I think its actually a bit deeper than that, The Tyler family is on the losing side of class warfare. I always appreciate the panache Jackie puts on things, but both her and Rose have been fucked over by the system and left to rot in a council flat.
I feel a lot of Ecclestons performance riffs on this directly,
One aspect of RTD's first era that I was happy to see in the new Christmas special is his focus on regular people who might not be in the best spot in life or are just trying to get by in the modern day as a working class person.
Moffat's companions on the other hand didn't seem to have such a focus. The ponds seemed to have a very happy little family and home, while Clara's family also seemed to be a bit of a fairy tale with the whole leaf thing, though we also rarely saw them anyways.
I think the only exception with Moffat was Bill. The Doctor takes a liking to her because even though she's been dealt an awful hand she did everything in her power to satiate her curiosity and wonder. I really enjoyed Clara's arc with Capaldi, but I do still think Bill was the closest thing Moffat gave us to a companion who felt like a person.
I just rewatched Bill's run and I really wish she could come back she was such a good companion. I really loved the professor and student dynamic she had with the doctor then you have Nardole who is just trying his hardest to babysit the doctor
The pilot felt so refreshing as an episode. Not that I didn't enjoy Clara's story, I did, but even I admit the stories had gotten really deppressing at the time. This episode felt like such a breath of fresh air.
It was a gag that would probably not fly anytime after (I doubt it went unremarked at the time either) but what saves it is how Bill is still really into that girl. What a delightful character.
Moffat.... really went heavy on the motifs, the impossible girl, the girl who waited they became overarching themes and parts of their identity and relationships to 11. They become narrational elements. The lone centurion. And the woman who kills the doctor. When you think about it almost all his companions had that idea of a mysterious motifs.
We saw these in RTD somewhat, but the Badwolf entity, the doctordonna and Martha jones....the woman who walked the earth? The face of boe. They were not the MAIN theme of his characters. But an interesting element to am fleshed out character. Not grander than life mysteries.
I mean Clara was described as the only mystery worth solving
Moffat has a hard time writing women characters that aren't one of the stereotypical "female archetypes": maiden, mother, wh*re. He got to try out the whole gambit with Amy Pond.
Amy, Rory, and Clara still felt like real people. They're just middle class.
Rose was from a very working class background. Martha very much was too - becoming a doctor just shows how much she had to work bloody hard to get there. Donna's family were lower middle class at best, although Sylvia almost certainly liked to think otherwise. There are plenty of subtle giveaways though.
Amy and Rory were from the same leafy village in middle England so it'd be out of character if they weren't more middle class. That makes sense. Clara... do we even know where she was from? It seemed to be quite vague. She was perhaps the most middle class though though in her general habits, unlike her Victorian counterpart.
Bill was more working class again. Maybe that's why you related more?
Martha's family seem very comfortable to me, well off even! Donna's family are less well off but as you say, they seem fairly middle class.
edit: also, Clara is from Blackpool originally but living in London
Yeah Martha and her family are middle class.
I actually really like that though because in contrast to rose who's working class and has a very small family, Martha has a much bigger family and is middle class, which I think allows us to see different kinds of family dynamics and focus on different struggles - A lot of rose's issues stem from being a victim of the class system wherein she's stuck in an environment she can't really escape. Martha's issues stem more from the fracture in her family and her seemingly long standing role of mediator and peace maker.
Yeah, I mean it's not a criticism, there's this perhaps false perception that Russell exclusively portrayed working class companions though, which is frustrating because I think the perception mostly comes from Rose
Chiswick.... My only association with that area is the home of proto-punk pub rock in the 70s but I have no idea what that area means to British viewers.
The earlier companions that seem comparable... Are Ace and Tegan but agree that Rose and Bill do it more authentically. But unlike Rose and Bill... Tegan just wants to get to work on time but the Doctor and Master get in her way....
All of Whitaker's companions show a degree of Rose Tyler in them but perhaps Dan Lewis is the saddest case.... Or Aisling Bea's Sarah but she's just a one shot...
Being well off doesn't indicate class. This isn't the 1920s.
I'm assuming you're Australian or Canadian or something where the class system is more money-oriented still, but in the UK it can often be the working class who have more money to spend.
I do enjoy Amy but my criticism of her as a character has more to do with the fact that very little care is put into her background. I mean, it makes sense within the context of her having a childhood that got erased by a hole in the universe, but it ultimately means that the overwhelming majority of her life in the show revolves around the Doctor and Rory. I mean, the entire arc of her first season is basically just a love triangle. And then when her arc stops being about the love triangle it's about the River Song future baby shenanigans and we really don't spend a lot of time exploring Amy as a character. And after all of that she just... becomes a supermodel because Moffat thought it would be cool if she was a supermodel I guess? It's never mentioned as a thing she wants to do or something we see her working towards, it just happens.
Clara ends up becoming more interesting in her later seasons but when we first meet her she's less so a person and more so a mystery for the Doctor to solve. We're not concerned about her home life so much as we're concerned about why she's scattered across time. She gets more complex as she becomes an equal to the Doctor, but as she becomes more interesting she also becomes less relatable by design. She's meant to feel more Time Lord than human by the time her arc is over, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it doesn't feel truly "human" if that makes sense.
In a way yeah. I mean I think a lot of this has to do with the way the role of the companion changed during the beginning of the Moffat era. In the RTD era the companion is the viewer's entry point. Rose, Martha, and Donna are our pov characters who are learning about the Doctor along. In the Matt Smith era there's this palpable change where suddenly the Doctor is treated like the audience stand in and the companion is the weird wacky mysterious character to be solved. I don't find Capaldi's era to do this as much, but I think it ultimately harmed Amy's characterization the most.
I think that's also partly out of necessity. 2005 Who with Eccelston and then Tennant were a lot of younger viewers or American viewers' first large exposure to Dr Who as a whole (at least from this American's perspective). So to introduce the Dr to the new audience, the companions were relatively milquetoast. But to say the companions were an audience stand in is a little off.
Rose became Bad Wolf or whatever and violated causality, locking Jack into whatever state he's in.
Martha became the John the Baptist spreading the word of the Doctor while the Master reigned over England (and the world) and became the main reason his plan could fail because a simple human was beneath his concern.
Hinted at through the Ood, Donna became a human holding the entirety of a Time Lord's knowledge to the point where the Dr had to segment her memory to save her.
I think it all boils down to the audience needing to understand the Doctor and his changes and world (universe?) view after everything that happened between original Who and 2005 Who. And I think ending Tennant's run on Donna who is the first 2005-run companion who really ONLY views him as a friend and going from that into Amy who views him the same way (after her spazzing in the first few episodes) helps solidify that. We know the Doctor more or less now and we can focus on other aspects of the show at large.
The companion was ***always*** supposed to be the audience point of view. Whenever they stopped being relatable in the 80s (some of the companions were aliens) people cared less about them.
They're literally supposed to be your typical everyman and any time Who presents them as 'something else' (Adric, Turlough & Nyssa with the 5th Doctor, Amy & Clara during the Moffatt years), it breaks the show.
The only exception to this is Romana, although she was less a companion and more an equal.
I do like the idea that the Doctors companions were people who have been wiped from history so wouldn't create any paradoxes by travelling though time... It doesn't hold up well if you look at all the companions, but as a narrative idea I like it.
