"Rose would care" â some observations on character work in New Earth
Although Billie Piper is very much front-and-center for much of New Earth â this being, in part, a comedy episode that's specially tailor-made for both her and David Tennant to stretch their acting-muscles â a perhaps inevitable trade-off to all this body-swapping means that Roseâs character is largely out of action during a lot of the narrative, quite literally "tucked away" to make room for the physical embodiment of Cassandra. If you break it down, Rose herself gets about 10 minutes screen-time at the start of the episode, roughly 3 minutes in the middle and a scant couple of minutes at the end, and spends the rest of it being possessed. As such, the drama/comedy in New Earth can be seen as something of an inverted "fun-house mirror" answer to The Christmas Invasion; with the Doctor now being the one to find himself in the similarly-unenviable position of having to cope in a crisis without Rose (or, alternatively, with a vampy, campy diva version of Rose) at his side.
Even so, RTDâs script does manage to sketch out a sufficiently condensed, Cliff-Notes' version of the character so that Rose â along with all her strengths and flaws â still leaves a short, sweet, strong-enough impression. Right from the off, we're reminded of her selfish side, as she pointedly returns Mickey's goodbye kiss but not his "love you", before dashing off all smiles to her handsome new Doctor in the TARDIS. Once again, thereâs a taste of Roseâs awe and wonder at discovering new horizons (âOh, Iâll never get used to this. Never! Different ground beneath my feet! Different sky!â), as well as her quick-thinking under pressure, when she and the Cassandra-possessed Doctor have to make a quick ladder-escape that then leads to a vertical, body-swapping chase sequence (âLadder! Weâve gotta get up!â; âUse the sonic screwdriver!â; âCassandra, go back into me, the Doctor can open it!â). And we even get something of a catty, Doctor-ish mean-streak to Rose during her brief reunion with the flat 2D version of Cassandra at the start: she might take the moral high-ground on the value of things like change and human evolution, but she also isnât above cracking a couple of snide sex jokes at Cassandra either, just for kicks and giggles...
But absence does make the heart grow fonder, doesn't it? And if Rose and Cassandra's only other shared scene together, back in The End of the World, already established how diametrically-opposed these characters were to each other â in their appearances, their class background, their wildly different definitions of humanity â the added wrinkle (sorry) of watching Rose literally become Cassandra in New Earth relies on the combined strength of both Billieâs performance and Russellâs writing having to "up the ante" even further, in a sense: playing up everything thatâs vain and shallow (and very pointedly, un-Rose-like) about the character, while everything "Rose Tyler" more or less disappears. We still have to get a sense of who Rose is as a character in the story, even while Billie is busy playing a completely different character.
Indeed, from the Doctorâs perspective, thereâs quite a few screamingly-obvious giveaways out-of-character moments involving Roseâs behavior that might suggest to him that sheâs Not Herself; namely:
Showing up conspicuously late to Ward 26; long enough for the Doctor to assume sheâs gotten lost, ask Sister Jatt to make inquiries at reception and eventually phone her up himself to find out where sheâs got to.
Her posh voice and faux-Cockney accent. Yes, imitating colorful rhyming-slang over the phone might come across as playful or endearing, but doing it in person is just, um⊠a bit odd. And it doesnât sound anything like South London Rose.
Her noticeably quieter demeanor when she finally rejoins the Doctor in Ward 26; mutely following him around and giving little to no explanation for why she went missing earlier. Also, her being uncharacteristically overconfident once the two of them have discovered the dark, sinister entrance to Intensive Care: sheâs the first to stride inside, leading the way forward in a way thatâs far more âjeopardy-friendlyâ than usual, even for someone like Rose.
Her sexed-up, seductive change of wardrobe: notably, returning to the Doctorâs side sans blue jacket, but with busty purple blouse and Wonderbra'd cleavage. Quite the fashion-statement to make around your New New Doctor!
Um, SNOGGING THE DOCTOR OUT OF THE BLUE?!? Even though initially, he kinda puts that down to his own irresistible charmâŠ
Mincing, coquettish, sultry body-language: sheâs suddenly daintily folding her arms, swinging her hips about like a seductress and generally carrying herself with an air thatâs very smirky, flirty, and haughtier-than-thou.
Seriously advanced technical know-how: Rose, whoâs usually out of her depth with off-world space stuff like cat-nuns and automatic disinfectants, unexpectedly knows the ins-and-outs of complex computer technology thatâs meant to be billions of years ahead of her own time, and even takes to bossing the Doctor around about it. âSearch the sub-frameâ, indeed!
No real reaction to the Doctorâs ongoing âlittle shopâ comment. To be fair, she didnât really respond to it before either, down in the hospital reception, although she did have a look at where he was pointing atâŠ
But while the Doctor does pick up on most of these suspicious signs almost immediately â because, as Cassandra herself states, heâs âdangerous and cleverâ and cleverly, dangerously keeps them to himself until a more decisive moment arises â the one detail he chooses to actually comment upon, aside from her change of voice; the singular defining trait which RTDâs script understands as being so key to Roseâs character that he carries it over as character-continuity from the first series and actually has the Doctor spell it out to Novice Hame (and us in the audience who werenât paying attention!) under an angry, mistaken assumption that itâs the cat-nuns who are responsible; the single absolute quality which makes Rose more human than Cassandra, the self-proclaimed âLast Humanâ, will ever be, is...
