Mickey Smith

Mickey Smith was an auto mechanic and resident of the Powell Estate who came to befriend the Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, Captain Jack Harkness, Jackie Tyler and another world's Peter Tyler by virtue of his youthful romantic relationship with Rose Tyler.

An apparently typical teenager — obsessed with football, sex and alien conspiracy theories — he rose to become a principal defender of not just one, but two planet Earths.

After years of living with the Tyler family on a parallel Earth, he returned to his "home Earth" and married Martha Jones. Despite close ties to the Torchwood Institute of a parallel Earth, he and his wife ultimately struck out on their own to become "freelance" alien fighters.

Upbringing
Mickey Smith was born to Odessa and Jackson Smith around 1983. "Family lore" held that on the day Rose Tyler was born (around 1986), Mickey visited her in hospital. (PROSE: Rose) In 1987, he briefly encountered the adult version of Rose, though the two had minimal contact. He ran up to Rose, and clung onto her leg. Rose hypothesised that she had just imprinted on him. (TV: Father's Day)

When Mickey was five years old, his mother committed suicide. (PROSE: Rose) Rose said that Mickey's mum "couldn't cope". His dad, Jackson Smith stayed around for a while but "just sort of wandered off". Mickey said to his parallel universe counterpart that Jackson Smith "went to Spain [and] never came back." He grew up with his grandmother, Rita-Anne Smith. The elder Smith was described by Rose Tyler as having "brought up" Mickey until her death in 2002. She died after tripping and falling over a tear in the stair carpet, which Mickey never got round to fixing; this left him with feelings of guilt. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen)

At the age of 16, he put his name down for a council flat at the Powell Estate and moved out, having obtained one, at 18. (PROSE: Rose)

Meeting the Ninth Doctor
By 2005, Mickey was a typical working-class young man, living on the same council estate as Rose and going out with her.

The night Rose was almost killed when her workplace, Henrik's, was blown up, Mickey offered to take her to the pub to recover. She refused, and told him to dispose of an Auton arm she picked up while escaping from the Autons.

The following day, Rose used Mickey's computer to find more out about the Ninth Doctor. He took her to the conspiracy theorist, Clive Finch's, house. While waiting in the car, Mickey saw a bin move on its own. He checked on the bin, which pulled Mickey inside to be replicated as an Auton by the Nestene Consciousness. Kept a captive by the Nestenes to maintain the duplicate Auton, Mickey was overwhelmed by the revelation that alien life existed. He reunited with Rose when she and the Doctor tracked down the Consciousness' signal, but was in a state of paralysed panic through their confrontation with the Consciousness. Mickey's cowardice did not impress the Doctor, and when he asked Rose to travel with him, he made it clear Mickey was not invited. (TV: Rose)

Rose did not return for a year and was declared missing. Thanks to Jackie spreading rumours around the estate, Mickey was suspected of her murder. The police interviewed him five times, but he was not arrested. Mickey learnt more about the Doctor through the Internet. (TV: Aliens of London)

Return of Rose
Mickey was one of the last to know of Rose's return in 2006 and learned she was back only in the evening. This led to an awkward confrontation between the two Tylers and Mickey. He told Rose what had happened during her absence and her mother's actions. Rose convinced Mickey she was sorry and that she hadn't meant to stay away so long. The two reconciled. When the TARDIS was surrounded by people wishing to escort the Doctor to deal with the crisis surrounding the crashed spaceship in the Thames, Mickey ran away and hid. (TV: Aliens of London)

Mickey saved Jackie from Sip Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen's attack and brought her to his flat. When Sip Fel-Fotch tracked them down, Mickey defended Jackie while she looked for vinegar-based objects in the flat to kill the calcium-based lifeform that was weakened by his compression field. Following the Doctor's orders, Mickey launched a missile at 10 Downing Street, blowing it up. The Doctor and Rose survived, (TV: World War Three) but all but one of the remaining Slitheen were killed. (TV: Boom Town)

His help in ending the alien threat earned him the Doctor's respect. The Doctor offered him a place aboard the TARDIS but Mickey declined, admitting the lifestyle was too much for him. He asked the Doctor not to tell Rose that he had done so. The Doctor gave Mickey a compact disc containing a computer virus that would wipe out all mention of him on the internet. (TV: World War Three)

