WHO Knew? Doomsday wasn’t the end

With the news of Rose’s return there has been a lot of talk about the Doomsday episode where Rose was (supposedly) lost in a parallel world and never able to be reunited with the Doctor. One of things I have heard often is that the Doomsday episode is somehow ruined and tarnished itself because Rose is coming back.
While I am skeptical of Rose’s return being a good idea, even though I love her character, I would have to disagree that her return would “ruin” the Doomsday episode itself. Yes, her return could ruin Rose’s chance to have the perfect departure from the show because I think the departure of Rose in Doomsday is going to be hard to top. But I don’t think that Doomsday itself looses any of its dramatic effect as a good story itself. Yes, some of the emotional sting is taken away if you’re watching it now and you know Rose will return, but of course if you know what will happed later on in a story or series it will ruin some of the emotional impact. Also the characters during the Doomsday episode don’t know that this isn’t the end and Tennant’s and Piper’s performances are very convincing.

Another complaint I am hearing is that somehow Rose’s return undermines the integrity of the Doomsday story because in that story we were told that it was “impossible” to travel back and forth from parallel worlds. What I find interesting is that in the Doomsday story the term “impossible” certainly had lots of qualifications. The Doctor told Mickey that traveling between parallel worlds used to “be easy” and you could “just drop in for a cup of tea whenever you wanted.” So, I don’t think Rose’s return jeopardizes the integrity of the Doomsday story because in that same story we are told that traveling between parallel worlds ranges from “impossible” to “easy” depending on other factors and circumstances. The other factor we are told is the existence of the Time Lords, so if they return in what I hope will be part of the over all story arc of season 4 then Rose’s return becomes easily accepted as having continuity with what we learned from Doomsday.

It was very clear to me even when I first saw Doomsday way back that the writers left themselves an out to escape the “impossibility” they created in the Doomsday storyline just in case they wanted to bring Rose back. My only hope is that the story they come up with for her return is as epic as her departure. I think having good stories are more important than just having Rose back, and regardless of what happens next (I am hoping for the best) Doomsday was a good story.


I love this youtube video set to Pink’s song Who Knew because it captures the storyline of season 2 extremely well including the emotional impact of Doomsday. My wife can’t watch it because it makes her too sad, but there is a line of hope in the song that get sprinkled in; “until we meet again”. I think that may be one of the reasons why so many of us loved the story line to begin with even though it was extremely sad, because even if we did not pick up on it or really think Rose would actually return the story always had seeds of hope.