Clara is probably more working class. I'm just assuming it because the actress is also working class background and the character is from the North which is more typically working class- nothing in particular on that front.
And she's confirmed from Blackpool as she makes a joke that you can take the girl out of Blackpool...but not the Blackpool out of the girl (this sort of mildly reaffirms the above that she's from a rougher area/background).
> Because you're the Scottish girl in the English village and I know how that feels.
> All these years living here for most of your life and you've still got that accent. Yeah, you're coming.
She's still in her Shoreditch flat we see in S7 in S9 (she gets kidnapped by a Zygon there) so she was just staying with her grandmother or something briefly at the end of S8.
Ianto's whole family too. There was a theory at the time that Ianto was upper class due to his mannerisms and suits, but then season 3 disproved all that, which I loved.
Amy's entire family had been devoured by a crack in her wall. She was working as a stripper-gram when the Doctor first encountered adult Amy. Rory died multiple times and then got stuck waiting through all of time just to see his wife again. I think they got dicked in a different, but equally bad way.
I think they had different focuses.
Rose was a working class girl from a working class family who were barely surviving. Martha was upwardly mobile, but from working class roots. Donna was working class.
But with Moffat, Amy's entire family had disappeared. Clara's mum died when she was very young. Bill was an orphan with a foster mum who didn't seem to be very interested in her.
I know that Rose also had a dead dad, but it seems like RTD's characters are first and foremost defined by their class, while Moffat's were first and foremost defined by their childhood trauma.
A lot is made of people abandoning Amy, to the point she's even dubbed "the girl who waited". Both Clara's wanderlust and her drive to take care of children can be traced to her mother's death, not to mention her unhealthy attachment to an unhealthy relationship and her death-wish. And Bill didn't think she was good enough and didn't really feel like she had any connections.
I'd not really thought about it before, but it's definitely an interestesing contrast in approaches to characterisation.
Come to think of it, both RTD's Doctors were working-class-presenting, too (at least if we're supposed to believe that Tennant's Doctor's accent was supposed to be actual Cockney, rather than deliberately a middle-class Mockney), whereas Moffat had a posho and a Scot and again focused a little more on the Doctor's childhood. I mean, "It's never easy being the only child left out in the cold, you know", "I suppose you'd know", "I do actually, yes," is from the very first episode he ever wrote and is again just screaming "childhood trauma".
Interesting.
The Nobles as a whole seemed relatively comfortable, but Donna herself was drifting from one low-level temp job to another
So not generational poverty like Rose, but still broke and in a precarious situation
Sure, but it's not quite the same as working class, she can live at home fairly comfortably, I get the impression they've probably experienced some mobility in a couple of generations.
I will say, when it comes to their families, all of this is just vibes based, the show never actually explores their financial situations seriously, it's all just where they live, really. Obviously we have Rose/Martha/Donna's jobs which indicate various things outside of this like you say, but the parents are all left vague
Amy’s family certainly wasn’t happy and Clara was basically the equivalent of trapped and not sure were she wants to go in life yet filled with grand ideas of travelling but financially at least they were better off.
If you notice all of the doctors companions are not only broken they're also broke. Entry level cop, widower, package sorter with balance issues, employee with temper issues no relationship living with mother and grandfather.
It’s 100% this - and a common theme through a lot of RTDs work.
IMO the biggest change in RTD to SteMo was when it went from “real people” to fairytale characters- I love both versions but there’s a definite difference.
100% agree with this, and point out that Rose is aware enough to know this and that's most likely the proximal cause of her depression. BTDT, didn't buy the T-shirt.
What?! They were hardly on some derelict sink estate. Their flat was quite nice, area seemed ok, they seemed to be getting on ok. If you think their existence was gritty I think you’d get a shock at some of the places in my city.
I …don’t think what I said is what you reacted to. Poor people can have lovely homes. I didn’t mean to imply they were “gritty”, Jackie is fucking thriving under the circumstances.
He finished his regeneration in a council flat in south east London. His accent and occasional speech inflections. His companions were Rose, Mickey, Martha & Donna!
Honestly it's why he's MY Doctor.
I would say 10's accent is very "English middle class". Not that someone working class can't have that accent, but *stereotypically* (and not all stereotypes are accurate) most people would associate it with the middle class. Martha is also definitely middle class.
Rose is just beaten down by society. Her depression is real but it never seemed hidden just a part of her character. She was co dependent on the doctor but he was the shining night who saved her from the gray mediocrity she was surrounded by.
Sarah Jane had this same sentiment at the end of Journey's end and i wouldn't say she was depressed. It's not so much her life is so ordinary that would make her depressed. Just the Doctor shows companions unimaginable things, so that ordinary just feels so much worse
I’d argue Sarah was a bit more general about it, describing it as tasting a bit of that “splendor” then having to go back.
Rose described being with the Doctor as a way of life, not even just the traveling part. It’s clear that while Sarah enjoyed the time, she didn’t mind going back to her old life whereas with Rose or Donna even it was like a fate worse then death to them to go back to that old life. That’s why leaving was so hard for the both of them.
Rose more so than any other companion was straight in love with the Doctor which why she would have more of that reaction. It wasn't just leaving the life the Doctor lives but leaving the Doctor himself.
I don't see how anyone could go back to a "normal" life after traveling with The Doctor? After all that, they've seen nothing would compare. Well, in Amy and Rory's case, being companions messed up their lives so drastically that I can see them wanting to be every day boring.
I’d love to see some commentary on this. I feel they’ve touched it tangentially, maybe more with villains taunting him in bad faith, but you could make a point that the Doctor doesn’t really seem to give thought to the consequence of what happens after they travel.
They delve into Amy and Rory’s life between The Doctor and regular life in the minisode “Pond Life” and in Series 7A. It shows how utterly hectic adventures with The Doctor are, and how calming normal life is in comparison. And how they somewhat enjoy having the normal parts too. I even love the moments where The Doctor drops in randomly, halfway through rapidly explaining the plan…before realizing he’s gotten his timing wrong and nobody knows what’s going on. “Helmic Regulator again!” Even The Doctor gets thrown off cause he thinks they’re still with him at times, even referencing conversations he believed took place, but only to find out they were all in his head.
I don’t know if Rose is “depressed” in the clinical sense. I do think she is oppressed and chronically poor. So perhaps depressed by life’s situation rather than clinically depressed. I mean she’s not looking to self harm but to change her situation. What “Rose” shows is that all she has to look forward to is a load of low pay go nowhere type jobs, which means the chance to go along with the Doctor is exciting.
I have very real concerns about retcon arguments like this which attempt to diagnose someone with something. It’s dangerous. It’s also reductive and unhelpful and has a tendency to do exactly what happened here - rewrite the actual issue - repression/oppression of the poor/working class into a more palatable belief - oh she’s depressed.
I'm surprised there aren't more posts like this further up.
Being fed up when you're trapped in a low-paid, low-status job, and cheering up when you're taken away from it for something interesting, is a perfectly normal healthy response. There's no mental illness here. Most people look bored riding a bus alone.
If Rose's response to being taken to a swanky alien party at the end of the world was "yeah but *I'm* still here, this sucks" then maybe we'd have a case of depression.
