When the Ninth Doctor first met her, Rose Tyler was a very emotional nineteen-year-old living on a London council estate who had left school with little educational achievement. Tearfully shaped by living with a promiscuous mother and stories about a father whom she never knew, Rose seemed destined for a life as a retail worker.
Instead, the Doctor blew up her workplace and they began travelling together soon afterwards. Without trying, she helped the Doctor work through some of the pain he had as the sole survivor of the Last Great Time War. Indeed, when she met the Doctor, she was the girlfriend of Mickey Smith, but that relationship immediately began to decay after she started travelling in the TARDIS. As Mickey himself noted, she transferred her romantic attention to the Doctor.
A major facet of her travels in the TARDIS was the fact that she had caused a temporal paradox by which she was the reason she became the so-called "Bad Wolf". Leaving herself a trail of clues throughout history, she was able to recognise, when all her hope had evaporated, that she needed to find her way back to the Doctor — even though he had abandoned her and the TARDIS together. Unable to actually fly the time machine, she was forced to simply stare into its heart, which enfolded her in time vortex energy and turned her into a new and seemingly omnipotent being that could rescue the Doctor. But it also nearly killed her. Only the Ninth Doctor could absorb the time vortex energy and transfer it back to the TARDIS — a traumatic act that naturally triggered regeneration. She thus became one of only three companions — along with Peri Brown and Wilfred Mott — to be the proximate cause of the Doctor's regeneration.
Forced to stop travelling with the Tenth Doctor because she was literally pulled into a different universe, she spent years trying to find a way back to the Doctor. Although she found one, the Doctor explained that she had to remain in her new universe with her mother, brother, that universe's Pete Tyler and, for a time, Mickey. Ultimately, however, she got most of her wishes fulfilled when a duplicate Tenth Doctor came to reside there with her.
Biography
Early life
Rose Tyler was born to Jackie and Pete Tyler around 1986. (TV: Rose, The Unquiet Dead, Dalek, Father's Day, Army of Ghosts) Her father died when hit by a car while she was still a baby. (TV: Father's Day)
She attended Jericho Street Junior School, where she joined the gymnastics club, and won a bronze medal in competition. (TV: Rose) She left school aged sixteen to pursue a romantic relationship with local Jimmy Stone, which ended badly and apparently led to her lack of A-Levels. (PROSE: The Stone Rose)
Several times during her childhood, she was visited and watched over by her future friend, Captain Jack Harkness. Jack did not say hello, in order to avoid damaging their Timeline. (TV: Utopia)
When Rose was in her late teens, she and her mother, Jackie, were living in the Powell Estate in South London. Rose worked as a shop assistant at Henrik's Department Store. She entered into a relationship with Mickey Smith some time before 2005. (TV: Rose, The End of Time)
At one point, she was asked by Mickey's friend Vic to pose for his photography. However, as he wanted her to pose in just her knickers, Rose declined. (PROSE: The Stone Rose)
With the Doctor
First meeting
When she was about nineteen Rose had her first encounter with the Doctor just after midnight on 1 January, 2005. Whilst walking home with her mother, Rose stumbled into the Tenth Doctor who was dying from radiation poisoning. Mistaking him for a drunk, she asked if he was all right, and told him the date when he asked. The Doctor told her that 2005 was going to be a good year for her. Smiling, Rose continued on. (TV: The End of Time)
Meeting the Doctor again
In March 2005, Rose was working in the department store, Henrik's ,when she was asked to give lottery winnings to the chief electrician, Wilson. Unable to find him, Rose realized she was not alone, and was in fact, trapped and about to be killed by living plastic creatures called Autons. The Ninth Doctor pulled Rose away and ran with her. Escaping inside a lift, he pulled an Auton's arm off. The Doctor told her that Wilson had been killed by the Autons. He warned Rose he was going to use explosives against the relay transmitting to the Autons and told her to run. The Doctor destroyed the store shortly after Rose left, leaving her jobless.
The following day, Rose met the Doctor at her home. She questioned him about the living plastic beings. The amputated Auton arm Mickey had earlier disposed of tracked the Doctor to the flat and attacked the Doctor and Rose. After the Doctor deactivated the signal to the arm, he left, telling Rose to forget him.
Using the Internet, Rose found a website that had information about the Doctor. Mickey drove Rose to the house of the website owner, Clive. There, Clive warned Rose that the Doctor was dangerous. Rose returned to Mickey's car, where, although she didn't know it, Mickey had been replaced with an Auton duplicate, and they went out to dinner. At the restaurant, the Doctor found the Auton Mickey and pulled his head off.
Escaping from the Auton Mickey's attacking body, the Doctor and Rose entered the TARDIS, where the Doctor used the head to trace the signal of the Nestene Consciousness. Discovering the Consciousness and the original Mickey in a base beneath the London Eye, the Doctor asked the Consciousness to leave Earth. It refused, and ordered two Autons to take the Doctor prisoner and confiscate the anti-plastic he was holding.
Unable to escape the Nestene Consciousness' base without access to the TARDIS, Rose kicked the Autons, and the anti-plastic, into the vat containing the Nestene Consciousness. This saved the Doctor's life, and destroyed the Consciousness. Escaping with Rose and the real Mickey to safety in the TARDIS, the Doctor asked Rose to travel with him in time and space, saying Mickey was not invited. Rose accepted, and that was the beginning. (TV: Rose)
Travels with the Ninth Doctor
For her first trip time-travelling, the Doctor took Rose to Platform One in the year 5,000,000,000, to observe the Earth when it was consumed by the sun. The Doctor introduced Rose to several aliens that observed the event for "fun", which intimidated her, easily. The Doctor upgraded Rose's mobile phone so that she could speak to her mother, Jackie, five billion years in the past. After the entire platform shook, the Doctor investigated the maintenance pipes with Jabe of the Forest of Cheem. While the Doctor was off investigating, Rose insulted the "last human", Lady Cassandra, for undergoing so much plastic surgery that she had no humanity left.
