Mickey Smith
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| Doctor Who character
<tr> <td align="center" colspan="2">Image:Mickeysmith2.jpg</td> </tr> | |
|---|---|
| Mickey Smith
<tr> <th>Affiliated with</th> <td>Rose Tyler</br>Tenth Doctor |
Mickey Smith is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, played by Noel Clarke.
Mickey is the boyfriend of the Ninth and Tenth Doctor's companion Rose Tyler, and a recurring character on the programme. He first appeared in the 2005 series episode Rose. In that story, he was caught up in the events of the Auton invasion when Rose met the mysterious Doctor. He later briefly joined the TARDIS crew as the Tenth Doctor's second companion in the 2006 series.
A typical working-class young man, Mickey lived on the same South-East London council estate as Rose and worked as a mechanic at the local garage. Mickey was the first non-white human companion of the Doctor ever seen on screen (although others had previously appeared in various spin-off media of undetermined canonicity).
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[edit] Character history
Mickey's father, Jackson Smith, left for Spain when he was very young. Mickey's mother could not cope with raising him alone and left him to be raised by his blind grandmother, Rita-Anne; however, Mickey's mother remained a sufficient part of Mickey's life that when Rose believed Mickey to be dead, she said, "I'll have to tell his mother." A few years prior to the events of Rose, Rita-Anne died after slipping on a damaged carpet and falling down the stairs. Mickey felt responsible for her death as he did not repair the carpet, despite frequent reminders.
When Rose, while investigating the Doctor, went to visit a conspiracy theorist named Clive, Mickey was captured by the Nestene Consciousness, which created a living plastic facsimile of him to gather intelligence about the Doctor. Kept a captive by the Nestenes to maintain the duplicate, he was overwhelmed by the revelation that alien life existed and was in a state of paralysed panic throughout most of the Doctor and Rose's final confrontation with the Nestenes.
Mickey's initial cowardice (and his panicky description of the Doctor as an "alien... a thing") did not impress the Doctor, and when the Doctor offered to take on Rose as his newest companion, he pointedly said that Mickey was not invited. While mere days passed for Rose in the TARDIS, a year had passed in London when she returned in Aliens of London. In the interim, she had been declared missing. Mickey was suspected of Rose's murder and interviewed by the police on five occasions but was not arrested due to lack of evidence. Mickey had also spent the year unearthing information about the Doctor and waiting for Rose to return, taking over the www.whoisdoctorwho.co.uk website formerly run by Clive (see Doctor Who tie-in websites).
Although still dismissive of Mickey (deliberately calling him "Ricky" and terming him "Mickey the Idiot"), the Doctor had to rely on him when the Doctor and Rose were trapped inside 10 Downing Street during the events of World War Three. Mickey's actions in that story, bravely defending Rose's mother Jackie from the Slitheen and helping end the alien threat, earned him a degree of the Doctor's respect. At the conclusion of the story, the Doctor offered Mickey a place aboard the TARDIS but he declined, asking the Doctor not to tell Rose that he had done so. The Doctor in turn gave Mickey a compact disc containing a computer virus that would wipe out all mention of him on the Internet, but according to his website, Mickey was undecided as to whether to use it.
A younger (around six years old) version of Mickey appeared in the episode Father's Day played by Casey Dyer, where he met the time travelling Rose in 1987, although he was not made aware of the role she would play in his future. The present-day Mickey reappeared in Boom Town, where he told Rose that he had started dating Trisha Delaney, although whether this was true or merely to make Rose jealous and return to him is not certain. Although he bitterly walked away from Rose at the end of that episode, he was willing to help Rose get back to the Doctor in the 2005 series finale The Parting of the Ways.
Mickey returned in the 2005 Christmas special, The Christmas Invasion, and also briefly appeared at the opening of New Earth. After The Christmas Invasion he took a more proactive stance in investigating extraterrestrial threats to Earth, alerting Rose and the Doctor to strange events at a local secondary school in School Reunion. At the end of that episode, he joined the TARDIS crew as a regular companion, although he expressed the worry that he was a third wheel and taken for granted, comparing himself to "the tin dog" (K-9).
When visiting a parallel Earth in Rise of the Cybermen, he was mistaken for and met his counterpart, Ricky Smith, leader of the resistance group called the Preachers. He also met the parallel version of Rita-Anne, who had not died. Ricky was killed by the Cybermen before Mickey's eyes, and something inside him changed as a result. Mickey went on to become instrumental in defeating the Cybermen.
