On the Cut Scene from “Journey’s End”
Here’s a transcript of a cut bit from “Journey’s End.”
I love “This universe is in need of defending.” and “The Doctor. In the TARDIS. With Rose Tyler. Just as it should be.” Because, yay! It confirms that they’re off having adventures and saving the universe, not settling down and breeding tiembabies or whatever. I didn’t really need this, because, duh, they’re the Doctor and Rose, of course they’ll never stop having adventures. But it’s nice to end their story on that emphasis, since so many people interpreted it as pushing domesticity (which I think is an error on the part of the people interpreting it, putting cultural expectations of what it means to “end with a kiss” over the personalities of the characters we’ve known for years).
Anyway, but that cool part is ruined by this: “Human with a Time Lord brain, perfect combination! We can travel the universe forever. Best Friends! And equals, just what old skinnyboy needs, an equal!”
EW.
If Rose isn’t “equal,” what’s the implication other than that she’s inferior?
Okay, it’s true that only another Time Lord is the Doctor’s equal in brain power. But people can be equals when they excel in different ways. Like Sam and Gene–Sam with the logic and Gene with the gut instinct. I think Rose and the Doctor were equals because they brought different but equally important strengths to the relationship–his giant Time Lord brain and her giant human heart. I think we saw over and over how she has strengths that he lacks–she “gets” people, she notices things he doesn’t because she’s more tuned in to regular people, she never gives up when she’s passionate about something…
I’m seriously disturbed by the idea that you should take one aspect of a person and elevate it above all others, and by the idea that you can only love people with the same specific level of intelligence as you. There’s just something really gross about that, ranking the value of a person based on one measure of “intelligence” (it’s certainly not emotional intelligence or social intelligence–if we ranked on those the Doctor would be counted as a moron!).
Sorry, it’s creepy. I’m glad they cut the scene.
On the plus side: X-Files movie tonight at midnight! Given the way the show went, this could be awesome or a total nightmare. *crosses fingers*
Tags: doctor who, journey's end
17 Responses to “On the Cut Scene from “Journey’s End””
elz on July 24, 2008 6:10 pm | Link
Yeah, the dialogue there is kind of weird and everyone’s reactions seem a bit more pat. And one of the things I loved best about Donna was that she never acted like she thought the Doctor was some sort of superior being – to have her saying that only post-brain-upgrade is she his equal is all kinds of wrong.
Can’t argue with “The Doctor. In the TARDIS. With Rose Tyler. Just as it should be.” though. :)
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rusty-halo on July 24, 2008 6:32 pm | Link
to have her saying that only post-brain-upgrade is she his equal is all kinds of wrong.
I know! I just… what??? I mean, I can sort of get that Donna might think that way because she’s had an underlying self-esteem issue the whole time, but I’m weirded out that the show never really challenges it. It’s all like “Yup, she really is better now that she’s part Time Lord.” Er, no, she thinks that because her mom has always told her she’s nothing, but she actually had the potential for awesome all along.
It’s weird that one perspective on her story is that all her awesome “supertemp” stuff is just building up to her becoming part Time Lord, rather than mattering because she’s Donna Noble, human being, and she’s fucking awesome all on her own.
The other perspective is better, that she is awesome all along and just needs to realize it. Which we see in “Turn Left” (although that can also be read as Donna sacrificing herself to get back to the universe where she’ll become part Time Lord again) and we see it at the end of “Journey’s End” when her mom points out that she still is the most important woman in the universe. Yes.
I mostly love Donna’s story because it shows us time and again how amazing she is as a human being. She’s certainly equal to the Doctor based on her own complementary strengths all along. But that whole “and then she had to become part Time Lord to really be awesome” kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth. :(
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katesutton on July 24, 2008 7:48 pm | Link
Actually, I can make this work in that context. The ‘Donna thinks she’s second-rate’ context. She really hasn’t ever thought she was on the same level with the Doctor, his equal in the ways that matter. So, yes, she thinks she’s finally worthy and good enough to be his partner, completely discounting everything she’s done for him. ON THE OTHER HAND, that’s completely MY take on it and none of the dialogue suggests Donna is wrong. Although she so is.
