Rose (TV story)

Rose was the first episode of the first series of the revived series of Doctor Who. It was the first new episode of Doctor Who since the 1996 telemovie. It marked the debut of Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor, Billie Piper as Rose Tyler, and recurring supporting cast Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler and Noel Clarke as Mickey Smith.

The first Doctor Who story to be produced in widescreen, it was also the first single-episode, forty-five minute story. Amongst BBC Wales-produced episodes, it was not only the first broadcast, but also the first recorded. It was the Doctor Who debut for almost everyone who worked on it — except for model unit supervisor Mike Tucker.

Narratively, it marked the return of the Nestene Consciousness and Autons for the first time since 1971's Terror of the Autons. It also saw the first reference to the Shadow Proclamation.

Synopsis
When Rose Tyler meets a mysterious stranger called the Doctor, her life will never be the same again. Soon, she realizes that her mum, her boyfriend and the whole of planet Earth are in danger. The only hope of salvation lies inside a strange blue box.

Plot
At 7:30am in the Powell Estate, London, a blonde, nineteen year old girl, Rose Tyler, wakes up, gets dressed and ready, kisses her mother, Jackie Tyler, goodbye and walks to Henrik's, the department store where she works. After spending her lunch break with her boyfriend, Mickey Smith, who shows her his break dance steps, she returns to work until the end of her shift. As the store nears closing time, she is about to walk home, when she is stopped by a security guard, who is holding the lottery winnings for Wilson, the chief electrician. She goes to the basement but cannot find Wilson. She enters a storage room, the doors close behind her and she cannot open them. She is disturbed to see a group of moving shop window mannequins. Thinking it a practical joke, she tells them to stop, but they do not respond. They soon surround her. They look as if they are about to kill her, when someone takes her arm. She turns to see a leather-jacketed man, who tells her "run!".

She quickly obliges. Both run just before one of the mannequins karate chops at her. They run to a lift, pursued by the mannequins. Before the doors can close, one of the mannequins reaches for them, but the man pulls its arm off, and the two escape. On the way up, Rose suggests students were involved, since "all those people have got to be students." The man congratulates her on her theory, but says they aren't students, but living plastic, and they have killed Wilson. When they arrive at the correct floor, the man has a bomb. He plans to destroy a relay device to stop the moving mannequins. Blithely claiming he may die, he tells Rose not to worry about him and to go. He offers a quick introduction - he is the Doctor - and reminds her to run for her life.

Rose follows his advice and runs from the vicinity of Henrik's, carrying the arm of the plastic mannequin. When she is at a safe distance, she sees her place of work exploding. She turns around and runs back home. On the way, she passes a blue police box.

When she returns home, her mother makes phone calls to her friends, telling them Rose has survived the explosion, before telling her she should get compensation for the "trauma". Mickey rushes in to see if she is okay. She assures him she is fine and he decides to catch the last five minutes of a match at the pub. On his way out, he takes the plastic arm to throw away as Rose asks, and mimes the arm strangling him. Outside, he throws it into a bin.

The next morning, Rose's alarm goes off at 7:30am. She no longer has a job. While having tea, Jackie reminds her of getting compensation. Afterwards, Rose hears a noise from the door. Investigating, she opens the cat flap, and is shocked to see the Doctor, using the metal device from last night to jam the lift. He wonders what she is doing in the house; Rose tells him she lives here. He has come to trace the plastic arm. Jackie believes he is there to talk about Rose's compensation. In the flat, he acknowledges Jackie's hints that she is in her dressing gown, and there is a man in her bedroom, but when she tells him that "anything could happen," he says no and walks off.

While Rose makes tea for him, the Doctor looks through Heat Magazine, and notes that a celebrity couple's relationship won't last since "he's gay and she's an alien." The novel The Lovely Bones has a "sad ending." He plays with a deck of cards and looks in a mirror, commenting on his ears. He sees the plastic arm, which starts strangling him. Rose thinks he is pretending as Mickey did. It lets go of the Doctor and attacks Rose. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to disable the arm and deactivate it ("There you go - armless!"). He starts to leave.

