Rose Tyler, originally a shop assistant from London, was the first known companion of the Doctor during his ninth incarnation. After Rose witnessed his regeneration into the tenth incarnation, she continued to travel with him, before becoming trapped in an alternate Earth.
History
Early Life
Rose Tyler was born to Jackie and Pete Tyler in 1986. (DW: The Unquiet Dead, Dalek) see also: Mysteries and Discrepancies
Rose was only six months old when, on 7 November, 1987, her father, Pete, died in a car accident. (DW: Rise of the Cybermen, Father's Day) Although she was too young to remember the incident or any other events from that year, her mother, Jackie, later told Rose the story of how her father had died. (DW: Father's Day)
- For more information on Rose's age at the time of her father's death, see Mysteries and Discrepancies below.
- The shooting script of "Father's Day" gives 1992 as the year that Jackie tells Rose about Pete's death, also mentioning that Rose is "about six years old" at the time. The episode itself gives no indication as to the timing of Rose being told the story.
Rose attended the Jericho Street Junior School, where she was a member of the under-sevens gymnastic team, and she won the bronze medal in a school gymnastics competition. (DW: Rose)
When Rose was twelve, she was given a red bicycle for Christmas. The Doctor would later imply that he himself had done this for her. (DW: The Doctor Dances)
- It might be assumed that the Doctor had something to do with her receiving the bike, as he knows what she got without her ever telling him and uses the fact she was given a bike as evidence to support his claim that he is Father Christmas.
While at school, she and a friend of hers named Shareen would often intentionally miss school to go shopping and to look at boys. (DW: The Unquiet Dead) Rose left school without taking her A-levels, later blaming Jimmy Stone as the only reason for her departure. (DW: Rose) However, she would also later recall that she had hated every second of school. (DW: The Unquiet Dead)
Rose began seeing Mickey at the age of 14, and at 15 she was suspended from her school, Jericho Street Comprehensive, for persuading the choir to go on strike. After doing badly in her GCSE exams, she left school to live with a 20 year-old musician, Jimmy Stone, but the affair ended in tears and with Rose £800 in debt. She subsequently returned to Jackie and Mickey, and her mother called in a favour from an ex-boyfriend to get her the job at Henrik's.
Rose and Jackie lived in (Flat 48, Bucknall House, Powell Estate, London, SE15 7GO). Jackie supported them by working from home as a hairdresser and, prior to Rose meeting the Doctor, her only travelling experience was a school trip to France and an annual week's holiday to South Wales with her mother (Doctor Who Annual 2006).
By the time she was 19, Rose had started work as a shop assistant at Henrik's Department Store in Regent Street in London. She would travel to and from work on buses. She had a boyfriend named Mickey Smith and lived in a council flat on the Powell Estate with her mother, Jackie. One of the rooms in the flat was Rose's pink bedroom, where she would sleep and wake up with an alarm clock, every morning at 7:30. (DW: Rose)
Adventures with the Doctor
Early adventures
One night after Henrik's Department Store had closed, Rose witnessed several mannequins coming to life in the basement of the shop building. Although she suspected the models were someone's idea of a practical joke, the mannequins were actually Autons. The Doctor, saved, took her hand and helped her escape from the store and then proceeded to destroy the building which consequently made Rose unemployed.
After she returned home, she searched for more information on the internet about the strange man and found Clive Finch, a man who had been keeping track of the Doctor's appearances on Earth. Ultimately, Rose helped the Doctor track down the Nestene Consciousness that was animating the Autons and, when the Doctor was being held by two of the mannequins, Rose used her gymnastic skill to free him. The Earth now saved from the Nestenes, Rose subsequently joined him inhis TARDIS, leaving her boyfriend and her mother behind on Earth. (DW: Rose)
The Doctor modifed her Nokia 3200 mobile phone to be able to communicate across time and space, among other functions. (DW: The End of the World). (She would later nickname it the "Superphone".)
In her first trip with the Doctor, Rose witnessed the final destruction of Earth (DW: The End of the World). Later she encountered a Dalek for the first time. (DW: Dalek) During that adventure Rose met Adam Mitchell, a young genius who she found very attractive and who travelled with the Doctor. However, as a consequence of his Adam's behaviour, she soon lost interest in him. (DW: The Long Game) The Doctor also took Rose back to 1987 to witness the last minutes of her father's life. This would have drastic consequences as Rose prevented his death, altering history and unleashing Reapers. She also ended up meeting herself as an infant as well as a very young Mickey Smith. (DW: Father's Day)
In World War II London, the Doctor and Rose encountered Captain Jack Harkness, a former Time Agent from the 51st century, with whom she also had an attraction. Befriending him, the Doctor and Rose took him along in the TARDIS with them. (DW: The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances)
Bad Wolf
From the moment Rose stepped foot in the TARDIS, the phrase "Bad Wolf" had followed the Doctor and Rose around through space and time. Following his discovery of a complex plan by the Daleks to invade Earth in the year 200,100 (DW: Bad Wolf), the Doctor sent, believing he might well die soon, placed her out of harm's way in her home place and time. Seeing the words Bad Wolf as graffiti around her housing complex served as a reminder to Rose that it was possible to return to him. Rose broke into the TARDIS and looked into its heart which enabled her to transcend temporarily into the transcendentally powerful being, the Bad Wolf itself. As this goddess-like figure, she vaporized the Dalek fleet. However, Rose had absorbed the Time Vortex into herself by doing so, which would destroy her body, cell by cell. (DW: 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, sacrificing his ninth incarnation and regenerating before Rose's eyes into a new form (DW: The Parting of the Ways).
