scarfman | Do they play basketball in the U.K., or is U.S. idiom that universal?

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Do they play basketball in the U.K., or is U.S. idiom that universal?

Edit 10/6/07 Obviously they play basketball in the U.K., when that's what Torchwood Three is doing in the Hub in the opening of Cyberwoman.

I had a new thought this morning about the Doctor's relationship with Rose. Now, I'm of the but-they're-all-special school of thought. I don't believe that Rose was the Doctor's one true love, though there's no doubt that he believes it, and shall for some time, perhaps for the rest of his life. I've written before that what the Doctor mistakes for the overwhelming loss of Rose is actually overwhelming because he lost not just Rose but her whole family, which in his mind and hearts was tantamount to losing his family and planet all over again. Certainly Rose's loss has traumatized the Doctor in a way no previous companion's loss has done. Contemplating Martha's gripe at the beginning of Gridlock, I've identified yet another factor why this is so.

Every new girl in the TARDIS from Vicki, perhaps Barbara, forward has been, in terms of dramatic ecological niche and also in the Doctor's mind (as you can tell from the incarnations who have trouble with names), a replacement of the one who came immediately before. Except Rose, because in her case there wasn't a girl immediately before. There hadn't been one for two incarnations.* Perhaps Grace turned him down because she picked up on his rebound vibe (or perhaps only because she recognized she was on the rebound herself). And then the Time War and its attendant trauma intervened. Rose was the first woman to approach the Doctor while his slate was clean (aside of course from the PTSD; I mean girl-wise) since he and Susan left Gallifrey (depending on whether Gallifreyan family customs allow for marrying for love, perhaps the first ever).

Rose is the only one of the Doctor's girl companions who wasn't a rebound girl.

I wonder if that isn't grounds for admitting that maybe Rose was the one true love of the Doctor, or anyway the only true love we know about.

* Obviously I'm excluding tie-in continuity here, but that's perfectly fair for the present argument since screen continuity is obliged to leave it out by the BBC's charter.

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Is your subject line about 'rebound'? I didn't realise that was a basketball-derived term. I suspect it's an idiom that has taken on a life of its own.

Also: I have a lot of trouble sometimes with the 'true love' aspect, because I've always thought of the Doctor as something of a serial pet-adopter. He takes them in, they hang out with him, sometimes they go their separate ways and sometimes they die. And he loves them all. (And there's room there for a 'rebound' pet; if you've gone a long time without one, you might very well be extremely attached to the next.)

With respect to physical love, who knows what cats and dogs are feeling when we pet them and interact with them on their own terms, using their own body language? A kiss is true love to Rose; to the Doctor, it's just being affectionate with humans in a way they understand.

A rebound is when the basketball bounces back from the hoop after a failed attempt to score.

I don't believe the Doctor looks on his human companions as pets, any more than he does his Gallifreyan companions. Alan Dean Foster once wrote that beings who keep zoos oughtn't be kept in them, and I get the same vibe from the Doctor. He can be pretty snobbish, but at heart(s) he believes that intelligence/sapience is a binary condition; cf. his response to the Eternals' attitude toward "ephemerals".

If you really want to know the answer to the question I came here for [was that rude? Sorry], yes we do, but it's not as big over here.

Rose was a rebound girl - his whole planet just left him, for good.

And the use of the word to describe relationships pre-dates basketball by centuries. The OED has 1577 as the first use for the term.

Oh, I don't think he's keeping them; I can remember a book-canon instance where someone (Ace, I think) wanted to leave and he effectively forced her to stay. It's more like someone who is putting out food for stray cats and being friendly to them. They're not 'owned', they come and go as they please. Maybe pets is the wrong word.

Er, and I meant that that book with Ace was the only instance I could think of where he forces someone to stay.

Which is, I gather, more in-character for the 8th Doctor than most any other.

Whoa, good answer.

Really! I stand corrected.

It was the 7th, and there were some dark angsty plotlines going on.

I think you have a good point when you state that the loss is overwhelming, not just because he lost Rose, but because he lost her family as well - by family, Jackie and Mickey.

The four of them did form a family tie, and he has 'mourned' for the loss of the family in The Runaway Bride.

Half agreeing with cupati comment above, yes, Rose was a rebound girl, but not in the 'normal' sense of the term. It is very rare for someone to fall in love with the rebound girl/boy, yet the Doctor did and he did try and keep his distance.

Interesting thoughts but I disagree.

I believe Rose is the true love of the Doctors, but perhaps not the one-true love. I happen to belive there is no such thing as one-true love, but maybe a few true loves. There was something there that wasn't there with previous companions (and companions since) though - a kind of love that is somehow romantic... even if not sexual.