Her compassion.
ROSE.
WOULD.
CARE.
Remember, New Earth seems to be asking us, this is Rose Tyler weâre talking about. The Rose Tyler weâve gotten to know so well over the course of Series 1:
Who was disgusted by Cassandraâs racist talk of âpure humansâ and âmongrelsâ, and appalled by the dodgy morality of allowing the Gelth to inhabit corpses.
Who, just like her mother, isnât afraid of speaking her mind to anyone that rubs her up the wrong way.
Who often appears profoundly uncomfortable with the notion of privilege founded on distinctions of class or wealth, and has no time for the rituals of hierarchy.
Who instinctively took exception to people like Henry Van Statten or the Forest of Cheem woman Jabe, that reveled in their own fantasies of social status and discussed her as though she wasnât there.
Who was visibly shocked when told she had to give lowly Platform One plumber Raffalo permission to speak, was similarly shaken by servant-girl Gwynethâs low expectations in the employ of Mr. Sneed; and lifted downtrodden street-urchin Nancyâs desolate spirits with a hopeful glimpse of a post-Blitz future.
Whose empathetic nature allowed her to step in and comfort those in distress, like Harriet Jones, or even put in a gentle plea for the Doctor to help a stricken Cassandra, in spite of all her murder and deception beforehand, once Cassandra found herself on the wrong end of her own sabotage.
Whose gentle, misplaced sympathy for a lonely battle-scarred Dalek nevertheless reawakened the virtues of pity, empathy and humanity inside an equally lonely, battle-scarred Doctor who was spiraling from the staggering trauma and losses he suffered in the Time War.
And who, despite the fact she was personally feeling lost and alone and utterly defeated after the Doctorâs new change of face at Christmas, still made the brave decision to step up before the Sycorax and speak on behalf of the whole of Planet Earth in his absence. Cos âsomeoneâs gotta be the Doctor...â
Once she takes over Roseâs body in New Earth, Cassandra shows little regard for Chipâs possible bereavement at losing the flat, skin-form Cassandra he used to care for (âThe brain-meat expired! My old mistress is goneâŠâ âBut safe and sound in here.â) and even less consideration for the fate of her host, whose body she has no qualms about objectifying (âItâs like living inside a bouncy castle!â) and whose own suppressed self, we later learn, is slowly being crushed to death inside her own head (âBut what of the Rose-childâs mind?â âOh⊠tucked away.â).
In Intensive Care, Cassandraâs gut-reaction to witnessing the horrendous, lifelong suffering of the plague-carriers is one of complete apathy, callousness; even revulsion (âThatâs disgusting. Whatâs wrong with him?â). She asks questions like Rose might do (âHow many patients are there?â), but her curiosity is more one of morbid fascination, solely predicated on how she can potentially exploit these horrors to her own benefit (âJust to confirm⊠none of the humans in the city actually know about this?â). And of course, her only concern is for herself (âWhat about us? Are we safe?â).
Thatâs the difference the Doctor sees the clearest, and hears the loudest:
Vincent Van Gogh wasnât well known during his lifetime. Only after his death did the algorithm make him one of the worldâs most monetized content creators.
[Plain text: Vincent Van Gogh wasnât well known during his lifetime. Only after his death did the algorithm make him one of the worldâs most monetized content creators. End PT]
[ID: Tags that say, "#i thought claude was the most monetized". End ID]
maybe i like pulling out my debit card instead of using apple pay. maybe i like untangling my wired headphones. maybe i like typing something into the search bar instead of using siri or whatever. maybe i like curating my own social media feeds over an algorithm. i just donât think everything has to be perfectly streamlined and efficient i like it when things feel tethered to the real world.
it's crazy how normalized misogyny is like you find out a man doesn't believe women are people capable of equitable rational thought and logic reasoning as men and you're considered weird if you express discomfort associating with him
Can I just say, uh, Iâm pretty sure noticing youâre asexual is harder than noticing youâre gay, straight, pan or otherwise. Like, I just read someoneâs desciption of hitting puberty and, like, thereâs nothing like that. Thereâs no sudden âboobâ moment, no sudden âfuck, Iâd fuck thatâ moment, not sudden anything. You just, like, plod on through life as usual going âoooh, thatâs pretty, Iâd like that hairâ or âoooooh, theyâre nice, Iâd like to be close to themâ but thereâs no like, âoh, someone would want to fuck that but I donâtâ, you know? You just- you donât notice, you donât realise everyone else has âhad a momentâ but you havenât, you just- keep going as you always have.
And then, much much later, you start to wonder why people are getting so caught up in drama for romance or sex, like, why bother? Itâs not worth it, theyâre not worth it, why are you doing stupid things for something thatâs so- and then you wonder if thereâs something wrong with you, start mentally over compensating. Like âuh, okay, um, who should I date? Who can I stand to date? Who could I stand to fuck?â like- itâs not, itâs not something you want, but you want to fit in, to be normal.
Sometimes you donât even know that youâre doing it.
Sometimes you donât even know asexualâs a thing.
I dunno, I guess, I just feel like, uh, people should understand more?
âMy poor baby. My poor sweet little boy,â I lament out loud over a whole grown adult man who is not mine but is in fact a fictional character with fictional hurts. What matters is my feelings are real
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