Rose chases after him, telling him he can't leave since they tried to kill her twice. The Doctor says they aren't after her, but him; Rose was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. He mutters about humans being oblivious to the war beneath their feet, joking that the living plastic isn't here to start a price war, but tells Rose that they want to overthrow and destroy the human race and claim the Earth as their own. Rose asks the Doctor who he actually is. He starts off by explaining that when human children learn that the Earth is actually moving, they don't believe it, since everything seems to stand still, but he can feel the planet rotating a thousand miles per hour, moving around the sun at sixty-seven thousand miles per hour. He tells her to forget about him, before leaving and walking to the blue box. As Rose keeps walking, a wind blows up and a strange groaning sound starts; she turns and runs back to where she last saw the Doctor, but both he and the box have vanished.

Rose cannot let go, and decides to go to her boyfriend's house to use his computer. She researches the Doctor on the Internet, and eventually finds a hit while typing "doctor blue box". She follows the link to Who is Doctor Who?, where the front page shows a face of the same man she met twice earlier, before reading the address. She decides to have Mickey drop her off at the address of the website's owner, Clive Finch.

They arrive in his Volkswagen Beetle. Rose tells Mickey to keep a look out while she goes to see Clive. Clive invites her in. His wife, Caroline Finch, is shocked a girl is interested in his work. The two walk to his shed, where Clive shows Rose pictures of the same man in Dallas, 1963, the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated; an older photograph of the Daniels, a Southampton family and their friend, the Doctor, taken on April 11th 1912, the day before the family were due to sail for America onboard the Titanic. For an unknown reason they cancelled the trip and survived. Finally, he shows her a sketch of the Doctor found in Indonesia just before the eruption of Krakatoa. Clive believes that the Doctor is dangerous, and has one constant companion: death. If she has seen him, they are all in danger.

Meanwhile, Mickey keeps an eye on the house until distracted by a wheelie bin moving on its own. Expecting a practical joke, he comes out to confront it, but when he opens it, it is empty. He closes it and finds that letting go is difficult. The lid sticks to his hands, the plastic stretching as he pulls away. Each attempt to break free ends up back at the bin, which suddenly tosses him in the air and swallows him whole ... then burps loudly afterwards. Some time later, Rose returns to the car, thinking that she has wasted her time, not knowing that Mickey has been replaced with a living plastic version. They decide to have dinner at a pizza restaurant.

The two arrive at the restaurant and are seated. Rose looks through the menu, but "Mickey" starts to grill Rose about the Doctor, asking what he told her, talking in an odd way. While she wonders what is up with him, a man gives them a bottle of champagne. After he comes back twice, plastic Mickey looks up to tell him they didn't order any. It is the Doctor holding the bottle. He uses the bottle's gas to fire the cork at "Mickey's" forehead, but it merely makes its way down to his mouth, where he spits it out. After his hands morph into paddles, there is a brief struggle until the Doctor pulls his head off. He and Rose flee while the headless plastic Mickey causes havoc at the restaurant. The two close the back door and the Doctor locks it off with his metal device, a sonic screwdriver. While headless Mickey attempts to break through, the Doctor goes inside his blue box, which is now in the back courtyard, to Rose's bewilderment. With nowhere to go, she follows him, but the second she enters, she rushes outside, looks at the size of the box and enters again. The inside of the box is bigger than the outside. The Doctor explains that the blue box is the TARDIS and that both it and he are alien.

Rose starts crying; the Doctor thinks it's culture shock, but she wonders if the real Mickey is dead, something he didn't consider. Rose points out, to the Doctor's frustration, that the head is melting; he wanted to use it to track the Nestene Consciousness, the entity controlling the Autons. He manages to follow it, but the head is completely melted before they find the precise location of the Consciousness. They arrive on the edge of the River Thames. As they exit the TARDIS, Rose is full of questions. She wonders why the TARDIS is a box; it is a disguise. She wonders how they travelled; the TARDIS disappears in one place and reappears in another. She also wants to know why, if the Doctor is an alien, he speaks as if he's from the North; the Doctor explains that "lots of planets have a North."