Mickey became involved in an alien war being fought by remote control. The "soldiers" in the war were abducted humans controlled by other humans who thought they were playing a video game. After Rose got abducted, the Doctor was forced to control her himself from the alien homeworld, but he was able to use this and Rose's superphone to contact Mickey for help. Following the Doctor's instructions, Mickey rounded up a few of his friends and they located all of the active games they could find and took control of the "players" themselves. Mickey led his "players" to Rose who the Doctor controlled to use the sonic screwdriver to deactivate a command in their control disks that would keep them from leaving the Mantodean base alive. Mickey and his friends led the "players" back to the Quevvil base and at the right moment, made them break in to the Quevvil control room. The "players" disruptors disabled the Quevvils' control systems and atomised them as they were in mid-teleport. The Doctor was left somewhat impressed with Mickey for being able to accomplish this nearly impossible task which required precise timing, but refused to tell him so. Thanks to Mickey's efforts, several of the people the Quevvils' kidnapped were rescued and returned to Earth by the Doctor who was also able to rescue Rose. (PROSE: Winner Takes All)

As the TARDIS recharged from a scar in the Cardiff Rift, Rose invited Mickey over to Cardiff, claiming that she might need her passport if she ended up lost on Earth, an excuse Rose later admitted was just to see Mickey. After reuniting, Mickey teamed up with the Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack Harkness to stop Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen, a surviving member of the Slitheen family from the attack on Downing Street.

Though Blon tried fleeing, the Doctor reversed her teleportation device several times until she gave up and took her prisoner aboard the TARDIS until he could return her to Raxacoricofallapatorius to face execution after her family had already been sentenced to death in their absence. The Doctor confiscated her extrapolator to use as a "power-booster". Meanwhile, Mickey offered Rose a hotel room. He later claimed to be seeing Trisha Delaney; Rose felt he was lying about the woman he was supposedly with, while Mickey claimed to keep running for Rose every time she contacted him. While trying to reconcile, Rose ran for the TARDIS when earthquakes started hitting Cardiff. The TARDIS was able to stop the world from being torn apart by the extrapolator, but Mickey walked off; rather than run after him, Rose thought that he deserved someone better to rely on. (TV: Boom Town)

When Rose was sent back to 21st century Earth from Satellite Five, Mickey helped her return to the Doctor to defeat the Daleks. At first happy to see her, he was angered by Rose's dismissal of the life she'd led, until she reminded him that the Doctor had also shown him a better way. Mickey remained doubtful about getting Rose back to the Doctor until she said there was "nothing" left for her on the estate now. Mickey swallowed his pride and used first his car, then a tow truck to pull open the TARDIS console so that Rose and the TARDIS could communicate. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)

With the Tenth Doctor
On Christmas Eve, Mickey heard the sound of the TARDIS and came running for the Doctor and Rose. The newly regenerated Tenth Doctor collapsed from the TARDIS and was taken into Rose's flat to recover. When he stopped the Roboform Christmas tree from attacking the flat, the Doctor told Rose and Mickey that he was woken up "too soon" and the Roboforms that controlled it were "just pilot fish", warning them of something else coming. On Christmas morning, when the Sycorax spaceship arrived over London, Rose and Mickey took the Doctor to the TARDIS for safety. Running outside and shutting the door behind him when the Sycorax discovered the TARDIS and brought it aboard their ship, Mickey dropped a flask of tea near the Doctor; the Doctor was revitalised, and made the Sycorax leave the planet. Prime Minister Harriet Jones then ordered the ship's destruction as it fled. Mickey joined the Doctor and Rose for Christmas dinner. (TV: The Christmas Invasion) Later, he saw them off on their travels. (TV: New Earth)

He spent several annoying days with the Doctor, an uninvited guest. The Doctor dominated Mickey's life without trying. He impressed all of his friends, ended Mickey's doomed attempts at a rebound girlfriend and beat him at video games until Mickey snapped that he didn't need impressing and sometimes people didn't need the Doctor. The Doctor set things up so Mickey could have a normal Sunday with Rose. (COMIC: The Lodger)