With the "new" Doctor
The newly generated Doctor managed to steer the TARDIS back to Christmas Eve 2006 and fell unconscious. Rose was disturbed that the Doctor had changed in appearance and personality, and had apparantly left them to face the Sycorax invasion alone. The Doctor later revived and defeated the Sycorax. (DW: The Christmas Invasion)
During the encounter with Queen Victoria, the Doctor and Rose were knighted for defeating a werewolf, but immediately banned as a threat the British Empire. (DW: Tooth and Claw).
Back in her own time, Rose met a previous companion of the Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, which created an awkward situation Mickey Smith described as "the Mrs. and the Ex." Both women felt jealousy and tension, which they subsequently resolved. Rose, however,, became worried the Doctor would one day abandon her. (DW: School Reunion) She showed signs of jealousy when the Doctor fell in love with Madame de Pompadour. (DW: The Girl in the Fireplace).
On a parallel version of Earth later nicknamed "Pete's World" after him, Rose met a different version of her father, who had not died. Rose also witnessed the cyber-conversion and then the death of that world's verison of her mother. Mickey Smith decided to leave the Doctor and Rose and live a new life on Pete's World fighting against the Cybermen of that world. (DW: Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel)
There was later a difficult discussion about settling down after seemingly losing the TARDIS. (DW: The Impossible Planet) During the battle of Canary Wharf in the Torchwood Institute, Rose absolutely refused to leave the Doctor to face the threat on his own. Consequently, she nearly sacrificed herself to make sure every last Dalek and Cybermen were sucked into the Void, through which they came through to this version of Earth. Thanks to the timely rescue of Pete Tyler from Pete's World, Rose was alive, but was forever separated from the Doctor. (DW: Doomsday)
Life after the Doctor
Rose lived with Pete Tyler, her mother Jackie, and Mickey in their home on Pete's World. She received a dream-like contact from the Doctor, which guided her to Dålig Ulv Stranden beach 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 confesses her love for the Doctor, but the Doctor had not a chance to utter the words to reciprocate, when he was finally cut off. Rose was last seen standing on the beach crying while her mother comforts her. (DW: Doomsday)
Personality
Rose has shown herself to be a quick-witted, inquisitive and compassionate young woman, who despite the strange events she was thrown into was quick to adapt to them. She fell easily into the role of the Doctor's latest companion and showed both determination and courage while facing various alien threats. It is also obvious that she cares deeply about the Doctor, although she denies any infatuation with or romantic feelings towards him, despite indications to the contrary on several occasions. In Doomsday, she told the Doctor that she loved him; he began to reply, but only got out the words "Rose Tyler" before he was cut off.
Mysteries and Discrepancies
The Doctor states that Rose is nineteen years old (DW:The Unquiet Dead, DW:Dalek), and it is later established that she met the Doctor on 6 March 2005 (DW: Aliens of London). However, the Annual article states that Rose was born on 27 April 1987. Although this contradicts the age as stated on screen, it is consistent with the appearance of the baby Rose in "Father's Day," set in November 1987, where the baby is clearly no more than a few months old. The 27 April birthdate is also inconsistent with a statement on the BBC's website: during the lead-up to the episode "Bad Wolf," the website was altered to tie in with the story's Big Brother theme, and a "contestant portrait" for Rose stated that she was an Aries.
Behind the Scenes
"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. Actress Julia Joyce, at the age of seven, portrayed "Young Rose" in "Father's Day".
The title of the first episode of Season 27, "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 Season 27 and the first to have been seen in a Doctor Who television episode for nine years (given the interval between the 1996 Doctor Who television movie and "Rose").
After Rose was written out of Doctor Who at the end of Season 28, 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.
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 had ultimately decided upon "Tyler" because of Rose, a fact only later discovered by her father, who eventually went on to write the Doctor Who episode "Fear Her".
Billie Piper has been confirmed to return as Rose Tyler next year in Series 4. How she escapes the parallel universe has not been stated. It is not known how she will react to the fact that the Doctor has two companions at the time.