Doctor Who has had many heartbreaking moments in its 60 years. One of the biggest came when Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) and The Doctor (David Tennant) were separated in the episode “Doomsday.” Rose ended up stuck in a parallel universe.
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The scene itself is very emotional, with powerful performances by Piper and Tennant that feel like your heart is breaking. Fans had already connected with Rose, first as the companion of the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston), and then with Tennant’s Tenth Doctor.
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Rose returned in the Season 4 finale two-parter, “The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End.” In that story, thanks to TARDIS tech and regeneration energy, a human-Time Lord hybrid clone of the Doctor was created. Fans call him “TenToo,” and he stayed with Rose in her parallel universe after everything was fixed. At a panel hosted by Collider’s Maggie Lovitt at FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention, Tennant and Piper were asked about what might have happened next for Rose and the clone Doctor.
I’ve already said this 1000 times. I want Russell [T. Davies] to write that for Comic Relief or something to see them being like domesticated. And then the real one comes back, or not the real one, you know, the first one.
Piper jumped in with her ongoing idea for Comic Relief, saying
When Tennant asked, “What are they doing?” Piper answered that “they’re married,” then added, “always wanted him to write that, and I just think it would make the most hilarious comedy sketch, probably.” Tennant wondered, “What if they didn’t get on?” and Piper jokingly replied, “Well, they wouldn’t though, because he’s second best, isn’t he?” Tennant said he was “both thrilled and offended” at the idea of TenToo being “sloppy seconds.”
Although “Journey’s End” was the last time Rose and TenToo were shown on TV, their story was continued in Doctor Who comics. In “Empire of the Bad Wolf,” Rose and the Meta-Crisis Doctor had a daughter named Mia.
She was born in 2012 and looks a lot like her mother, though she hasn’t appeared in many stories. If Piper and Tennant do get their Comic Relief sketch, Mia could also appear. At the panel, they were asked why Rose and the Doctor’s goodbye was so emotional, and both praised writer Russell T. Davies. Tennant said:
Well, it starts with how it was written. I mean, Russell wrote it as a love story, you know, he was pretty unashamed about that. So, when a great writer is writing that for you, then you just play it and you get to play it with someone that you have such a great time with and such a great respect for and who’s really good, then hopefully that’s what happens, I suppose. […] But yeah, because it’s a love story, because of the way it was so final, [when they’re] torn part, it was pretty heartbreaking.
David Tennant’s run of Doctor Who is not currently streaming in the U.S., but you can see Billie Piper return in the Season 2 finale on Disney+. Stay with Collider for more updates.