Mickey signed onto several websites about aliens and UFOs. He hoped to find more information about the secret military organisation UNIT, and hoped to meet anyone who thought they knew more about the Doctor than Mickey. He received an email from a woman based in London calling herself Jill, who said she could tell him about UNIT and the Doctor. When he arrived at Jill's house, Jill believed Mickey knew about the whereabouts of the Doctor. She revealed herself as an alien Trimestrian called Jillonga who sought revenge on the Doctor for the death of her husband, the Trimestrian Warlord Bloodgrudge. She intended to send her house, which was actually a spaceship, on a sixty-year trip to her home, questioning Mickey all the way there. Mickey tricked Jillonga's children into playing a game where he waited outside the airlock until he knocked. With the ship unable to change course on its trip home, the ship launched, and Mickey was left behind on Earth. (PROSE: Taking Mickey)

One Wednesday, Jackie found that Mickey along with the rest of her friends had gone missing. In reality, she was being isolated from N-Space by the Harvesters in their plot to lure the Doctor and Rose. (AUDIO: Wednesdays For Beginners)

In 2007, Mickey found unusual activity at Deffry Vale High School and called the Doctor and Rose home. Meeting Sarah Jane Smith, Mickey was amused to find his suspicions validated; the Doctor had had companions before Rose. When he met K9 Mark III, he drew an unwelcome parallel between the "tin dog" and himself. He helped evacuate the school as K9 blew up the Krillitanes and the Doctor accepted his request to join the TARDIS crew. (TV: School Reunion)

Mickey was delighted to visit a futuristic spaceship, the SS Madame de Pompadour in the 51st century, on his first trip in time and space. He travelled through a time window the ship had created into 1744 France, where he learned the ship's crew were killed by the repair droids to power the ship and they were using time windows to look for Reinette's "complete" self. (TV: The Girl in the Fireplace)

He was involved in an escapade on the planet Iagnos. When Rose was infected by the jealousy-eating Iagnon, he helped make her intensely jealous to drive out the creature. (COMIC: The Green-Eyed Monster)

Leaving for another universe
Whilst travelling through time, the Doctor, Rose and Mickey fell through a crack in time, ending up on a parallel Earth that was more technologically advanced. The TARDIS died as it had no power from their universe to get back. However, the Doctor managed to power a surviving piece of the TARDIS, although it meant giving up ten years of his life. The Doctor considered this kind of world "like a gingerbread house" and "full of temptation", but the piece of the TARDIS required a twenty-four hour recharging cycle before the TARDIS could restore itself. The Doctor and Rose went to see Rose's late father, Pete, who was alive in this universe, while Mickey reunited with his grandmother, who had also died. Mickey was then suddenly kidnapped by the Preachers, after being confused for his parallel universe counterpart, Ricky. Upon getting new intel from "Gemini", the Preachers, along with Mickey followed one of John Lumic's vans, where the Cybermen attacked Pete Tyler's party. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen)

After rescuing the Doctor, Rose and Pete from the Cybermen, Mickey infiltrated Cybus Industries to stop them. He and Jake Simmonds then made their way to Lumic's zeppelin to disable the transmitter controls of the EarPods which the zeppelin used to send the humans to be upgraded into Cybermen. After hacking the security cameras, Mickey saw the Doctor subtly telling him to hack the Lumic family database to find the cancellation code to the already-converted Cybermen's emotional inhibitors. Mickey texted Rose the code, and the Doctor connected the phone with the code to deactivate the Cybermen's inhibitors.

The Cybermen began exploding, along with Cybus Industries. Mickey rescued the Doctor, Rose and Pete by piloting the zeppelin. However, Mickey was increasingly unsure of his place in his home universe and the TARDIS. He remained in this world to care for his grandmother and, to an extent, replace Ricky, who had been killed by the Cybermen. The gap between universes had to be closed, however, as the Doctor and his companions only reached this world by accident. One of his first actions was to head to Paris to liberate it from the Cybermen. (TV: The Age of Steel)

Reunion
Three years passed, from Mickey's perspective, in which he continued to battle the Cybermen. (TV: Army of Ghosts / Doomsday)
 * This would make the year, from his point of view, now approximately 2010.

