Rose Tyler

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Doctor Who character

Rose Tyler
Rose
Affiliated with Ninth Doctor
Tenth Doctor
Race Human
Home planet Earth
Home era Early 21st century
First appearance Rose
Last appearance Doomsday
Portrayed by Billie Piper

Rose Tyler is a fictional character played by Billie Piper in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. A shop assistant from London, she is a companion of the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, and was a regular on the programme from 2005 to 2006.

Contents

[edit] Character history

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

When Rose meets the Doctor in Rose, she is working as a shop assistant at Henrik's department store in Regent Street, London. She has a boyfriend named Mickey Smith, and lives in a council flat with her mother Jackie. Rose left school without taking her A-levels but did win the bronze medal in an under-sevens gymnastics competition at her junior school. Her father, Pete Tyler, died in 1987 in a car accident, the year after Rose was born.

One night after the shops closed she encounters mannequins coming to life in the basement of Henrik's. The Autons are about to dispose of her when the Doctor saves her life, although he goes on to destroy the building, thus costing Rose her job. She aids the Doctor in tracking down the hiding place of the Nestene Consciousness that is animating the Autons and subsequently helps defeat its plans of world conquest. She then joins the Doctor on his travels in the TARDIS.

In her travels with the Doctor, Rose (among other things) sees the end of the world, encountered the Doctor's oldest enemies and learns about the consequences of tampering with history. The Doctor even modifies her mobile phone to be able to communicate across time and space, among other functions. She nicknames it the "Superphone".

During the 2005 series, the words "Bad Wolf" follow the Doctor and Rose around, the phrase being scattered like clues through the places that they visit. In The Parting of the Ways, it is revealed that Rose is the Bad Wolf — the words are a message that she will leave to herself in time and space when she absorbs the energies of the time vortex to save the Doctor and the Earth from the Daleks. (Rose is also told she has "something of the wolf" about her in Tooth and Claw). The Doctor returns her home to place her out of harm's way, but "Bad Wolf" is a reminder that it is possible to get back to him. This leads her to the point where she absorbs the energies, creating a predestination paradox and making it possible not just to destroy the Daleks but to leave those clues. The vortex energies also allow Rose to resurrect Jack Harkness, an act which seems to make him immortal, although it is unclear whether this is an omniscient Rose's intention or not.

However, the energies she absorbed begin to destroy her body. The Doctor takes those energies into himself, sacrificing his ninth incarnation and regenerating before Rose's eyes into the Tenth Doctor.

Rose is initially disconcerted at the Doctor's transformation, and is even more distressed when the Doctor falls into a post-regenerative coma, unable to counter the threat of a Sycorax invasion. However, when the Doctor recovers and defeats the Sycorax, Rose happily accepts his new face and manner (The Christmas Invasion).

In Tooth and Claw she is made a dame by Queen Victoria, making her Dame Rose of the Powell Estate. Immediately afterwards, however, Victoria banishes the two from the British Empire. When the Doctor, Rose and Mickey accidentally travel to a parallel Earth, Rose meets an alternate version of Pete Tyler, who has become a success (Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel). At the end of that story, Mickey elects to stay on the parallel Earth to fight the Cybermen, and Rose is upset that she will never see him again.

However, in the 2006 series finale, Army of Ghosts and Doomsday , the Cybermen invade Rose's universe along with the Daleks. Although Rose and the Doctor manage to remove both enemies from Earth, Rose ends up trapped on the parallel Earth, albeit reunited with Pete, Mickey and Jackie, who have also followed. The Doctor manages to project his image through the last crack between the universes, sharing a tearful farewell with her. He tells Rose that she is presumed dead in the aftermath of the invasion. Rose in turn reveals that she is working for that universe's version of the Torchwood Institute due to her experience with aliens. She tells him that she loves him, and he is about to reply before the projection fades — he only manages to say her name before disappearing.

Rose is the only companion to stay with the Doctor throughout an entire incarnation on screen, the single television movie with the Eighth Doctor and Grace Holloway notwithstanding. Jamie McCrimmon appears in all but one of the Second Doctor's stories.

[edit] Personality

Rose was the first television companion of the Doctor with a fully fleshed-out personal life and background that the audience actually saw on screen in her debut story, as opposed to something developed over time. For the first time since the first Doctor Who episode "An Unearthly Child", Rose was told largely from the companion's point of view. It was also the first time the television series has examined the consequences of a companion leaving with the Doctor; for the year she was away, she was considered a missing person and Mickey was briefly suspected of her murder (Aliens of London).

She is also one of the few on-screen companions who were not cut off from their family and friends and the world they once knew. Both Jo Grant's and Sarah Jane Smith's travels with the Doctor were common knowledge by members of UNIT, for which Jo worked and with which Sarah Jane had a relationship via her job as a journalist. In addition, both Jo (who traveled with the Third Doctor) and Sarah Jane (who traveled with both the Third and Fourth Doctors) parted company with the Doctor on present day Earth and continued their normal lives. Along similar lines, Vislor Turlough, companion to the Fifth Doctor, was actually reunited with his younger brother because of his travels with the Doctor.