Cassandra sent the Adherents of the Repeated Meme to knock out Rose and drag her in a room where a sun filter was descending, and the unblocked sunlight would kill her. The Doctor reversed the filter, but the door was stuck from the heat. Cassandra deactivated the platform's safety and teleported away to collect money from the guests' rivals' shares. The glass in Rose's room began to crack and let in sunlight, but the Doctor reactivated the forcefield.
After the sun consumed the Earth, Rose made it out of her room. She saw the Doctor reverse the relay in Cassandra's teleport that brought Cassandra back. Without her surgeons to moisturise her, Cassandra's skin graft dried out and exploded, (TV: The End of the World) though her brainmeat survived. (TV: New Earth) The Doctor left with Rose and travelled back to 21st century Earth. He told her of the Last Great Time War, and how he was the last of the Time Lords. (TV: The End of the World)
In 1869 Cardiff, the Doctor and Rose found a deceased woman possessed by a Gelth, a creature turned to gas by the Time War. Rose chased after Mr Sneed and Gwyneth, who had taken the woman's corpse into their hearse. Rose was chloroformed and taken to Sneed and Company, where other "zombies" had also been animated by the Gelth. The Doctor chased after Rose along with with Charles Dickens.
In the morgue, the Doctor had Gwyneth try and pull the Gelth through the Rift using her psychic connection to it from a young age. The Gelth, numbering in the billions rather than just a few, wished to wipe out humanity and take over their bodies. The Doctor, Rose and Dickens escaped from the Gelth by filling the room with gas, sucking out the Gelth from the cadavers. Gwyneth, who had already died from contacting the Gelth, lit a match, trapping them and saving the world. (TV: The Unquiet Dead)
Per her request, Rose was taken home. However, instead of arriving twelve hours later as the Doctor promised, Rose found she had been away for an entire year and that Mickey had been blamed by Jackie for her disappearance. While Rose calmed her mother, an alien spacecraft crashed through Big Ben and into the Thames. After UNIT were alerted to the Doctor's presence by Rose's mother, Jackie, UNIT escorted the Doctor and Rose to 10 Downing Street to help deal with the state of emergency. When the Doctor came to discuss the crisis, Rose was left with the MP Harriet Jones to look after her. Harriet showed Rose the Slitheen were using skin suits to disguise and had murdered officials to infiltrate downing street. Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen entered the room and strangled Indra Ganesh. (TV: Aliens of London)
After Indra was killed, the Doctor, using an electrified ID badge to remotely electrocute the rest of the Slitheen family, saved Harriet and Rose from the same fate. He later found them and distracted the Slitheen before Harriet guided them to the Cabinet.
Inside, the Doctor shut themselves behind a steel barrier. The Doctor learnt the spaceship belonged to the Slitheen, who planned to reduce Earth to radioactive waste to sell as cheap fuel on the intergalactic market, using nuclear launch codes held by the United Nations. The Doctor contacted Mickey telling him to launch the Harpoon missile, UGM-84A, at Downing Street from the HMS Taurean. Rose found a small, sturdy room inside the Cabinet, and while the Slitheen were destroyed by the missile, the Doctor, Harriet rode out the explosion in the room.
Much to her shock, Rose learned Harriet would become Prime Minister for three successful terms for Britain's Golden Age. Packing some belongings to continue travelling with the Doctor, Rose promised her mother that the next time she'd see them, it would be ten seconds later (unknown to Rose, however, she would not return when she said she would). (TV: World War Three)
Tracking a distress signal, the Doctor went to the Vault in Utah in 2012. While the Doctor, unknown to Rose, was being interrogated for his alien knowledge, Rose was shown pieces of alien technology one of its workers, Adam Mitchell, had found. Adam mentioned to Rose that he always wanted to see the stars. They discovered the creature in Henry van Statten's Cage, which van Statten called a "Metaltron", being tortured. Rose rushed to its attention, not knowing that it was a Dalek, a creature whose only needs were to kill every living creature. Feeling pity for the Dalek, who said it was dying she touched its casing.
By extrapolating Rose's DNA, which contained radiation from the Time Vortex, the Dalek escaped. With no orders, it chose to destroy everyone inside. The Doctor was released in an attempt to fight off the Dalek. As Rose and Adam tried running from the Dalek, the Doctor was forced to close the bulkhead door with Rose trapped on one side to keep the Dalek from slaughtering all of humanity. The Dalek was unable to kill Rose, but the Doctor let it through, not wanting to risk losing her.
The Doctor, prepared to kill his oldest enemy, which he claimed destroyed his home and people, once and for all, Rose stood in the Doctor's way. To the Doctor's shock, the Dalek's personality changed after absorbing Rose's DNA. Considering its new feelings "sickness", it committed suicide. According to the Doctor, this was the end of the Time War. Henry's memory was wiped by his staff as punishment for the deaths caused by his refusal to kill the Dalek. Rose offered to invite Adam, who was out of a job as the Vault was being filled with cement, and didn't have anyone else, into the TARDIS. The Doctor left the TARDIS doors unlocked for Adam to wander inside as it dematerialised. (TV: Dalek)
On Adam's first trip, the Doctor took his two companions to the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire to see the human race at its zenith. Pretending to be management on the news broadcaster, Satellite Five, the Doctor and his companions found the Empire had been manipulated; its development stunted, and the technology being decades behind what it should have been. Adam, who was under severe culture shock, was left on his own to "acclimatise".