When the Cybermen crossed the Void to his home universe in 2007, Mickey was the first to travel there to fight them and ensure Rose's safety. He went undercover at Torchwood One, worked as a lab assistant under the name Samuel and showed far more confidence than before. When the sphere, which he believed would contain a Cyber-Leader, opened to reveal the Cult of Skaro, (TV: Army of Ghosts) he was put to the ultimate test. He took part in the Battle of Canary Wharf. The Doctor trapped Cybermen and Daleks in the Void and Mickey was left in the parallel universe with Rose, Jackie and Pete Tyler. (TV: Doomsday)

Return and marriage
Rose Tyler left Pete's World to find the Doctor. Mickey and Jackie later crossed over as well, arriving on Earth after it was relocated to the Medusa Cascade in 2009. As the two arrived, they opened fire on and destroyed a group of Daleks about to exterminate Sarah Jane. Mickey then accompanied Sarah Jane and Jackie aboard the Crucible. Here, he was also reunited with Jack Harkness and, ultimately, the Doctor and Rose.

After the Earth was restored to its proper place, Mickey left the TARDIS, following a tearful goodbye with Jackie. He told the Doctor there was nothing for him on Pete's World any more, "certainly not Rose". His grandmother had passed away after living out her final years in Pete Tyler's mansion. He ran to catch up to Jack Harkness and Martha Jones as they left for their own futures. (TV: Journey's End)

Mickey eventually went into "freelance" alien fighting along with Martha, whom he married. One adventure saw them battle a Sontaran. As they were pinned down, the Sontaran had them in his weapon's cross-hairs without them knowing it. Before he could fire, they were saved by the dying Tenth Doctor, who knocked him out from behind, as a final gift to them. They spotted the Doctor and Mickey called out to him, but he walked away without saying anything. Mickey and Martha embraced as the TARDIS left, perhaps realising what the Doctor's appearance meant. (TV: The End of Time)

In 2010 Mickey and his wife Martha went to Luke Smith's second farewell party before Luke was going to the University of Oxford. (PROSE: The Nightmare Man) In 2016, having called the Doctor to help Martha after she was transformed into a Gargoyle due to the effects of a wormhole passing through San Francisco, Mickey was unexpectedly answered by the Ninth Doctor while he was travelling with Rose and Jack. Mickey aided the Doctor to close the wormhole, which returned Martha to normal, while taking care not to allow himself to be seen by Rose and Jack or tell the Doctor anything specific about his wife, the encounter leaving the Ninth Doctor with a better opinion of Mickey that would influence his future/past interaction with him. (COMIC: The Transformed)

Undated events

 * At some point, Mickey was taken to the Black Archive by UNIT to have his record as a companion of the Doctor taken. His memories of the visit were subsequently erased and he was sent on his way. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)

Personality
When first seen, Mickey was a bumbling coward; his capture by the Autons and initial trip in the TARDIS left him greatly shaken. (TV: Rose) When he met the Doctor again, he displayed resentment towards him. (TV: Aliens of London) Already, though, he was braver than he had been; he tried to hold off a Slitheen to give Jackie time to escape. The Doctor changed his opinion of Mickey and invited him on board, which he declined. (TV: World War Three) Despite these changes, Mickey was still clumsy, performing a pratfall while trying to capture Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen. (TV: Boom Town) Although still unwilling to travel in the TARDIS, Mickey changed his mind, inviting himself along, unwilling to just be "technical support" (or the tin dog) any more. (TV: School Reunion)

At first, Mickey and the Doctor did not get along at all, (TV: Rose) the Doctor constantly teasing him and calling him Ricky, and Mickey in turn resenting the treatment he had received when Rose was away for a year travelling with the Doctor, who showed no guilt or regret for what had happened as a result. (TV: Aliens of London/World War Three) Following the defeat of the Slitheen, a mutual respect began to develop between the two, (TV: The Christmas Invasion) and by the time of the battle between the Cult of Skaro and the Cybermen from Pete's World the two were on very good terms. (TV: Doomsday)

Mickey held a rigid dislike towards the Ninth Doctor, who was much more aloof and callous towards Mickey than his more sociable successor. While the Ninth Doctor grew to respect Mickey and invite him on board the TARDIS, (TV: World War Three) and briefly bonded over video games, (PROSE: Winner Takes All) Mickey believed that the Doctor regenerating improved their relationship, and was upset to learn he summoned the wrong Doctor for help in 2016 San Francisco, even willing to turn down the Ninth Doctor's offer to help. The Doctor, in turn, realised how little Mickey thought of him when Mickey believed the Doctor would think to joke about his wife's transformation into a gargoyle, and earned more of the Ninth Doctor's respect by helping him close the wormhole causing the transformations. (COMIC: The Transformed)

