gallifreyburning:

gallifreyfieldsforever:

Comparing New Earth and Gridlock

This is a brilliant gifset. The difference between New Earth when the Doctor visits with Rose and then later with Martha is a fascinating contrast, because it directly ties to the Doctor’s emotional state and his character development. 

With Rose, New Earth and New New York are glittering and modern, with a bustling and wealthy populace. Obviously a seedy underbelly exists — we get a clear view of that when the Doctor and Rose uncover the cat-nuns’ flesh breeding and testing facilities. But the privileged classes of New New York live in obvious comfort that rests on the exploitation of its lower-class citizens.

Class issues aside (that’s a whole other mini-essay), with Rose, the Doctor found (and helped create) a shiny and flourishing New Earth that reflected his emotional and mental state — joyful. Content. Deeply in love and beaming and hardly able to contain his happiness. 

When he returns to New Earth and New New York with Martha, the shining upper city doesn’t exist anymore. It’s literally dead. The undercity is all that’s left — polluted, struggling to survive, on the brink of extinction, its inhabitants’ emotions stunted by readily-available drugs. New New York is the very definition of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. 

The city is a stark reflection of the Doctor’s emotional state. He’s still devastated by the loss of Rose — everything that was bright and promising and joyful is gone. The sight of a post-apocalyptic New New York can’t help but open his old wounds about Gallifrey, blighted by his own hand. He’s just as lifeless and his emotional state just as stark as New New York.

Without Rose, New New York (and the Doctor) is a dismal shadow of its former self, with only a glimmer of hope offered at the end of the episode. That glimmer of hope is LITERALLY a breath of fresh air — the Doctor opens the underground freeways to the surface, allowing them to escape into the light for the first time in decades.

Just like Martha opens a crack in the Doctor’s dank and dismal emotional state by sitting in an alley and refusing to move until he’s honest with her about something — ANYTHING. His feelings about Rose are still too raw, but he does tell Martha about Gallifrey. Just like the commuters of New New York emerged from the dark undercity to see the horizon for the first time in so many years, Martha forces the Doctor to lift his eyes from the dark place of loss and sadness in which he’s locked himself, even though it’s as painful as seeing the sun for the first time in years.