Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Doctor Who’s 60th-anniversary special episode, “The Star Beast”
The first part of the Doctor Who 60th-anniversary special was a rollercoaster of emotions centering around the reunion of David Tennant’s 10th and Catherine Tate’s Donna Noble, but the ultimate savior of the day turned out to be neither of them.
“The Star Beast” was every bit as melodramatic as we’d hoped. This marked, after all, the return of David Tennant after his last appearance a decade ago in the 50th-anniversary special, “The Day of the Doctor,” and if that weren’t enough of a miraculous development to celebrate in and of itself, showrunner Russell T. Davies decided to pull out all the big stops by resurrecting Donna Noble as well.
It’s been a while since we saw the chief troublemaker last, so the so-called Noble-Temple family had a surprise addition in the form of Rose Noble, portrayed by Yasmin Finney. But who is Finney’s character, why is she seemingly named after Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler, and what does it all mean for the greater Doctor Who continuity?
Yasmin Finney’s Doctor Who character, explained
It has been 15 years since Donna and the Doctor’s last rodeo inside the TARDIS. As seen in David Tennant’s regeneration episode, Donna Noble eventually ended up marrying a guy named Shaun Temple, whom Wilfred Mott described as “a bit of a dreamer.”
This union apparently resulted in Yasmin Finney’s character, a daughter named Rose Noble. While Donna’s memories of the time she spent with the Doctor have been blocked, some slivers of those adventures have apparently bled into her personal life, resulting in incongruities like Rose, or more specifically, her name, which seems to have been inspired by Rose Tyler, the Ninth and Tenth Doctor’s first companion.
Rose has also inherited Donna’s “metacrisis,” which means that she can tap into the knowledge of the Last of the Time Lords and embody the DoctorDonna. This not only allows Rose to save her mother during the events of “The Star Beast,” but also gives them the necessary capacity to release the power altogether, allowing Donna to safely live on with her memories intact.
Rose Noble apparently spent most of her life confused about her identity, but Donna’s awakening finally gave her the opportunity to understand why she goes above and beyond conventional definitions, and perhaps, why her mother is one of the most special people to have ever walked the Earth.
It’s safe to say that everyone already loves Rose, and we can’t wait to see what role she’ll play in the future of this narrative.
The Doctor Who 60th anniversary special continues next week with “Wild Blue Yonder” on the BBC and Disney Plus.
