Doctor Who Ranting, Speculation, and Spoilers through "Planet of the Ood."

For the love of God. David Tennant is not going to regenerate at the end of this season. He's coming back for all of 2009, for three specials or whatever it is. He's said it like a million times, okay? When the Ood said "Your song will end soon," he is NOT talking about that. That is ridiculous. He is OBVIOUSLY talking about Rose. I wish I knew that someone was reading this who cared about the amount of thought I have put into this. Whatever, I'm writing it anyway.

Remember in series three, in the third episode, they ran into the Face of Boe, and he was like "you are not alone" to the Doctor? And it seemed like, oh, that's a good thing! He's not alone! Maybe there are more Time Lords or something! That would be a good thing right? Because now he won't be depressed that he's all by himself? Yeah! Good! But then at the end of the series - no. No, it was actually bad. It was the Master, and he took over the world, and everyone on Earth was oppressed, and Jack got killed every day, and Martha's family was forced to work as servants for the Master, and the Doctor was even more depressed after his "I was a Time Lord Dobby*" incident. And then the Master ended up getting killed which depressed the Doctor even more, because then he really was alone again - he lost everything all over again. But that is beside the point.

The point is - this was the third episode again, and we get this little warning like "oh, something might happen to you" only this time it sounds ominous and worrying but I'm pretty sure it's the exact opposite of that.

One of the things I love about this show is how thoroughly they (usually) tie things together. And one of the best ways they do that is with the music. Everything they do with the soundtrack is so intentional, and as a result it ends up being absolutely gorgeous and enhancing the show in ways soundtracks haven't done before, to my knowledge at least. The most obvious examples are the songs with words - Song For Ten, Love Don't Roam, and The Stowaway. Each of these songs were from the Christmas specials, and they carried some kind of meaning for the season that was to follow.

Song For Ten was obviously about the new Doctor, and it plays at the end while the Doctor is sitting with Rose and her family for Christmas dinner. The song says "I wish today was just like every other day, because today has been the best day" - he gets the domestic family time he never got to have before. It's very sweet and romantic, but then at the end of the song - something I didn't notice at first, because I was being unobservant - "well I woke up today, and you're on the other side. Our time will never come again" and then "but if you can still dream, close your eyes, it will seem that you can see me now and then." This is obviously a reference to what happens at the end of S2, when Rose gets trapped in the parallel universe.

Love Don't Roam doesn't have any obvious plot points in it, but it is a song about the Doctor not letting his love stray from Rose. This is exactly what happened, because even though Martha was a perfectly good companion (I'm being objective), and she loved him, he couldn't love her back, because his love had already been fixed. The song set the tone for S3, which was that the Doctor was still profoundly affected by losing Rose, and he got a lot more dangerous than he ever would have if Rose was there - she would never have let him get that far gone. If you've seen S3 you must have noticed how much darker he was in terms of how he dealt with the various villains - Human Nature/Family of Blood comes to mind. And at one point, he even asks to be killed, screaming "it's my turn" at a dalek. The song didn't allude to any of these things directly, but the overall idea of the Doctor's love not roaming from Rose in any respect was important. Here's my theory: because he had lost Rose, he couldn't really, truly love anything or anyone. He was ruthless because his love couldn't be spared for anyone but Rose.

The Stowaway is much more blatant than the other two songs. It's from Astrid's perspective, talking about finding a stowaway on her ship. The entire song is about how the Doctor more or less used Astrid as a substitute for Rose. Or, as the song puts it, "his love." And the chorus goes "Borrow or steal, I'll find a way to be with my lover upon Christmas day." And well, this is all speculation of course, but what with all the Rose Returning moments we've been getting so far in S4, I'm thinking this Christmas is going to be a lot better for the Doctor. Or so I hope.

Finally... I have to talk about the Doomsday song. Firstly, this is my favorite song on either of the soundtracks, rivaled only by "This is Gallifrey: Our Childhood, Our Home" on the S3 soundtrack. They have played this song twice so far in S4 - very briefly either time, but it was there. The first time, it was when Rose made her surprise appearance in "Partners in Crime." When she turned around after Donna leaves, the pulsing piano beat plays, the driving force of the song that plays through the entire thing, representing her heartbeat. The second time this song plays is in "Planet of the Ood," when the Doctor is talking to the Ood for the last time. The Doctor says he has "a song of his own," and the singing part of Doomsday plays, the part that I now believe represents the Doctor's song of sorrow and his desperate cry for his "shining star." And that's when the Ood says, "I think your song must end soon." My opinion (which is extremely widespread among people who care about this sort of thing) is that the two parts of the song are separate because they are separated. The Ood saying that this song will end soon is pretty obviously saying that Rose is coming back, and he won't have to be sad anymore. And I'm basically dying in anticipation of this finally happening.

*I stole that from someone on LiveJournal... I thought it was too hilarious to not use here.