kateabane2003's review against another edition
5.0
Holy cow, I've never felt more robbed of "Rose Tyler: Earth Defense" in my life. Raise a glass to the parallel universe where that actually became a show. *sigh* Guess I'll just have to go and binge Turn Left/Stolen Earth/Journey's End again. I'm not complaining.
crloken's review
4.0
I didn't like Rose Tyler. I think a bit part of it was the disparity of her behaviour and the way others talk about her. The way the Doctor talks about her you'd think she was near perfect, but she often came across as mean and selfish, especially in how she treated Mickey Smith. I'm fine with flawed characters, I'm less fine with flawed characters that the writers constantly tell me are perfect. Her exit was fine though and I was okay with it. Then she came back for one of modern Doctor Who's most self indulgent finales.
So I was not thrilled when Big Finish announced that Rose Tyler was getting her own series. I was happy for the fans, just not particularly excited myself, but I bought it on a whim during a sale.
During the fourth series Rose spends most of her off-screen time trying to come home to her universe to find the Doctor. This series tells that story. Rose is using a technology that Pete invented called The Dimension Cannon. Each story is a standalone adventure in which Rose arrives in an alternate universe and tries to discover if the Doctor is nearby in the hopes of finding her way home.
Each world is also dying.
The Endless Night: Rose arrives on her first alternate Earth and teams up with Clive (the conspiracy theorist from the pilot) to find if the Doctor is there. Soon though they are interrupted by the news that the sun has burnt away and all of humanity will die in a few days.
The Flood: Rose and Clive find themselves on an Earth where it has been raining since the 80's. Technology was basically halted in the 80's to ostensibly fight climate change, but despite this the Earth is going to lose all its top soil in about 50 years.
Ghost Machines: This one is the most traditional Doctor Who type of a story and felt really out of place to me. They arrive on an Earth that had a technological boom, by using the spirits of the dead in machines. The world isn't ending, or if it was I missed it somehow. It's a perfectly fine story but felt like it belonged in a different set than this one.
It does deal with one of the glaring problems with Rose's time on Doctor Who though.
One of the problems with Rose's second exit in Doctor Who is that the show surrounds her with echos of people she loves and acts like that's a happy ending. The Metacrisis Doctor isn't her Doctor, and Pete is a version of man she didn't even know, but the show doesn't confront this. Big Finish does and has Rose and Pete discuss this and talk about what it means. It's a great moment and I hope they return to this.
The Last Party: Rose and her mum arrive on an Earth where a meteor will hit the planet in 8 days. Instead of rioting like the people of "The Endless Night" the people of this Earth have a party and even become more generous and altruistic. Rose and Jackie meet some people they knew on their Earth and attempt to play matchmaker at the end of the world.
None of the endings are satisfying. Rose leaves these worlds in a state of crisis and the people we meet throughout brace themselves for the end. This is first time I can remember Big Finish really confronting the climate crisis head on; here we have 3 stories all about living at the end. What if we can't slow the pace of climate change? What if we can't adapt fast enough? How should we respond as individuals and as a species if this really is the last days of humanity. As "The Last Party" points out, we were always all going to die. Sometimes we just get a definite deadline, and what can that mean for us?
As I write this I am confined to my house due the the Coronavirus pandemic. It's a time that makes me consider the way I have lived and the way I want to continue living. Life is so precarious and we can lose everything at any moment. The question cannot be "What should my legacy be?" but rather "How should I live each day and every moment?" I think we need to get better at caring for each other and loving one another. I need to get better at spending my life with people cherishing what I have while I have it.
Big Finish has been in a bit of a rut lately, and I especially find their New Who contributions often dissapointing, but this reminds me of what I loved about them in the first place. They have an ability to take the flawed and weird corners of Doctor Who and use them to tell deeply meaningful and emotional stories.
So I was not thrilled when Big Finish announced that Rose Tyler was getting her own series. I was happy for the fans, just not particularly excited myself, but I bought it on a whim during a sale.
During the fourth series Rose spends most of her off-screen time trying to come home to her universe to find the Doctor. This series tells that story. Rose is using a technology that Pete invented called The Dimension Cannon. Each story is a standalone adventure in which Rose arrives in an alternate universe and tries to discover if the Doctor is nearby in the hopes of finding her way home.
Each world is also dying.
The Endless Night: Rose arrives on her first alternate Earth and teams up with Clive (the conspiracy theorist from the pilot) to find if the Doctor is there. Soon though they are interrupted by the news that the sun has burnt away and all of humanity will die in a few days.
The Flood: Rose and Clive find themselves on an Earth where it has been raining since the 80's. Technology was basically halted in the 80's to ostensibly fight climate change, but despite this the Earth is going to lose all its top soil in about 50 years.
Ghost Machines: This one is the most traditional Doctor Who type of a story and felt really out of place to me. They arrive on an Earth that had a technological boom, by using the spirits of the dead in machines. The world isn't ending, or if it was I missed it somehow. It's a perfectly fine story but felt like it belonged in a different set than this one.
It does deal with one of the glaring problems with Rose's time on Doctor Who though.
One of the problems with Rose's second exit in Doctor Who is that the show surrounds her with echos of people she loves and acts like that's a happy ending. The Metacrisis Doctor isn't her Doctor, and Pete is a version of man she didn't even know, but the show doesn't confront this. Big Finish does and has Rose and Pete discuss this and talk about what it means. It's a great moment and I hope they return to this.
The Last Party: Rose and her mum arrive on an Earth where a meteor will hit the planet in 8 days. Instead of rioting like the people of "The Endless Night" the people of this Earth have a party and even become more generous and altruistic. Rose and Jackie meet some people they knew on their Earth and attempt to play matchmaker at the end of the world.
None of the endings are satisfying. Rose leaves these worlds in a state of crisis and the people we meet throughout brace themselves for the end. This is first time I can remember Big Finish really confronting the climate crisis head on; here we have 3 stories all about living at the end. What if we can't slow the pace of climate change? What if we can't adapt fast enough? How should we respond as individuals and as a species if this really is the last days of humanity. As "The Last Party" points out, we were always all going to die. Sometimes we just get a definite deadline, and what can that mean for us?
As I write this I am confined to my house due the the Coronavirus pandemic. It's a time that makes me consider the way I have lived and the way I want to continue living. Life is so precarious and we can lose everything at any moment. The question cannot be "What should my legacy be?" but rather "How should I live each day and every moment?" I think we need to get better at caring for each other and loving one another. I need to get better at spending my life with people cherishing what I have while I have it.
Big Finish has been in a bit of a rut lately, and I especially find their New Who contributions often dissapointing, but this reminds me of what I loved about them in the first place. They have an ability to take the flawed and weird corners of Doctor Who and use them to tell deeply meaningful and emotional stories.
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