Jackie Tyler

"those who get left behind. Because it’s hard and that’s what you become: hard. But if there’s one thing I’ve learnt is that I will never let her down and I’ll protect them both until the end of my life."

Jacqueline Andrea Suzette Tyler (née Prentice), born 1st February 1967, was a resident of early 21st century London and the mother of Rose Tyler. She lived with Rose in a council flat on the Powell Estate.

Jackie is a single mother, her husband Pete Tyler having died in 1987 when Rose was six months old, and does not seem to have any form of steady employment.

Biography
Jackie first met the Doctor after the department store where Rose worked was destroyed. When the Doctor arrived at the flat Jackie and Rose shared, Jackie attempted to flirt with the Doctor, to little avail. This first encounter set the stage for a sometimes antagonistic relationship between the two. During the final phase of the Auton invasion, several Autons attacked Jackie, but her life was spared when Rose and the Doctor managed to destroy the physical form of the Nestene Consciousness. (DW:Rose)

When Rose left with the Doctor in the TARDIS, she intended to be back within hours, and the Doctor actually modified Rose's cellphone to allow her to contact her mum from anywhere in time and space. Indeed, Rose phoned her mother from the far future (not long before the Earth was destroyed, in fact) (DW: The End of the World).

However, when Rose did return to London, although it had only been a few days by her reckoning, she discovered that a year had elapsed on Earth due to a miscalculation by the Doctor. Out of her mind with worry, Jackie had in the intervening year organised a poster campaign to search for her missing daughter, and even accused Rose's boyfriend Mickey of murdering her. When Rose returned, Jackie was furious with the Doctor for taking her away. Jackie also could not understand why Rose would not tell her where she had been, but discovered the truth when she saw the TARDIS. She was also nearly killed by a Slitheen disguised as a policeman (which she killed herself in the end using an idea the Doctor came up with), and began to truly appreciate how dangerous Rose's new lifestyle was when the Doctor ended the Slitheen's plans by calling a missile strike down on 10 Downing Street where he and Rose were trapped at the time. (DW: Aliens of London/World War Three)

While Jackie appears flighty at times, she genuinely loves her daughter and is extremely concerned for her safety, particularly given the life the Doctor leads. Even though her attitude towards the Doctor softened from hostility to grudging acceptance, she continued to worry about Rose and waited for her daughter's return. (To the Doctor's credit, he did make an effort to return Rose home periodically, even if at times it seemed almost as if the whole purpose was to allow Rose to get some laundry done (DW: Army of Ghosts)).

Despite Rose's idyllic image of her parents' marriage, the relationship she saw when she travelled with the Doctor back to 1987 was stormy, and Jackie was threatening to divorce Pete. However, these fights were short-lived, and it was clear that both Jackie and Pete loved each other despite the arguments. After Pete's death, Jackie would tell Rose about her father, painting a picture of Pete as the ideal husband he was not. Unknown to Jackie, however, her memories of the day Pete died were forever altered when Rose changed history; Jackie now remembered a young woman kneeling over Pete's body, not realizing this was Rose from the future (DW: Father's Day).

When the Doctor sent Rose back to her own time to escape the Dalek attack, Jackie was initially glad to have her daughter home again and said she loved the Doctor for having the presence of mind to send Rose out of danger. However, she eventually helped Rose open the TARDIS console and return to help the Doctor. (DW: The Parting of the Ways)

Jackie was one of the first people to encounter the Doctor after he regenerated into his tenth incarnation though, like Rose, it took Jackie a while to realize this younger-looking man was the same Doctor she'd met earlier. Still, her relationship with the Tenth Doctor was warmer than it was with his earlier incarnation, as evidenced early on when she allowed the Doctor to attend Christmas dinner with Rose and her. (DW: The Christmas Invasion).

At some point after this, she befriended Elton Pope, a young man searching for the Doctor, not realizing he's just using her to get to Rose and the Doctor. The two's relationship actually progresses to the point where it begins to get physical, but the proceedings are interrupted by a call from Rose. She subsequently realizes she is just being used by Elton to get to the Doctor. (DW: Love and Monsters)

Jackie eventually accepted the Doctor as part of her life, even showering him with kisses upon one of his returns with Rose (DW: Army of Ghosts). In 2007, Jackie was one of many who were fooled into believing that the sudden appearance of ghosts around the world were in fact deceased relatives (specifically her father). She was initially hostile to the Doctor's skepticism about this. Following an attempt at discovering the ghosts' true nature by the Doctor, Jackie found herself aboard the TARDIS when it dematerialized and arrived at Torchwood headquarters. With Rose having been sent out to reconnoiter, Jackie was forced to impersonate her own daughter as she and the Doctor were captured by Torchwood. (DW: Army of Ghosts)

