Love and Doctor Who

Over spring break, I become somewhat of a Whovian (again…). While this blog post will take about love, I need to give some background on the show and specific episodes. So, for those of you who haven’t finished Season 4 yet, DON’T READ AHEAD. Spoilers lie within. And for those of you who aren’t Whovians, I’ll try to explain some of it.

The Doctor is a time traveling alien, part of a race known as the Time Lords, who look the same as humans. The differences are that they have two hearts, don’t age and if they’re going to die, they can regenerate (basically become a whole new person, with a different body).He is the last of his kind and travels around not only our universe, but to other planets and saves the inhabitants. He travels in his ship called the TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space), which looks like an old-fashioned police call box.

He picks up humans along the way, who are his companions and assist him in his adventures. The companions are Rose Tyler (season 1 and 2), Martha Jones (season 3) and Donna Noble (season 4).

(I feel I should point out that nothing inappropriate happens between the Doctor and any of them)

Rose and the Doctor fall in love, but while trying to save the world, she gets trapped in a parallel universes, walls of the worlds closed off forever.

That is, until the end of Season 4. The walls of the world start to break down because of some bad things happening, and Rose comes back. She, along with the other companions, assist the Doctor in saving the whole of creation from an evil race known as the Daleks.

Through some interesting circumstances, there ends up being two Doctors: The fully Time Lord, and a mostly human copy of himself—specifically human in that he ages.

After the Doctor and his companions (and the Doctor clone) defeated the Daleks, he takes them back to their homes. He takes Rose back to the parallel universe last, along with the human copy of himself. She is completely shocked and begs him to let her stay with him. At this point, she doesn’t know that the copy can age.

The Doctor starts to explain to her who the “clone” really is. He is identical to the Time Lord—same thoughts, memories…feelings. The Doctor explains to Rose that this other will age with her—something he could never do. Rose decides to stay with the human Doctor. The Time Lord leaves, knowing that he did what was best for her.

The real meaning of love has really been lost in our society. It’s become this self-serving and very focused on self thing. “Love” is about what we can get out of a relationship, whether it’s romantic or otherwise. Other languages have several different words for love: different words for different strengths of love. In our culture, we use the word love to describe our phone and love to describe our family. See a problem?

But society’s definition of “love” isn’t what love REALLY is. The Doctor provided such a good example of what true love is. It’s sacrificial. It’s doing what you know is best for the one you love, even if it tears you to pieces.

Even though it hurt him SO badly to do so, he did what was best for Rose. He truly cared about her and her future, not what he could have gotten out of her still being with him. If he had decided based on his feelings, he would have convinced Rose to stay with him. The Doctor knew it would just cause her pain to see herself aging, but not him, knowing that they couldn’t “grow old” together. 

He put her needs above his own, and that is what love truly is. Caring enough about the other person to do what’s best for them, and sometimes that’s letting them go. I challenge you to love others this way. Put their needs above your own. That is love.