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Rose Tyler
(2005 – 2006, 2008 & 2010) |
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| Billie Piper |
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Billie Piper was born in 1982 in Swindon and she studied
at the prestigious Sylvia Young Theatre School.
She caught the eyes of record producers who were
interested in signing a young vocalist when she
was the poster girl for an ad campaign for the
pop music magazine, Smash Hits. She released
her first single, "Because
We Want To", in 1998 which debuted at number
one when she was just aged 15. Her second single "Girlfriend",
released in the same year, was also a number one
hit.
Billie had another number one in 2000 with "Day
and Night". She then decided not to pursue
a musical career but to become an actress.
Before
becoming Rose Tyler in Doctor Who
Billie Piper appeared in an episode of The Canterbury
Tales in 2003 and
in 2004 she was in - The Calcium Kid and Things
To Do Before You're 30. While in Doctor Who Billie
Piper appeared in Much Ado About Nothing in 2005.
Since leaving Doctor Who in 2006
she has played the part of Sally Lockhart in television
adaptations of two novels by Philip Pullman - The Ruby
in the Smoke, in 2006, and The
Shadow in the North,
in 2007. She also played the part of Fanny Price in
the 2007
television adaptation of Jane Austen’s Mansfield
Park. She has also played the leading role in The
Secret Diary of a Call Girl. |
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 The first companion for a new generation of
Doctor Who viewers, Rose Tyler served as the eyes that would
guide the new generation of audiences as they explored The Doctor's
world once again. Originally a simple shop assistant in modern-day
London, having failed to take her A-levels but managed to win
a bronze in the under-seven gymnastics tournament, Rose lived
with her mother, Jackie Tyler - her father having died when
she was only a baby - on the Powell Estate block of flats, spending
her spare time with her boyfriend Mickey Smith as she made her
way through a relatively unremarkable life.
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| The End of the World |
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Eventually, this situation changed completely
when Rose stayed late at the shop one day, going down to the basement
levels to check with the chief electrician as she deposited the money
for the shop's annual lottery deposit. While down there, she was
confronted by the Autons - beings of sentient plastic - who attempted
to kill her, but she was rescued by the (apparently newly regenerated)
Ninth
Doctor,
who was investigating the Nestene presence on Earth, their food planets
having been 'destroyed in the war' (What war was
un-revealed at first). In a final confrontation with the Nestene Consciousness underneath the London Eye - which the Consciousness
was using as a transmitter to active its living plastic. While The Doctor was occupied with an Auton, Rose dropped a phial of 'anti-plastic'
into the vat containing the Nestene Consciousness, destroying it
and subsequently causing the Autons to shut down. As The Doctor departed,
he asked Rose if she'd be interested in joining him - unique among
companions, he actually asked her to join him twice, although the
reason why he came back was never revealed - and, after the second
request, Rose ran into the TARDIS after a quick goodbye to Mickey,
grinning broadly as she prepared for the trip of a lifetime.
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| The Unquiet Dead |
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In many ways, Rose is unique among companions
for several reasons; for one thing, her backstory was revealed to
the audience in her debut, rather than her history being revealed
as the story unfolded. Unlike most past companions, Rose also remained
in contact with her life back on Earth in her present, thanks in
no small part to the 'Superphone' - a mobile phone that The Doctor
had upgraded on their first adventured together - as well as The Doctor's customary visits to her present (Although, admittedly, in
the past The Doctor's companions either didn’t have anybody
they wanted to stay in touch with from their old lives in the first
place - these companions including Dodo, Peri,
Ace and Fitz Kreiner - or
The Doctor's current skills at piloting the TARDIS meant that he
couldn't get them back home in the first place - Ian, Barbara
and
Tegan
Jovanka were numbered among this ‘class’ of companion).
In a manner that The Doctor hadn't been able to enjoy since his days
with UNIT, he now had regular allies on Earth, in the form of Rose's
mother Jackie and her ex Mickey, although he only really started
to get along with them after his regeneration. Despite her rather
simple background, Rose easily fit into her new role as The Doctor's
companion, surviving confrontations with both the Daleks and the
Cybermen on several occasions.
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| School Reunion |
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It was most likely Rose’s strength of
character that resulted in The Doctor developing feelings for her;
while it was never expressly stated, there were several hints over
the course of the series that The Doctor was particularly close to
Rose, even by the usual standards of The Doctor/Companion relationship.
