The Occasional Solipsist

Saying goodbye to Rose Tyler...

This is something I have been patiently waiting to do just in case there was a Doctor Who fan in existence that somehow didn't know that Billie Piper was leaving the series as of this season's finale. I didn't want to spoil but now that the thrice-damned CBC finally finished airing season 2 this week, here it is.

The tepid torrid love affair I've been having more or less in front of Superwife's back with Rose Tyler has now come to an end. If you watched the finale, you know that means that she's left the show, apparently for good. You could say in fact, that she Pulled a Christopher Eccleston.

I've been slowly doling myself out the episodes of Season 2 of the new Doctor Who so that I could savour the last times I get to see Billie Piper anywhere near a Tardis. (That and because I have been in love with Doctor Who since before I could walk.) Like everyone on this side of mirror-world, I knew that Billie's character would be leaving the show before the first episode of the second season was aired. (Damn you again for not showing the series earlier, CBC!)

Billie was even better in this season than in the first. More comfortable with the character, clearly a better rapport with the new Doctor, and the stories that were written for her gave her much more room to act in. Even her smaller parts in the best episodes of the season, 'Love and Monsters and 'The Girl in the Fireplace', easily demonstrated why she was such an asset to the show.

But it is hard, having such a huge crush on a fictional character. Sort of like breaking up with a girl who never dated you. Or spoke to you. Or knew your name. Or ever existed.

Now if I want to get my fix, I can either watch her in the hardly-enough 26 episodes and an xmas special of Who that she appeared in (Hooray!) or I can listen to some of Billie's early forays into Pop music (Oh The Humanity!).

But my crush notwithstanding, Rose will be missed on the show. Her character was a very large part of what made the comeback of Doctor Who so well received, and its a pretty safe bet that nothing she does over the rest of her career will have the same effect. If you're looking for comparisons, think Wil Wheaton leaving Star Trek to do movies. He turned out to be a hell of a writer, but a great acting career choice, that was not.

As partial tribute/proof of my dysfunction, here are links to other posts of mine about this most righteous of Tardis companions. So long, Rose:

is it wrong to love Billie Piper this much?

and the love affair with Billie Piper continues

By way of consoling my grief, I can tell myself that there's always Smallville's Chloe (at least until they do what every fan knows is coming and kill her off).

Labels: doctor who, scifi, smallville