So yeah...

[jedi_of_urth]

I can not get this thought out of my head so I'm going to put it out there for other people to ponder with me.

See, I think there's a case for Rose's appearances in season 4 coming after her in the final two episodes.

For one thing, in Rose's other appearances, she fates out rather than zapping around like people did in TSE/JE.

She also says in Turn Left that she was pulled across the stars rather than the dimensional canon we find out about later.

Also she clearly is traveling in time as well as between universes (Midnight and pretty much all of Turn Left), and while in TL she does also construct a time machine there is no reference to that aspect of the dimensional canon. Not that it couldn't be I admit.

I'm not going to rest my case on the fact that Turn Left Rose seems much more sciency and mysterious than TSE/JE Rose, but I do see it.

In TL Rose seemed to know a fair bit about Jack's Torchwood team/Jack's not dying but didn't in the finale.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't recall TSE/JE Rose making any reference to the events of Turn Left, or any of the other events of the season. Neither way were she and Donna ever properly introduced it occurs to me (as far as I recall).

So here's what I end up with, Rose from later, either by being immortal or she and Ten II develop to time travel aspect and work out where she needs to go, Rose has different abilities to travel between worlds/times. Either way, her knowledge of what she needs to say to Donna in TL largely comes from Ten II. In PiC when she sees Donna she knows she's too early, her vid screen appearances (and possibly being the cause of Martha's phone doing weird things in TDDau as I've always believed) happen on and off, and she coaches Donna through TL. But to what end?

Well if we're going the immortal!Rose path then it probably involves getting back to Universe A to find the Doctor/Ten I (Ten II possibly out of the picture, or possibly knowing she'd be better off with Time Lord Doctor in that case). Or maybe it's just to make the time lines match up and completing the cycles of time.

This could both explain Ten I's actions in JE but also give them a slightly darker twist (to me), if he knew there was a time loop involved with his spiffy Time Lord senses. Darker if only because it echoes the way River's fate is part of a cycle. It continues to make a "destiny" element to the show that I don't like, even if it's done in the context of preserving time lines.

It does however cover some of the discontinuities/plot holes from the finale.



P.S. This is not VS5 related, if we were going this route I'd probably change half the outline to deal with it.

Comments

[karenor.livejournal.com]

Interesting. You should try to fic that, flesh out your theories.

One big problem i see is her clothes. She's always wearing the same. And considering the direness of what's happening on Pete's World, I can see her whole S4 arc taking place in just a day or two.

[jedi_of_urth]

That's not a bad point. Makes a lot of sense as an argument for me being kind of wacko on this.

But it seems that Rose had been hanging out with UNIT for a while in the TL-verse which doesn't necessarily mean a lot of time was happening in Pete's World but it does seem like to her a fair bit of time has passed.

And I can't recall for certain but in her vid scene appearances, wasn't she wearing something different (I seem to recall speculation that she wasn't even actually wearing anything)?

[karenor.livejournal.com]

Rose had been hanging out with UNIT for a while in the TL-verse

Yeah, I've thought about that. Several possible explanations. One, that verse moved VERY differently in time, OR, more likely as she pops in and out of Donna's life there, that Rose is definitely travelling through time. She could have dropped by several times, encompassing a long period of time for the TL-verse, but only a few hours for her.

in her vid scene appearances, wasn't she wearing something different

Thought about that too, but I'm too lazy to check. I've always sort of thought those vid scenes came earlier in her timeline, before they'd perfected the Dimension Canon.

[jedi_of_urth]

Both TL options and vid appearance ides are possible, not proving me wrong but they are probably as likely (also likely; RTD hadn't really thought this through).

It's just been bugging me recently because it requires viewers to either accept easily or fill in lots of gaps on their own and my mind tends to wander towards funky time tuff anyway.

another inconsistency

[shaela]

She also says in ‘Turn Left’ that she was pulled across the stars rather than the dimensional canon we find out about later.

Setting aside my issues with the dimensional cannon for the moment, in “Journey’s End,” it took half an hour to recharge. (That would explain Rose’s helplessness in “The Stolen Earth,” too.) So why were most of her visits with Donna in “Turn Left” so much shorter than that?

Re: another inconsistency

[jedi_of_urth]

Good point, unless Rose also had invisibility powers. In most of the cases I'd say we don't know for sure how long she had been there before she ran into Donna but the one where she tells Donna to use her raffle ticket (which could almost be a whole point on it's own probably) she didn't say that and then stand around twiddling her thumbs for half an hour waiting to to zapped back did she? No she came in, left a message, and got out.

Re: another inconsistency

[shaela]

…the one where she tells Donna to use her raffle ticket…

That’s the one I was thinking of. We see a flash of light when Rose appears, and another flash of light when she goes back to Pete’s World, and there’s no way thirty minutes passed between the two.