After hacking into the computer system, the Doctor and Rose found that the unusual levels heat on the Satellite was because of cooling systems being vented to Floor 500. The Editor, discovering their interference, gave the Doctor and Rose the key to reach him on Floor 500 and imprisoning them. He revealed the Mighty Jagrafess was manipulating the information distributed by Satellite Five to control humanity, even having them develop backwards technology to assist in this matter. The Jagrafess and the Editor tried stealing the TARDIS key from Adam, which Rose had lent it to, but thanks to one of the workers who learned the truth, the safety was breached, freeing the Doctor, Rose and Adam and rerouting the heat to Floor 500 to destroy the Jagrafess. The Doctor believed that this would have accelerated the human race's development, "all back to normal".
Upon finding out Adam was trying to learn about the future of the 21st century's technology for his own gain, the Doctor "evicted" him from his TARDIS travels and took him home, leaving him with the forehead implant he got at Satellite Five as punishment. When Adam begged for another chance, the Doctor was un-merciful told him to live a quiet life to avoid having the implant discovered; scientists would dissect Adam to learn about the implant. (TV: The Long Game)
At Rose's request, the Doctor took her to her mother and her father, Pete Tyler's, wedding. After this, he took her to the church where Stuart Hoskins and Sarah Clark were to be wed in 1987, not far from where Pete died. Rose crossed the path of her past self, who was unable to go to Pete as he died, and saved Pete from a hit-and-run death. Rose's actions caused the TARDIS to be thrown off into the time vortex. Enraged by her actions, the Doctor suspected that she had only agreed to travel with him to save Pete and considered abandoning her in the past, though Rose insisted she hadn't planned it and the Doctor didn't go through with leaving Rose.
Rose, pretending to be a wedding guest and not revealing her true identity, was invited over to her father's flat, and realised he wasn't the successful inventor she thought he was (but could have been given time). She then accompanied him to Stuart and Sarah's wedding. The Doctor, telling Rose and the wedding guests to rush inside the church, tried devising a way of stopping creatures from outside time that were attacking the Earth to seal off the paradox Rose had created. They reconciled; the Doctor admitting he wouldn't have really left. He started working on a way to repair the damage to the universe while leaving Pete alive for Rose. He used his TARDIS key, which was still linked to the TARDIS' interior, to bring the TARDIS back. However, after Pete accidentally made Rose hold her infant self, the Doctor sacrificed himself to the creature brought by the paradox and the creature was zapped by the key, interrupting the TARDIS' return.
Pete, who realised that his survival of the hit-and-run was what caused the creatures' attack, said his goodbyes to his wife and daughter and ran in front of the car (which was stuck in a time loop, awaiting him). The Doctor and everyone else was brought back, and thanks to these events, the new timeline had Rose be there for her father when he passed. (TV: Father's Day)
The Doctor tracked a "mauve and dangerous" object to 1941 London. After landing, Rose found a mysterious boy in a gas mask asking for his mother. She climbed a rope to reach him, but it was the rope of a barrage balloon which had come loose. The ex-Time Agent Jack Harkness rescued Rose from falling, bringing her aboard his warship and, thinking she and the Doctor were Time Agents offered to sell them the object they were chasing, which he called "the last Chula warship in existence".
Jack and Rose followed the Doctor to Albion Hospital, not far from the crash site at Limehouse Green station, where mysterious symptoms, living dead creatures, with gas masks fused to their face, and identical symptoms, including a scar on the hand in the same place as the child that Rose had seen. Jack, upon realising the Doctor and Rose weren't Time Agents but freelancers like himself, revealed he was conning them; revealed the object was a Chula ambulance, which Jack himself had used to attract one of the agency as part of a con to sell half of the object right before a German bomb hit it, instead bringing the attention of the Doctor and Rose. Jack believed the object was empty space junk, (TV: The Empty Child) but in fact, the ambulance contained nanogenes. The nanogenes had not seen a human before; they took the gasmask for the child's face and fused it to him, spreading to other people who touched him, also transforming them into undead creatures with no lifesigns.
Jack teleported the Doctor and Rose to his warship, and they went to the bombsite near the hospital, where they realised the truth. The ambulance started its emergency protocols, causing the creatures, who had been armed as "Chula warriors", and were ready to "tear the world apart" to find the boy's mother.
Every patient and soldier at the bombsite converged on the Doctor, Rose and Jack. The Doctor fixed the nanogenes' mistakes by comparing the DNA of the child and Nancy, who was his mother, restoring the infected zombies to normal. Jack stopped the bomb from hitting the bombsite by placing it in stasis inside his warship and when everyone got to safety, the Doctor destroyed the ambulance, making sure that history said that a bomb hit that location. The Doctor rescued Jack from his Chula warship just before it exploded, taking him aboard the TARDIS as his latest companion. (TV: The Doctor Dances)
During another adventure with the Doctor and Jack, Rose accidentally married a pre-historical human called Tillun, and she became a widower when Tillun lived out his human life in his own time period. (PROSE: Only Human)
When the TARDIS became powerless to travel through time, the Doctor went to 2006 Cardiff so that the TARDIS could refuel via a scar in the rift that was closed by Gwyneth. Whilst in Cardiff, the Doctor and his two companions, joined by Mickey, captured Blon, the sole Slitheen survivor of the attack on Downing Street and had become Lord Mayor.
Though Blon tried fleeing, the Doctor reversed her teleportation device several times until she gave up and took her prisoner aboard the TARDIS until he could return her to Raxacoricofallapatorius to face execution after her family had already been sentenced to death in their absence. The Doctor confiscated her extrapolator to use as a "power-booster". Meanwhile, Mickey offered Rose a hotel room. He later claimed to be seeing Trisha Delaney; Rose felt he was lying about the woman he was supposedly with, while Mickey claimed to keep running for Rose every time she contacted him. While trying to reconcile, Rose ran for the TARDIS when earthquakes started hitting Cardiff; Blon tried to tear the TARDIS and the Earth apart by making the extrapolator lock onto an alien power source that was refuelling on the rift, using the extrapolator as an interstellar surfboard to escape the Earth.