This (I believe) is what made Rose special. This doesn't however mean that he didn't love his other companions. But I feel he loved them in a more fatherly/grandfatherly way. Even the 5th Doctor (baby that he is!), when surrounded by girls of the age difference that wouldn't look at all pervy him being romantic to (Nyssa and Tegan) he still seems more paternal than a romantic equal... and I think the 9th Doctor is like that with Rose at the beginning of the new series run. I think their Romantic love develops. It isn't "love at first sight" and I think it even develops from a paternal love to a romantic love (case in point: The "Tell me your sorry" in Father's Day) which, when watching the 9th Doctor and Rose you do start to wonder...

But I think the 10th Doctor is a better match. There are theories that the Doctor (either inadvertantly or on purpose, I think the former) actully regenerated to become someone more compatable with Rose. They also have less "lover's tiffs" in series 2.

I also like the idea that Rose isn't a "rebound", but again, disagree. I think Rose is something to cling on to. If you imagine that the Time War happens (in which I believe he may have lost a companion, possibly Charlie or Lucie or maybe another) and the Doctor just hangs around space and time mourning for his planet, all on his own (for a good while I believe). Rose Comes along and "saves" him. She is the first person he touches and he grows to love her for that.

Martha seems to "save" him in a different way... from the loss of Rose (and possibly the rejection of Donna...) But I don't think that he does love her in a romantic way. I think that Martha definitally fancies him (almost streight off, or at least by the end of epsiode 1 of series 3 "And if you will wear a tight suit and travel all the way across the galaxy just to ask me on a date!") It's funny to see her flirting with him the way I feel he used to flirt with Rose.

I feel sorry for Martha personally. It's that thing of hanging around someone who doesn't notice your romantic intentions or even worse, see's you as someone else. The best thing is I don't think the Doctor even notices he's doing it sometimes (eg. Shakespear Code - bed scene).

I could imagine that this may be a driving force behind Martha leaving the Doctor. I'd love to see her storm off in a huff saying "You don't even notice me!" and the Doctor probably not even having a clue what she's talking about. Bless his little hearts... he's not very apt at this relationship stuff.

I agree... I think that the Tylers had become somewhat of a surrogate family for him, since his family and race are gone.

Interesting comments!

I don't believe there is 'one true love' for the Doctor - how could there be? His experience is far too wide for that, spanning 900 years and counting. I do believe he loved Rose. I don't think loving someone is particularly rare or difficult for him.

Now, I can't speak to the situation of the former companions, but I don't think his fondness for Martha is a 'rebound' thing - even though she thinks so. It's just this trouble he was having getting over Rose. He will adjust.

Oh yeah, I think there are some fantastic examples in Series Two of the extent to which they became an odd family unit. My fave is in TCI where the Doctor joins them for Christmas Dinner, but in WW3, he point blank refuses to join Jackie for a meal, cos he doesn't do domestics!

Thank you.

It was going to be said in The Christmas Invasion that Rose imprinted on the Doctor in such away that his regeneration was effected by it. Ultimatly, it is mentioned by Jackie in Army of Ghosts that Rose has become more like the Doctor, because after his regeneration, she started to emulate him more because he was much more compatable to her.

personally i think the doctor cares for all his companions, but he always has this air of being above them. now with rose he was damaged. he'djust lost everything he had in his life. she shows up an doffers exactly what he needed exactly when he needed it. thus i wouldnt say that rose was his 'true love' but id say (whilst in his 9th self anyway) that he needed her, whilst he never need any of his other companions.

when 9 regenrated into 10, i think that need for het faded away, but he did seem to have a new love for her, possibly due to her sticking with him and going back for him when he sent her away.

as for martha... i dont know how thats going to go. once again he is damaged after losing someone he relied on so much. i guess we'll have to see how this one pans out, but he seems to be devastated over losing rose so i doubt martha will replace her, shes just some company.

Okay. Here I go. Yes the Doctor did love all of his companions. Rose is the first one we see him be IN love with. Yes he was in love with her. How do I know this? I've got two different kind of answers for you.

The simple truth: Russel T. Davis calls Rose the love of the Doctor's life. He wrote it, that makes it true. We sort of have to deal with it.

My analytical opinion: The Doctor didn't have a great big gaping hole in his soul when he met Romana, Sarah Jane, or any of the other companions. He did when he met Rose. He was war weary, and lonely, and broken. She helped to heal him a little bit. I agree that at first he tried to treat her with the paternal affection he used with all his other companions, but it didn't last long because she filled a space in him he needed filled. According to RTD (again, he wrote it) when nine breathes the time vortex back into the TARDIS it symbolizes him giving up a lot of his guilt, letting go of some of the pain. Ten reflects this attitude, and yes he is more compatable with Rose, but whether or not that was on purpose isn't important. He loved her, he loved her family, she gave him a place to belong. Losing her was like losing Gallifrey all over again.

