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rabid1stBy this time EVERYONE who even occasionally reads my blog knows what I think should happen in Ten's final episode. But...the real crux of the issue is what writer/producer (and all around Father Christmas) Russell T. Davies thinks. So, does Russell think that Rose/Ten should be honored with a happy for her lifetime ending? I've quoted him before...but let's look at what he just told the Times Online was the absolute #1 thing he loved about his reign as show runner...
1 Rose and the Doctor’s final goodbye, Doomsday (2006)
The Doctor burns up a sun to say goodbye to Rose. I love this because it happens in the episode where the Daleks and Cybermen meet for the first time. The ultimate intergalactic smackdown — but the whole thing’s a romantic weepie in disguise! Ha ha! After we’d shot it, David and Billie had to go and have a good hug in the van. But I always knew I’d have to split up the Doctor and Rose — they were devoted to each other, there’s no way she’d go and marry King of the Zobulans, or stay at home with mum. So that huge, huge plot of parallel universes — Daleks one side, Cybermen the other, Earth in the middle and all that — only existed to put two characters on either side of a wall. You sort of work backwards, really.
And again...there's this quote from The Writer's Tale...RTD, himself, tells us that Bad Wolf Bay 2 is not going to work.
"That scene doesn’t work. I have always known that, from the moment I typed it out, but I don’t know how to fix it. Rose has to be stupid to fall in love with Doctor 2. No matter what I do, that’s not her Doctor. I can Elastoplast over it by saying that Doctor 2 needs Rose, but that’s slight. You don’t feel that….
….One thing I do know: this isn’t a couple-of-lines rewrite…There’s no sentence that will paper over the cracks. It’s a plot rewrite. I’ve got the story wrong. And that’s massive, potentially."
Yes, this is absolutely right...there is no way she'd give up on HER Doctor! No way! RTD got that bit wrong. Rose and Ten are devoted to one another. And they would accept no substitutes. So...to fix it...you have to work backwards from what SHOULD have happened.
Ten isn't happy. We can certainly all see that now. Assume Rose is not happy. How do you fix it? Imagine what it would take to...well...switch Doctors and give Rose HER Doctor for the happy ending he really does deserve.
You will see that Donna's metacrisis must go wrong...and who else do we know that could have had a metacrisis go wrong? The Master. And can they get Billie to do one more cameo appearance? And does this mean that the current Doctor isn't the real Doctor anymore? Shouldn't he be dead and in the Doctor Who Afterlife...with the other people that we know are dead in our universe...Pete, Jackie and Rose? And, heck, maybe even the Time Lords? You can't cheat at regeneration like Ten cheated, can you? Isn't it all going wrong?
So, it's not IF it should be done?
It's only a question of how do you do it?
The end scene is there...Ten and Rose are devoted to one another and finally reunited...nothing, not even an unbreachable wall can keep them apart...and so...the scene is him running to her...and sweeping her into his arms...they kiss...and then they walk away holding hands or arm-in-arm. That's the proper ending, so work backwards from there, I say.
Speaking of working backward...I went looking for the RTD quote from The Writer's Tale and I found a post of mine from March, 2009...reading it you can see why every recent headline has set my heart to pitter-pattering and raised my pony hopes.
http://rabid1st.livejournal.com/207128.html#cutid1
1 Rose and the Doctor’s final goodbye, Doomsday (2006)
The Doctor burns up a sun to say goodbye to Rose. I love this because it happens in the episode where the Daleks and Cybermen meet for the first time. The ultimate intergalactic smackdown — but the whole thing’s a romantic weepie in disguise! Ha ha! After we’d shot it, David and Billie had to go and have a good hug in the van. But I always knew I’d have to split up the Doctor and Rose — they were devoted to each other, there’s no way she’d go and marry King of the Zobulans, or stay at home with mum. So that huge, huge plot of parallel universes — Daleks one side, Cybermen the other, Earth in the middle and all that — only existed to put two characters on either side of a wall. You sort of work backwards, really.
And again...there's this quote from The Writer's Tale...RTD, himself, tells us that Bad Wolf Bay 2 is not going to work.
"That scene doesn’t work. I have always known that, from the moment I typed it out, but I don’t know how to fix it. Rose has to be stupid to fall in love with Doctor 2. No matter what I do, that’s not her Doctor. I can Elastoplast over it by saying that Doctor 2 needs Rose, but that’s slight. You don’t feel that….
….One thing I do know: this isn’t a couple-of-lines rewrite…There’s no sentence that will paper over the cracks. It’s a plot rewrite. I’ve got the story wrong. And that’s massive, potentially."
Yes, this is absolutely right...there is no way she'd give up on HER Doctor! No way! RTD got that bit wrong. Rose and Ten are devoted to one another. And they would accept no substitutes. So...to fix it...you have to work backwards from what SHOULD have happened.
Ten isn't happy. We can certainly all see that now. Assume Rose is not happy. How do you fix it? Imagine what it would take to...well...switch Doctors and give Rose HER Doctor for the happy ending he really does deserve.