After Blon looked into the heart of the TARDIS and was regressed back into an egg, Rose left Mickey behind to start a new relationship with someone else. She no longer felt attracted to him and believed he deserved someone better; Rose only saw Mickey as a close friend because of her time with the Doctor. Realising Blon had a "second chance" in life, the Doctor decided to drop her off in the hatchery on her homeworld. (TV: Boom Town)
Bad Wolf
After an adventure in 1336 Japan, the Doctor, Rose and Jack escaped into the TARDIS when a transmat beam broke into the TARDIS. Rose was brought to the Game Station, the new name of Satellite Five, in 200,100 and played a version of The Weakest Link where the contestants were supposedly disintegrated by the Anne Droid. Even though she answered very few questions correctly, Rose was kept in the game because of Rodrick tactically voting so that he could win the cash prize. Rose discovered that the corporation running the games on the Game Station was called the Bad Wolf Corporation, a set of words which had been following the Doctor and Rose in their travels. After the final round, Rodrick won and Rose was blasted. Instead of dying, however, the Anne Droid transmatted Rose on board the Dalek flagship. The Doctor discovered the Daleks hiding at the edge of the solar system and promised to rescue Rose and destroy the Daleks despite having no plan. (TV: Bad Wolf)
The Doctor breached the Dalek flagship and rescued Rose. When the Daleks began their invasion of Earth, the Doctor, believing he might die soon, sent Rose out of harm's way to her home place and time. Seeing the words Bad Wolf as graffiti around her housing complex served as a message to Rose; she herself was crucial to the event and must return to the Doctor. With Mickey's help, Rose broke into the TARDIS and looked into its heart which enabled her to transcend into the Bad Wolf.
As this goddess-like figure, she vaporised the Dalek fleet and brought Captain Jack back to life (unknowingly making him immortal), after paradoxically spreading the words "Bad Wolf" through space and time to create the message. However, in becoming the Bad Wolf, Rose had absorbed the Time Vortex into herself, which would destroy her body, cell by cell. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
- See Battle of the Game Station for a more detailed account of these events.
The Doctor took those energies into himself by kissing her, sacrificing his ninth incarnation and regenerating before Rose's eyes into a new form. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
Travels with the Tenth Doctor
The newly regenerated Doctor managed to steer the TARDIS back to the Powell Estate on Christmas Eve 2006, before collapsing from post-regenerative trauma. Rose was distressed that the Doctor had changed in appearance and personality, and had apparently left Rose, Mickey and Jackie to face the Sycorax invasion alone. When the TARDIS was taken aboard the Sycorax spaceship, Rose attempted to negotiate with them, but the Sycorax leader just laughed.
The Doctor later revived and defeated the Sycorax. He celebrated Christmas with Rose's family. (TV: The Christmas Invasion)
The Doctor took Rose to New New York on New Earth in the year 5,000,000,023, where she was unwillingly showered in disinfectant while taking a lift up through the hospital. Lady Cassandra took control of the lift and used a psychograft to implant her consciousness onto Rose's own, gaining full control over her body with the intent of stealing it to live on for centuries, but eventually went into the dying body of Chip once she helped the Doctor cure the infected new humans. (TV: New Earth)
During a stay in Rome involving a GENIE and people being turned to stone, the Doctor kissed her out of joy at being alive. (PROSE: The Stone Rose)
The Doctor and Rose, dressed for 1979 Sheffield, landed in 1879 Scotland. The Doctor became a protectorate for Queen Victoria, who was targeted by the Brethren. They stayed at Torchwood House, where the Brethren wanted to place the bite of the Lupine Wavelength Haemovariform into Queen Victoria to put the wolf on the British throne. Rose and several of the house's staff were taken to be fed to this werewolf, but Rose co-ordinated their escape.
After the Doctor used the Koh-i-Noor and the house's light chamber to destroy the wolf with moonlight, the Doctor and Rose were knighted (with Rose dubbed Dame Rose of the Powell Estate), but immediately banished as a threat to the British Empire. (TV: Tooth and Claw) This incident prompted Queen Victoria to found the Torchwood Institute to address future alien threats — including the Doctor. (TV: Tooth and Claw, Army of Ghosts)
In 2007, Mickey brought the Doctor and Rose to Deffry Vale High School, which had had suspiciously high exam results and UFO sightings. Rose went undercover as a dinner lady. She had been eating the school's chips that were coated in an intelligence-increasing oil. She discovered one of the dinner ladies had been burned by the oil.
While investigating the school, Rose met a previous companion of the Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, an awkward situation Mickey described as "the missus and the ex". Both women felt jealousy and tension, which they subsequently resolved. Rose became worried the Doctor would one day abandon her, but the Doctor promised her — "Not to you". The Doctor repaired K9 Mark III, who identified the oil as Krillitane oil and the school's new staff as Krillitanes. The Krillitanes were using the children's minds to construct the Skasis Paradigm, a computation that could rebuild the fabric of the universe. K9 destroyed the Krillitanes by blowing up the lethal oil barrels. Mickey joined the TARDIS, to Rose's disapproval. (TV: School Reunion)
On the SS Madame de Pompadour in the 51st century, the Doctor, Rose and Mickey travelled into a time window to 1744 France. She discovered the ship's repair droids had been using the ship's crew as components to repair the ship. Their final "part" was the brain of Reinette Poisson, who wasn't yet "complete". When the droids found the Reinette at the correct part of her life, Rose travelled through a time window into 1753 to warn her of an oncoming attack some time after her 37th birthday in 1758, explaining to Reinette that this wasn't how history was supposed to happen.