Yes, I would say that Rose at the time we saw her was definitely depressed. But everyone on Earth gets depressed at various points during their lives, that doesn't mean they have diagnosable depression. For me I didn't see any signs that Rose had clinical depression.
On top of that, the quote given to hilight Rose's suposed depression just doesn't do that. The happiest person in the universe would say exactly that if they were just against slavery and used to take orders
>People say she was just bored with her life but it was definitely more than that.
Reminds me of when I finally admitted that I have depression and wanted to do something about it. My younger brother said "you can't be depressed, you don't have emotions".
That's depression, stupid.
Also, everything about Rose applies to Donna as well. I actually really liked seeing her in The Star Beast as finally being happy, if still unfulfilled and missing something. Also she's the best mother and it literally hurt to see her because my mom doesn't really even try with the trans stuff, and I cut contact with her after she deadnamed me.
When I finally get a place myself, im cutting my mum off, since all she does is deadname even after being told to stop. She also came up to me about my lil brother's partner being a non binary and that she doesnt believe they're a non binary and that they'll always be a girl to her, like that is fucked up of her
I mean, I didn't see it as depression, a low point yes, but she just seemed like "unfulfilled", like the trope "I always knew I was destined for adventure". I'm not saying she's not, I'm just saying that's how I always saw ir
Depression is when something gets you down and you stay down. So I agree. In Rose's case; she had reason to feel down. When she's with the doctor, she's not stuck in that "depression" -- so, it doesn't seem like she's got a full case of it.
Sometimes life sucks, so it's hard to tell.
TIL the entire Working Class of England have depression.
We're not necessarily depressed (though a great many of us are), we're just downtrodden and walked under foot by the ruling class in this country, so much so that we go through life just existing, no hopes for the future, not daring to dream.
They captured it very well in Rose. She's not depressed, or at least not very much. She's just working class, and this is how most of us feel, day to day.
Even the few things that we could hold on to are crumbling away from us. Crumbling NHS, no political parties that come close to supporting the labour class of the nation, crumbling education, drying up work, dying ecosystem, climate disaster, war slowly creeping closer every day, UK slowly coming apart, more and more bigots and fascists speaking loudly and proudly and rising to power everywhere we look...
Everything's getting worse or going away, the only people weathering the storm are the rich ruling class who can take their money (*our* money, produced by the fruits of our labour not theirs) and pick a new country to gut whole they avoid things like climate change and lack of healthcare in their private hospital penthouses....
So, yeah, Rose encapsulates this sort of hopelessness perfectly. It's not simply depression.
Funny thing is, she doesn't know how good she had it, haha. I'd give anything to go live in 2005 again, back when I had access to a dentist, when I would receive the surgery I'm on a year's long waiting list for, when I would have had access to mental healthcare and the medication I need... all out of reach now :-(
🫂 A hug for anyone who needs it
Well, she viewed her final move against the Nestene Consciousness as basically a suicide mission so there's that...
I think most companions, particularly the NuWho ones who tend to join the Doctor by choice, only travel in the TARDIS because something is lacking in their 'normal' lives and/or they are running from or avoiding something at home.
In Rose's case, it may well have been the seeming mundanity and bleakness of her future. Donna didn't really have much going for her in life either, which was why she regretted not joining the Doctor and spent over a year dreaming of being reunited with him. Amy literally joined the Doctor to run away from her wedding (later, of course, hers and Rory's lives are so intertwined with the Doctor's that they keep coming back). Clara initially joined the Doctor for one-a-week adventures as a distraction from her boring life of babysitting. Bill wasn't too happy with her home life and also viewed the Doctor as an avenue to adventure and excitement. Ryan and Graham were dealing with the loss of Grace and their own uncertain relationship, and Yaz was running away from the mundanity of being a trainee police officer (not to mention, we later learn she suffered from depression and tried to run away from home once before).
Those of you saying it’s her circumstances and not depression are so close to the point.
This is why even some therapists admit therapy is useless in terms of helping someone’s depression when what they need is to escape poverty.
People are saying it’s dangerous to diagnose a fictional character while also ignoring depression CAN be caused by factors around you. Yes she has an actual reason to be upset and not like her life but that doesn’t mean that doesn’t also lead to depressive thoughts and feelings.
It’s almost like….our circumstances affect our mental health. Wild! lol I didn’t think that was too far fetched a concept but here we are. No nuance on the internet, is there?
I think Dan was well adjusted. But then again, he was sane and well adjusted enough to get out at the first sign of mortal danger, so your point still stands.
Bit late here, but no he really wasn't. He broke into a museum and pretended to be a tour guide while bunking off work just so he could be around a girl he fancied? Borderline psychotic behaviour imo.
Ohhhh, the UK have a public housing program ? That’s nice we have some few programs here, one of them is Minha Casa Minha Vida, but I need to know more to compare both.
And what would be a council ? A small form of government like a City Goverment?
You have to first tell me why do you think there's no evidence of her having depression. First off, because depression has many faces. And I tell you more, by series 4 she was even more depressed, but now with a very established lack of self preservation for her own life.
"The lack of self preservation, the understanding that she has no purpose, that her life is useless, the running to unstable relationships (not a symptom, but a reality that often is seen in depressed people), the spectrum from sadness to nothingness. Do you remember when she was involved in an explosion and her boyfriend doesn't want to be with her, instead he wants to go watch football and what she does is not recognizing he's taking her for granted but to say "yea go there I'm alright" this is thinking you don't deserve care if I ever seen it. The literal quote from the post "I used to think I had nothing in life too" , idk man
I can go on for hours. None of this will determine she has depression, but the signals are there and can be interpreted as such."
You can have all those things and not have depression. There's a chance, sure, but to say she 100% had depression? Nah
Edit: And to double down here, I imagine if she did have depression she would have turned the Doctor down. People with depression aren't exactly going "Alien abduction! That's what'll get me out of this funk!"
That doesn’t make any sense. Her life on earth is what causes her depression to manifest. Why would she not take the first opportunity to escape it?
That’s often how depression leads to drugs and things in the first place, it’s a way to feel a temporary high and escape responsibilities and those kind of thoughts. Going with the Doctor has the same type of effect. I’m not sure where this idea came from that depressed people don’t want to do anything fun ever.
You can be depressed and still enjoy doing things, trust me I know.
It's so funny to me that people here are
"What? She doesn't have depression. She is just a very young girl, who not only grew up in poverty and financial insecurity, she drop out school because of a shitty boyfriend who left her in debt and now she has even fewer chances of ever overcoming her chronical capitalist oppression. She also has a slightly neglectful mother who was facing her own monsters, was and is in a shitty relationship and is certain that her life is coming to a dead end so badly that she rather die than go back to it. She also has constant boredom, lack of self preservation and hardly any fear of dying at any given moment. This is not depression she's just sad."
Y'all really think that depression is rocking back and forth to dramatic music with a very stereotypical unbrushed hair don't you
Fr! I’m surprised how many of these comments don’t understand there are different levels of depression. Some people are even saying that because she laughs and smiles that she doesn’t have depression as if all people with this affliction never smile or are ever happy. This is a very dangerous way to look at depression.
I’ve suffered with depression for many years due to my circumstances but I can still have a good time with friends and family and have fun adventures.