While trying to deduce the location of the Nestene Consciousness, the Doctor explains that he wants to find a transmitter of some kind, very big and round - completely oblivious to the fact that he is standing opposite the London Eye, a perfect landmark for a transmitter. With some help from Rose, he realises this. The two run across a bridge to the other side of the Thames. They find an entrance to an underground base beneath the Eye. The Doctor has brought with him a vial of anti-plastic as a last resort; he wishes to appeal to the Nestene Consciousness first. When they enter, he asks the Consciousness for an audience, which it grants. On the way down, Rose sees Mickey; the Doctor explains that they needed to keep Mickey alive to keep his plastic double working.

As Rose releases Mickey, the Doctor talks with it. In accordance with the Shadow Proclamation, he asks it to leave the planet and find a new one to restart the Auton race, as all of the Nestene's planets were destroyed. Instead the Consciousness has two of the Autons capture him, as it detects the TARDIS, and discovers he is carrying anti-plastic, which the Doctor says is just an insurance policy. The Consciousness also realises he is a Time Lord, and that they destroyed the planets in the Last Great Time War. Angered, it decides to start the invasion ahead of plans, and uses a lightning bolt from the vat to the London Eye, powering the transmission.

Knowing everybody is in danger, Rose calls her mother to tell her to go home. Jackie instead talks to her about getting compensation for the explosion at Henrik's (having just picked up a form from a police station) and chooses not to listen about staying home; she insists on doing late night shopping in Queen's Arcade. While the transmitter is working, Clive and his family walk past a shop window in the same mall and see mannequins start to move; Caroline wonders if it's Rag Week already. Soon everyone sees all the mannequins moving, and suddenly they break through the glass. Clive is amazed that everything he has looked for has come true, and he was right all along. One of the Autons opens its hand, revealing a gun, and shoots Clive dead. The public panics, including Jackie, who runs from the mall. She also realises that all the mannequins have come out to kill all humans.

Below the London Eye, the Autons holding the Doctor are slowly pushing him towards the edge of the ledge that they are on. Rose takes an axe and breaks free one of the chains on the wall, soliloquizing that she has no A-levels, no job, and no future, but won the bronze in the under-sevens' gymnastics at Jericho Street Junior School. She swings down to the Autons holding the Doctor and collides with them; the one holding the anti-plastic falls down into the vat containing the Nestene Consciousness. The Doctor throws the only Auton left into the vat as well. The vial of anti-plastic breaks and spills onto the Nestene Consciousness, killing it.

Jackie takes cover behind a car. Three bride Autons try to shoot her. Fortunately, the transmitter shuts down, and all the Autons turn into lifeless mannequins again. Underneath the London Eye, the base starts to collapse and explode. Before it is destroyed, the Doctor, Mickey and Rose board the TARDIS and escape. After they arrive in an alleyway, Mickey rushes out on realising that the box is bigger inside and can move. Rose receives a phone call from her mum, who tells her to go home, as it is not safe. Rose quietly laughs before hanging up.

With the Earth saved, the Doctor decides to continue on his travels, but suggests Rose come with him on his adventures. Tempted, Rose chooses to stay for the well-being of her mother and boyfriend. The Doctor bids farewell to her and leaves. After the TARDIS dematerialises, Rose decides to send Mickey home. However, before they leave the alley, the TARDIS appears again in front of them. The Doctor emerges and tells Rose, "By the way, did I also mention that this can also travel in time?" She kisses Mickey and thanks him. When Mickey wonders what for, she replies, "Exactly," before running to the TARDIS with a huge grin on her face...