More than ever before, people were often asking The Doctor or Rose
if they were romantically involved with each other, and the Ninth
Doctor even showed jealousy over Rose’s still-close relationship
with Mickey, to say nothing of his original reaction to the presence
of Adam Mitchell and Captain Jack Harkness. Even Rose was prone
to jealousy of the female attention The Doctor attracted, ranging
from the sentient tree Jabe ("The
End of the World") to former companion Sarah
Jane Smith ("School
Reunion"), and even Madame de Pompadour ("The
Girl in the Fireplace"). However, throughout the series,
neither of them actually admitted to their feelings, the closest
either of them came to doing so being when they both thought they
were trapped in the future and contemplated settling down together;
although they did kiss on a couple of occasions, Rose was technically
possessed both times, and so was not responsible for her actions.
Despite her talents as a companion, however,
Rose was prone to making some significant mistakes. One of the worst
of these was when she convinced The Doctor to take her back in time
to see her deceased father, Pete Tyler, when he was killed in a car
accident ("Father's
Day"); Rose had only intended to be with
him as he died, as nobody was there for him when it actually happened,
but she gave in to temptation and saved his life instead. Outraged
at her disregard for the laws of time, The Doctor nearly left her
behind, but when the TARDIS lost its link with the interior dimensions
and Earth was attacked by time-dwelling creatures known as the Reapers,
The Doctor returned to Rose and her parents, hiding in a church where
the Tyler’s had been about to attend a wedding. Initially,
The Doctor attempted to simply force the Reapers to depart, thus
leaving everything as it was after The Doctor and Rose had originally
interfered - in other words, leaving her father alive - but when
Rose accidentally made contact with her infant self, a Reaper attacked
them inside the church, forcing The Doctor to sacrifice himself.
With no other option, Pete Tyler, realising that The Doctor had refused
to take the easy option to solve the problem because he wanted to
protect Rose, allowed himself to die in the car accident to restore
the timeline, assuring Rose before he left that he was grateful for
the extra hours she had allowed him to have with her.
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| The Idiot's Lantern |
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Rose's devotion to The Doctor was made particularly
clear during their confrontation with the Dalek Emperor, one of the
few other survivors of the Time War that had destroyed almost the
entire Time Lord and Dalek race ("Bad
Wolf/The Parting of the Ways").
As The Doctor and new companion Jack Harkness attempted to arrange
a defence against the Daleks, The Doctor sent Rose and the TARDIS
back to her own time where she’d be safe. Rose, however, refused
to give up, and, aided by Mickey and Jackie, opened the TARDIS console,
exposing herself to the full power of the Time Vortex. Transformed
into a virtual god by the power of the Vortex, Rose travelled back
to the future and turned the entire Dalek army to dust with a wave
of her hand, responding to The Doctor’s pleas for her to stop
by saying that she wanted him safe. However, as the Daleks disintegrated,
the power of the Time Vortex began to destroy Rose’s cells,
and The Doctor, wanting to save Rose, kissed her, drawing the Time
Vortex into himself… as well as taking on all the cellular
damage Rose had already sustained. As the TARDIS departed, Rose awakening
with no memory of her momentary godhood, The Doctor’s cells
began to collapse, and he regenerated into his tenth incarnation
moments after saying goodbye to Rose, assuring her that she’d
been fantastic.
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| Army of Ghosts/Doomsday |
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Although Rose initially found it hard to adjust
to The Doctor’s new appearance - indeed, she briefly wondered
if The Doctor had been kidnapped and replaced with somebody
else - she soon came to care for the Tenth
Doctor just as much as she had for the Ninth, easily accepting
him as The Doctor after he single-handedly saved Earth from The Sycorax moments after regaining consciousness. Despite the
fact that she failed to do anything about the Sycorax invasion
before The Doctor recovered from his post-regenerative coma,
Rose still showed a great deal more courage than she had in
her early days with The Doctor, encouraging a spaceship crew
in the distant future to organise a defence against The Beast ("The
Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit"), a creature that
claimed to be the Devil itself, when The Doctor was trapped
ten miles underneath the surface of a planet and the crew were
facing a race called The Ood who'd been turned into the Beast's
army. On a smaller scale, Rose also managed to stop an Isolus
- a space-dwelling being that had become trapped on Earth, in
a girl called Chloe, and sought friends by turning people into
drawings - when The Doctor was turning into a drawing by the
Isolus.