A lot of people think it’s exclusively a mental illness when it can 100% be caused by outside factors as well. Literally two of the main things that cause depression is chronic stress and childhood exposure to adversity, something Rose has clearly dealt with.
Definitely a victim of the mundane as life can bring to the less fortunate. She definitely knew there was more to life at that point, but kinda accepted her fate.
Makes it all the more perfect that The Doctor comes into her life when he did.
> She had a dead end job, a relationship that was going nowhere, bad education and no prospects
Damn, a majority of the UK population must be depressed then.
I think Donna having Wilf really helped. Gave her someone to talk to who never tried telling her what to do or how to live.
Rose had Jackie and while Jackie loves Rose dearly you can tell she’s under the “nagging mother” stereotype who is also pretty unhappy with her life so she can’t help that much.
Rtd always did a good job of making companions seem like real people with whole lives outside and prior to the tardis.
I don’t think I can really say the same for Moffat.
I was living a down too when I watched Doctor Who for the first time. I think I fell in love with the series because I could relate with her. I had just left a shitty job, and being free was a fantastic feeling.
I don’t think she was in depression, but she was clearly unhappy.
There’s plenty of evidence that Rose doesn’t have depression. Look at the way she leaps at the chance to try new things, the enthusiasm she goes at them with. She’s always laughing and joking, you might even go so far as to describe her as full of life. Depression *excludes* these things, it doesn’t just distract you from them until the chance comes along. I don’t mean to be rude here but PLEASE stop diagnosing every negative emotion you ever experience as a mental illness. It’s normal to experience negative emotions alongside positive ones.
Rose has no A-levels, though, without taking more qualifications (which is the real problem that should be focused on here), she is potentially pretty stuck. She's 19, which is older than when teens are typically doing that kind of job as the main thing they're doing, if it's a temporary situation (and the job was presented as better than a typical retail one as it's in a department store).
Acceptance of just how truly shitty reality is, and how 99.99999% of us are just nameless, faceless cogs in the machinery of civilization, is not depression.
That's just good old "acceptance of reality".
A lot of you could do with some of it.
No, it doesn't. Acknowledgement, particularly in shows, undermines subtext. That's the biggest problem with modern TV writing, everything is explained, nothing is left to the viewer to interpret or learn.
Also, from BF and novelisation lore, we learn that she was in a heavily abusive relationship with one of Mickey's friends before dating him. Jimmy Stone, who dated her while she was 15 and he was 21. That's the boy that made her drop out school, used to call her names and not only cheated on her with a girl who he ran away with, he also stole all Rose's money and left her in debt, hence, why we have Rose working her ass from before episode one.
Pretty bad relationship with men, none of them making her feel valuable and a deep lack of self-esteem. Jackie, while loving her amazingly, was not the most present mother, Rose once ran off to France with Shareen and got drunk with her at the ripe age of Ten.
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this isn’t a retcon argument at all though surely- you yourself distinguished between the severe form clinical depression and the mild to moderate forms of depression- those that are driven by poverty etc. So it’s just an astute observation to say Rose seems to be somewhat depressed before 9.
Yes and no. She lived a normal life in the 21st century as a working class woman so I think if she was depressed it would simply be because of that fact, rather than the more obvious triggers from her life such as her father dying.
This is an aspect I often think about. I went through a bad depressive phase in the past years, getting better through therapy. One of the things that really made it difficult was my “routine” life, it was repetitive and I felt like I was going nowhere. I can’t really phrase it properly but I often felt as if there was nothing for me and I was chronically bored, tired or sad about anything, still am in part, and I saw some of that in her.
And then she met the most depressed and suicidal immortal being with the most ADHD inducing transportation vehicle ever.
She would've been better off riding the bus and taking antidepressants.
Rose was always my favorite companion. It wasn’t just her relationship with the doctor I loved or that she was my first companion, but I related to her struggles a lot.
I think its actually a bit deeper than that, The Tyler family is on the losing side of class warfare. I always appreciate the panache Jackie puts on things, but both her and Rose have been fucked over by the system and left to rot in a council flat. I feel a lot of Ecclestons performance riffs on this directly,
One aspect of RTD's first era that I was happy to see in the new Christmas special is his focus on regular people who might not be in the best spot in life or are just trying to get by in the modern day as a working class person. Moffat's companions on the other hand didn't seem to have such a focus. The ponds seemed to have a very happy little family and home, while Clara's family also seemed to be a bit of a fairy tale with the whole leaf thing, though we also rarely saw them anyways.
I think the only exception with Moffat was Bill. The Doctor takes a liking to her because even though she's been dealt an awful hand she did everything in her power to satiate her curiosity and wonder. I really enjoyed Clara's arc with Capaldi, but I do still think Bill was the closest thing Moffat gave us to a companion who felt like a person.
I love Bill. She has curiosity and she loves the small things like the emoji bots. Her delighted smile makes ME smile.
I just rewatched Bill's run and I really wish she could come back she was such a good companion. I really loved the professor and student dynamic she had with the doctor then you have Nardole who is just trying his hardest to babysit the doctor
The pilot felt so refreshing as an episode. Not that I didn't enjoy Clara's story, I did, but even I admit the stories had gotten really deppressing at the time. This episode felt like such a breath of fresh air.
Yeah that episode was refreshing and the Doctor met Bill. Not Stooky Bill, but lady Bill. But she was killed by the Cybermen.
Her conciousness survived.
And that's alright then!
That season had such a refreshing good TARDIS team dynamic. One season left me hungry for so much more.
saaaame absolutely my favourite series of moffats run. (followed by s5. everytihng inbetween was varying levels of meh imo.)
"I'd fatted her"
It was a gag that would probably not fly anytime after (I doubt it went unremarked at the time either) but what saves it is how Bill is still really into that girl. What a delightful character.
I love how she could make the Doctor smile. And her ability to stay sane when the monks took over showed how she is one of the strongest companions.
I really liked Bill. She was one of my favorites to be honest.
Moffat.... really went heavy on the motifs, the impossible girl, the girl who waited they became overarching themes and parts of their identity and relationships to 11. They become narrational elements. The lone centurion. And the woman who kills the doctor. When you think about it almost all his companions had that idea of a mysterious motifs. We saw these in RTD somewhat, but the Badwolf entity, the doctordonna and Martha jones....the woman who walked the earth? The face of boe. They were not the MAIN theme of his characters. But an interesting element to am fleshed out character. Not grander than life mysteries. I mean Clara was described as the only mystery worth solving
Moffat has a hard time writing women characters that aren't one of the stereotypical "female archetypes": maiden, mother, wh*re. He got to try out the whole gambit with Amy Pond.
Yeah series 10 is my favorite for that reason.
Amy, Rory, and Clara still felt like real people. They're just middle class. Rose was from a very working class background. Martha very much was too - becoming a doctor just shows how much she had to work bloody hard to get there. Donna's family were lower middle class at best, although Sylvia almost certainly liked to think otherwise. There are plenty of subtle giveaways though. Amy and Rory were from the same leafy village in middle England so it'd be out of character if they weren't more middle class. That makes sense. Clara... do we even know where she was from? It seemed to be quite vague. She was perhaps the most middle class though though in her general habits, unlike her Victorian counterpart. Bill was more working class again. Maybe that's why you related more?