Cast

 * The Ninth Doctor - Christopher Eccleston
 * Rose Tyler - Billie Piper
 * Jackie Tyler - Camille Coduri
 * Mickey Smith - Noel Clarke
 * Clive Finch - Mark Benton
 * Caroline Finch - Elli Garnett
 * Jacob Finch - Adam McCoy
 * Lead Auton - Alan Ruscoe
 * Autons - Paul Kasey, David Sant, Elizabeth Frost, Helen Otway
 * Nestene Consciousness Voice - Nicholas Briggs

Individuals

 * H. P. Wilson is dead, killed by the Autons
 * The Autons make a copy of Mickey Smith.
 * Clive Finch suggests that the title "Doctor" is passed down from father to son, and points to his website, saying to Rose Tyler, "That's your Doctor there, isn't it?" This indicates he has information on the Doctor's other incarnations.
 * Rose's friend Suki says there are jobs going at the local hospital.

Technology

 * The sonic screwdriver makes an appearance and is again an all-purpose tool.
 * The Nestene Consciousness used warp shunt technology to get to Earth.
 * Rose uses search-wise.net to search the Internet.

Species

 * The Nestene Consciousness is destroyed by the Doctor's anti-plastic. Presumably Rory Williams' existence as an Auton beyond 2005 happens either because most of the events in The Big Bang take place in an alternate timeline or because there are multiple Nestenes.

Music

 * The Doctor, whilst shuffling a deck of cards in Rose's house, sings a line from the song Luck be a Lady from the Broadway production Guys and Dolls.