Rose showed signs of jealousy when the Doctor was attracted to Reinette. (TV: The Girl in the Fireplace) The Doctor exploited this jealousy to save her life when her mind was invaded by a creature called the Iagnon. (COMIC: The Green-Eyed Monster)
Whilst travelling through time, the Doctor, Rose and Mickey fell through a crack in time, ending up on a parallel Earth more technologically advanced; the TARDIS died as it had no power from their universe to get back. However, the Doctor managed to power a surviving piece of the TARDIS, although it meant giving up ten years of his life. The Doctor considered this kind of world "like a gingerbread house" and "full of temptation", but the piece of the TARDIS required a twenty-four hour recharging cycle before the TARDIS could restore itself. When Rose found her father Pete Tyler was alive in this world, and a successful businessman, the Doctor cautioned her against making contact, as he wasn't actually her father. While Mickey searched for the parallel version of his grandmother, the Doctor eventually gave in to Rose's request to attend the birthday party of her parallel mother to meet her "father" again. Rose learnt that her parallel parents had recently separated. She tried asking her mother to give Pete another shot, but Jackie called her out for overstepping her boundaries. Cybermen, which had been newly-created on this world, "crashed the party" of Jackie's and demanded that humans inside either be upgraded or deleted. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen)
Escaping with the Doctor and Pete Tyler, Rose and Pete infiltrated the front entrance of Cybus Industries to find Jackie and stop the Cybermen. They found Jackie had survived the attack on her party but was one of the first to have been upgraded into a Cyberman. Upon being discovered, instead of being converted, Pete, who had worked with Cybus, was taken with Rose to the creator of these new Cybermen, John Lumic, now a Cyber-Controller. The Doctor, confronting Lumic, bought time by trading philosophical ideas with him while subtly telling Mickey to hack the Lumic family database to find the cancellation code to the Cybermen's emotional inhibitors. Mickey texted Rose the code, and the Doctor connected the phone with the code to deactivate the Cybermen's inhibitors.
The Cybermen began exploding, along with Cybus Industries. When it came time to leave, Mickey chose to stay behind to fight Cybermen worldwide, as he didn't fit in with the Doctor and Rose's close relationship, even though the Doctor had to seal the crack between universes, separating Mickey from them and his universe forever. The Doctor and Rose honoured Mickey's wishes and returned to their universe, where they visited Jackie at the Powell Estate. (TV: The Age of Steel)
The Doctor took Rose to Muswell Hill on the eve of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953. When people had been mysteriously taken from their homes, the Doctor and Rose did the "domestic approach", and went on house calls. The Doctor found Grandma Connolly's face had been completely removed.
Tracking the origin of the Connollys' television set to Magpie Electricals to confront the owner, Mr Magpie, Rose had her face and essence consumed by the Wire as part of her plan to use the coronation to become manifest. Before it could do this, the Doctor transferred the Wire into a video cassette, which he planned to record over, rescuing everyone, including Rose and Grandma Connolly. (TV: The Idiot's Lantern)
The Doctor and Rose landed inside Sanctuary Base 6 on Krop Tor, a planet that was in perpetual orbit around the black hole K37 Gem 5; following an earthquake, the TARDIS fell below the planet's surface, devastating the Doctor and seemingly ending his travels. The humans of Sanctuary Base 6 had come to Krop Tor to discover the source of power emanating from the planet's core which allowed the planet to orbit the black hole. They refused to divert their drill to collect the TARDIS. Rose stayed on the surface as the Doctor descended to the core, and the Ood, the base's servants, began attacking after the Beast possessed them. (TV: The Impossible Planet)
When the Doctor and Ida Scott were trapped below and lost contact, Rose encouraged the crew to think of a means of escape and disabling the Ood. Danny Bartock came up with the idea of emitting a "flare" that would disrupt the telepathic field. They traversed the maintenance tunnels to find the central computer to emit the flare; Mr Jefferson sacrificing his life to get Rose, Danny and Toby Zed to safety. When Rose re-established contact with Ida, she told her the Doctor fell into the pit. Rose refused to stay behind even if he did die, but Zach forcibly put her aboard the Sanctuary Base 6 rocket.
