Rose Tyler
Rose Marion Tyler was the first known companion of the ninth incarnation of the Doctor and the first companion of the tenth incarnation. She was sealed off in a parallel world, before returning to her own, only to ultimately be returned to the parallel world by the Doctor, along with another version of himself. She shared a close, romantic relationship with both the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, eventually living in the parallel universe with the duplicate Tenth Doctor.
Biography
Early life
Rose Marion Tyler was born to Jackie and Pete Tyler on 27 April 1987. (DW: Father's Day, DWAN: Doctor Who Annual 2006)
- See also: #Age.
She attended Jericho Street Junior School and Jericho Street Comprehensive, where she joined the gymnastics team, and won a bronze medal in competition. She performed decently in her GCSEs (one A, two Bs, four Cs and a D in science) and planned to do A-Levels (in English, French and Art). However, she left school to pursue a romantic relationship with local Jimmy Stone, which ended badly. (DW: Rose, DWAN: Doctor Who Annual 2006)
Several times in her childhood, she was visited and watched over by her future friend, Captain Jack Harkness, who had been temporally displaced by a fault on his vortex manipulator. Jack did not say hello to avoid damaging the timeline. (DW: Utopia)
When Rose was in her late teens, she and her mother, Jackie, were living in the Powell Estate (Flat 48, Bucknall House, Powell Estate, London, SE15 7G0) in South London. Rose worked as a shop assistant at Henrik's Department Store in London's Regent Street, while Jackie worked from home as a hairdresser.
Before she met the Doctor, Rose's only travelling experience was a school trip to France and an annual week's holiday to South Wales with her mother. (DW: Rose; DWAN: Doctor Who Annual 2006)
She entered into a relationship with Mickey Smith some time before 2005. (DW: Rose)
With the Doctor
First meeting
Her first encounter with the mysterious time-traveller known as the Doctor happened 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 home. (DW: The End of Time)
Joining the Doctor
Rose met the Doctor again later on 4 March 2005, early in his ninth incarnation, when he saved her from an attack of Autons in Henrik's. After she returned home, she searched on the Internet for information about this strange man and found Clive Finch, who had been keeping track of the Doctor's appearances on Earth. Rose helped the Doctor track down the Nestene Consciousness animating the Autons and, when he was being held by two of the Autons, used her gymnastic skill to set him free. The Earth saved, the Doctor invited Rose to travel with him. Initially, she refused, and the Doctor left, only to return a few moments later to mention the TARDIS had the ability to travel through time. Given this second chance, Rose joined him in the TARDIS, giving her boyfriend a kiss and leaving him and her mother behind on Earth. (DW: Rose) The Doctor modified her mobile phone to be able to communicate across time and space, among other functions. (DW: The End of the World)
Travels with the Ninth Doctor
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 she found attractive and who travelled with the Doctor. However, as a result of his behavior, she soon lost interest in him. (DW: The Long Game) The Doctor also took Rose to 1987 to witness the last minutes of her father's life. This had drastic consequences. Rose prevented his death, altered history and unleashed Reapers. She also met 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 met Captain Jack Harkness, a former Time Agent from the 51st century, to whom she was also attracted. The Doctor and Rose took him along in the TARDIS. (DW: The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances)
Bad Wolf
Throughout their travels, the phrase "Bad Wolf" 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, 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. 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. (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 by kissing her, sacrificing his ninth incarnation and regenerating before Rose's eyes into a new form. (DW: 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, (DW: Children in Need Special) 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. (DW: 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, but eventually went into the dying body of Chip once she helped the Doctor cure the infected new humans. (DW: New Earth)
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. (DW: Tooth and Claw) This incident prompted Queen Victoria to found the Torchwood Institute to address future alien threats — including the Doctor. (DW: 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 these chips.
