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POSITED: If there's nothing in the show to contradict it, it's not a "retcon." (RETroactive CONtinuity, a term that entered SF fandom from the comics world.) ALSO POSITED: If there IS something in the show…then it IS. WARNING: The words "Doctor" and "Rose" are used.
Having been privy to Chip's first iteration of Ep 100, it was a joy to listen to this new one and pretty much agree with what he is saying in it.
All I will add though is we need to…. no… this isn't right… what needs to be understood is the definition of love.
I love my wife. I love my job. I love the people I work with. I love the MMM team. I love ice cream. I love Doctor Who. I love rainy afternoons.
What I am trying to say is love is so many different things.
In our current, ADHD version of Doctor Who, the concept of the bond between companion and Doctor is rationalised much more quickly. They use the L word. It's a shorthand. A convenience.
I might even stick my neck out and say that it's less intelligent story telling to use the L word.
The first Doctor loved Susan. The second Doctor loved Jamie. The third Doctor loved Jo. The fourth Doctor loved Sarah Jane. The fifth Doctor loved Nyssa. The sixth Doctor loved Peri. The seventh loved Ace.
None of these are meant to mean they dated… or they were "going steady". To me trying to say the 10th Doctor and Rose were cheapens the concept of love, and it also cheapens the concept of the Doctor/companion relationship.
I don't doubt that the Doctor loved most of his companions.
But the Doctor and Rose were also IN love, according to authorial intent and a hell of a lot of canon pointers. That doesn't "cheapen" anything about previous companions. Instead it provides an extra dimension to the storytelling that brought in a lot of fans who had never been interested in Who before and helped return the show to the top of the BBC.
And RTD demonstrated that he and his stable of writers were perfectly capable of writing the contrast of a wonderful platonic love between the Doctor and Donna.