Discovering that the flames of the Olympic torch were just what the
Isolus' 'ship' needed to recharge - the torch's flame being a beacon
of light and love - Rose hurled the ship into the torch as it was
carried past, the restored Doctor subsequently lighting the flame
after the original bearer collapsed when the ship made contact with
the torch ("Fear
Her").
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| The Stolen Earth/Journey's
End |
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In the end, however, despite her own wish
to stay with The Doctor forever, Rose's time in the TARDIS
was forcibly cut short. While investigating a strange, worldwide
phenomenon involving what appeared to be a mass of ghosts
appearing all over Earth ("Army
of Ghosts/Doomsday"), caused
by the experiments of the Torchwood Institute in experimenting
with a rift in reality, The Doctor and Rose discovered a mass
invasion being organised by the Cybermen of the parallel Earth
they'd visited previously... and, even more terrifying, four
Daleks - the legendary 'Cult of Skaro', a secret order who
even went so far as to name themselves and feel emotions in
an attempt to develop new methods of killing the enemy, accompanied
by the mysterious 'Genesis Ark', were there as well. As the
Daleks and Cybermen went to war with each other, The Doctor
and Rose once again allied themselves with the Preachers and
the alt-Pete, but failed to do any significant damage to either
side as the Cult of Skaro revealed the purpose of the Genesis
Ark - it was a Time Lord prison ship, containing millions
of Daleks, requiring only a brief touch by a time traveller
to open it. As the Dalek numbers grew, depriving the Cybermen
of their only real advantage in the conflict, The Doctor hit
upon a means of defeating both sides; as both Cybermen and
Daleks had passed through the void between universes, they
were contaminated with 'background radiation' from the Void.
By sealing the rift, The Doctor would draw the Daleks and
Cybermen into the Void due to the ‘Void-stuff’ that
surrounded them... but, since Rose and the Preachers had been
contaminated by their own trip through the Void, they would
have to travel to the other side of the rift, never to return
to this Earth. Rose briefly tried to stay behind with The Doctor, but she was forced to travel back to the other Earth
at the last minute when she nearly fell into the rift herself.
Months later, tapping into the last fragments of the rift,
The Doctor managed to project a hologram of himself into the
alternate universe, where he had a brief conversation with
Rose. As the connection reached its end, Rose tearfully admitted
that she loved him, but the connection cut off before The Doctor could admit how he felt as well, leaving Rose sobbing
in Jackie's arms as The Doctor stood in the TARDIS, alone
once more, tears in his eyes as he realised what he had lost.
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Dimension Cannon - Ghost Machines
(AK Benedict) |
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However, Rose was eventually forced to return
to this universe when her own universe began to collapse as
a result of a wave of destruction that had been triggered
in her original universe. Her initial trips with the cannon sent her to alternate universes at relative random, such as a world where climate change had caused torrential rain for the last two decades and Pete and Jackie's child was Rob rather than Rose Tyler ("Dimension Cannon - The Flood"), or a world where Sir Pete Tyler had created technology that used the mental energy of the deceased as power sources ("Dimension Cannon - Ghost Machines"). Even after she reached her home universe, Rose's initial attempts to make contact
with The Doctor failed, being limited only to brief appearances
on monitors in The Doctor’s presence, and when she finally
managed to break through the barrier, she found herself in
an alternate universe where The Doctor had died during his
encounter with the Racnoss, due to Donna Noble’s history being altered so that she
had never met The Doctor. With the aid of the alternate Donna
and the dying TARDIS, Rose was able to set history back on
its right course and restore The Doctor, subsequently travelling
to Earth just as it had stolen by the restored Daleks, Mickey
and Jackie close behind her. Although The Doctor was nearly
forced to regenerate as a result of being shot by a Dalek,
he was able to transfer the excess regenerative energy that
would have caused him to change his appearance into his extra
hand shortly before the TARDIS - currently with Rose, Captain
Jack and Donna on board - was taken to the Dalek Crucible,
where The Doctor and Rose were imprisoned by Davros as
Jack and Donna were left for dead.