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. (DW: 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. (DW: 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. (DWM: The Green-Eyed Monster) 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. (DWM: Interstellar Overdrive)
On a parallel version of Earth later called "Pete's World" after Pete Tyler, Rose met a version of her father, this Earth's "namesake". He had not died, but had become a successful businessman. In this parallel universe, Pete and Jackie Tyler never had a daughter named Rose. They did, however, have a dog with the same name. (DW: Rise of the Cybermen)
Mickey left the TARDIS to live a new life on Pete's World fighting the Cybermen there and caring for his grandmother, who had died in his home universe from a fall. (DW: The Age of Steel)
After returning to Rose's home universe, the Doctor and Rose arrived in Muswell Hill, London, on the eve of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953. There, the duo faced an enemy known as the Wire which planned to steal faces from everyone in London via television sets, to gain energy to feed and survive. During this time Rose became a victim of the Wire and lost her face. The Doctor was able to save her by transferring the Wire into a betamax cassette tape. (DW: The Idiot's Lantern)
There was a difficult discussion about settling down after seemingly losing the TARDIS (DW: The Impossible Planet). After they got back the TARDIS, Rose and the Doctor defeated the Hoix, then watched as LINDA defeated the Abzorbaloff when he tried to absorb the Doctor. (DW: Love & Monsters) They next travelled to attend the 2012 Olympic Games, where the Doctor seemed pleased when Rose asked for him to hold her hand. Meanwhile they investigated the disappearances of children taken by the Isolus. The Doctor himself was taken but freed when Rose recharged the Isolus pod. (DW: Fear Her)
During the battle of Canary Wharf in the Torchwood Institute, Rose refused to leave the Doctor to face the threat on his own. She nearly sacrificed herself to make sure that every Dalek and Cyberman were sucked into the Void. Due to a timely rescue by Pete Tyler from Pete's World, Rose was alive, but was separated from the Doctor, seemingly forever. (DW: 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) 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 confessed her love for the Doctor, but the Doctor did not have a chance to reciprocate his feelings as he was cut off abruptly. (DW: Doomsday) Some time later, Jackie gave birth to Rose's baby brother, Tony. (DW: Journey's End)
Crossing the timelines
As Davros' reality bomb weakened the barriers between universes, Rose used a dimension cannon to find either the Doctor or Donna Noble and warn them about the oncoming darkness. (DW: 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. (DW: 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. (DW: 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. (DW: The Poison Sky)
On the planet Midnight, Rose appeared on a screen in the Crusader 50 shuttlebus, silently shouting, "Doctor!" It was not clear if anyone on the bus noticed. (DW: 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. (DW: 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 and Donna's grandfather Wilf, 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. (DW: 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, would age, and would never regenerate. 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. (DW: Journey's End)
The Doctor remembered Rose and felt guilty about what he had done to her, well into his eleventh incarnation. (DW: Let's Kill Hitler, DW: The Wedding of River Song)
Personality
Rose was a resourceful, brave and kind-hearted woman with a great sense of humour. She was quick to adapt to strange events. She had her mother's acerbic wit and was not hesitant to use it.
Rose fell easily into the role of the Doctor's latest companion and was brave facing various alien threats. (DW: Rose) She cared deeply about the Doctor, although she originally denied any romantic feelings towards him despite indications to the contrary. (DW: The End of the World, Aliens of London) In what seemed their final meeting on the beach, 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. (DW: Doomsday)
Rose was anti-racist, willing to treat aliens as equals. (DW: The End of the World, DW: Dalek, DW: The Impossible Planet, DWM: The Betrothal of Sontar)
Rose proved capable of great forgiveness and mercy, willing to forgive people even after what they did. (DW: Dalek, New Earth) Of course, she was easily willing to kill if she had to. (DW: The Parting of the Ways, The Satan Pit, The Stolen Earth)
Rose was willing to call the Doctor out when 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. 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. (DW: 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. (DW: School Reunion, Journey's End)
Rose was willing to sacrifice herself for the Doctor or the common good. When faced with the choice of dying or saving the world, Rose instructed the Doctor to do what he had to do to save everyone else. (DW: World War Three) This was a common theme in Rose's story; despite the risk of plunging into the Void and an eternity of nothingness, she let go of a magnetic hold to set a lever right and seal the Cybermen and Daleks away from her world. It was only the sudden appearance of her father from the parallel world that saved her from that fate, but ultimately led to her separation from the Doctor. (DW: Doomsday)
Skills
Rose proved handy with guns. (DW: The Satan Pit, The Stolen Earth)
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. Moffett later played Jenny, the Doctor's daughter, in DW: The Doctor's Daughter and then voiced Cassie Rice in the animated special DW: 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).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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, along with the Tenth Doctor, had a cameo appearance in 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, to date sharing the distinction only with Grace Holloway (with the Eighth Doctor) and Amy Pond (with the Eleventh Doctor).
Age
The Doctor twice states onscreen that Rose is nineteen years old. (DW: The Unquiet Dead, Dalek). It is later established she left with the Doctor on 6 March 2005 (DW: Aliens of London) If the Doctor was speaking with precision, she must have been born in 1985 or prior to 4 March 1986, though he might not have known her real age or was fibbing.
However, a Doctor Who Annual 2006 article 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 in November 1987, where the baby is no more than a few months old.
The 27 April birth date is also possibly inconsistent with an obscure statement once made on the BBC's website. In the lead-up to the broadcast of the episode, DW: Bad Wolf, the website was altered to tie in with the story's Big Brother theme. In this week-long iteration of the site, a "contestant portrait" for Rose stated that she was an Aries. According to one astrological system, this would mean she was, contrary to the annual, born between 21 March and 19 April. According to another, of which Rose could well have been aware, she could have been an Aries if born on 27 April.
Grow your own TARDIS
The original script of the Bad Wolf Bay scene in DW: 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, "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.
Footnotes
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