You will see that Donna's metacrisis must go wrong...and who else do we know that could have had a metacrisis go wrong? The Master. And can they get Billie to do one more cameo appearance? And does this mean that the current Doctor isn't the real Doctor anymore? Shouldn't he be dead and in the Doctor Who Afterlife...with the other people that we know are dead in our universe...Pete, Jackie and Rose? And, heck, maybe even the Time Lords? You can't cheat at regeneration like Ten cheated, can you? Isn't it all going wrong?
So, it's not IF it should be done?
It's only a question of how do you do it?
The end scene is there...Ten and Rose are devoted to one another and finally reunited...nothing, not even an unbreachable wall can keep them apart...and so...the scene is him running to her...and sweeping her into his arms...they kiss...and then they walk away holding hands or arm-in-arm. That's the proper ending, so work backwards from there, I say.
Speaking of working backward...I went looking for the RTD quote from The Writer's Tale and I found a post of mine from March, 2009...reading it you can see why every recent headline has set my heart to pitter-pattering and raised my pony hopes.
http://rabid1st.livejournal.com/207128.html#cutid1
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-22 08:34 am (UTC)The whole Donna element kind of writes itself really, no getting around that one.
Come on RTD, bring this to a happy conclusion, you know you want too!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-22 09:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-22 02:29 pm (UTC)To quote Santa
Date: 2009-12-22 07:52 pm (UTC)Ponies!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-22 04:03 pm (UTC)...probably go and re-read your fics. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-22 04:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-22 07:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-22 07:54 pm (UTC)On the other hand...those TenII people are hoping we have elderly happy Rose...which would be the anti-pony! :forms sign of cross to protect us all from the anti-pony:
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-22 08:02 pm (UTC)Just say no to the anti-pony. The TenII people are just-I don't even know what to consider them. They miss the point. Yes, that's what I'm going with. They miss the point.
I'm not going to lie. After the sh*tasticness that was RM's ending for Lee and Kara I binged on Iced and what there is of Minotaur. As well as all of the "If Ron Moore can f*ck with history so can I *makes Lee and Kara the founders of Ancient Greece*" fics.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-22 08:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-23 10:53 pm (UTC)And then what do you say?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-23 01:34 am (UTC)I think, deep down, the Ten II/Rose shippers know that “Journey’s End” wasn’t a happy ending. We have to handwave the fact that Rose kissed the duplicate Doctor. But they have to handwave the fact that she broke off the kiss and went running after the Tardis. And the look on her face the last time we saw her wasn’t happy. They want to believe that she and Ten II are living happily ever after, but deep down, I think they know that’s almost as much of an AU as any explicit fixit fic.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-23 10:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-22 08:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-23 01:35 am (UTC)I want the same thing I’ve wanted since practically my first day in this fandom: character growth. I want the Doctor—and by that, I mean the character who’ll be travelling with Amy Pond in 2010—to marry Rose and raise a family with her. Otherwise, I’ll stick with the conclusion I came to after “Journey’s End”—that the Doctor’s journey from being alone to being part of a family ended when he came to Christmas dinner with Rose’s family. But I’d be thrilled to be wrong.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-23 02:11 am (UTC)But I will go with the fixit of switching personalities on the theory that TEN is his own man...and the Doctor is something you can duplicate...like you can duplicate the Master.
Ideally, though...yes...Ten lives and goes to Rose...and comes back only when their grandkids are well grown and it is time for him to die in Pete's World.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-23 03:09 am (UTC)I know. I think we’re on exactly the same page when it comes to what should happen. Our only differences are what we’re willing to compromise on.
If I believed that, I’d probably be a Ten II/Rose shipper. I think Rose fell in love with Nine, and that she accepted Ten because she believed he was the same man (i.e., still the Doctor). One of the reasons I ship Rose with the original Doctor and not the duplicate is that I believe the original is the Doctor and the duplicate isn’t (he has too much Donna in him, for one thing).
Plus, the only way I’ll still care about the show once Rose is really and truly and completely gone is if the Doctor is still Rose’s Doctor. If he still loves her and misses her as much as I do, then there’s a chance that I’ll still care about him. (It worked in season three, and that was before he did whatever he’ll have to do to get back to her.)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-23 03:20 am (UTC)Though I understand what you are saying about loyalty to the program...and I do feel that it will be easier to accept a villian as unchanged than it will be to accept the same premise about the hero. But I suppose I take some solace in the idea of Sarah Jane. I watched the show when Sarah Jane was on it...and I didn't feel that Four loved her at all. However, I can accept that he might have felt for her...what Nine felt for Rose...and like Nine, Four made the choice to send this companion he adored and was coming to love...away.
Rose comes back...that's the difference between her and Sarah Jane. And that difference pushed Ten into complete devotion...or so I believe...and he held onto that devotion at his regeneration. He stripped it away from the DOCTOR...and it was replaced...with a bit of Donna Noble pluckiness. I think that would free the Doctor for new adventures...it's not that he forgets Rose...after all...he's spending some quality time with her right now...it's just that she no longer completes him...anymore than Sarah Jane completes Ten.