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| The End of Time |
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As he confronted Davros,
The Doctor learned the full scale of his arch-enemy’s
plans; using twenty-seven stolen planets as conduits to generate
neutrino energy in a single stream, which, when compressed
on a specific location, would cause the electrical fields
holding matter together to collapse, the destruction thus
travelling through the rift to the entire multiverse via the
Medusa Cascade. However, thanks to The Doctor channelling
the regenerative energy into his hand, combined with the presence
of Donna in the TARDIS, a second, human Doctor - possessing
one heart and some of Donna’s attitude while retaining
The Doctor’s knowledge - was created, the process also
sending some of The Doctor’s knowledge into Donna. While
the companions and the two Doctors distracted Davros, Donna
set the magnetron the Daleks had used to steal the planets
into reverse to send them back to their points of origin,
the second Doctor subsequently causing the Daleks to self-destruct.
Although Mickey decided to remain on this Earth, The Doctor
was forced to take Rose and Jackie back through the rift to
their new parallel world; with the Daleks’ plan having
been thwarted, the barriers between alternate worlds were
being restored. However, realising that the brutal manner
in which the second Doctor had dealt with the Daleks reflected
his own attitude towards life after the Time War, The Doctor
left his clone with Rose; being predominately human, this
Doctor would live a normal human life span, and he desired
nothing more than to spend it with Rose. As the second Doctor
and Rose kissed, The Doctor and Donna departed, The Doctor
leaving Rose and his clone to live the life that he himself
could never have.
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| Doctor Who Comic - 2020 |
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Despite her departure and their final farewell, The Doctor continued to remember Rose fondly; when the Tenth Doctor, dying of radiation poisoning, decided to look in on his old companions, he saved Rose until last, staying in the shadows as he dropped in on the Powell Estate of New Year’s Day, 2005 - the day she met his ninth self - to wish the past Rose a Happy New Year, assuring her that it would be a good one ("The End of Time"). Later/earlier on, it was revealed that when the War Doctor - The Doctor who actually fought in the Time War - attempted to trigger the Moment, a galaxy - destroying weapon of such complexity that it developed sentience and a conscience, the Moment manifested a holographic interface that appeared to him as Rose in her ‘Bad Wolf’ phase, stating that it had chosen the form of someone important to The Doctor in his past or future (Although only the War Doctor ever saw her and his memories of interacting with her were subsequently erased) ("The Day of The Doctor").
When a temporal paradox created a timeline where the Skithra ("Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror") conquered Earth with the aid of the Sea Devils ("The Sea Devils"), the Tenth and Thirteenth Doctor met the Rose Tyler of this new timeline and ended up taking her with them ("Alternating Current"). Once the original timeline had been restored, the alternate Rose asked the Tenth Doctor to take her to another planet where the locals were fighting the Skithra so that she could help others achieve the peace she could now see on Earth, The Doctor accepting this request as he recognised that 'this' Rose was different enough from 'his' Rose that keeping her with him wouldn't be fair on either.
While this alternate Rose's intentions were essentially good, as she continued her attempt to help other planets she started to adopt a more ruthless mentality, becoming a leader of an alien army and essentially taking control of planets after liberating them. As well as the moral issues with her approach, the paradox of an alternate Rose existing in the 'prime' reality drew the 'original' Rose Tyler back into her universe of origin, as well as causing the Empress to start experiencing dreams of the original Rose's current activities. On a larger scale, this paradox created significant temporal distortions, but these provided a solution to the situation when the distortions drew the attention of the Eighth Doctor and the Eleventh Doctor. While the Eighth Doctor obviously didn't know who Rose was and the Eleventh was unaware of the circumstances that led to the existence of the alternate Rose due to the Thirteenth's involvement, the two Doctors were able to help the Empress realise that her actions were wrong, the Eighth working with the original Rose to stop the current campaign while the Eleventh took the Empress back to see some of her past 'conquests'. Seeing how many of those she liberated had turned on their former conquerors and essentially just swapped roles, the Empress acknowledged that she needed to set a more compassionate example, assuring the Eleventh that she wanted to build something better for the future rather than hold on to power for herself. The subsequent departure of the two Doctors' TARDISes generated a final paradox that sent Rose back to her new reality, although she took the chance to say a new goodbye to the Eleventh Doctor and encourage him not to travel alone for long.
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