Honestly I could talk about this all day, couldn't we all? But it seems sort of pointless. No matter what we say everyone is going to retain their own opinons and desires. Mine is that he was in love with her, because despite all their differences they were the same. Their story is beautiful, even if it was breif.

This is a debate I really don't want to get involved in, because, like you said, everyone is going to keep there opinions, no matter what is said. But I did want to say to you, that basically, you took exactly what I feel/think and wrote it in a much more concise manner, than I ever could. Bravo.

Thanks

Russel T. Davis calls Rose the love of the Doctor's life. He wrote it, that makes it true.

Not... necessarily. Authorial intent may direct people to certain readings of the text, but for televisual media all readings are equally valid - and that includes negotiated readings.

There's also the fact that RTD at times flat out lies. At one point he said there'd never be a Doctor/Rose romance. So I personally tend to be highly skeptical of anything he says. I mean, so far he'd described the relationships with Rose, Reinette, and (upcoming) Joan as the first time we've seen the Doctor in love...

(I had a lecture on this yesterday, does it show?)

In my essay against use of the word canon in fandom I say, "Even endorsement by the property's creator(s) is no measure, because they change their minds, or forget, or don't care, or took the job over from someone else, or die, or any combination of the above."

again it's more of the 9/10 differences

OK, here is how I think. I think the Doctor probably loved all of his companions, in his own way, and that way may be quite different to how "love" is perceived in our human 20th-21st century western-world cultural context. I like to think that he didn't grieve so much (at least outwardly) for the other companions when they/he left, because being a Time Lord he would feel that they would always be accessible to him, and in an obscure way with him, for the whole of their life spans, even if he wouldn't actually spend any more time in their physical presence. That's why goodbyes were more or less meaningless to him, and he never got the hang of them. Time is not so finite and closed off to him as it is to us, with our short life spans and our linear, finite timelines. All of time (and space) was open to him, if he wished.

So when Gallifrey was destroyed, and all the history of the Time Lords with it, he lost not only his people and home planet, but also the link to all that lost time, something that he hadn't really experienced before, or at least not on that scale. The loss of Gallifrey was final and absolute, and that is what made him so broken and lost at the beginning of series one. Rose was certainly the first person to come along and get close to him after that loss, and perhaps his reaction to her is more human than anything that had passed before -- since that kind of loss and the finality of it is something we as humans all have to deal with in our lives, we cling more, miss people more, get devastated when we lose them. But to the Doctor that experience is new, in a way. Not completely, because he did take it harder when his companions died rather than just left, like Adric, perhaps because it was the end of their timelines and it made the loss of them more final for him. But still, it impacts him more now than it did before. Does this make any sense to you? I'm not sure I'm conveying what I think in a very clear way...

I get what you're saying and it's a good point I've not seen before.

My opinion is more straightforward.

Now, admittedly, I've been watching it on my local PBS station, so I'm about a year-and-a-half behind the rest of you, but try it on for size anyway : they meet as equals, this time.

When the Doctor meets Rose, what is he? He isn't the Doctor anymore, not the Doctor we've known since the latter Troughton years. He isn't a representative of, or a renegade from, the mighty civilization of the Time Lords. He's nobody, from nowhere. He's a man in a blue box, and that's it. All that he was is gone as though it had never been.

Rose is nobody, just a London shopgirl, but she displays curiosity, and wonder of the unknown, and a willingness and aptitude to help. She comes with him because she is like him. She's not his grand-daughter, and she's not his student, and she's not his assistant, and she's not a refugee, and she's not any of the subordinate things that his previous companions were. She's nobody, and he's nobody, and so they meet as equals.

That has never happened to him before.

--publius--

This too is a worthwhile perspective that hadn't occurred to me.

Glad I posted!

well i don't know if i believe in OTP it really depends on how you see the show. You can see it as realism, reflecting modern life and values or fantasy and fairytale where the idea of OTP is more common.

personally i see it as the former. I don't think there is any doubt about the doctor's feelings for rose and vice versa. I watched series 1 and 2 completely away from fandom and when i joined up i was stunned other people didn't see it. I do believe he loves all his companions in different ways. He obviously loves susan in a different way than barbara or liz or nyssa because its family. I've heard people say by making rose 'special' it puts other companions down. I don't think so. We have different relationships in life and as an advocate on doctor who as social realism i think the show should reflect that. His grandaughter means more to him than one of his friends- that doesn't mean he doesn't love his friend. He loved rose and the marriage imagery like 'the mrs and the ex every man's worsed nightmare' and 'your starting to sound like your mother' makes me put her in a 'wife' role. I see series 3 doc as a widower, does that mean one day he won't fall in love again- no, but we have to give him breathing space to mourn.

As for rebound its hard to put Rose in context because of the lack of knowledge of what happened earlier on the companion front.

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Do they play basketball in the U.K., or is U.S. idiom that universal?

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