Goodbye, Rose Tyler

SPOILER ALERT - if you haven't seen tonight's episode

Tonight I cried with you, and for you and for the Doctor. I mean really cried, noisy sobbing on the sofa, for the end of a relationship. At least you didn’t die, which was what I’d expected, but you and the Doctor are now not just worlds, but realities, apart. And both of you have broken hearts. As I said in an earlier blog, I do love a love story.

I have loved this series of Doctor Who. Some of the episodes have been greater than others, but to have well written drama gracing a Saturday evening makes such a change. In so many ways this series has been about the relationship between Rose and the Doctor. In ‘Doctor Who Confidential’ Russell T Davies said that they’d known from the start of the series that Billie Piper was leaving, and that has been clear from the arc of the plot. So many things happened that have greater meaning later in the series. We’ve had monsters and near death experiences but through it all, it’s always been Rose and the Doctor. If we were missing this in anyway, the other characters kept telling us – Mickey, Jackie, they knew they were on the periphery. So many times they were nearly separated – in ‘The Satan Pit’, in ‘Fear Her’, but finally, two weeks ago, Rose said ‘they keep trying to split us up, but they never ever will’ and the Doctor solemnly replied ‘Never say never ever’.

For me, one of the key episodes was ‘School Reunion’ which brought back Sarah Jane Smith to show Rose what life was like ‘after the Doctor’, and she had never been able to move on with her life, until he finally came back at the end of the episode to say Goodbye.

In this last episode, some may say it was about a battle between the Daleks and the Cybermen for the Earth, but it wasn’t. Rose never doubted that the Doctor would save the world or that she would be there with him. After he ‘saved’ her by returning her home at the end of the last series she wasn’t about to leave him again, even if it meant never seeing family and friends again. And he accepted that, even if it meant risking her life as well as his.

But now, Rose is still alive, but separated from him for ever, and they both have to live with that. The supreme piece of acting tonight was the moment when each stood at the wall of the void. He didn’t say a word but the pain of loss was just there in his face.

Finally, he found a way to send an image across realities so that he could, this time, say Goodbye. And she told him that she loved him, and he was about to respond when his image faded. And that was just perfect. The Doctor can’t say it, but it was there and we know.

Thank you Russell T Davies, David Tennant and Billie Piper. I am going to feel a little lost on Saturday nights now.