Mickey reached a turning point when he met Ricky and witnessed his death at the hands of the Cybermen. Shown a version of himself that was braver, he rose to the challenge. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel) He played a crucial part in the Cybermen's defeat and chose to help rid the alternate Earth of their threat. (TV: The Age of Steel) When the Cybermen found a way to cross over to the other Earth, Mickey was the first to pursue them. (TV: Army of Ghosts) When all of reality was threatened, Mickey again crossed Earths, this time with Jackie in tow. They faced Daleks and Mickey held their creator, Davros, at gunpoint. (TV: Journey's End) Choosing to return home, Mickey found love with Martha Jones; they became freelance alien hunters. Far from his original cowardly ways, Mickey now actively pursued dangerous aliens. (TV: The End of Time)

Mickey was very protective of and loyal to those closest to him, even back in the days when he was still a coward; he was willing to fight a Slitheen with a baseball bat to protect Jackie despite her having made his life Hell following Rose's disappearance, (TV: Aliens of London, World War Three) and refused to leave the Doctor, Rose or Pete behind in a cyber-factory that was about to blow up, knowing full well he and Jake would die too if the Doctor, Rose and Pete didn't get to the roof in time and their zeppelin went up along with the factory. (TV: The Age of Steel)

Skills
Mickey was skilled with computers, once using this talent to save the world from the Slitheen. (TV: World War Three) Mickey once told Jake Simmonds that he was good with computers, and managed to override the control to the earpieces, henceforth saving thousands of lives. (TV: The Age of Steel) He considered himself to be Rose and the Doctor's "technical support", likening himself somewhat reluctantly to being their "tin dog" (referring to K9). (TV: School Reunion) After spending some time on Pete's World fighting the Cybermen, Mickey demonstrated skill at using guns. (TV: Army of Ghosts, Doomsday, Journey's End)

Behind the scenes

 * In Russell T Davies' initial pitch for the revival of Doctor Who, Rose Tyler's boyfriend was originally named Muggsy. (DWMSE 11)
 * Actor Noel Clarke has acknowledged assuming that Doctor Who had a younger audience and tailoring his acting accordingly, making Mickey slapstick, a move criticised by many fans. He toned down the comedic elements of the character for series 2. In Toby Hadoke's Who's Round 59, head writer and executive producer Russell T Davies believed that Clarke "overthinks this", and that Mickey's series 1 self was doing "exactly" what was written in the scripts, and "deepen[ed] and darken[ed] as it [went] on" after initially being "lightweight and disposable".
 * The ending of Journey's End left open the possibility of Mickey going to work for Torchwood Three during series 3, as fan rumours had also suggested. Mickey Smith was originally meant to appear in Children of Earth, but was cut due to Noel Clarke being cast in a Michael Winterbottom film. (REF: Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale - The Final Chapter) Mickey was also meant to appear in the SJA Series 3 finale The Gift working with UNIT before Clarke became unavailable. Had he appeared in these two productions, he would have been the first major character to play an important role in Doctor Who and both of its direct spin-offs (even including the Doctor, who to date has not appeared in Torchwood).
 * Mickey is the first televised black companion, and until 2018, remained the only male black companion. 12 years after Mickey's run in series 2, Ryan Sinclair joined the TARDIS team.
 * In the Japanese dubbing of the show, Mickey is played by Setsuji Satō.
 * Mickey Smith is the only companion of the Tenth Doctor to never receive billing in the Title Sequence.
 * In a dream state in the comic story The Cruel Sea, Mickey is suggested to be the father of Rose's daughter Susannah. Rose is pointing at a "stupid lump" she needed to take care of, corresponding with a similar (but longer) scene in the television story Rose, followed by a montage consisting of a wedding photo, which is later broken, and Rose taking care of Susannah alone. Susannah also has a similar skin tone and hair texture to Mickey. Mickey is not directly glimpsed in the Rose "flashback" in The Cruel Sea, but his presence is implied, with the features of the "lump" hugging at Rose being obscured by Rose's arm, and in other panels he is either out of frame or seen from behind. The shattered wedding photo also obscures the husband's features.