Rose is unique in that she is the first companion whose immediate family and/or a close friend knew of her travels with the Doctor while they occurred. Mickey was aware of her new occupation and tracked her movements through his website. Jackie found out about the life her daughter was leading in Aliens of London, and despite pleading for her to stay, Rose continued to travel with the Doctor. Rose was able to communicate with her family if she wanted to via her "Superphone" (several episodes such as Love and Monsters reveal that Rose would often phone home during her travels and let her mother know her activities), and numerous episodes saw Rose returning to visit with her mother and Mickey, rendering them recurring "pseudo-companions" along the same lines as Captain Mike Yates, Sergeant Benton and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart from the Third Doctor's era. Mickey would subsequently become a full companion during the 2006 season, while Jackie would act (albeit unwillingly) as a companion in the two-part serial that ends the 2006 season.

Rose is a quick-witted, inquisitive and compassionate young woman, who despite the strange events she is thrown into is quick to adapt to them. She falls easily into the role of the Doctor's latest companion and shows both determination and courage while facing various alien threats. She cares deeply about the Doctor, although whether or not her feelings are purely platonic or have at least some romantic component to them is perhaps open to viewers' interpretation. During the 2006 series she states on several occasions her desire to stay with the Doctor for the rest of her life, climaxing in Doomsday when she initially chooses to stay with the Doctor, even if it means forever leaving her mother and Mickey on the parallel earth. In their final moments together in Doomsday, Rose tells the Doctor that she loves him; he begins to reply but only manages to say her name before his signal is cut off and the two are parted indefinitely.

Rose is not the first companion whose deep platonic love for the Doctor doesn't at least suggest romantic interest as well. Sarah Jane Smith hints at complicated feelings for the Doctor in School Reunion when he asks her if she had ever married and she tells him she hasn't ("You're a tough act to follow," she adds). Grace Holloway makes a joking reference to having fallen for the Eighth Doctor in the 1996 TV movie. In Army of Ghosts, Rose also indicates her intention to stay with the Doctor "forever", a sentiment never before expressed by previous companions, many of whom were reluctant travellers.

Writing in the Times Literary Supplement, Roz Kaveney described Rose as a "'Mary Sue' — an unironic reflection of the writers' and fans' desire to get in there and help the Doctor out (while managing to stay pretty)."[1]

[edit] Other appearances

Rose is featured in the first twelve New Series Adventures novels. She also appears in the Quick Reads Initiative release, I am a Dalek. Like most spin-off Doctor Who fiction, the canonicity of the novels remains unclear given the BBC has never made a pronouncement of what is considered official canon. However, the events of the novel The Monsters Inside are referenced in the episode Boom Town. In the novels, some elements of Rose's backstory are fleshed out. Only Human reveals she was once engaged to be married (this does not appear to be a reference to Mickey, given Rose's unfriendly reference to the former fiancee; it could be a reference to Jimmy Stone - see below), and in the same novel, Rose briefly marries Tillun, a member of a prehistoric tribe of cave men, as part of a ruse to protect his tribe.

The Doctor Who Annual 2006, published by Panini Comics in August 2005, gives further biographical information on Rose in an article written by the programme's chief writer and executive producer Russell T. Davies.[2] The piece includes the address of the flat she and Jackie live in (Flat 48, Bucknall House, Powell Estate, SE15 7GO). Jackie supports 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.

Rose (whose middle name is given as Marion) 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 well 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.

Following Rose's departure from Doctor Who, a spinoff production titled Rose Tyler: Earth Defence was commisioned but ultimately withdrawn by Davies.

[edit] Rose's age

The Doctor states that Rose is 19 years old in the episodes The Unquiet Dead and Dalek. Also in Dalek, the Doctor mentions that the year is 2012, and Rose indicates that this makes her 26. Aliens of London establishes that she met the Doctor on March 6, 2005. However, the Annual article states that Rose was born on April 27, 1987, making her just under 18 years old at the time. Although this contradicts the age as initially 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.

In the New Series Adventures novel The Deviant Strain, a victim is described as being 19 and compared to Rose's age. Also, in the 2006 series episode Rise of the Cybermen, the Doctor reminds Rose that her father died when she was "six months old", apparently retconning her previous age. In Army of Ghosts, Rose states that her life was normal for 19 years, and then she met the Doctor and in Doomsday she makes a similar statement to her mother.

During the lead-up to the episode Bad Wolf, the BBC Doctor Who 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.[3] This would appear to be inconsistent with the 27 April birthdate in the most common (tropical) zodiac. Although 27 April corresponds to Taurus in the well-known tropical zodiac, it falls under Aries in the sidereal zodiac. The novel The Stone Rose refers to her as a Taurus.

