show, I feel. Nine’s death for love, Ten’s birth out of that love, Ten’s death a final moment of letting it all go, moving on. He knows Rose will get her happy ending, he knows that all the lives he touched are not worse for it, he can let it go, let it be, and let himself move on, which, I think, is the defining trait of Matt’s Doctor.

Matt, oh Matt. I have to be truly honest, I really couldn’t let myself like him the first time round. He was too silly, too quirky, too happy. It didn’t know what to do with that. I really didn’t. But now, oh how I’ve changed. I really, really like Matt. He was fun, he was different, he was new. The Doctor had suffered so much loss, but he was able to, not ignore, but put that behind him, in a way, and really move on. He wouldn’t forget, he never would, but he could reinvent himself. David didn’t want to go, didn’t want to regenerate, didn’t want to leave that face, that person behind and become someone new, but I think it was exactly what he needed. A clean slate. Tabula rasa. He could be someone he’s never been before, and make the best out of it. There was still love in Matt, and so much of it.

I know we always talk about Matt as a silly Doctor, a bit childish and not really serious. But he could be, if need be. He could be just as ruthless as David towards the end, he could be just as, well, not cold-hearted, but detached, as those who came before him. We don’t talk about it much, because he was fun and he was silly, but there was still a darkness brooding inside him, that I think we should not forget about. The trait of “nothing can stop me now because you hurt someone I liked” may have really started with David, but it was Matt that carried it on. To protect Amy and Rory, this man would do anything. I may have not initially liked Amy and Rory much, but damn, those two are a powerhouse. And it really was, Amy and Her Boys. Which I now learned to appreciate.

The thing about Matt’s arc is, we get two and a half seasons with the same companions. We have Amy and Rory all of seasons five and six, and half through seven until The Angels Take Manhattan. That is long. Chris only had the one season and one companion (well, there were obviously Jackie, Mickey, and Jack, but you know, they didn’t really travel with him). David had Rose, Mickey, Jack, Martha, Donna, Sarah Jane, and so many different companions in the specials, too. David had them for a season, some even only for a few episodes. But Matt had his main two companions for over two seasons, interspersed of course with River Song, Craig the two times, and some occasional Christmas specials where he was without the couple. (And then he also has another half season with Clara, but I think of her more as Twelve’s companion, to be honest.)

I don’t wanna say, David didn’t fight strong enough for his companions. But Matt fought in a way for them, that made them stick around longer, and I think that’s ultimately, because it would have otherwise completely destroyed him. He just let himself move on from all the loss he had experienced. David just gave himself up, finally, to let Matt write new stories, experience new things, not be guided by the loss he had experienced. So Matt does his damnedest to keep Amy and Rory (and River) save and whole. Which, I think, is interesting in the way it works out, because instead of the travelling with the Doctor becoming a lifestyle, they settle down, and he becomes a hobby, which is something that will continue in Clara’s arc with both Eleven and Twelve. And while I loved the all-in kind of life the previous companions have, I think that’s good.

Oh, Matt. My dearest Matt. He was so fun and silly, that I feel like, his storyline becomes even more heartbreaking, in a way, than David’s. You don’t want to see pain and suffering and heartbreak in a face that young and open and honest. You don’t wanna see the happy-go-lucky kid go dark and brooding and mysterious, but you also know that that is exactly what’s hiding behind that ever so happy face. Even though he was able to let the past be the past and not let it constantly define his every move—which I truly believe Matt was able to do—there is still so much sadness in those eyes at all times. That is a several thousand years old man with the face of a not-even-thirty years old, and you just know that there is so much loss hidden behind those eyes, behind that smile. And you can see it seep through, even if he tries his best to hide it. And I think that is what drew me in about him. Yes, he was silly. Yes, he was annoyingly optimistic and jumpy, and the physical embodiment of a bouncy castle. But, oh, he had depth. Layers upon layers. Which, yes, David had too, but they became more and more obvious with Matt.

I could go on so much longer about my dear Matt, because there is so much more to unpack here, but I’ve already written more than university essay length in mere hours, and I haven’t even gotten to Peter yet, who has sneaked up on me in a way I could’ve never dreamed, and easily walked up right next to David and sat down on a very (very, very, very, very, very) close second place, only a breath behind my beloved Tenth Doctor.

Last time around, I fell off the waggon, I think, at the beginning of Season Nine (I guess the last episode I watched was The Witches’ Apprentice, but maybe I didn’t even watch that). I had finished watching Matt who I didn’t particularly like back then (but definitely also didn’t want to let go quite yet), to get a Doctor that was completely different from anything I’d seen before, sort of grumpy and weird, and it continued with Clara, who I had back then, also not particularly liked, I think. Probably more than Amy and Rory, but definitely not on a level like Rose and Donna. So, coming up on Season Eight and returning to Peter’s Doctor, was a more unknown territory for me. And I could’ve never imagined how it would turn out.

Peter’s version is….oh, he is loveable. I…when I started this post, I knew exactly what I wanted to write about Peter. Hell, I started this post because I wanted to write about Peter. And now, an entire university essay-length blog post later, and I’m sitting here, no idea what it was that I wanted to say so badly. I’ll try my best to find my way back to it, though, so bear with me.

