Pete Tyler - Character History

Character History

The 2005 episode "Father's Day" in which the character is introduced also establishes the background of Pete; his daughter Rose states that he died on the 7 November 1987 when she just a baby. Flashback sequences are shown in which Pete's widow Jackie (Camille Coduri) tells Rose as a young child (Julia Joyce) that he was a good husband and father and that he died alone. In the present day, Rose asks the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) to take her back in time in his time machine so that she can witness his death and comfort him. When faced with the reality of what she is seeing, Rose impulsively rushes forward and saves Pete from being run down, changing history and causing a temporal paradox. Resultingly, the destructive Reapers arrive and begin to "sterilise" the wound in time by eradicating everything in sight. Eventually, Pete realises that Rose is his daughter and that her tales of her childhood with him were all lies to cover up the fact he was meant to be dead. Pete chooses to sacrifice himself by deliberately stepping in front of the car that should have killed him thus saving those taken by the Reapers and restoring history. This time, Rose holds his hand whilst he dies so that he does not die alone. Rose invokes her experience of meeting Pete and being there as he died in order to secure Jackie's help in the first series finalé "The Parting of the Ways".

A parallel Earth version of Pete (played again by Dingwall) appears in three episodes of the 2006 series. In this universe Pete is still alive, and has become rich through his entrepreneurial efforts. However, despite a public front he and Jackie were effectively separated and had not had children. Attending Jackie's 40th birthday party, Pete witnesses the first assault of the Cybermen. Though suspected to be one of John Lumic's (Roger Lloyd-Pack) minions, Pete reveals that he is in fact a mole secretly broadcasting information about Lumic's dealings on an encrypted channel. Along with Rose, who had decided to meet her parallel parents after arriving in the parallel universe, he agrees to infiltrate the Cyber-factory and is horrified to discover that Jackie had been converted into a Cyberman. In the episode's epilogue, Rose tries to tell Pete about her origins, but he is unable to handle this information and slips away to deal with the aftermath of the Cyberman attack. In the series finale, "Doomsday", Pete along with Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke) and Jake Simmonds (Andrew Hayden Smith) is able to travel to the Doctor's universe to help defeat the Cybermen. During the encounter, he is introduced to Rose's universe's Jackie and realises he still has feelings for her. When the walls between universes are sealed Pete and Jackie are sent to the parallel universe for safety; he later returns to rescue Rose from falling into the breach. In the episode's epilogue, it is stated that Jackie is pregnant with his child. The character of "Pete" does not return with his on screen family in the series four finalé but it is mentioned that he had been looking after his and Jackie's son, Tony.