10 Doctor Who Characters Who Almost Had Different Endings

5. Rose Was Supposed To Defend Pete's World In Her Own Spinoff Show

Rose Tyler Doomsday beach Doctor Who
BBC

While Rose Tyler's tearful departure at the end of Series 2 was always on the cards, there were plans for the character's journey to be extended past this point, detailing what she got up to before her eventual return in Series 4.

This extension would've taken the form of a separate show, away from Doctor Who. Titled Rose Tyler: Earth Defence, the story would've followed Rose's adventures as a member of Torchwood in Pete's World - the parallel Earth she was stranded in at the end of Series 2.

Rose Tyler: Earth Defence was not only commissioned by the BBC, it was actually budgeted, and it got very close to happening before Russell T Davies pulled the plug, believing that it was better to leave Rose's ending as it stood.

However, considering that one of Rose's final lines in Series 2 is about how Torchwood is "open for business" - coupled with the fact that she returns in Series 4 as a much more badass soldier - we can safely assume that the events of Rose Tyler: Earth Defence actually happened... even though we didn't get to see them.

In this post: 
Doctor Who
 
First Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!