This is not a rhetorical question. I don’t do rhetorical questions. Rhetorical questions are for preachers and Welshmen.
The first episode of DOCTOR WHO I ever saw was the first Matt Smith episode, which was also the first Karen Gillian episode; and though I’ve seen a few of the previous Doctor (Tennant?) I haven’t watched them systematically. Consequently I tend to think of the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond as the default pair, and all other Doctor/Companion combos as variations on that theme.
Anywho … Eleven and Amy are clearly in platonic love (though Amy’s feelings during her first voyages with him were far from platonic). Even after Rory began travelling with them, there’s never any doubt whom the Doctor loves most; in fact he seems to love her more than he really wants to. more than he knows is wise. Is this typical of the Doctor in his other incarnations?
Rose is the blonde lass who was in the episode with the space rhinoceroses, aye?
Do you agree with my assessment that the Doctor knows that he shouldn’t let himself love Amy as deeply as he does, but simply can’t stop himself? It’s especially clear to me in, say, “Vincent & the Doctor,” but of course I’ve been wrong before.
Amy loves the Doctor and Amy loves Rory and the Doctor loves Amy and eventually grows to love Rory too. It’s a beautiful and painful threeway, platonically on the Doctor’s side (and Rory to the Doctor). And no, he shouldn’t love like he does, and he tries not to, but he always ends up loving, and it always hurts him when they outgrow him or leave him behind or get hurt or killed or left behind.
900+ years old and the pain is still the same.
Rose was in Seasons 1, 2, and parts of 3 & 4. I don’t remember space rhinos.
I was going to say the same thing as Anaamika - you have SEEN Ten and Rose, right? Heck, even Nine felt extremely strongly toward Rose, I think much more so than Eleven with Amy.
Eleven feels very paternalistic towards Amy because of the whole Amelia-child thing (which helps make that whole set of relationships even weirder, temporally speaking).
In contrast, Nine and Ten LOVED Rose. Hell, Ten’s Echo chose exile as a non-timelord to stay with Rose locked away in an alternate universe. I just can’t see Eleven sacrificing his power for Amy that way.
Agreed, except I understood 10.5 couldn’t regenerate, as he was part human courtesy of Donna (the wrong part, I guess, given that River Song could regenerate despite her fully human parents…ah well. Whaddaya expect, consistency?) Anyway, he was going to have only one lifetime anyway; he wasn’t deliberately sacrificing, just choosing to spend that lifetime with Rose and without the TARDIS.
If we go back to the classic series, it’s pretty clear that the Third Doctor was in love with Jo or at least had a serious crush on her, and was pretty heartbroken when she fell in love and decided to get married in The Green Death. Three being a pretty stiff-upper-lip kind of Doctor, though, it’s all much less out-front than the new series Doctors have been.
It seems quite clear that The Doctor deeply loved both Rose and Amy. There was a throw-away line a few weeks ago: The Doctor said he loved Amy so much because she was the first person he interacted with after regenerating. That was true when Doctor #9 became #10 regenerating when he was with Rose. Perhaps time lords imprint on the person closest to them when they regenerate. Who knows?
Amy is unusual because the Doctor met her first as a child. There has been more of a father daughter relationship there.
The Doctor seemed to need Amy and Rory’s companionship more. Even when they stopped traveling with him he still visited and invited them on the Tardis. That’s very unusual. Normally the Doctor severs all ties with former companions.
Which, considering that the same thing happened with Mme. du Pompadour, Kazran Sardick, and River, is apparently Steven Moffat’s favorite way to set up a relationship between the Doctor and another character.
But in different ways. Eleven and Amy reads as a deep platonic friendship - almost a bromance. When Amy tried to get down with Eleven, he jumped like a scalded cat, was clearly uninterested and even a little freaked-out by her come-on (Which, if Matt Smith is heterosexual, must have been a hell of a bit of acting…)
Nine, on the other hand, danced with Rose in an episode that explicitly identified “dancing” as a metaphor for sex.
Looking at all the Doctor’s NuWho female companions, I’d say that Rose is his great romantic love, Amy his great platonic love. Martha he likes, but not passionately, River intrigues (and scares the hell out of) him, and Donna is the companion he most greatly respects.
One thing I notice is that Matt and Karen are very affectionate with each other in real life.
I haven’t seen the Romana serials (I’ve read a few of the novelisations, but it was a long time ago) and I’ve only seen one of the Jo serials.
There have been a few companions that were a really big deal to him, though: Susan (his granddaughter), Amy (due to a sense of responsibility for “little Amelia Pond”), Rose, and Romana (and the actors there were at least as much into each other as Matt and Karen are IRL) all loomed pretty large in his psyche.