3. What If Rose And The Human Doctor Had Been Given A TARDIS?
Towards the end of Journey's End, Rose Tyler is returned to the parallel universe with what we've been calling the Human Doctor. In a scene that was filmed but not aired, the two are given a piece of TARDIS coral with which they can grow their own TARDIS. The lines were removed from the final edit because they complicated the scene too much, but Russell T. Davies has been quoted as saying that fans can assume that the part of the scene actually happened. In this case, it's not so What If as What Might've Happened? From a production point of view, including these lines might have given Stephen Moffatt a different way of including the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler in the 50th anniversary story, seeing as the Human Doctor and Rose could somehow have used their newly grown TARDIS to jump universes. But from a storytelling point of view, it creates several disturbing possibilities. For one thing, we have to assume that he survives for any period of time, seeing as Journey's End never tells us why or whether the Human Doctor is any more likely to survive a metacrisis than Donna Noble is. Let's assume he does, and that he and Rose now have a TARDIS. Given the Doctor's wanderlust, it's unlikely they'll stay on Earth for long after the TARDIS is ready to go. Is there a Doctor already in that universe, since there's already a Torchwood? Is there a Gallifrey? And scarier still - are there Daleks? If there are, then Rose and the Human Doctor might be better off staying home, as there are plenty of people out there who might want to kill the Doctor - including another Doctor. Even if the other universe does not contain all of these potential threats, it's still a dangerous place - and this Doctor cannot regenerate. The Doctor's companions have been, on the whole, lucky - very few of them have died out there. The same can't be said about the Doctor himself, who is, to paraphrase his own words about Rose, 'jeopardy-friendly'. How long would it be before the Human Doctor goes and gets himself killed, for good, leaving Rose stranded on some alien planet, if she herself survives? Better they remain Earth Defenders than to go out there where somebody could get seriously hurt - but it's not much safer here, is it?
Tony Whitt has previously written TV, DVD, and comic reviews for CINESCAPE, NOW PLAYING, and iF MAGAZINE. His weekly COMICSCAPE columns from the early 2000s can still be found archived on Mania.com. He has also written a book of gay-themed short stories titled CRESCENT CITY CONNECTIONS, available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle format. Whitt currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.