Over the next few hours, Jackie found herself in the middle of what would be called the Battle of Canary Wharf, as Cybermen from an alternate Earth and Daleks battled for supremacy over Earth. During these events, Jackie was reunited with her dead husband, Pete, only a version from the alternate Earth whose own Jackie had been assimilated by the Cybermen. They almost immediately began a relationship. Soon after, Jackie, along with Rose, were forced to escape to "Pete's World", with no apparent way to return to their Earth. Jackie, along with Rose, is declared dead on their Earth, victims of the battle. On Pete's World, however, Jackie eventually gave birth to a son, Tony Tyler, though she also had to deal with comforting Rose, who was left emotionally devastated by being separated from the Doctor, with whom she had fallen in love. (DW: Doomsday)

Over the next few years, Rose worked to find a way back to the Doctor in order to warn him about the impending collapse of reality. She succeeded in returning to her original Earth (after a detour into an alternate timeline). Soon after, Jackie, accompanied by Mickey, also returned to their original Earth in order to help her daughter. One of the first people Jackie encounters upon her return was Sarah Jane Smith. Now a more self-assured, less self-absorbed individual, Jackie worked alongside Sarah Jane, Mickey, and Jack Harkness to help rescue the Doctor and the Earth from a Dalek invasion. At one point, Jackie even kills a Dalek herself. In the ensuing battle, Jackie is reunited with Rose and also encounters Martha Jones and Donna Noble. Following the defeat of Davros, the Doctor returns Jackie to Pete's World so that she can be reunited with her husband and son (Jackie can't resist sending the wind up the Doctor one last time, however, by initially making him believe she named her son "Doctor"). She watched as the Doctor's clone agreed to stay behind and begin a life with Rose, and the original Doctor departed Pete's World, possibly for the last time (DW: Journey's End).

Personality
When Jackie is first introduced she has a very strong personality and while she cares greatly for Rose, she doesn't like the Doctor much. This may be due to him taking her daughter away for a year, by accident (DW:Aliens of London). She doesn't seem to have a problem speaking her mind and doesn't mind physically hitting someone as she does with the Doctor. She's actually one of the few things that scare him. As time goes on however, she grows to like and respect him especialy after he sticks to his word and sends Rose back home safely away from the Daleks (DW:The Parting of the Ways) and increasingly in his tenth incarnation. Jackie also thinks her husband's ideas were daft, but she may have changed that opinion after seeing the success of her husband in an alternate world. She also seems reluctant to help someone in need out as she needs a lot of convincing to help Rose and Mickey out with their plan to save the Doctor although she ultimately does provide the solution to their problem. When she finds out that Elton Pope was using her to get to the Doctor, she yells at him and tells him that its very hard for her to have to stay behind and not hear from Rose much and Jackie also expresses that she will protect the Doctor for as long as she can (DW:Love and Monsters). She clearly misses Rose terribly and gets tearful after a conversation with her. She may also panic easily as when she accidently comes with the Doctor to Torchwood, she is so frightened by what's happening that she can barley tell him where she is. Also she somewhat despises Mickey Smith and is horrified to be rescued by him during the Slitheen invasion. Later, when she returns to Earth from Pete's World to rescue her daughter from the Daleks, she exhibits more self-confidence than before and is even seen handling a weapon. Nonetheless, the Doctor doesn't have enough faith in her to allow her to work some controls in the TARDIS. (DW: Journey's End)

Other Events

 * Jackie nearly fell for a scheme to take humans "on holiday" to fight in an alien war. A thug who lived in the council estate mugged Jackie and took the "winning ticket" that qualified her for the vacation. Jackie ended up in hospital, but her assailant fared worse: he took her place as a remote-controlled soldier on an alien planet, and was killed. (NSA: Winner Takes All)


 * A time-lost Neanderthal flirted with Jackie at a London nightclub before Captain Jack Harkness steered him away from her. (Captain Jack and Jackie never actually met; Jack scaned Jackie's DNA with his wrist device and identified her as Rose Tyler's mother.) (NSA: Only Human)


 * Rose used the "superphone" to call Jackie from a human colony world in the future. Jackie complained that Rose did not let her know she was going to be in Cardiff during her recent visit to the city. (NSA: The Stealers of Dreams)

Behind the Scenes

 * Jackie was originally named "Judy".
 * Although generally not considered a companion, Jackie fulfils much of the duties of a companion during her unintentional sojourn in the TARDIS in Army of Ghosts and Doomsday. Her role in Journey's End would seem to indicate that she is considered to be a companion on some level, since the writers include her in the group of 'proper companions' who directly assist the Doctor in the episode.