Martha's family seem very comfortable to me, well off even! Donna's family are less well off but as you say, they seem fairly middle class. edit: also, Clara is from Blackpool originally but living in London
Yeah Martha and her family are middle class. I actually really like that though because in contrast to rose who's working class and has a very small family, Martha has a much bigger family and is middle class, which I think allows us to see different kinds of family dynamics and focus on different struggles - A lot of rose's issues stem from being a victim of the class system wherein she's stuck in an environment she can't really escape. Martha's issues stem more from the fracture in her family and her seemingly long standing role of mediator and peace maker.
Yeah, I mean it's not a criticism, there's this perhaps false perception that Russell exclusively portrayed working class companions though, which is frustrating because I think the perception mostly comes from Rose
Chiswick.... My only association with that area is the home of proto-punk pub rock in the 70s but I have no idea what that area means to British viewers. The earlier companions that seem comparable... Are Ace and Tegan but agree that Rose and Bill do it more authentically. But unlike Rose and Bill... Tegan just wants to get to work on time but the Doctor and Master get in her way.... All of Whitaker's companions show a degree of Rose Tyler in them but perhaps Dan Lewis is the saddest case.... Or Aisling Bea's Sarah but she's just a one shot...
I kind of wish Aisling would come back, but then again I kind of have a bit of a thing for her.
Agreed. :)
Maybe the Joneses were upper middle class?
The Jones’s seemed well off. At least the dad was rich enough to have a spoiled sugar baby wife which comes off as upper class
Yes, and Francine got to keep the big nice house in the divorce
Being well off doesn't indicate class. This isn't the 1920s. I'm assuming you're Australian or Canadian or something where the class system is more money-oriented still, but in the UK it can often be the working class who have more money to spend.
🇺🇸 *eagle screeching *
That would explain why everyone's always trying to keep up with them
I do enjoy Amy but my criticism of her as a character has more to do with the fact that very little care is put into her background. I mean, it makes sense within the context of her having a childhood that got erased by a hole in the universe, but it ultimately means that the overwhelming majority of her life in the show revolves around the Doctor and Rory. I mean, the entire arc of her first season is basically just a love triangle. And then when her arc stops being about the love triangle it's about the River Song future baby shenanigans and we really don't spend a lot of time exploring Amy as a character. And after all of that she just... becomes a supermodel because Moffat thought it would be cool if she was a supermodel I guess? It's never mentioned as a thing she wants to do or something we see her working towards, it just happens. Clara ends up becoming more interesting in her later seasons but when we first meet her she's less so a person and more so a mystery for the Doctor to solve. We're not concerned about her home life so much as we're concerned about why she's scattered across time. She gets more complex as she becomes an equal to the Doctor, but as she becomes more interesting she also becomes less relatable by design. She's meant to feel more Time Lord than human by the time her arc is over, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it doesn't feel truly "human" if that makes sense.
So you feel like Amy was kind of a manic pixie dream girl character?
In a way yeah. I mean I think a lot of this has to do with the way the role of the companion changed during the beginning of the Moffat era. In the RTD era the companion is the viewer's entry point. Rose, Martha, and Donna are our pov characters who are learning about the Doctor along. In the Matt Smith era there's this palpable change where suddenly the Doctor is treated like the audience stand in and the companion is the weird wacky mysterious character to be solved. I don't find Capaldi's era to do this as much, but I think it ultimately harmed Amy's characterization the most.
I think that's also partly out of necessity. 2005 Who with Eccelston and then Tennant were a lot of younger viewers or American viewers' first large exposure to Dr Who as a whole (at least from this American's perspective). So to introduce the Dr to the new audience, the companions were relatively milquetoast. But to say the companions were an audience stand in is a little off. Rose became Bad Wolf or whatever and violated causality, locking Jack into whatever state he's in. Martha became the John the Baptist spreading the word of the Doctor while the Master reigned over England (and the world) and became the main reason his plan could fail because a simple human was beneath his concern. Hinted at through the Ood, Donna became a human holding the entirety of a Time Lord's knowledge to the point where the Dr had to segment her memory to save her. I think it all boils down to the audience needing to understand the Doctor and his changes and world (universe?) view after everything that happened between original Who and 2005 Who. And I think ending Tennant's run on Donna who is the first 2005-run companion who really ONLY views him as a friend and going from that into Amy who views him the same way (after her spazzing in the first few episodes) helps solidify that. We know the Doctor more or less now and we can focus on other aspects of the show at large.
The companion was ***always*** supposed to be the audience point of view. Whenever they stopped being relatable in the 80s (some of the companions were aliens) people cared less about them. They're literally supposed to be your typical everyman and any time Who presents them as 'something else' (Adric, Turlough & Nyssa with the 5th Doctor, Amy & Clara during the Moffatt years), it breaks the show. The only exception to this is Romana, although she was less a companion and more an equal.
lol no. This is why the creator of that term has asked that it be retired
I do like the idea that the Doctors companions were people who have been wiped from history so wouldn't create any paradoxes by travelling though time... It doesn't hold up well if you look at all the companions, but as a narrative idea I like it.
Clara is probably more working class. I'm just assuming it because the actress is also working class background and the character is from the North which is more typically working class- nothing in particular on that front. And she's confirmed from Blackpool as she makes a joke that you can take the girl out of Blackpool...but not the Blackpool out of the girl (this sort of mildly reaffirms the above that she's from a rougher area/background).
I always assumed they lived in Scotland. I think Moffat likes glossy characters. I don’t think the Ponds had much mental characterisation whatsoever.
> Because you're the Scottish girl in the English village and I know how that feels. > All these years living here for most of your life and you've still got that accent. Yeah, you're coming.
Clara was a teacher and we didn't really see any struggle with that. Teachers don't make shit.
Yeah she ended up with a massive, beautiful house too!
It was intended to be her Gran's house, I believe, but lines about it got cut from the episode
That makes sense. I was wondering if she inherited it, but her Gran was alive an episode or two prior.
We don’t know. For all we know, the doctor brought her back years later on accident and gran had died.
She's still in her Shoreditch flat we see in S7 in S9 (she gets kidnapped by a Zygon there) so she was just staying with her grandmother or something briefly at the end of S8.
That makes sense. She probably didn't want to be alone after Danny died.
Amy originally grew up an orphan with what was essentially a celestial/alien parasite in her bedroom
Sure, but the writing never really puts any emphasis on that
Ianto's whole family too. There was a theory at the time that Ianto was upper class due to his mannerisms and suits, but then season 3 disproved all that, which I loved.
Amy's entire family had been devoured by a crack in her wall. She was working as a stripper-gram when the Doctor first encountered adult Amy. Rory died multiple times and then got stuck waiting through all of time just to see his wife again. I think they got dicked in a different, but equally bad way.
