So... Rose's mum.

Honestly, I had expected to hate the character or at least not see her much after the first episode. The way they brought her back and truly explored the effects at home of a Companion taking off to travel across time and space was brilliant. She came off quite sympathetic at the end, and her willingness to help Rose at the end of the season warmed the heart.

And how much do you think she pays for insurance on that apartment? That place gets wrecked on a regular basis.

I actually enjoyed her a lot at the beginning--she's such a friggin' twit, but kind of lovable and funny anyway. However, I did get sick of seeing her appearing so often throughout the season. I appreciate that they showed the effect of a companion's travels away from home on her mom, but ugh, it just felt like we kept coming back to Jackie over and over again. I think "Father's Day" should have been a second- or even third-season episode. Helping Rose in "The Parting of the Ways" didn't really do much for me, either. I think I had overdosed on melodrama by that point.

That said, I liked her a lot in "The Christmas Invasion". She and the 10th Doctor played off each other really well, and the big group hug was a very nice moment. I think emotional moments like these work best in smaller doses.
(spoilers for up to TCI)

Anyway, this is from a thread on Outpost Gallifrey that cracked me up:

Pinwiz writes:


From my perspective, they may have succeeded entirely too much with Jackie. I spend my workday surrounded by pudgy working-class moms complaining endlessly about money and neighborhood intrigues, so having to put up with one on Doctor Who, of all programs, is rather jarring.

Still, Camille Coduri gives a wonderfully empathetic performance, always communicating Jackie's point of view and her love for her daughter. Then again, it would have been interesting to see Russell Davies' original conception of the character; "Judy" Tyler would have been more of a Lorelai Gilmore figure, still man-hungry but forty and slender, "more of a mate to Rose, not at all mumsy".

Jackie's kind of grown on me. At first I found her annoying, but now I like her, in small doses. I do think she gets some of the funniest lines, like in The Christmas Invasion, when she says ‘He hasn't changed that much!’ when the Tenth Doctor tells her he needs her to shut up.

I agree it was great to show Companion leaving effects on those left behind. Nice and packed emotional punch. I also agree not too much Jackie please. Father's Day was also to show Rose and therefore us that we shouldn't think that time travel is the cure-all we wish/want it to be. That it carries it's own curses. Therefore the epi wasn't really about Jackie at all and did need to come where it did in the storyline.


ETA finish the thought off really.

I know "Father's Day" wasn't about Jackie (though her presence in the ep helped make me grow weary of her); I guess I just felt like throwing that line in. I'll probably go into it more when it comes time to discuss the episode.

Really? Where can I read about this?

Pinwiz writes:


In Davies' original pitch document for the series, which is reproduced in Doctor Who Magazine's Series One Companion. I believe the special is now out of print, but it's fascinating reading, especially if you think there's no such thing as too much behind-the-scenes detail (It's exhaustive!).

Jackie is good in small doses. She's that mum (its a British show, I can't say mom can I?) you always see and roll your eyes at. I find some of her antics and line hysterical, but sadly, when she actually has something useful to do, I tend to get very annoyed with her. It just seems like she should be seperate from Rose's T.A.R.D.I.S. antics. Like, I can't imagine my mother being active in something that important in my life, especially if she were anything like Jackie.

I'm just amazed that the actress is still around after the awful (but at times wonderfully so) "King Ralph." So far, I think her character in Doctor Who is a bit annoying, but we'll see how it turns out.

annlaw78 I am right with you. I spent the first hour fixated on figuring out how I recognized and then I was shocked when I realized it was King Ralph.

I thought I was going to find her a lot more annoying, so I'm pretty pleased so far.

Now that I've seen WWIII I like her a bit more. I really could sympathise with her trying to make the Doctor more welcome by cooking for him and thought it was a little rude of him to turn her down. And her love for Rose is genuine. I definately see her good qualities while she maintains annoying traits. I loved that Rose checked on her health but told Mickey not to put her on the phone because she knew how Jackie would be and didn't want a lecture while the earth melts around her.

Scary thing is Jackie almost reminds me of my own mother, only with my mum, 9 would have gotten far worse than just a slap.