Story notes

 * This is the first story of the first series of the revived Doctor Who.
 * This is the first story featuring Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor.
 * This is the first story featuring new companion Rose Tyler, played by Billie Piper.
 * This is the first story featuring the new TARDIS console room, which has a far more organic appearance than its predecessors. Initially questioned by fans, the later mini-episode Time Crash would confirm this as a new "desktop theme" for the TARDIS interior called "coral".
 * This was the first Doctor Who episode to be produced in a widescreen picture format. Discounting the 1996 telefilm, it is also the first episode to have a shot-on-film appearance since 1985's Revelation of the Daleks and the first episode to be completely filmed since Spearhead from Space in 1970. However, the show is in fact videotaped, as it has been since 1986, with the footage subsequently processed to look like film. This production style continued into 2009 when the series began production in high definition.
 * The story itself could be a close sequel to Spearhead from Space, and has thematic similarities to the earlier story, as both feature a new Doctor, a new companion, and the Auton threat. The Autons had also appeared in Terror of the Autons, the story that introduced the Master, another new companion, and recurring UNIT character Mike Yates.
 * A copy of this story was available to download on the Internet on various p2p networks several weeks before it was released. The preview version was essentially the broadcast version; however it did not contain the new credits and had the original series theme music as opposed to the new version. In 2005, the illegal distribution of TV series episodes via p2p was nowhere near as widespread as it became with the later rise of torrents; Rose was one of the first major TV productions to be "leaked" in this fashion.
 * The word Auton is not used in the dialogue of the story but is used in the episode credits.
 * In Rose's flat, the Doctor leafs through a copy of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones. He is shown flicking through the book very quickly, commenting, "Sad ending." He also looks at a women's magazine and comments on one of the articles, saying, "Well, that'll never work. He's gay and she's an alien."
 * The surname Finch was used for Clive and his wife in the production notes but not in the on-screen version.
 * The episode, like the 1996 TV movie, breaks with what had become the tradition of including the Doctor's image in the title sequence.
 * For this, the first episode, the opening credits follow the UK standard of title sequence then program. The rest of the season would include a 'teaser' before the main title sequence.
 * There were problems during the first broadcast of this episode in the UK which meant that sound from a BBC Three program, Strictly Dance Fever hosted by Graham Norton, was heard over the scene in which Rose first encounters the Autons.
 * As part of the launch of the new series, the BBC screened the documentary Doctor Who: A New Dimension on BBC One - coincidently narrated by David Tennant, the future Tenth Doctor.
 * Following this episode, Doctor Who Confidential: Episode 1 was broadcast on BBC 3.
 * The reference to the Doctor having a Northern accent relates to the media attention generated around Christopher Eccleston - who had always retained his native Lancashire accent - not conforming to people's perception of what the Doctor should be like. It also references the fact the different actors who had previously played the Doctor had, themselves, differing accents, most notably Sylvester McCoy, whose Doctor spoke with a light Scottish accent.
 * In the scene where the Doctor is in Rose's flat, the original script called for the Doctor to stick his entire head in the cat flap. When it arrived, however, it was far too small.
 * Rose's comment about the Doctor sounding like he was from the north marks the second time Earth geography has been applied to the Doctor's demeanour (previously, he was referred to as being from England in the TV movie).
 * Similarly, Rose and the Doctor's exchange regarding his accent also echoes a similar discussion between the Fourth Doctor and fellow Time Lord Drax in DW: The Armageddon Factor regarding the latter's affected Cockney accent.
 * A special effects milestone occurs when the Doctor is shown standing in the door of the TARDIS and the interior is clearly visible behind him. In the original series, the interior of the TARDIS was usually shown as a dark void whenever a head-on view of the open doors (a rarity) occurred. For the first time, elements of the exterior of the TARDIS -- specifically the inside of the doors and the POLICE BOX lettering along the roofline -- are visible from the console room.
 * Between the final scene and the closing credits, the episode incorporates a "Next Time..." trailer for the next episode. This is the first time this device has been used in Doctor Who. This becomes a regular feature, omitted only on rare occasions, or occasionally moved to the end of the closing credits.
 * Actor Nicholas Briggs makes his debut on the revived series, providing the voice of the Nestene Consciousness. He would go to be the show's designated voice actor, vocalising the Daleks and Cybermen over the next few seasons. Rose is far from Briggs' first Doctor Who-related work, as he had been an active participant in independent, unofficial, and licensed spin-off productions dating back to the 1980s, most notably hosting the Myth Makers interview video series, writing and directing films for BBV Productions and Reeltime Pictures, and as producer of the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who audio dramas, a project that had its roots in Audio Visuals, a series of fan-made Doctor Who audio adventures in which Briggs himself played the Doctor. In 2009, Briggs would have his first official on-screen appearance in a Who franchise production with a supporting role in Torchwood: Children of Earth.
 * Russell T Davies becomes the first author of original Doctor Who spin-off fiction to write for the official TV series. A decade earlier, he wrote the Seventh Doctor novel Damaged Goods for the Virgin New Adventures line of novels. Numerous other writers of licensed spin-off fiction and Big Finish Productions audio dramas would go on to write for the revival, including Paul Cornell, Mark Gatiss (who would also guest star in three episodes), Steven Moffat (who would ultimately succeed Davies as lead writer in 2009), Robert Shearman, and Gareth Roberts.
 * This is the first episode of Doctor Who to use the name of a companion in its title.
 * The scene in which Rose wanders through the basement of the department store alone was the first scene Billie Piper shot as Rose Tyler (per Project Who).
 * This is the second time the Autons have initiated a new Doctor. Jon Pertwee faced them in his debut story Spearhead from Space.
 * With this story the Autons became the second adversary to appear in three season premieres: Spearhead from Space (Season 7), Terror of the Autons, and Rose (series 1). The Daleks have also launched three seasons: Day of the Daleks (season 9), Destiny of the Daleks (season 17), and Remembrance of the Daleks (season 25).
 * The "UNIT website" would reveal that the Auton assault was commonly believed to be an attack by "disguised members of a terrorist coalition", though some people did believe it was aliens; UNIT would not "confirm or deny" that.