As the Doctor and Rose were about to leave, Mickey announced he was staying behind to assist the Preachers in mopping up the remaining Cybermen and look after the parallel version of Rita-Anne now that Ricky was gone. As the Doctor stated that travel between parallel universes was impossible, it seemed that Mickey would not be seen again. However, he appeared in Army of Ghosts, infiltrating the Torchwood Institute under an assumed name. The Cybermen of the parallel Earth, on the verge of defeat, had followed an interdimensional craft through to Mickey's own universe, and he was the first member of the Preachers to follow them, armed with parallel Torchwood technology. He also appeared more confident and self-assured than he had been previously, but he still did not expect the Daleks to emerge from the void ship. He soon became part of the fight against the Dalek and Cyberman armies. At the conclusion of Doomsday, Mickey returned to the parallel universe and the breach was sealed. Mickey is currently living with Rose, Jackie, and the Pete Tyler of that world.
[edit] Ricky Smith
| Doctor Who character
<tr> <td align="center" colspan="2">Image:Ricky Smith.jpg</td> </tr> | |
|---|---|
| Ricky Smith
<tr> <th>Affiliated with</th> <td>The Preachers</td> </tr><tr> <th>Race</th> <td>Human</td> </tr><tr> <th>Home planet</th> <td>Parallel Earth</td> </tr><tr> <th>Home era</th> <td>Early 21st century</td> </tr><tr> <th>First appearance</th> <td>Rise of the Cybermen</td> </tr><tr> <th>Last appearance</th> <td>The Age of Steel</td> </tr><tr> <th>Portrayed by</th> <td>Noel Clarke</td> </tr> |
Ricky Smith was the parallel universe counterpart to Mickey, first appearing in Rise of the Cybermen. Unlike Mickey's perceived status as the "tin dog", Ricky was seen to be in control of the situation, tough and decisive. He was the leader of the Preachers, a gang of freedom fighters fighting against John Lumic's Cybus Industries and claimed to be London's "Most Wanted" (although he later admitted this was for parking fines).
Ricky died while running from a group of Cybermen in The Age of Steel. He was electrocuted by a Cyberman when trying to climb over a fence, while Mickey looked on helplessly from the other side. After helping to defeat the Cybermen in London, Mickey decided to take on the role of his parallel counterpart, partly to look after Ricky's blind grandmother Rita-Anne, and partly to aid Preacher Jake Simmonds in eliminating the Cybermen threat in other countries.
Despite no mention being made of this in the episodes as broadcast, on the Series Two DVD Box Set Deleted Scenes, a deleted scene from the end of The Age of Steel shows Mickey and Jake in the van and when Mickey mentions how he may be different from Ricky, Jake mentions how Ricky was his lover before he died, much to Mickey's shock.
[edit] Other appearances
Mickey has appeared in three New Series Adventures novels. In Winner Takes All by Jacqueline Rayner, Mickey becomes 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. Under the Doctor's instruction, Mickey organised the controllers to keep the abducted humans alive.
In The Stone Rose, Mickey has been volunteering to take schoolchildren round the British Museum. It is his discovery of a statue of Fortuna that looks exactly like Rose which sets the chain of events in motion.
In The Feast of the Drowned, Mickey helps when the Doctor and Rose investigate the mysterious sinking of a naval vessel and the apparent ghost of the brother of Rose's friend Keisha. It is revealed that, at some point between Rose and Aliens of London, Keisha propositioned Mickey but was rebuffed. In revenge, she encouraged the idea that he had murdered Rose, even sending people to beat him up. Mickey himself was unable to remember what had happened that night, and she told him he had made the advances.
The Doctor Who Magazine comic strip The Lodger (DWM #368) focuses on Mickey being increasingly annoyed by the Tenth Doctor when the latter lodges with him for a few days, particularly since the Doctor is able to effortlessly outdo Mickey at everything.
Mickey also appears as the webmaster for the tie-in website "Defending the Earth!" (formerly "Who is Doctor Who?").
[edit] Episodes
- 2005 series
- Rose
- Aliens of London / World War Three
- Father's Day (younger version)
- Boom Town
- The Parting of the Ways
- 2005 Christmas special
- 2006 series
- New Earth (cameo)
- School Reunion
- The Girl in the Fireplace
- Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel (parallel version also)
- Army of Ghosts / Doomsday