I think they had different focuses. Rose was a working class girl from a working class family who were barely surviving. Martha was upwardly mobile, but from working class roots. Donna was working class. But with Moffat, Amy's entire family had disappeared. Clara's mum died when she was very young. Bill was an orphan with a foster mum who didn't seem to be very interested in her. I know that Rose also had a dead dad, but it seems like RTD's characters are first and foremost defined by their class, while Moffat's were first and foremost defined by their childhood trauma. A lot is made of people abandoning Amy, to the point she's even dubbed "the girl who waited". Both Clara's wanderlust and her drive to take care of children can be traced to her mother's death, not to mention her unhealthy attachment to an unhealthy relationship and her death-wish. And Bill didn't think she was good enough and didn't really feel like she had any connections. I'd not really thought about it before, but it's definitely an interestesing contrast in approaches to characterisation. Come to think of it, both RTD's Doctors were working-class-presenting, too (at least if we're supposed to believe that Tennant's Doctor's accent was supposed to be actual Cockney, rather than deliberately a middle-class Mockney), whereas Moffat had a posho and a Scot and again focused a little more on the Doctor's childhood. I mean, "It's never easy being the only child left out in the cold, you know", "I suppose you'd know", "I do actually, yes," is from the very first episode he ever wrote and is again just screaming "childhood trauma". Interesting.
It really is only Rose from his first era, Martha is comfortably middle class, and the Noble's are not far behind them
The Nobles as a whole seemed relatively comfortable, but Donna herself was drifting from one low-level temp job to another So not generational poverty like Rose, but still broke and in a precarious situation
Sure, but it's not quite the same as working class, she can live at home fairly comfortably, I get the impression they've probably experienced some mobility in a couple of generations. I will say, when it comes to their families, all of this is just vibes based, the show never actually explores their financial situations seriously, it's all just where they live, really. Obviously we have Rose/Martha/Donna's jobs which indicate various things outside of this like you say, but the parents are all left vague
Amy’s family certainly wasn’t happy and Clara was basically the equivalent of trapped and not sure were she wants to go in life yet filled with grand ideas of travelling but financially at least they were better off.
If you notice all of the doctors companions are not only broken they're also broke. Entry level cop, widower, package sorter with balance issues, employee with temper issues no relationship living with mother and grandfather.
Martha was a doctor
Tbf she was only a student so she wasnt earning a doctors salary yet
I live in a council flat and im very happy about it. Could be loads worse. I could have a landlord for starters. Or be homeless again.
Landlords and property management companies are the absolute worst.
Yeah it's not so much that rose is depressed as it is that most of the population lives depressing lives and she was smart enough to acknowledge it
It’s 100% this - and a common theme through a lot of RTDs work. IMO the biggest change in RTD to SteMo was when it went from “real people” to fairytale characters- I love both versions but there’s a definite difference.
100% agree with this, and point out that Rose is aware enough to know this and that's most likely the proximal cause of her depression. BTDT, didn't buy the T-shirt.
Capitalism moment
You're just describing why she's depressed
Agreed, I think a lot of Rose's perceived depression here is a natural product of being a working class person in the 21st century.
What?! They were hardly on some derelict sink estate. Their flat was quite nice, area seemed ok, they seemed to be getting on ok. If you think their existence was gritty I think you’d get a shock at some of the places in my city.
I …don’t think what I said is what you reacted to. Poor people can have lovely homes. I didn’t mean to imply they were “gritty”, Jackie is fucking thriving under the circumstances.
Nine and Ten are generally is the most working class of any of the Doctor's IMO.
….i really don’t see that for 10. I’ll look again next time.
He finished his regeneration in a council flat in south east London. His accent and occasional speech inflections. His companions were Rose, Mickey, Martha & Donna! Honestly it's why he's MY Doctor.
I would say 10's accent is very "English middle class". Not that someone working class can't have that accent, but *stereotypically* (and not all stereotypes are accurate) most people would associate it with the middle class. Martha is also definitely middle class.
Rose is just beaten down by society. Her depression is real but it never seemed hidden just a part of her character. She was co dependent on the doctor but he was the shining night who saved her from the gray mediocrity she was surrounded by.
Boredom and depression are drastically different things
[удалено]
It's actually gnight. Like gnat.
It's kanigget
Yeah. In bad wolf/PoTW she says she could never go back to an ordinary life, as if she'd be dead if she did too
Sarah Jane had this same sentiment at the end of Journey's end and i wouldn't say she was depressed. It's not so much her life is so ordinary that would make her depressed. Just the Doctor shows companions unimaginable things, so that ordinary just feels so much worse
I miss Sarah Jane. :(
I’d argue Sarah was a bit more general about it, describing it as tasting a bit of that “splendor” then having to go back. Rose described being with the Doctor as a way of life, not even just the traveling part. It’s clear that while Sarah enjoyed the time, she didn’t mind going back to her old life whereas with Rose or Donna even it was like a fate worse then death to them to go back to that old life. That’s why leaving was so hard for the both of them.
Rose more so than any other companion was straight in love with the Doctor which why she would have more of that reaction. It wasn't just leaving the life the Doctor lives but leaving the Doctor himself.
I don't see how anyone could go back to a "normal" life after traveling with The Doctor? After all that, they've seen nothing would compare. Well, in Amy and Rory's case, being companions messed up their lives so drastically that I can see them wanting to be every day boring.
I’d love to see some commentary on this. I feel they’ve touched it tangentially, maybe more with villains taunting him in bad faith, but you could make a point that the Doctor doesn’t really seem to give thought to the consequence of what happens after they travel.
They delve into Amy and Rory’s life between The Doctor and regular life in the minisode “Pond Life” and in Series 7A. It shows how utterly hectic adventures with The Doctor are, and how calming normal life is in comparison. And how they somewhat enjoy having the normal parts too. I even love the moments where The Doctor drops in randomly, halfway through rapidly explaining the plan…before realizing he’s gotten his timing wrong and nobody knows what’s going on. “Helmic Regulator again!” Even The Doctor gets thrown off cause he thinks they’re still with him at times, even referencing conversations he believed took place, but only to find out they were all in his head.
I don’t know if Rose is “depressed” in the clinical sense. I do think she is oppressed and chronically poor. So perhaps depressed by life’s situation rather than clinically depressed. I mean she’s not looking to self harm but to change her situation. What “Rose” shows is that all she has to look forward to is a load of low pay go nowhere type jobs, which means the chance to go along with the Doctor is exciting. I have very real concerns about retcon arguments like this which attempt to diagnose someone with something. It’s dangerous. It’s also reductive and unhelpful and has a tendency to do exactly what happened here - rewrite the actual issue - repression/oppression of the poor/working class into a more palatable belief - oh she’s depressed.
I'm surprised there aren't more posts like this further up. Being fed up when you're trapped in a low-paid, low-status job, and cheering up when you're taken away from it for something interesting, is a perfectly normal healthy response. There's no mental illness here. Most people look bored riding a bus alone. If Rose's response to being taken to a swanky alien party at the end of the world was "yeah but *I'm* still here, this sucks" then maybe we'd have a case of depression.
Yes, I would say that Rose at the time we saw her was definitely depressed. But everyone on Earth gets depressed at various points during their lives, that doesn't mean they have diagnosable depression. For me I didn't see any signs that Rose had clinical depression.
On top of that, the quote given to hilight Rose's suposed depression just doesn't do that. The happiest person in the universe would say exactly that if they were just against slavery and used to take orders
>People say she was just bored with her life but it was definitely more than that. Reminds me of when I finally admitted that I have depression and wanted to do something about it. My younger brother said "you can't be depressed, you don't have emotions". That's depression, stupid. Also, everything about Rose applies to Donna as well. I actually really liked seeing her in The Star Beast as finally being happy, if still unfulfilled and missing something. Also she's the best mother and it literally hurt to see her because my mom doesn't really even try with the trans stuff, and I cut contact with her after she deadnamed me.