The Doctor, who had actually survived the fall, broke the gravity funnel keeping the planet in place, pulling the body of the Beast into the black hole. As the rocket wasn't out of the funnel, it was pulled towards the black hole. Discovering the Beast was possessing Toby, Rose shot the rocket's window with Zach's bolt gun and ejected Toby into space. The Doctor, having found the TARDIS, towed the rocket to safety and saved Ida before she ran out of oxygen. (TV: The Satan Pit)
When Elton Pope used Jackie in his efforts to make contact with him, the Doctor tracked him down on Rose's behalf so Rose could tell him off for upsetting Jackie. He unwittingly saved Elton from being absorbed by Victor Kennedy after arriving. Kennedy tried threatening Elton's life so he could take over the TARDIS, but the Doctor refused. He told Kennedy that the members of LINDA who had been absorbed would have had something to say about absorbing Elton. They pulled at Kennedy's stomach, causing him to drop his cane. Elton broke the cane's limitation field that was preventing the ground from absorbing him. Though he couldn't save the others' lives, the Doctor brought the consciousness of Ursula Blake, who had been absorbed by Kennedy, back, but stuck as a face on piece of concrete. He then told Elton the truth about his mother's death, which was why Elton had been chasing the Doctor for so long. (TV: Love & Monsters)
The Doctor and Rose went to 2012 to see the Olympics. He met a girl named Chloe Webber who had been possessed by a lone Isolus. Chloe trapped other children from her street in drawings to make the Isolus feel less lonely. Despite trying to help the Isolus, the Doctor was trapped in a drawing, along with the TARDIS. Inside the drawing, the Doctor was able to draw a depiction of the Olympic torch and pointed at it to aid Rose. Realising that the Isolus pod was drawn to heat, Rose dug up the freshly-tarmacked road on Dame Kelly Holmes Close to unearth it. Once Rose tossed the pod into the Olympic flame to recharge it with warmth and love, the Doctor was freed from the drawing. He then took the place of the winded runner, lighting the Olympic flame himself. Reuniting with Rose, the Doctor warned her that he felt a "storm" coming when she said that no-one would ever separate them. (TV: Fear Her)
Around this time, Rose died in the 31st century during an incident with a time loop, but was immediately resurrected when the time loop reset itself. (COMIC: Interstellar Overdrive)
On a routine visit to the Powell Estate, the Doctor and Rose found the entire planet was being visited by beings believed to be ghosts. The Doctor tracked the signal to Torchwood Tower in Canary Wharf and was taken prisoner by Yvonne Hartman, leader of the Torchwood Institute who had spent over a hundred years trying to track him down ever since his adventure with Queen Victoria in 1879. The ghosts were a side effect of the "ghost shifts", a means of Torchwood obtaining power for the British Empire after a tear in reality caused by void ship. Rose snuck into the room where the void ship was undercover, but was quickly uncovered. Two computer technicians, secretly under the control of Cybermen, restarted the ghost shift. The ghosts, who were actually Cybermen, came from the parallel world where the Doctor and Rose had left Mickey. Rose discovered Mickey undercover as a Torchwood employee in the room the void ship was, believing the void ship to be Cyberman technology. As the Cyberman invasion of Earth began, the void ship opened, revealing the Cult of Skaro, a group of Daleks with a Genesis Ark. (TV: Army of Ghosts) The Genesis Ark was Time Lord technology, a prison ship containing millions of Daleks captured by the Time Lords.
Rose used her knowledge of the Dalek Emperor and the Time War to stop the Daleks from killing her and Mickey, though they were held prisoner. The Daleks gained knowledge of the Cybermen and waged war against them. With the help of a short alliance with the Cybermen and the Preachers, the Doctor, along with the Pete from Pete's World, rescued Rose and Mickey from their imprisonment by the Daleks. In the confusion, Mickey accidentally opened the Genesis Ark and released millions of Daleks. Torchwood perished in the battle.
The group then saved Jackie from being upgraded by the Cybermen; Jackie and the parallel Pete had an emotional "reunion" and kissed. To save both dimensions from annihilation and defeat his two deadliest enemies, the Doctor opened the Void. This would suck anything covered in "Void stuff" into it and seal off the two universes for good. Realising that Rose was also covered in Void energy, the Doctor sent an unwilling Rose, along with Mickey, Pete and Jackie, back to the parallel Earth, where they would be safe. Rose refused to leave the Doctor. Knowing she would never see her family again, she returned. Together, they opened the Void and the Daleks and Cybermen were sucked in. The plan initially went smoothly until Rose's lever malfunctioned, threatening to halt the operation. Rose secured the lever, but couldn't hold on and was almost sucked into the Void.
She was saved at the last second by her parallel father and taken back across to the other universe, separating her from the Doctor forever. (TV: Doomsday)
After the Doctor
Rose lived with Pete Tyler, Jackie, and Mickey in their home on Pete's World. She received a dream-like contact from the Doctor, which guided her to Dårlig Ulv Stranden (Bad Wolf Bay) in Norway. The Doctor sent his last farewells through the closing gaps between the worlds, burning up a star to send the signal through. He informed her that on her Earth, Rose was officially dead. Rose informed the Doctor that she now worked for Torchwood in this alternative world, and that Jackie was again pregnant. Rose finally broke down and confessed her love for the Doctor, but the Doctor did not have a chance to reciprocate his feelings as he was cut off abruptly. (TV: Doomsday) Some time later, Jackie gave birth to Rose's baby brother, Tony. (TV: Journey's End)
Crossing the timelines
Despite the Doctor telling her coming back to her world from the parallel universe would destroy both, Rose worked on a dimension cannon to return to him. As Davros' reality bomb weakened the barriers between universes, Rose used the dimension cannon to find either the Doctor or Donna Noble and warn them about the oncoming darkness. (TV: Turn Left, Journey's End)
In 2009, after preventing a million Londoners from being forcibly converted into Adipose, Donna asked Rose to tell Donna's mother Sylvia that Donna left her car keys in "that bin there". Rose walked off, fading away. (TV: Partners in Crime)
When the Doctor and Donna were conversing with two psychics in 79 AD Pompeii, one of them noted, "She is returning," a foreshadowing of Rose's return. (TV: The Fires of Pompeii)
When Donna Noble was in the TARDIS during the Sontaran invasion, Rose's face popped up on the screen for a moment, silently calling for the Doctor. (TV: The Poison Sky)
On the planet Midnight, Rose appeared on a screen in the Crusader 50 shuttlebus, silently shouting, "Doctor!" (TV: Midnight)
When Donna Noble had an alternate timeline created around her, Rose met her several times. She said she could travel between worlds and alternate timelines, and had done so many times, searching for the Doctor. She appeared several times in this timeline, including on Christmas Eve 2007, when the Doctor, lacking Donna to pull him back, was killed defeating the Racnoss.
In 2008, the night Donna was sacked by Jival Chowdry, she told Donna to use her raffle ticket to stay out of London that Christmas, which was when London was scheduled for attack by the Titanic. Donna and Rose also met the evening the Sontaran attack of the Earth with ATMOS was thwarted by Torchwood Three at the cost of their lives. Three weeks later as the stars started to disappear, Donna followed Rose, who revealed the Time Beetle on Donna's back and explained what she must do to restore the original timeline.
