Rose Tyler

From Tardis Wiki, the free Doctor Who reference

Rose Marion Tyler, knighted Dame Rose of the Powell Estate, 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 Tyler was born to Jackie and Pete Tyler around 1986. Her father died when hit by a car while she was still a baby. (TV: Rose, The Unquiet Dead, Father's Day, Bad Wolf, Army of Ghosts)

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)

Rose as a baby meets her older self. (TV: Father's Day)

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

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. (TV: The End of Time)

Meeting the Doctor again

Rose searches for Wilson. (TV: Rose)

In March 2005, Rose was asked to give lottery money to the chief electrician of Henrik's, Wilson. Unable to find him, Rose was trapped and about to be killed by 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 flat. 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 knew 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 Mickey was 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, while saying Mickey was not invited. Rose accepted. (TV: Rose)

Travels with the Ninth Doctor

"You're just skin, Cassandra! Lipstick and skin!" (TV: The End of the World)

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. The Doctor upgraded Rose's mobile phone to 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 did this, 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 place 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 twelve hours later as the Doctor promised, Rose found she had been missing for an entire year; Mickey had been blamed by Jackie for her disappearance. Once Rose calmed her mother, she was shocked when an alien spacecraft crashed through Big Ben and into the Thames. When the Doctor suspected something fishy was occurring, Rose accompanied him to Downing Street, where she met Harriet Jones and discovered the Slitheen. (TV: Aliens of London)

She then helped the Doctor stop the Slitheen from reducing the Earth to a nuclear husk to be sold for profit by blowing up Downing Street with a missile. 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 did not return as she said she would). (TV: World War Three)

Rose and "the last Dalek." (TV: Dalek)

When the Doctor traced a distress signal to 2012 and landed in the Vault, Rose met a Dalek for the first time. Much to her surprise, as it rampaged and killed, trying to get out, the Dalek began changing from the DNA it absorbed from her along with radiation from the Time Vortex, developing emotions like pity. As it was unable to cope with emotions, the Dalek had her order its death... which she only did to put it out of its misery. During this time, Rose met Adam Mitchell, a genius she found attractive and had the Doctor take along as a fellow companion. (TV: Dalek)

Rose was next taken to the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire, where she was told history had gone wrong; humanity was supposed to at the peak of perfection, but the technology is backwards. While investigating with the Doctor, Rose found the planet was being controlled by an alien called the Jagrafess, who had been manipulating the information humanity received. Defeating it, Rose found Adam had taken advantage of time travel and tried exploiting foreknowledge. Along with the Doctor, Rose kicked him out of the TARDIS. (TV: The Long Game)

Rose meets her father. (TV: Father's Day)

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. After confirming her identity to her father, Rose let him get hit by a car to save everyone; she stayed with him until he passed away from his injuries. She also met herself as an infant, as well as a very young Mickey Smith. (TV: 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. She also learned humanity is more loose about "dancing" in Jack's time because of the different species they can breed with. (TV: The Empty Child / 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)

On a refuelling trip to Cardiff, Rose was taken hostage by Blon-fetch Slitheen, a survivor of their last encounter. After the for 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, only seeing Mickey as a close friend because of her time with the Doctor. (TV: Boom Town)

Bad Wolf

Throughout their travels, the phrase "Bad Wolf" followed the Doctor and Rose around through space and time.

Rose stares into the Time Vortex. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)

Following his discovery of a complex plan by the Daleks to invade Earth in the year 200,100 (TV: 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. (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, (TV: 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. (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, 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)

Rose at the mercy of clockwork droids. (TV: The Girl in the Fireplace)

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)

Rose and another version of her father. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen)

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. (TV: 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 after falling downstairs. (TV: 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 videocassette, which he planned to record over. (TV: The Idiot's Lantern)

Rose shoots the spaceship shield, sending Toby into space. (TV: The Satan Pit)

There was a difficult discussion about settling down after seemingly losing the TARDIS (TV: 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. (TV: 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. (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)

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. (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) 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. (TV: Doomsday) Some time later, Jackie gave birth to Rose's baby brother, Tony. (TV: 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. (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!" It was not clear if anyone on the bus noticed. (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 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. (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.

Rose says goodbye to one Doctor and hello to another. (TV: Journey's End)

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 and sweet 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. 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 latest companion and was brave facing various alien threats. (TV: Rose) 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 was not racist; she had a black boyfriend and was willing to treat aliens as equals. (TV: The End of the World, TV: Dalek, TV: The Impossible Planet, COMIC: The Betrothal of Sontar)

Rose proved capable of great forgiveness and mercy, willing to forgive people even after the terrible things that they had done. (TV: Dalek, New Earth) Of course, she was 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 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. (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)

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. (TV: World War Three) This was a common theme in Rose's story.

Skills

Rose proved handy with guns. (TV: The Satan Pit, The Stolen Earth)

Behind the scenes

Age

The Doctor twice states onscreen that Rose is nineteen years old. (TV: The Unquiet Dead, Bad Wolf), 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 in November 1987, where the baby is no more than a few months old.

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 Defender

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

  • 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, to date sharing the distinction only with Grace Holloway (with the Eighth Doctor).

Footnotes