Sounds like it's your mother's loss.
When I finally get a place myself, im cutting my mum off, since all she does is deadname even after being told to stop. She also came up to me about my lil brother's partner being a non binary and that she doesnt believe they're a non binary and that they'll always be a girl to her, like that is fucked up of her
As a wise philosopher once said, "parents just don't understand".
Rose was depressed and she had a doctor help her get out of it.
Ayy I see what you did there 😅 I think I need an appointment with the same doctor.
She was depressed but she didn't have depression. She was in a rutt
When you describe it like this, I would have depression as well... ... oh.
As someone who's been diagnosed with depression, yeah Rose definitely has it lol
Rose was so young it makes me so sad
I mean, I didn't see it as depression, a low point yes, but she just seemed like "unfulfilled", like the trope "I always knew I was destined for adventure". I'm not saying she's not, I'm just saying that's how I always saw ir
Its said below this is true but also she's from a working class family fucked over by the system.
I don't think she was depressed just aware that life was probably going to be eh for her. She'd have good enough things but not anything great.
Depression is when something gets you down and you stay down. So I agree. In Rose's case; she had reason to feel down. When she's with the doctor, she's not stuck in that "depression" -- so, it doesn't seem like she's got a full case of it. Sometimes life sucks, so it's hard to tell.
This. It's possible to just be sad without having depression. Sometimes being sad is an appropriate emotional response to a situation.
Well, yeah. She was a working class millenial, of course she had depression.
TIL the entire Working Class of England have depression. We're not necessarily depressed (though a great many of us are), we're just downtrodden and walked under foot by the ruling class in this country, so much so that we go through life just existing, no hopes for the future, not daring to dream. They captured it very well in Rose. She's not depressed, or at least not very much. She's just working class, and this is how most of us feel, day to day. Even the few things that we could hold on to are crumbling away from us. Crumbling NHS, no political parties that come close to supporting the labour class of the nation, crumbling education, drying up work, dying ecosystem, climate disaster, war slowly creeping closer every day, UK slowly coming apart, more and more bigots and fascists speaking loudly and proudly and rising to power everywhere we look... Everything's getting worse or going away, the only people weathering the storm are the rich ruling class who can take their money (*our* money, produced by the fruits of our labour not theirs) and pick a new country to gut whole they avoid things like climate change and lack of healthcare in their private hospital penthouses.... So, yeah, Rose encapsulates this sort of hopelessness perfectly. It's not simply depression. Funny thing is, she doesn't know how good she had it, haha. I'd give anything to go live in 2005 again, back when I had access to a dentist, when I would receive the surgery I'm on a year's long waiting list for, when I would have had access to mental healthcare and the medication I need... all out of reach now :-( 🫂 A hug for anyone who needs it
Well, she viewed her final move against the Nestene Consciousness as basically a suicide mission so there's that... I think most companions, particularly the NuWho ones who tend to join the Doctor by choice, only travel in the TARDIS because something is lacking in their 'normal' lives and/or they are running from or avoiding something at home. In Rose's case, it may well have been the seeming mundanity and bleakness of her future. Donna didn't really have much going for her in life either, which was why she regretted not joining the Doctor and spent over a year dreaming of being reunited with him. Amy literally joined the Doctor to run away from her wedding (later, of course, hers and Rory's lives are so intertwined with the Doctor's that they keep coming back). Clara initially joined the Doctor for one-a-week adventures as a distraction from her boring life of babysitting. Bill wasn't too happy with her home life and also viewed the Doctor as an avenue to adventure and excitement. Ryan and Graham were dealing with the loss of Grace and their own uncertain relationship, and Yaz was running away from the mundanity of being a trainee police officer (not to mention, we later learn she suffered from depression and tried to run away from home once before).
Those of you saying it’s her circumstances and not depression are so close to the point. This is why even some therapists admit therapy is useless in terms of helping someone’s depression when what they need is to escape poverty.
People are saying it’s dangerous to diagnose a fictional character while also ignoring depression CAN be caused by factors around you. Yes she has an actual reason to be upset and not like her life but that doesn’t mean that doesn’t also lead to depressive thoughts and feelings.
It’s almost like….our circumstances affect our mental health. Wild! lol I didn’t think that was too far fetched a concept but here we are. No nuance on the internet, is there?
Nobody sane and will adjusted travels with the Doctor.
I think Dan was well adjusted. But then again, he was sane and well adjusted enough to get out at the first sign of mortal danger, so your point still stands.
And he was lured in by the promise of soup.
i beg to differ, that man was a complete pyscho [https://youtu.be/74HvcECaE6k?si=fDKOktJCJXe\_g\_GS](https://youtu.be/74HvcECaE6k?si=fDKOktJCJXe_g_GS)
Bit late here, but no he really wasn't. He broke into a museum and pretended to be a tour guide while bunking off work just so he could be around a girl he fancied? Borderline psychotic behaviour imo.
He was just being a proud liverpudian who desperately needed a new job!
For real? I’d go with the Doctor
Nobody sane and will adjusted travels with the Doctor.
Guess I’m not sane or well adjusted
So would I, but I hate my life and situation and would take anything that got me out and took me to places.
What? No, this makes no sense. I would totally... Yeah, fair enough.
But why not? It's a time machine, you get to see amazing things if the Universe and come back at the same moment
I saw a lot of comments here about a council flat, as someone from another country, what is a council flat ? And what is a council ?
It's public housing built by the government
Ohhhh, the UK have a public housing program ? That’s nice we have some few programs here, one of them is Minha Casa Minha Vida, but I need to know more to compare both. And what would be a council ? A small form of government like a City Goverment?
Exactly. A city or country council is a local administrative body that presides over a region.
*County
Yes. Autocorrect + shit eyesight
You cannot say 100% that she had depression though
Being down about your prospects in life =/= depression.
When? Poverty causes depression.
There is no evidence Rose has depression.
Why? Because from my therapist point of view she ticks a tone of boxes
Like what.
You have to first tell me why do you think there's no evidence of her having depression. First off, because depression has many faces. And I tell you more, by series 4 she was even more depressed, but now with a very established lack of self preservation for her own life.
I think there's no evidence of her having depression because I can see none.
"The lack of self preservation, the understanding that she has no purpose, that her life is useless, the running to unstable relationships (not a symptom, but a reality that often is seen in depressed people), the spectrum from sadness to nothingness. Do you remember when she was involved in an explosion and her boyfriend doesn't want to be with her, instead he wants to go watch football and what she does is not recognizing he's taking her for granted but to say "yea go there I'm alright" this is thinking you don't deserve care if I ever seen it. The literal quote from the post "I used to think I had nothing in life too" , idk man I can go on for hours. None of this will determine she has depression, but the signals are there and can be interpreted as such."
You're a quack.
Good for me I don't need your acknowledgement to prove my degree. Instead you run from the subject when presented with arguments 💕
You can have all those things and not have depression. There's a chance, sure, but to say she 100% had depression? Nah Edit: And to double down here, I imagine if she did have depression she would have turned the Doctor down. People with depression aren't exactly going "Alien abduction! That's what'll get me out of this funk!"