Obeying Rose's instructions, Donna was sent back to force her past self to turn left, not right, on that fateful day in June 2007, so that she would work at H.C. Clements and meet the Doctor six months later. When Donna did so, at the cost of her life in that timeline, Rose held her as she died and whispered a message for the Doctor: Bad Wolf. (TV: Turn Left)
Defending the Earth
In 2009, Rose teleported to her native world, finding it being invaded by Daleks and transported across the universe. She found Sylvia Noble and Wilfred Mott, hoping they knew where the Doctor and Donna were. Harriet Jones appeared on Wilf's computer. Rose assumed Harriet was trying to contact her, but when she tried to reply, found it impossible as there was no camera or microphone on the computer; Harriet spoke to Sarah Jane, Jack and Martha Jones. Rose watched on as they brought the Doctor to Earth, then used her transmat device to lock onto the TARDIS and teleport to him.
She arrived in a deserted street with the Doctor and Donna at the other end. The Doctor and Rose ran towards each other, but a Dalek fired upon the Doctor, mortally wounding him. With Donna and Jack's help, she got him in to the TARDIS where he began to regenerate. (TV: The Stolen Earth)
The Doctor managed to retain his tenth form by pouring the regeneration energy into his severed hand. This, with the help of Donna, eventually created a new, part-human Doctor.
After Donna and the newly-created Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor defeated the New Dalek Empire, the Doctor returned her to the parallel Earth along with her mother but this time without Mickey, who decided to return home.
The original Doctor exiled the new Doctor on the parallel Earth; he was bred in battle, killing all the Daleks, and too dangerous to leave on his own. He told Rose she was the only one who could make him a better man, as she had before with him. Rose was reluctant to stay back but the original Doctor said that the new Doctor had all his memories and thoughts, and was "him," albeit part human. The part-human Doctor had only one heart, and would never regenerate but age instead. He told her he could spend his life with her, if she wanted him to, and they could grow old together. Rose asked both Doctors what the last thing they would have said to her would have been when she was first trapped on the parallel Earth. The original Doctor asked, "Does it need saying?", but the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor whispered something to her. Hearing the words, Rose flung herself on the Meta-Crisis Doctor and the original Doctor left with Donna. (TV: Journey's End)
When the Doctor discovered what the Manus Maleficus was capable of doing, he was momentarily tempted to use it to tear down the barriers between worlds so he could see Rose again. (COMIC: The Crimson Hand)
The Doctor remembered Rose and felt guilty about what he had done to her, well into his eleventh incarnation. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler). While offering Dorium Maldovar examples of how "time is not the boss of me," this Doctor briefly mentioned the thought of helping Rose with her homework as a child, before they ever met. (TV: The Wedding of River Song)
Personality
Rose was a resourceful, brave, sweet and kind-hearted girl. According to the Ninth Doctor, she was able to ask the right questions when the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire's technology and culture seemed wrong. (TV: The Long Game) She was quick to adapt to strange events. When she travelled back to the 1980s when she was just a baby, her father recognised her mother's acerbic wit. (TV: Father's Day) She was not only brilliant, but also very observant, and often noticed things the Doctor did not. (TV: The Idiot's Lantern, Fear Her)
Rose fell easily into the role of the Doctor's companion and was brave facing various alien threats. (TV: Rose) She occasionally screamed when under attack by large creatures like the Slitheen and the Reapers, (TV: World War Three, Father's Day) but was also brave when facing psychological threats like a Dalek. (TV: Dalek) She cared deeply about the Doctor, although she originally denied any romantic feelings towards him despite indications to the contrary. (TV: The End of the World, Aliens of London) However her feelings for him grew quickly and significantly (TV: Dalek, The Doctor Dances, The Idiot's Lantern, The Impossible Planet, Fear Her) In what seemed their final meeting on the beach, she admitted to the Doctor that she loved him; he began to reply, but only got out the words, "Rose Tyler", before he was cut off. (TV: Doomsday)
Rose proved capable of great forgiveness and mercy, willing to forgive individuals like Lady Cassandra and the Dalek in Van Statten's collection even after they'd murdered. (TV: Dalek, New Earth) She also admitted when world-threatening situations ended up being her fault and was willing to apologise. (TV: Dalek, Father's Day) She was also easily willing to kill if she had to. (TV: The Parting of the Ways, The Satan Pit, The Stolen Earth)
Rose was willing to call the Doctor out if she thought he was wrong. When the Doctor brushed aside the danger that Jackie was in when faced with a Slitheen, Rose reminded him the woman he was discussing was her mother. (TV: World War Three) She was horrified the Doctor would allow the Gelth to use human corpses as a vessel for their consciousness. The Doctor's failure to listen to Rose's human plea of respect for their dead led to at least two deaths when the Gelth proved to be malicious. (TV: The Unquiet Dead)
Rose had a jealous streak when it came to the Doctor. She and the Doctor's former companion, Sarah Jane Smith, traded barbs over who was the "best companion" but they became good friends afterwards, and happily greeted each other at their reunion on the Crucible. (TV: School Reunion, Journey's End) When Martha said she couldn't reach the Doctor on her phone, the reaction of Rose was "I was here first", despite knowing the Doctor had had companions before her. (TV: The Stolen Earth) She was also prone to acting very selfishly a number of times, being more focused on her own personal desires than the feelings of others around her, or the possible consequences that her self-serving actions would have. When she saw the Tenth Doctor on Bad Wolf bay on the worst day of her life, her reaction towards the Tenth Doctor's warnings that the universes would collapse if he "came through properly" was "So?". (TV: Father's Day, The Parting of the Ways, Rise of the Cybermen)
Appearance
A missing ad from 2005 described her as "19 years old, 5'4" in height, slim build with shoulder-length blonde hair". (TV: Aliens of London)
Cassandra once noted her attractive posterior. (TV: New Earth)
Skills
Rose proved handy with guns. (TV: The Satan Pit, The Stolen Earth)
Rose was a skilled gymnast; she told the Ninth Doctor she had "got the bronze" during her school years. (TV: Rose)
Behind the scenes
Age
The Doctor twice states onscreen that Rose is nineteen years old (TV: The Unquiet Dead, Dalek) and Rose refers to her years before meeting the Doctor as "the first nineteen years of [her] life". (TV: Army of Ghosts) It is later established she left with the Doctor on 6 March 2005. (TV: Aliens of London)
However, a Doctor Who Annual 2006 article, which is not considered a valid source by this wiki, states that Rose was born on 27 April 1987. Although this contradicts the age stated on screen (she would have been seventeen when she met the Doctor), it is consistent with the appearance of the baby Rose in Father's Day, set on 7 November 1987, where the baby is no more than a few months old. Rise of the Cybermen establishes that Rose was six months old at the time of Pete's death, which would place her birth around early May or late April, seemingly agreeing with the Annual dating.
