It’s a strange time to be a Doctor Who fan. Even before the BBC and Disney ended their production partnership, putting the arrival of new seasons on pause, the future of the show was full of questions—including, most pressingly, who exactly emerged after Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor regenerated. We all recognized former Doctor Who main cast member Billie Piper, but it was very unclear which character she was supposed to be.
There’ll (presumably) be some clarity on that front with the Christmas special arriving later this year, but in the meantime, it’s open season for speculation. A new hint arrived on the BBC’s Doctor Who site—styled as a UNIT blog—first pointed out by Nerdist.
There’s a memo from Shirley-Anne Bingham, UNIT scientific advisor, marking “the 20th anniversary of the return of Rose Tyler, who went ‘missing’ for one year after Operation Mannequin.” The 2006 missing poster is attached, marking six months of Rose’s absence at that time.
Shirley-Anne’s post continues, “As Rose Tyler is currently both missing from this universe and flagged as a complex space-time event, maybe keep an eye out. I’ve got the Vlinx scanning all media channels and the subwave network.”
Operation Mannequin goes all the way back to Doctor Who‘s revival in 2005, when Christopher Eccleston made his debut as the Ninth Doctor. The episode “Rose” sees the then-teenaged character becoming entangled with the Doctor after the store mannequins where she works seemingly come alive, in a plot involving classic Who villains, the Nestene Consciousness and its Autons.
The disappearance Shirley-Anne references is the time Rose spent traveling with the Doctor following their initial meeting; she wasn’t really missing, of course, but was instead having adventures aboard the TARDIS, where time moved differently than it did on Earth.
But “the 20th anniversary of the return of Rose Tyler” isn’t the Doctor Who clue that fans are zeroing in on. It’s the second part, where Shirley-Anne mentions that Rose is “missing from this universe and flagged as a complex space-time event.”
As viewers know, Rose—who has a special connection to the heart of the TARDIS after absorbing its power as part of the “Bad Wolf” storyline at the end of the Ninth Doctor’s run—ended up in a parallel universe separated from her beloved Tenth Doctor in “Doomsday,” Piper’s final episode playing Rose as the main companion.
The character returned a few seasons later, when a clone of the Tenth Doctor was sent to the same parallel universe, allowing the pair to have a happy ending of sorts.
As UNIT is still looking for Rose, apparently on Earth, this makes us wonder if she’s been yanked out of space-time thanks to her TARDIS connection and if, somehow, it’ll be Rose Tyler herself who returns. Perhaps the fact that the Fifteenth Doctor’s regeneration scene did not take place on Earth is making the search for her more complicated. Perhaps the earthbound existence of the Fourteenth Doctor—a carbon copy of the Tenth Doctor now hanging out at Donna Noble’s house—is part of what’s drawing Rose back to Doctor Who‘s main universe.
Will the Christmas special address any of this? Only Russell T. Davies knows for sure. What are your theories on who Billie Piper might be playing when Doctor Who finally starts coughing up some answers?
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Source: Gizmodo