As with all non-televised Doctor Who, the canonicity of both the website and the Annual article, despite its authorship, along with original novels, is open to question.

[edit] Trivia

  • Actress Georgia Moffett, daughter of Fifth Doctor actor Peter Davison, auditioned for the role of Rose.
  • Writer/producer Russell T. Davies frequently uses the surname "Tyler" in his work. A family named Tyler is featured heavily in his Virgin New Adventures Doctor Who novel Damaged Goods, and Davies has created characters named Tyler in other series he has written, including Ruth Tyler in Revelations (1994), Vince Tyler in Queer as Folk (1999), and Johnny Tyler in The Second Coming (2003).
  • Sam Tyler, the lead character in the BBC's other time travel drama Life on Mars, was named after Rose. This came about when Life on Mars co-creator Matthew Graham asked his young daughter to suggest a surname for the character, later discovering that she had chosen the name because of Rose. Graham later went on to write the Doctor Who episode Fear Her.[4]

[edit] List of appearances

[edit] Television

2005 series
2005 Children In Need special
2005 Christmas special
2006 series

[edit] Novels

[edit] Short stories

Doctor Who Annual 2006
Doctor Who Storybook 2007
  • "Cuckoo-Spit" by Mark Gatiss
  • "The Cat Came Back" by Gareth Roberts
  • "Gravestone House" by Justin Richards
  • "Untitled" by Robert Shearman
  • "No One Died" by Nicholas Briggs

[edit] Comics

Doctor Who Magazine
  • "The Love Invasion" by Gareth Roberts & Clayton Hickman, Mike Collins and David A. Roach (issues 355–357)
  • "Art Attack!" by Mike Collins and Kris Justice (issue 358)
  • "The Cruel Sea" by Robert Shearman, Mike Collins and David A. Roach (issues 359–362)
  • "A Groatsworth of Wit" by Gareth Roberts, Mike Collins and David A. Roach (issues 63–364)
  • "The Betrothal of Sontar" by John Tomlinson & Nick Abadzis, Mike Collins and David A. Roach (issues 365–367)
  • "The Lodger" by Gareth Roberts, Mike Collins and David A. Roach (issue 368)
  • "F. A. Q." by Tony Lee, Mike Collins and David A. Roach (issues 369–371)
  • "The Futurists" by Mike Collins and David A. Roach (issues 372–374)
  • " Interstellar Overdrive" by Mike Collins and Jonathon Morris (issues 375-376)
Doctor Who Adventures
  • "Which Switch" by Michael Stevens and John Ross (issue 1)
  • "Mirror Image" by Jacqueline Rayner and John Ross (issue 2)
  • "Under the Volcano" by Si Spencer and John Ross (issue 3)
  • "The Germ War" by Alan Barnes and John Ross (issue 4)
  • "WarFreekz!" by Alan Barnes and John Ross (issue 5)
  • "A Delicate Operation" by Si Spencer and John Ross (issue 6)
  • "Blood and Tears" by Si Spencer and John Ross (issue 7)
  • "Fried Death" by Alan Barnes and John Ross (issue 8)
  • "Bizarre Zero" (issue 9)
  • "Save the Humans" (issue 10)
  • "Bat Attack" / "The Battle of Reading Gaol" (issues 11–12)
  • "Triskaidekaphobia" (issue 13)
Doctor Who - Battles in Time
  • "Survivors of Platform One" by Stephen Cole and John Ross (issues 1–6)
Doctor Who Annuals
  • "Mr. Nobody" by Scott Gray and John Ross (Doctor Who Annual 2006)
  • "Down the Rabbit Hole" by Davey Moore and John Ross (Doctor Who Annual 2007)
  • "Opera of Doom!" by Jonathan Morris, Martin Geraghty and Fareed Choudhury (Doctor Who Storybook 2007)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Kaveney, Roz. "Rovers' returns" (fee required), Times Literary Supplement, News Corporation, 2005-04-29. Retrieved on February 5, 2007.
  2. ^ Davies, Russell T: Doctor Who Annual 2006, page 38, "Meet Rose". Panini Books, 2005; ISBN 1-904419-73-9
  3. ^ BBC Doctor Who website. bbc.co.uk. Retrieved on January 13, 2007.
  4. ^ Darlington, David. "Script Doctors: Matthew Graham", Doctor Who Magazine, 2006-06-21.

[edit] External link

 v • d • e Companions of the Ninth Doctor
Series 1
161 162 163 164A 164B 165 166 167 168A 168B 169 170A 170B
Rose→
Adam Jack
 v • d • e Companions of the Tenth Doctor
Series 2 Series 3
CIN 171 172 173 174 175 176A 176B 177 178A 178B 179 180 181A 181B 182 183 184 185 186A 186B 187 188 189A 189B 190 191 192A 192B
←Rose Donna Martha
Mickey Mickey Jack
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