I’ll admit that I’m fickle when it comes to heroes. Way back in the 70’s it didn’t take me long to get over Shaun Cassidy as Joe in the Hardy Boys Mysteries and fall for Parker Stevenson as Frank. I gave up on Erik Estrada’s Frank Poncherello in CHiPs pretty darn fast and developed a crush on his blond, blue-eyed partner Jon, played by Larry Wilcox. {What ever happened to him, I wonder?} Then along came Mark Harmon in 240-Robert and I was hooked. {Anyone watching him in NCIS?}Aside from showing my age and how incredibly nerdy I probably was back then, this confession serves to show that romantic heroes come and go. We get over them and we move on.
Case in point – yes, I’m back to talking about Dr. Who. Remember back in June when I wondered how the Tenth incarnation of the doctor would work out, considering his role as the albeit reluctant romantic hero to Rose Tyler? I predicted it would take Rose a while to warm up to this new ‘shell’ that had grown around the man she’d fallen in love with.
I was wrong. After three episodes of Series 2, it’s clear to see that Rose has fallen head over heels and so have I. The new Doctor is a little shorter, probably a little less meaty than the last one, but egads, he’s just adorable. He possesses a joie de vivre that’s contagious, a ready and winning smile and an underlying fierceness that makes him the perfect Gamma hero.
Why, I wonder, is it so easy for me [and Rose] to move on? Well, for Rose I guess it’s because he’s just a new face on the same man. He knows her, he obviously cares deeply for her, and she absolutely, positively can’t tear herself away from the heart stopping life of adventure he offers. For me, it’s because I’m a hopeless romantic [I know, I promised not to use that term, but in this case, I guess I truly am hopeless]. I like love. I love love in fact. I have to or I wouldn’t write about it all the time. If I can’t root for Rose and Dr. No. 9, then I’ll root for Rose and Dr. No. 10. No big deal.
I wonder, would romance readers accept such a change so readily? How would you react to a book – or more accurately – a series of books in which the heroine changed heroes – lost one man and fell in love with another over the course of time? Would it be a turn off, or a new type of adventure? It’s done all the time on television, but would it work in romance novel? It is only true romance if the heroine falls in love only once [I’m not talking about ménages here, btw]? Or can you simply love love enough to root for the heroine, no matter who she sets her sights on?
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