If we allow that Six can love that awful coat...and Ten hates pears...and One thought Two was a clown and Three was a dandy...then we can probably allow that Eleven might not be IN LOVE with Rose Tyler...but instead love her the way Ten loves Sarah Jane. This doesn't mean that...given some time Ten 2 might not fall in love with Rose...it is Rose who would not fall in love with him...and not because of what you mention...because this is not like Nine turning into Ten...Rose's true love is still out there. Still needing her...still suffering...still alone...and on his own...and she's being asked to just go about her life and forget him. That's not Rose.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-23 05:12 am (UTC)I’m not an old-school fan, Rae. Derek Jacobi’s Master was the first one I met. I’m sort of assuming he’s the real thing.
(It helped that he was clearly another Time Lord. He used a Chameleon Arch to hide as a human, the same way the Doctor did in “Human Nature.” And then he regenerated, the same way the Doctor did in “The Parting of the Ways.”)
I think that’s where a lot of our disagreement comes from. I don’t ship Ten/Rose. At all. (It’s sort of funny, actually. I’ll read One/Rose fic, but I actively avoid Ten/Rose fic.)
It’s not that I think Ten loved Rose less than Nine did. (Okay, that’s a lie.) But he seemed a lot more… closed off to me than Nine did. It felt like he was trying to push her away, either because he was afraid of how much it would hurt when she eventually died, or because he was afraid of loving anyone as much as he clearly loved Rose at the end of season one. I had a hard enough time shipping Ten/Rose before “Journey’s End.” And then he abandoned her, after he explicitly promised he wouldn’t, and I just… stopped.
(And if you don’t think Nine was utterly and completely in love with Rose, all I can do is wonder how long it’s been since you watched season one.)
Maybe you can. I can’t. I know myself too well to even try. (That’s sort of what I meant when I said, “Our only differences are what we’re willing to compromise on.”)
I fell in love with the Doctor because he fell in love with Rose. That’s what I mean when I call myself a Rose-centric fan—my interest in the Doctor (and the series) begins and ends with Rose.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-23 01:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-23 11:02 pm (UTC)It's how she rolls.
Or, I could allow that maybe, after being kicked to the curb one time too many, she gave up for a while. Rose is human, after all, and frustration builds. She wouldn't necessarily fall into the arms of TenII, just go traveling or become a workaholic or what have you. But Ten's plight would get to her eventually, and she'd look for one more way across the Void.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-24 06:12 am (UTC)More that not appreciating that love is about the OTHER not the self...I also think that the people who wholeheartedly embrace Ten2/Rose can't possibly understand grief. I've lost people that I loved and it hurts to even go through old photos and video. I can't imagine the bitter ashes of having a living breathing copy of them...that wasn't QUITE them. I call that particularly heartless of RTD to even conceive of such a thing. But I do take a lot of comfort in the fact that he KNOWS that it was the wrong thing to do. <<--Even if he doesn't fix it, I think that puts him miles ahead of those people who can't tell that it is completely out of character for Rose.
It isn't, to my way of thinking, so very out of character for HER Doctor, though. I do think that he has himself pretty well convinced by the time he takes Rose back that he is giving her the better man. I would imagine he convinced himself that Rose would rather have the other him in the long run...than simply hang about in the TARDIS. And he has shown a marked tendency to run away from pain and put people in gilded cages...and decide things of import, all on his own...starting with the toppling of Harriet Jones in his very first adventure. I don't think that he made a good choice for HIMSELF either, though.
Again, those who miss the point think that he just didn't want to be with Rose...but I feel that he'd simply taken too many blows at that point from the return of Davros giving him that flashback, then...running to Rose, being shot down, the capture of all his friends, the TARDIS broiled, losing Donna, being told that he wasn't good for anyone while he was still grieving for Donna and the TARDIS...seeing himself acting out a genocide again...knowing Donna was going to burn up and something must be done about Ten 2...and only Rose could be trusted with him.
He's been under a lot of stress and Rose, as a good helpmate, isn't going to just figure he'll work it out on his own...she's going to make sure he's not heading off the deep end. A deep end we now ALL know he was indeed heading toward.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-23 04:20 pm (UTC)I think this, because the second strongest theme of Ten's run after loving Rose is being a mortal. He's tired of outliving everything that matters. He wants the one adventure he's always wanted, with the woman he loves. That includes a mortal - human - death, the kind you don't come back from with a new face.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-23 05:02 pm (UTC)Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-23 01:50 pm (UTC)I daren't even think about this, I want it so much.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-23 02:51 pm (UTC)Rae
who also gets a bit breathless thinking about the pain that could be just over the horizon...but I'm trying to remain pony positive...as you can see. :wink:
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-24 01:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-24 01:43 am (UTC)I am still will to hope for a positive outcome for all I have seen and heard ont he subject seems to point toward it.
I will also say that today I heard two words I was not expecting to hear today, and for some reason that made me smile and think it will all work out.
One of the children I watch at the nursery where I work was singing the silly song of "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells" and he failed at saying Batman when he sang theough it the last time. Instead her replaced the word Batman with "Bad Wolf".
I am faithful to the pony until the very end.