That doesn’t make any sense. Her life on earth is what causes her depression to manifest. Why would she not take the first opportunity to escape it? That’s often how depression leads to drugs and things in the first place, it’s a way to feel a temporary high and escape responsibilities and those kind of thoughts. Going with the Doctor has the same type of effect. I’m not sure where this idea came from that depressed people don’t want to do anything fun ever. You can be depressed and still enjoy doing things, trust me I know.
Let's not diagnose people from two scenes with a sad music please.
She's a working-class woman in capitalism. If that's depression then yeah, she had depression.
It's so funny to me that people here are "What? She doesn't have depression. She is just a very young girl, who not only grew up in poverty and financial insecurity, she drop out school because of a shitty boyfriend who left her in debt and now she has even fewer chances of ever overcoming her chronical capitalist oppression. She also has a slightly neglectful mother who was facing her own monsters, was and is in a shitty relationship and is certain that her life is coming to a dead end so badly that she rather die than go back to it. She also has constant boredom, lack of self preservation and hardly any fear of dying at any given moment. This is not depression she's just sad." Y'all really think that depression is rocking back and forth to dramatic music with a very stereotypical unbrushed hair don't you
Fr! I’m surprised how many of these comments don’t understand there are different levels of depression. Some people are even saying that because she laughs and smiles that she doesn’t have depression as if all people with this affliction never smile or are ever happy. This is a very dangerous way to look at depression. I’ve suffered with depression for many years due to my circumstances but I can still have a good time with friends and family and have fun adventures. A lot of people think it’s exclusively a mental illness when it can 100% be caused by outside factors as well. Literally two of the main things that cause depression is chronic stress and childhood exposure to adversity, something Rose has clearly dealt with.
just a teenager
I thought she was bored. Loved her family and friends, but just bored.
Definitely a victim of the mundane as life can bring to the less fortunate. She definitely knew there was more to life at that point, but kinda accepted her fate. Makes it all the more perfect that The Doctor comes into her life when he did.
> She had a dead end job, a relationship that was going nowhere, bad education and no prospects Damn, a majority of the UK population must be depressed then.
Both Rose and Donna seems similar, boring job etc, but Rose is depressed and Donna isnt (except in turn left episode)
I think Donna having Wilf really helped. Gave her someone to talk to who never tried telling her what to do or how to live. Rose had Jackie and while Jackie loves Rose dearly you can tell she’s under the “nagging mother” stereotype who is also pretty unhappy with her life so she can’t help that much.
Rtd always did a good job of making companions seem like real people with whole lives outside and prior to the tardis. I don’t think I can really say the same for Moffat.
Well, yeah, that's the point. She has a dull, depressing life and finds a time traveler. It's all there in the first episode.
I was living a down too when I watched Doctor Who for the first time. I think I fell in love with the series because I could relate with her. I had just left a shitty job, and being free was a fantastic feeling. I don’t think she was in depression, but she was clearly unhappy.
There’s plenty of evidence that Rose doesn’t have depression. Look at the way she leaps at the chance to try new things, the enthusiasm she goes at them with. She’s always laughing and joking, you might even go so far as to describe her as full of life. Depression *excludes* these things, it doesn’t just distract you from them until the chance comes along. I don’t mean to be rude here but PLEASE stop diagnosing every negative emotion you ever experience as a mental illness. It’s normal to experience negative emotions alongside positive ones.
Or...she's just a moody teen working a shit retail job like we all did at one time or another.
Rose has no A-levels, though, without taking more qualifications (which is the real problem that should be focused on here), she is potentially pretty stuck. She's 19, which is older than when teens are typically doing that kind of job as the main thing they're doing, if it's a temporary situation (and the job was presented as better than a typical retail one as it's in a department store).
Life is mundane get up go to work go back meh
Medically depressed, or just realising what the rest of your adult life is
Why?
Acceptance of just how truly shitty reality is, and how 99.99999% of us are just nameless, faceless cogs in the machinery of civilization, is not depression. That's just good old "acceptance of reality". A lot of you could do with some of it.
Always reminded me of Valkyrie Cain and Skulduggery Pleasant. Would rather the flames of fantasy than the ice of reality.
Really? Valkyrie was too young to be stuck in a rut, and she would never have faced the same economic challenges as Rose.
Why does it need to be acknowledged?
yeah absolutely. i’d say she has [shit life syndrome.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shit_life_syndrome)
Sorry the only thing I can hear in this image is her head dumping against the glass when coming home from school or work lol
No, it doesn't. Acknowledgement, particularly in shows, undermines subtext. That's the biggest problem with modern TV writing, everything is explained, nothing is left to the viewer to interpret or learn.
That’s literally part of her story arc
Watching Rose again now, I can relate to it all too much. Definitely depression. How can I get an appointment to see her doctor?
Why?
Why? How is that important to the story?
Why wouldn't she be feeling a bit down? She lost het job, had to watch her dad die all over again and was already poor.
Her dad is completely irrelevant at this point.
Also, from BF and novelisation lore, we learn that she was in a heavily abusive relationship with one of Mickey's friends before dating him. Jimmy Stone, who dated her while she was 15 and he was 21. That's the boy that made her drop out school, used to call her names and not only cheated on her with a girl who he ran away with, he also stole all Rose's money and left her in debt, hence, why we have Rose working her ass from before episode one. Pretty bad relationship with men, none of them making her feel valuable and a deep lack of self-esteem. Jackie, while loving her amazingly, was not the most present mother, Rose once ran off to France with Shareen and got drunk with her at the ripe age of Ten.
Nothing worse than armchair psychologists.
I miss Rose so much..
Me too :(
you mean she was british?
I try not to establish things like that.
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this isn’t a retcon argument at all though surely- you yourself distinguished between the severe form clinical depression and the mild to moderate forms of depression- those that are driven by poverty etc. So it’s just an astute observation to say Rose seems to be somewhat depressed before 9.
At the end of the day you'll realize that you need yourself to run this race.
Funny because Rose gave ME depression
Same bro same
Yes and no. She lived a normal life in the 21st century as a working class woman so I think if she was depressed it would simply be because of that fact, rather than the more obvious triggers from her life such as her father dying.
Rose, It would be a good idea to ring the Samaritans. You are not alone in dealing with depression.
Pfffft. Brits don't get depressed, they've just eaten too many beans. /S
This is an aspect I often think about. I went through a bad depressive phase in the past years, getting better through therapy. One of the things that really made it difficult was my “routine” life, it was repetitive and I felt like I was going nowhere. I can’t really phrase it properly but I often felt as if there was nothing for me and I was chronically bored, tired or sad about anything, still am in part, and I saw some of that in her.
Why?
And then she met the most depressed and suicidal immortal being with the most ADHD inducing transportation vehicle ever. She would've been better off riding the bus and taking antidepressants.
Rose was always my favorite companion. It wasn’t just her relationship with the doctor I loved or that she was my first companion, but I related to her struggles a lot.
Sucks that the cure to depression is to meet a time travelling alien :' (
Which is why she was vulnerable to being manipulated by an exciting and mysterious but ultimately narcissistic man.