Ratings

 * 9.94 million (43.2% audience share)
 * Repeat - 0.48 million (3.5% audience share)

Myths and rumours

 * It is often speculated that the Nestene Consciousness can be heard to utter the words "Bad Wolf". (The subtitles for the episode show that is says 'Time Lord'.)
 * Due to the widescreen format introduced with this episode, it was often erroneously stated that this episode and those that followed were filmed in high-definition. In fact, the first high-definition Doctor Who episode wasn't produced until Planet of the Dead in 2009. The spinoff series Torchwood, however, has always been produced in high definition. In 2010 the first standard-definition Doctor Who episode to be "upconverted" to HD, The Next Doctor, was released on Blu-Ray; this opens the door for Rose and other episodes of the first four seasons to undergo similar conversion at a later date.

Filming locations
Mostly filmed in Cardiff, but with some location filming in London:
 * The scenes in which Rose is at work were filmed in Howells in the centre of Cardiff.
 * The scene in which the Autons attack people in a shopping centre was filmed in the Queens Arcade.
 * The scene in which Rose agrees to go travelling with the Doctor was filmed at Cardiff's outdoor market.
 * The Yard where the TARDIS is parked was filmed at the back of the Cardiff Royal Infirmary.
 * The Nestene Consciousness' lair was filmed in a disused paper mill in Cardiff.
 * Exterior scenes of the London Eye and the Doctor and Rose running through London were filmed, unsuprisingly, in London.
 * The Powell Estate and streets where the Doctor tells Rose of the Autons were filmed around Lydstep Crescent in Cardiff.

Production errors

 * When Rose runs into the TARDIS, she says to the Doctor, "It's gonna follow us!", but if you look closely, her lips do not move when she says it.
 * When The TARDIS starts to chase the signal from the Mickey Auton head, it makes the travel sound before the Doctor pulls the lever.
 * When Mickey closes the wheelie bin lid, he then finds the plastic stuck to his hands, he lifts his hands up, and the plastic stretches like tar. If you look closely when he lifts his hands up for the first time, you'll see that a shadow of one of his hands is cast clearly on his shirt, yet there is no shadow of the strands of plastic stuck to his fingers.
 * When Mickey is attacked by the bin in the street, he fights to turn around with the bin stuck to his hands. As he turns, the stretched parts of the bin should cross over - but they remain parallel.
 * When Rose gives Mickey the Auton's arm, it is a right arm, but when Mickey throws it in the dumpster it is a left arm, then it's back to being a right arm when it attacks the Doctor that morning.
 * When Rose believes Mickey is dead, she says she will have to tell his mother. However, we later learn that Mickey's mother left the family when Mickey was very young, and presumably has no contact with her son.
 * When Jackie Tyler is nearly about to be shot by the Autons, the first one's hand opens. It switches to the next bit, then back to the Autons and the second one's hand opens. It then cuts out to a view of all three Autons with all of their hands open, yet after the next clip with Rose and the Doctor in it, the third Auton's hand opens. But in the previous shot of the Autons all three hands were open. The third hand should not have opened, if it was shown open before.
 * When the Doctor and Rose walk across the park together the wide shot shows them walking in sync. However when the camera crosses to a shot in front of the Doctor and Rose in mid-sentence, they are walking with different timing.
 * The final Auton attack in this episode is supposed to take place in a busy London street, but it is a pedestrianized area, and several shots reveal this. For example, there are no road markings visible, no apparent distinction between pavement and road, and a bus stop appears to sit in the middle of the road.
 * The Doctor and Rose locate the "metal" hatch that leads down into the "Plastic's Leader" blob. Watch carefully after the Doctor removes the "metal" hatch and moves it aside. The entire hatch "pops-up" a second later. This is because it is plastic and it was suctioned to the floor.
 * In the opening shot of this episode, we see the Earth from space. The camera then zooms into Western Europe, the UK, London, then into Rose Tyler's flat, where a jump cut to an alarm clock shows it's 7:30am. But look again at the start of that sequence: it shows that it's daylight over the UK - and over the USA. This is of course impossible. When it is 7:30am in London, it is 2:30am in New York, as Eastern Time is 5 hours behind UK time.
 * When Rose first enters the TARDIS the lamp on the TARDIS' roof is casting a shadow, even though it is also lit up. (This is because the lights were added digitally.)
 * When the Doctor and Rose are running across Westminster Bridge towards the London Eye, Big Ben shows the time as being 10:30 PM, yet there are night buses running (which run between around midnight and 5:00 AM).

