Well I don’t know how many of you have seen the Doctor Who finale that I referred to in my previous post, but I thought I’d elaborate on my rather terse posting. (Yeah spoilers ahead, also not a great amount of detail for people unfamiliar with the show, sorry!). Like most interesting parts of the Doctor Who series, the nature of different incarnations of characters and issues of time make it a real challenge to talk about this episode in a clear way, but I will try. (BTW, there are a few areas that would make great linguistics lessons about the nature of reference and referents.)
First off Rose gets the Doctor (actually,
a Doctor, BTW a great example to use to show the difference between definite and indefinite determiners in English). Yup, that made me sad. Rose doesn’t get him (
the Doctor) but she gets as close an approximation as she can. But she knows it is not
the Doctor. The (second) Doctor also knows he isn’t (
the Dr) W/who Rose wants, so he probably realizes that something is ‘lacking’. However, they kiss pretty passionately, so not the major source of sadness. The look on the (real) Doctor’s face as he gives Rose away is what started to do me in. Since he is a Time Lord, he can not give himself to Rose, but he could give Rose to himself, that is, the second Doctor. (whew! a great exercise on odd use of reflexive pronouns!)
Then there is Donna. The creation of the (second) Doctor was her act in the Tardis; she creates a half-human Doctor and in the process, she becomes half-Time Lord. Well, a human mind can not contain even half a Time Lord consciousness; she would die. So the Doctor does the only thing he can to save her; he wipes her memory of the time with him and returns her to her mother and grandfather . He tells them that she can never be reminded of her time with him, as she would die.
When Donna awakes, she is back to her pre-Doctor self; annoying, shallow, self-centered. She does not recognize the Doctor as he leaves her mother’s house. (This alone was an amazing piece of acting on Catherine Tate’s part IMNSHO; when she sees him she reacts as if he is a stranger, and in her selfish pre-Doctor way, he is pretty much beneath notice; boy that was tough to watch.) The Doctor then walks, alone, back to the Tardis.
All over the interweb folks have posted their love or hate of this episode. I don’t care about the details of adherence to the Doctor Who canon (yeah there are people who are really serious from that perspective) I am more concerned with the emotions that the episode elicited.
I am pulled between being more affected by how the Doctor ends up and how Donna ends up. Yes the Doctor is a Time Lord, destined to not be attached, etc etc, but losing
two of his companions at the same time (including one to himself!) was particularly painful to watch. The ‘loss’ of Donna as a companion was very powerful. This two-part episode had the Doctor reunited with a few former companions; the joy on his face as he was with them all was beautiful. Given Donna’s condition, he can never be reunited with her (yeah I know, anything can happen, but…). Part of the joy of the Doctor’s reunion with former companions is recalling the past adventures; not an option with Donna. He is left, alone, with those memories; he can share them with no one as no one will ever understand, save the inaccessible Donna.
As for Donna…oy! The most amazing part of her life is wiped away from her memory (and therefore she goes back to her pre-Doctor persona). Her family and the Doctor know what she became, but that is not a part of her world now. Whilst Donna has no memory of who she was, and there for is not really suffering a loss, it is
incredibly sad to me that her life-changing memories are wiped away. As one does, I put myself in both their shoes, the Doctor’s and Donna’s. I can relate to the loneliness (albeit self-imposed at times) of the Doctor; but I also understand some of the freedom it brings. It is harder to do the thought experiment with what happened to Donna. Imagining what I would be like if certain life-changing experiences were wiped from my mind is pretty impossible (maybe they already have been, but I won’t go there…). There are some key times in my life that turned left instead of right (like Donna did in an earlier episode, that led to her meeting the Doctor). If those times were gone, I would be a different person, perhaps better, perhaps worse, but not who I am now.
It makes me wonder what decisions about turning left or right await me…
