Ex-Wife Meets Girlfriend
Russel T. Davies has done some very good things with Doctor Who, but given certain tendencies of his, his description of Sarah Jane meeting Rose as an “ex-wife meets girlfriend” moment worries me a bit. No, not on Doctor-Who-is-turning-into-an-innuendo-laden-soap-opera grounds, though that annoys me too.
Just… well…
Generally the way RTD plays with people’s relationships grates on me. I remember in “The End of the World”, there’s a bit that goes something like (from memory):
Jabe (looking at Rose): ...and your… er… wife?
Doctor: She’s not my wife.
Jabe: ...concubine?
Doctor (gleefully): Nope!
Jabe: ...mistress?
Doctor (gleefully): Nope!
[ exchange shortened for brevity ]
Jabe: ...prostitute?
Doctor (still gleefully): Nope!
Rose (indignantly, to Jabe): Well whatever I am, [ can’t remember rest of line ]
It barely works in the context of the scene or the characters—it’s really just there for a laugh, and everyone seems to have forgotten about it later. These little moments of emotional cruelty injected simply for the sake of being clever. They call it “cheeky humor”, but I simply don’t enjoy it.
(Regardless, were I Rose I would have smacked the Doctor before he let Jabe work all the way down the list to “prostitute”...)
I guess what worries me is not so much the prospect of an “ex-wife meets girlfriend” scene (though it feels weird retconning that dynamic onto Sarah Jane, and I don’t like soap operas), but rather the possibility of seeing the scene played out for laughs and then everyone moving on like it never happened. Feelings run deeper than that, you know?