Burning Up a Sun

NOTE: This entry contains spoilers regarding the final episode of the second season of Doctor Who.

Among the revelations in the latest incarnation of Doctor Who is the insight into the Doctor's relationships with his companions. We now know (if one hadn't guessed before) why the Doctor doesn't stay with his companions for very long (assuming they don't leave own their own accord or die while trying to save the Earth): quite simply, they will someday die, while he will undergo yet another cellular regeneration. We also know that the Doctor is quite fond of some of his companions, a fondness bordering on, if it does not fully achieve, love. He loves Sarah Jane Smith, as the episode "School Reunion" clarified, and he certainly loves Rose Tyler, to the point where, for the first time in the program's history, he was on the verge of telling her just before he lost all contact with her forever (as seen in the Season 2 finale, "Doomsday.").

Originally conceived as a children's program, the show adopted a kind of wink-and-nudge approach to the Doctor's companions, and what might be going on in the infinite halls of the TARDIS between televised episodes. In the early years of the show, such questions were almost moot, since the Doctor was generally portrayed by older actors, and the Doctor's companions were largely girls in their early teens or middle-aged men (or, in the first year of the show, the Doctor's own granddaughter).

In the 1970's, the Doctor became a more romantic, and occasionally dashing, figure, and his companions were generally young adult women. This process of sexing up the Doctor's companions perhaps reached its zenith with Leela, a woman from a pre-industrial civilization who felt most comfortable wearing what appeared to be low-cut animal skins. No doubt the producers of the program found companions like Leela useful for drawing in the adult audience, while the younger set remained captivated by the Doctor's own charm and the terrifying appeal of enemies like the Daleks.

The recent return of the program has dealt with more adult themes, especially in regard to the Doctor's companions and the darkness of the Doctor's past. The Doctor has been seen in romantic interludes, and his two most recent companions, Rose Tyler and Martha Jones, have both expressed their love for him openly.

The conclusion of "Doomsday" is the most affecting companion departure since "Earthshock," when Adric initiates the extinction of the dinosaurs and his badge for mathematical excellence crumbles to dust as the Doctor uses it to choke a few Cybermen. The departure of Rose Tyler is also one of Doctor Who's schmaltzier moments, complete with swelling strings on the soundtrack and runny mascara. But it's also a beautifully conceived farewell, and one that adds to the character of the Doctor himself. For the first time, at least as far as I know, the Doctor sheds tears.

This particular episode hit home for me in several surprising ways. The Doctor's paternalistic relationships had often reminded me of the kind of relationship teachers try to establish with their students, relationships which serve to engage the student's curiousity and devotion for the subject. When one has a machine that will travel through time and space, I suppose creating these relationships is somewhat easier, but, just as on the TARDIS, a disgruntled or bored student is a dangerous companion to have in the classroom. So any good teacher will, like the Doctor, use the classroom as a kind of TARDIS, where anything is possible.

The emotional departure of Rose Tyler is perhaps a more emotional goodbye than one might expect to receive from a student leaving a classroom at the end of a semester. However, the strength of the Doctor's relationship with Rose, and his hesitancy (or inability) to express his love for her, is very similar to relationships I have had with some of my students.

Before going any further with this, let me here clarify my use of the term "relationship." In doing so, keep in mind the earlier, perhaps more naive, years of Doctor Who, in which there could be no overt or even implied suggestion that the Doctor's relationships were anything but platonic, even if your companion was prone to wearing low-cut animal skins. Such is the necessity of the teacher's relationship with students. Any complication of the learning process with expressions of "personal" emotions would constitute an ethical problem.

I say this knowing full well that I have been, on at least two occasions in my education, the recepient of such emotions, that I have known and worked with professors who have carried on emotional and sexual relationships with their students, and that I have, on rare occasions, felt that my relationship with a student could extend beyond the classroom. It is more common for me, however, to experience what I clumsily refer to as a "teacher crush."

This happens, on average, to me with at least one student per semester. There will be a student who is either exceptionally conversational in class, engagingly witty, or charmingly naive. These students have always been women, though not necessarily women who look like Scarlett Johansson. Sometimes they will be the kind of women who might wear low-cut animal skins, though more often than not they are likely to be the kind of women who laugh at my in-class jokes. But I love them. And, like the Doctor, I will almost certainly never tell them.

There was Lacey Jane, who, like Martha Jones, was going into medicine. She was a good Mormon girl, interested in raising a family after she graduated, about as far from my life as a Scottish Highlander. I begged her to consider becoming a doctor, rather than a nurse. She was smart enough to do more with her life than insert IVs.

There was Tiffany, who was/is related to a popular country music singer. She was a bit of an airhead, but recognized that the trappings of being the "It Girl" on campus were rather limiting. She once told me how funny it would be to pose for Playboy.

There was Rachel, who could speak Elvish. There was Joy, who spent hours at a time in my office telling me about photography. There was the girl whose name I can no longer remember from my first semester of teaching who unabashedly flirted with me in class. She was a non-traditional student and we would often joke about the other, younger students.

Now, I'm not dull enough to think that all of these students were as interested in spending time in my office as I was in having them there. Nor would I dare to presume that any of these students would think of me in the same way that Rose Tyler thinks of the Doctor (or even cry when I left them). But, like the Doctor in the confines of his freshly empty TARDIS, I might release a lonely sigh at the end of a semester, knowing that I will likely never see my one special companion again. But within a few weeks of the following semester, I would almost certainly "choose" another one, and forget all about any of her predecessors.

This post will be continued. Check in during the next few days for the conclusion. In the meantime, please share your comments and/or questions.