Continuity

 * The sonic screwdriver makes a reappearance on screen in a new shape but with the same sound effect. The screwdriver was first introduced in DW: Fury from the Deep and destroyed in DW: The Visitation, then reappeared in DW: Doctor Who.
 * People similar to Clive who are obsessed with the Doctor were depicted in NA: Return of the Living Dad. Clive is clearly corresponding by e-mail with others like himself and refers to the Doctor appearing in numerous conspiracy theories (possibly an early reference to LINDA - DW: Love & Monsters).
 * It is implied but never stated that the Doctor has just regenerated. When he is in Rose's flat he checks his appearance in the mirror as if he is unused to it. He also notes the way in which his ears stick out; this is similar to a scene in the first episode of Tom Baker's debut story, DW: Robot.
 * The Autons and the Nestene have previously featured in DW: Spearhead from Space and DW: Terror of the Autons, both of which were Third Doctor stories. The Nestenes also feature in the PDA: Business Unusual and Synthespians™ which are both Sixth Doctor stories. The Autons also reappear in NSA: Autonomy, and DW: The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang.
 * The Doctor has at some time in his past been involved in a war which led to the destruction of the Nestene Homeworld. This war is also referenced in PDA: Synthespians™.
 * The Doctor speed-reads a book as he did in DW: City of Death, and will later do in The Time of Angels.
 * Rose returns to London in DW: Aliens of London.
 * The Auton invasion is referenced in DW: Love & Monsters.
 * The Doctor indicates that an unnamed but presumably well-known celebrity is actually an alien in disguise. He doesn't seem too concerned, suggesting a Men in Black scenario exists in the Doctor Who universe where human-disguised or human-like aliens live peacefully on Earth in the present day. (This is later supported by the decision by Mr Copper - a native of planet Sto - to stay on the planet after the events of DW: Voyage of the Damned.)
 * Clive's website, Who is Doctor Who? marks the first time a character has directly referred to the Doctor by the name "Doctor Who" on screen since WOTAN in DW: The War Machines. Unlike WOTAN's use, which is considered a continuity error, Clive's use is clearly meant in the form of a question, with "Doctor Who" being more or less a nickname.
 * Rose tells the Doctor she had a cat. This is confirmed in DWS: The Cat Came Back.
 * The Nestene Consciousness is shown to have survived the events of this episode and attempts another invasion of earth eight years after this episode fighting the Doctor's next incarnation. (NSA Autonomy)
 * Unknown to Rose, this isn't the first time she's met the Doctor. (DW: The End of Time)
 * The Doctor's ability to sense the movement of the Earth is similar to his previous ability to sense the movement of a space station in PDA: The Murder Game and feel the effects of a drill twenty-one thousand kilometres beneath the ground in DW: The Hungry Earth.

Timeline
For the Doctor: For Rose: For Mickey: For Jackie:
 * This story occurs after the Eighth Doctor's flashbacks in IDW: The Forgotten.
 * This story occurs before DW: The End of the World.
 * This story occurs after DW: The End of Time.
 * This story occurs before DW: The End of the World.
 * This story occurs after DW: Father's Day.
 * This story occurs before DW: Aliens of London.
 * This story occurs after DW: The End of Time.
 * This story occurs before DW: Aliens of London.

Home video releases

 * This story was released on a DVD along with The End of the World and The Unquiet Dead, Doctor Who - Series 1 Volume One. This set was also the first to be released in the UMD format for Playstation Portable.
 * This story was also released as part of the series 1 DVD box set, Doctor Who - The Complete First Series.
 * This story was also released with Issue 1 of the Doctor Who DVD Files.

In-universe

 * Clive's whoisdoctorwho.co.uk website

Rose (Émission TV) Rose (Capitulo) Rose (TV)