Grow your own TARDIS
The original script of the Bad Wolf Bay scene in TV: Journey's End contained an excerpt in which the Tenth Doctor gave the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor and Rose a piece of TARDIS coral, and Donna told them how to increase the rate of growth so that they could travel the stars in the parallel universe. "The Doctor in the TARDIS with Rose Tyler, just as it should be". This scene was removed in the final cut for complicating the scene too much. It was, however, mentioned in The Doctor's Data section of Doctor Who Adventures magazine, and in DWM 398. Russell T Davies states that it is fine to assume this part of the scene did actually occur. The scene is included on the Series 4 DVD Box Set.
Return to Doctor Who
News of Rose's return to the series leaked out during early production of the fourth series when photographs of her on set appeared on websites and in the press. After initial denials by the BBC, promotion for the season incorporated images of Rose Tyler. In an interview with Doctor Who Confidential aired in conjunction with Turn Left, Billie Piper revealed that the decision to bring Rose back had in fact been made when she left the series in 2006, and she had to mislead journalists and fans for the next year to keep Rose's return a surprise. Rose's first appearance in Series 4 is a surprise cameo at the end of Partners in Crime, a scene shot during production of Turn Left and veiled in such secrecy that advance review copies of the episode had the scene edited out and, unlike many other aspects of the series (such as Rose's ultimate return), was broadcast without having been the subject of Internet spoilers. In a later interview with Doctor Who Magazine, Davies indicated the original plan was for Rose to not appear again until Turn Left, but on learning how well the cameo went over with viewers, at the last minute he inserted brief, silent images of Rose into The Poison Sky and Midnight; the scene was filmed for Midnight and was scripted. Davies added it to The Poison Sky before it was broadcast. As with Partners in Crime, the Poison Sky cameo was not included in review copies. Billie Piper receives screen credit for her appearances in Poison Sky and Midnight.
Rose Tyler: Earth Defence
After Rose was written out of Doctor Who at the end of Series 2, Russell T Davies considered giving the character her own 90-minute spin-off production, Rose Tyler: Earth Defence, with the possibility of such a special becoming an annual Bank Holiday event. Although the special was officially commissioned, Davies changed his mind and decided that such a return, wherein the audience would be able to see Rose when the Doctor could not, would spoil her final scenes in Doctor Who. The production was consequently cancelled.
Other matters
- "Tyler" is a common name in the works of writer and producer Russell T Davies, who has used it as the surname of a family that features heavily in his Virgin New Adventures Doctor Who novel, Damaged Goods. He has also used the name as the surname for several other characters in various series, such as Ruth Tyler in Revelations, Vince Tyler in Queer as Folk, and Johnny Tyler in The Second Coming.
- Among those who auditioned for the role of Rose Tyler was actress Georgia Moffett, daughter of Fifth Doctor actor Peter Davison. Moffett later played Jenny, the Doctor's daughter, in TV: The Doctor's Daughter and then voiced Cassie Rice in the animated special TV: Dreamland.
- The title of the first episode of Series 1, Rose, is a references to the character's name and she is the first character to appear in that episode. Therefore, she is also simultaneously the first character to appear in Series 1 and the first to be seen in a Doctor Who television episode for nine years (the interval between the 1996 Doctor Who television movie and Rose).
- Sam Tyler, the lead character in the BBC's other time-travel drama, Life on Mars, was named after Rose. Reportedly, the lead character's surname was suggested by the young daughter of Life of Mars co-creator, Matthew Graham, after her father had asked her to choose the character's surname. She ultimately decided upon "Tyler" because of Rose, a fact only later discovered by her father, who eventually wrote the Doctor Who episode Fear Her. Sam Tyler is played by John Simm, who is also the sixth onscreen incarnation of the Master. Ironically, the Master and Rose never actually met. In the US production of Life on Mars, Sam Tyler's mother is named Rose.
- Rose Tyler, along with the Tenth Doctor, had a cameo appearance in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comic, No Future for You Part One.
- "Rose's Theme" is included on the Doctor Who: Original Television Soundtrack. Her name appears in the titles of two other tracks on the disc, "Rose in Peril" and "Rose Defeats the Daleks".
- Rose is in rare company as one of the only companions to have been present in every televised story of a given incarnation of the Doctor. However some stories have shown the Ninth Doctor travelling without her.
- She has the most television story appearances as a companion, appearing in 33 stories.
Footnotes
