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"Some months ago at the GallifreyOne convention in LA, my friend Derek and I noted that, in many ways, Christopher Eccleston leaving the series would not be as great a blow as the loss of Billie Piper. Now that she’s been and gone, I think we can safely say we were right in our estimations. It’s not without reason that series two’s “School Reunion” brought Rose face to face with Sarah Jane Smith. Both women had a quality that set them apart from the parade of girls that have come and gone from the TARDIS. There was something just a little bit different about those Doctor-companion relationships—“Doomsday” finally named it, though anyone paying attention has known it was there for over a year. It is, without a doubt, love.
For years, the Doctor has been characterized, for the most part, as an asexual alien. His companions seemed to be an audience for his adventures—men and women around to witness his good works, a support group of sorts. Some of them, as Mickey so eloquently puts it, are “tin dogs”—the equivalent of interns so excited to be in the Doctor’s presence that they’ll tackle any menial task to stay in his glow. Others, like Adric and Adam, are merely annoyances he can’t be rid of quick enough. Then there are the fellow travelers that touch his hearts in ways he doesn’t expect—those are the ones that leave a mark on him and the viewer. Susan. Jo. Sarah Jane. Tegan. Ace. Rose. These are the goodbyes that give him, and us, pause (Ace didn’t get a proper farewell courtesy of the show’s cancellation in 1989, but I’ll infer that it would have been quite a scene had it happened).
With Susan, we have an obvious emotional tie as she’s his granddaughter, a relationship never defined on a biological level, but assumed by most to carry the same import as the human equivalent. She’s the last of the Doctor’s family so when he leaves her on 21st Century Earth, he’s not just leaving a grandchild, but the last symbolic representation of his former life. Jo’s relationship is essentially defined in her final scene with the Doctor as she leaves him to marry “a younger version” in the form of Dr. Clifford Jones in—she’s the girl who sees you as a friend and runs off with a bloke just like you. Sarah we’ll save for later. Tegan is like every annoying sister since the dawn of television and the Doctor’s disappointment when she ditches him after the carnage of “Resurrection of the Daleks” has all the portent of a slap on the face from an angry sibling. Ace, probably the best-developed companion of the original run, is the Doctor’s protégé—the daughter he (might have) never had. The show’s final season found him systematically developing Ace toward an uncertain goal. Had the series continued, it’s rumored that she would have been taken to Gallifrey to become the first alien Time Lady in the stagnant planet’s history. In Ace, the Doctor saw a successor in the most intimate sense.
Sarah Jane and Rose are doubtless shadows of Susan’s grandmother. Both are fiercely intelligent and capable women with a sense of wonder and joy for discovery. The scenes between the two women are electric. Each sees herself in the other and the Doctor’s reaction to the two women coming face to face is perfectly summed up by Mickey’s assessment that nothing is scarier than when the wife meets the ex. Elisabeth Sladen’s phenomenal performance leaves absolutely no doubt as to her character’s feelings for the Doctor. Rose’s final words to the Doctor in “Doomsday” say what Sarah never had the chance to and the Doctor’s unheard response does more to humanize the character than the preceding 43 years of material.
Ancillary texts aside, “Rose” suggests that the Doctor had been on his own for some time before his chance meeting in Henrik’s department store. During that gap, he’s witnessed (and been responsible for) the destruction of his entire culture in the Time War. This makes his decision to take on a new companion a much weightier affair and suitably ups the import of Rose joining him in the TARDIS. Without a home of his home, the Doctor effectively adopts the Powell Estate, along with Jackie Tyler and Mickey Smith as a substitute home (particularly after his ninth regeneration). More than just a companion, in and of herself, Rose is an anchor to a world he can come back to. There’s little doubt that the Doctor has spent the bulk of his 900 years traveling as a visitor to the Earth. His exile back in the 70s and/or 80s resulted in a very similar extended family thanks to UNIT, but unlike Jo Grant, Rose Tyler reciprocated the Doctor’s affections resulting in a true sense of family for the first time since the loss of Susan.
Of course, Billie Piper’s charisma and intrinsically adorable nature were far from hurdles to her characters success. Against both Eccleston and Tennant, Piper held her own, and, much like Sophie Aldred’s Ace in the original series’ final year, she was the star of DOCTOR WHO with the bulk of the narrative unfolding through her perspective. She will, in every sense of the phrase, be a hard act to follow. Back in that conversation with Derek, I hypothesized that a second companion (i.e. Jack Harkness) would be necessary to ease the loss of Rose. Russell T. Davies has offered an alternate means of softening the blow. The final minutes of “Doomsday” have introduced a short-term companion to bridge the gap between Rose and the incoming Martha. Donna, the eponymous runaway bride of next December’s Christmas special, will, in a sense, fulfill the same purpose as the companionless story “The Deadly Assassin” served after Sarah’s departure. She’ll provide a buffer between a woman who will probably epitomize the role of the Doctor’s companion for years to come and Freema Agyeman who, unbeknownst to us, could very well turn out to be the Emma Peel to Rose’s Cathy Gale."
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