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rusty-halo on July 25, 2008 12:17 pm | Link
Yeah, that’s my take on it, but I wish the show had suggested she’s wrong.
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orange_crushed on July 24, 2008 7:53 pm | Link
Ohhh, yeah. I think that “intelligence makes you superior to everyone !!!111!1″ thing has started half of my really furious arguments in this fandom.
I loved the line “Donna. Human. No.” from Fires of Pompeii, for the reasons you outlined above- Donna knows, and the show makes very clear to stress, that just being a time lord (or a king, or a general, or clever, or rich, or whatever) doesn’t make you better than anybody else, more worthy of living, more valuable. People are different and they bring different (and fantastic) things to the table.
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rusty-halo on July 25, 2008 12:13 pm | Link
Totally. And to have Donna say that “equals” line is just totally weird, because she’s the one who always made a point to stand up for the fact that the Doctor isn’t any better or more important than she is.
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Yonmei on July 24, 2008 8:21 pm | Link
If Rose isn’t “equal,” what’s the implication other than that she’s inferior?
None. She isn’t. As should be obvious. If Rose was the Doctor’s equal, he wouldn’t have informed her she was staying in another universe without him even though she’d just literally fought her way across space and time to get to him and be with him.
Human companions are never the Doctor’s equals.
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chloris on July 25, 2008 10:46 am | Link
While I like the idea of the TARDIS, I’m not unhappy they cut the scene out. It makes even less sense if you think about new!Ten. He has the intellegence, ability to see timelines, and ability to operate the TARDIS that the other Doctor has. So I’m not even sure what it means for Donna to be Ten’s equal but not new!Ten’s.
It’s just generally poorly written and jarring. A quiet scene as they’re traveling to the altverse of Ten giving new!Ten a coral which new!Ten then slips in his pocket which have worked very nicely. I don’t think we’re having any difficulty in imagining ways for the Doctor to speed up TARDIS formation, so we don’t even need the dialog.
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JayDK on July 25, 2008 12:07 pm | Link
I totally agree with you regarding simply assuming the Doctor would figure out how to speed up TARDIS formation, but I’ve seen a lot of fan posts about how RTD “had” to cut the scene because it’s “the rule” that TARDIS transformation takes thousands of years and RTD couldn’t possibly get around that!
It constantly amazes me how fans of sci-fi can be so unimaginative, and eager to cling to completely arbitrary “rules.” Magic box traveling in time and space, folks.
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rusty-halo on July 25, 2008 12:17 pm | Link
I’ve seen a lot of fan posts about how RTD “had” to cut the scene because it’s “the rule” that TARDIS transformation takes thousands of years and RTD couldn’t possibly get around that!
LOL. And I love that he got around it the same way he gets around every “impossibility”: one line of completely irrelevant technobabble. BECAUSE THE SHOW IS ABOUT THE STORY AND CHARACTERS, NOT ACTUALLY *ABOUT* THE TECHNOBABBLE.
LOL at fandom.
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chloris on July 25, 2008 1:40 pm | Link
Heh. I missed all those posts.
I remember the endless arguments about vampires growing hair on BTVS forums. Dead people can’t grow hair, so vampires can’t either! A certain type of scifi fan *needs* ironclad rules or they get all uncomfortable.
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rusty-halo on July 25, 2008 12:15 pm | Link
The difference between Ten, Ten II, and part-Doctor-Donna is just… really confusing and nonsensical. I think the answer is “whatever the plot calls for” or maybe “whatever the theme we’re pushing this moment calls for” but as a whole it really doesn’t make much sense. Which I guess is sort of nice because Ten II is as much Time Lord as you want him to be, given that canon leaves it mostly contradictory and ambiguous….
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pluckyyounggirl on July 25, 2008 3:00 pm | Link
In a word, yes.
In more words, while I would have loved to get the two bits of dialogue you quoted, I am so, so glad that this scene was cut. It just doesn’t work for me on so many levels, and the writing itself feels like bad fanfic.