Peter caught me by surprise. Very much so. Because I remember last time, after grudgingly coming to like Matt after a while and then having to let him go, again grudgingly, I don’t think I really liked Peter that much in this role. I had only seen him, I think, in Forty Something before, which was a comedy and he sort of played the, uh, antagonist, if a) one can call it that, and b) I remember correctly. I can’t quite recall if the first Paddington movie was already out by that point, but if it was, he was again an antagonist. So, to see him in a leading role of a character that, just now, was a bouncy-castle with a dark side, was…..a change, I think I would say. And as I already said, I fell off the waggon after one season of Peter, partly because I felt like I didn’t like where this show was going.

This time I went into re-watching this show with love. I loved them all. I loved characters I hadn’t particularly liked before. And I loved Peter. So much. Which I never thought I would, at least not to this degree.

The thing is, Peter gets so easily stamped as the grumpy one, the rude one, the dark one. And I mean, yeah, sure, he’s grumpy, he’s a bit darker than some of his previous incarnations, and he has a tendency to be rude. And I thought so at the beginning too, especially that very first episode. But now on this rewatch, I realised, he’s no more rude than any of the others were. David’s first episode right after regeneration? Oh he was rude. Matt’s first, with young Amelia? He crashed in her front yard, she made him food and he kept throwing it away, spitting it out, bossing her around. He was really rude. And that’s just it. Wouldn’t you be? Wouldn’t you be a bit rude when you literally just became an entirely new person, haven’t quite figured out yet who you are, have forgotten what exactly is happening, and find yourself in a situation completely going awry, and then there’s also people there expecting you to be someone who you’re not anymore? Hell, I’d be fucking rude, too.

Peter had me by the moment he talks to the homeless guy about his face. Well, no, not entirely, I’m sure I was hooked before that because this time I was ready to appreciate him for who he was. But that moment, when I started slowly understanding what Russell’s idea was with Peter’s Doctor having the face of someone he’s met before. And then of course, at the end of that first episode, his scene with Clara in London, when Matt’s Doctor calls her from Trenzalore, and Peter’s incredible openness and insecurity and just….I think, defining moment of his entire arc, when he asks Clara to just see him. That’s when it was a done deal already for me, that was the moment I couldn’t go back to maybe liking Peter. I was sold.

Because….because it’s like this. Peter is the amalgamation of everything that came before him, everyone that came before him. Sure, Chris wasn’t unlike the Doctors before him, David had traits of Chris, Matt of the both of them, but Peter….is defined, in a way, by Matt’s last words. I feel that before that, there were only hints, but now with Matt’s “I’ll always remember when the Doctor was me”, Peter became that, and not just in relation to Matt, but to all of them. He is two thousand years of love and regret and loss and compassion and people and stories, wrapped into a body that really shows that. And I’m not just talking about the fact that Peter is relatively older than Matt, David or Chris. It’s not about age, it’s about depth. You could see in Matt’s eyes and the sad smile that he had seen things nobody should ever have to see, but he was still the incarnation of a bouncy castle. Peter had gravitas, that gravity, that….. he was bigger on the inside. He was bursting at his seams with so much history and lives lived. The words are escaping me right now, I can feel them at the tip of my fingers, just that much out of reach, but I just…..God, I just love Peter so much.

His arc with Clara was so many things, and I don’t wanna talk about the writing because that’s entirely different topic, but it was just so….incredible, I guess is the word? I’m gonna give up on the word thing now, because I really don’t have them right now. But here’s some specific, less-wordy things I adored about Peter. His “I have a duty of care” bit. It hit me in all the same ways David’s “I promised to keep you safe” used to, and Matt’s everlasting attempts to keep Amy and Rory together and in one piece and whole. Peter’s stint at Clara’s school as The Caretaker makes this even more fitting, because that is exactly what he is.

I loved Peter’s professor bit. That he didn’t just have a library in the TARDIS, but that the console room was full of shelves and blackboards. I adored that he thought in writing so often, that we found him up there at those boards doing equations and just basically thinking out loud. I loved the scenes of him lecturing in the arc with Bill. I loved that he was as much a teacher as he was a student. He says it at the end of season eight: “I… am… an idiot! With a box and a screwdriver. Passing through. Helping out. Learning.” We had that in all his incarnations, too. Sure, he’s a genius, that Doctor. But he travels to learn, to see things, to understand. And I felt the way that was expressed in Peter’s arc was really lovely.

I fucking adored his rockstar bit. The guitar, the songs, I loved it. We had big hats, big scarfs, we had question marks and vegetables, we had big coats and so many colours, and now we have a magician with sunglasses and a Gibson SG. It’s so brilliant. He was so versatile, our Peter.

I’m at a loss of words again, guys. I don’t think I actually got to the bit I really wanted to talk about, because I just can’t remember what was so…..strong and emotional about Peter’s Doctor, something that was so important for me, that I wanted to write this post. I hope I remember it at some point, because it was a strong emotion that I can still feel, I just can’t grasp it anymore.

I’m really sorry this turned out so long with me just fucking rambling all over the place, but hey, welcome to my brain, I guess?

Anyway, I started Jodie’s arc yesterday, and while I’m not quite sold yet on her, I am sure I will enjoy this season nonetheless. I really want to give her a chance, and I also don’t want to abandon this show again, because even if I end up not liking this particular incarnation, I might the next one. Which is what’s great about this show. There’s always stuff you can like, and it won’t be the way it was forever.

Thanks for reading, guys. Always. And now, one last thing:

Never be cruel, never be cowardly. Remember, hate is always foolish, and love is always wise. Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind. Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.