I always loved how equal the relationship of the Doctor and Rose was; that’s why I fell in love with them. I loved the equality between Doctor and Donna just as much; and it’s the inequality between Martha and the Doctor that always soured me on her character. [/digression alert]
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rusty-halo on July 25, 2008 3:28 pm | Link
Yes. Rose may have been in love with the Doctor, but she always treated him like a person. She “got” him, his vulnerabilities, his sense of humor, his flaws.
Donna was the same–she saw him as a person. It was Martha who saw him as “the Lonely God.” It’s just weird watching her S3 attitude in retrospect, because it’s so different from Rose and Donna, the way she seems to actually worship him. (*shudders*)
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pluckyyounggirl on July 26, 2008 9:50 am | Link
The scene where Martha receives her key like as though it were the Holy Grail still breaks my brain.
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Sunny Tyler on July 25, 2008 5:03 pm | Link
Well, actually, I agree with you about Donna in this scene. But she’s not really herself there, is she? She’s got the Doctor’s mind. And his ego.
She’s half Time Lord and, during that scene, she does believe she will stay like this forever.
Remember what the Doctor said to Jenny. Being a Time lord is not about the biology, it’s about the memories. And Donna has his memories.
And they nearly killed her.
The Doctor had to make her forget everything about him… while Rose, after the Bad wolf, had only a partial amnesia. And she DID remember killing the daleks in Doomsday. Without dying because of it. AND she had the whole of time and space in her mind …
Remember what RTD said about BadWolf!Rose in the “parting of the ways” confidential: she was the goddess of Time. A lot more than a Time Lord…
Too bad RTD has to leave… the Bad wolf storyline doesn’t seem to be over…
As for the other Children of Time, they’re equals to the Doctor as they’re all fighting for a better world. Just like him.
Donna, for one shinning moment, is more important, as she has the Doctor’s mind and she’s the closest thing (maybe after Jenny) we have to a Time Lady since the Time war.
And the Doctor is quite deseperate to have another person of his kind. Last year, didn’t he beg his worst nemesis not to leave him?
And Rose, well… Rose, as I said, is the Bad wolf. And the Doctor’s love. She’s not his equal as he sees her glowing with the Time Vortex, the golden Bad wolf. As far as he is concerned, I think she’s above everything (Doesn’t he forgive her for giving immortality to Jack? And he tells her nothing about her very big gun).
Maybe that’s one of the reasons why he didn’t want her to stay in this world. This way, she’ll stay young, and beautiful and perfect and oh, so alive, forever.
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malicehaughton on July 25, 2008 9:22 pm | Link
I thought everyone, but Donna, was out of character in this. Because the DoctorDonna acted just this way in the rest of the episode too. She’s got his meories, and his rudeness. She’s not thinking before speaking :P
And as for the line about equals…she always had been, because on some gut level, even when she was a lowly human, she was exactly that. She got him in a way even Rose didn’t, and she wasn’t clouded by jealousy. That was her view of things. She honestly thought that she was his equal NOW, and not before, because of low self-esteem thanks to her mum. She believes you have to be smart and a little bit more than human to be succesful in the world.
As for the Bad Wolf thing the person above me wrote…I believe that the Bad Wolf isn’t Rose anymore. That was taken out of her and given back to the TARDIS. So, if anyone is the Bad Wolf now, it’s the TARDIS.
Myeh. I liked Rose until these last two episodes, and then in one she was nothing but a whiny idiot, and the other an annoying brat. And Billie did forget how to play her. It would have been better to not have brought her back at all, but because they did, I’m glad they left the ending they did in.
As much as I like the idea of Alt!Ten and Rose travelling that universe and defending it…I don’t see it happening. Do I see them getting truly domestic, as in 2 kids, picket fence and a house with carpets and a door? Not so much. Because while Ten might have said that that was the one adventure he could never have…what about his other children who have died? Obviously he forgot about them while saying that.
I think it just means that he has to lead a normal life. He may or may not get married to Rose. I do NOT see him having kids with her though. He still has Ten’s memories after all, and the thought of having more kids hurts him a lot more than he thinks he can bear, and with just one measly little human heart pounding away in tha chest…
I think he meant stay in the one place, get a job, and maybe settle down with one person until he dies.
/rant.
I’ll be quiet now.
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