ITA that her character is a bit more rounded now that we have seen more of her. She seemed to act like a mother would after what appeared to have happened to her child. I was a bit sad though at the end after the ten seconds that she seemed truly despondent when she didn't return rather than accepting it on the positive side.

After "Father's Day," I think Jackie is at once more and less likeable. She complains an awful lot, but you can tell she really loves both Rose and Pete, and she is very caring to little Mickey, too. I do wonder, though, how much of the implications of Rose having traveled back in time Jackie understood, in contrast to Pete - she did realize it was Rose, but she clearly didn't get much of a chance to think about why her grown-up daughter would've traveled back to this point in her life.

Based on Jackie's reaction when Rose later brought up the subject, I think she was afraid of the possible implications and preferred to avoid thinking about it.

I hated Jackie when watching Season 1 for the first time, with all her ways to get compensation and telling Rose bascially that even working in a Harrodsesque shop was giving her airs and graces and its bad to try and aspire to be better than you are.

But after watching AOL/WW3 through again for the 1st time in ages a few days ago, I did come to sympathise with her more. Here's a widow and her only child goes missing for a year and then she comes back with a much older man in tow acting like its nothing, anyone would freak out. Especially as Rose won't say where she's been all sorts of horrible senarios have to be going around in her head and the Doctor is hardly helping her get rid of those assumptions with his extremely useless comments.

Also it struck me that whilst the Doctor isn't an internet pervert and isn't making any sexual demands on Rose, Jackie is right to worry that he's manipulating and making incredible emotional demands on Rose to the point of dependency as the season progresses. At the end of WW3 he makes her choose him over her mother and she goes off again straight away and he does become incredibly possessive which he tries to mask with snarky comments about her "pretty boys". She sort of becomes his raison d'etre, which is put into sharp focus when he sends her away so she can live in POTW. To be fair she comes to rely on him in much the same way as shown again by POTW and there relationship isn't as dark as all this would suggest, infact its kind of beautiful, whether you think he desperately wants to jump her or not.

But regardless its not exactly a relationship any mother would be comfortable with whether they guy is a human 40 year old who might have lost his family in a "normal" tragedy or a 900 year old Time Lord who's just destroyed two races and had his planet burned in the biggest war ever. Plus I don't know a whole lot about Rose's back story but this isn't the 1st time she's run off/moved in with an unsuitable guy that ended in tears is it? Its sort of a "here we go again thing" but x100.

I wonder if Jackie ever met Captain Jack? Funnily enough I can see her taking to him much more than the Doctor. For one thing he's more likely to be charming and flirt with her than the Doctor who goes out of his way to be rude which scores him brownie points before Rose comes into the picture and whilst he's more obviously interested in her its a lot less worryingly intense.

Camille got fugged!

http://gofugyourself.celebuzz.com/go_fug_y.../06/dr_fug.html

OMG. I can see why. She's an attractive woman but she doesn't carry that outfit off very well.

I see what you're saying Featherhat. But then you need to factor in that Jackie herself tried to seduce 9 as soon as she met him. Of course she then goes on to share a more playfully bitchy relationship with 10.

I think Jackie's attitude towards the Doctor changed when she heard the Tardis and knew Rose was alive and had succeeded in helping the Doctor at the end of Parting of the Ways. I think she really believed then that the Doctor would keep his promise to keep Rose safe.

Then, of course, Ten stumbles out and is a whole new man - new new Doctor. She calls him "sweetheart" when he's in the coma, and Ten joins them for Christmas dinner, which you'd never catch Nine doing. I think that allowed for Jackie to better accept him in hers and Rose's lives.

I just rewatched Rose today, as part of my evil scheme to convert more of my friends into DW viewers, and I realized that no matter how much I hated Jackie the first time I saw these episodes, she is a peach compared to Sylvia. By this point in s1 Jackie was growing on me. (I think it had to do with the slap way back when.) I can't believe how superior Jackie is as a mother comparatively. Even Francine, who I think is a co-dependent freak long before she hears even the faintest whisper about the Doctor, looks awesome when compared to Donna's mom. Moms on this show are just odd, I guess. Amazing they all have such fantastic daughters.

And then between times yells at her to shut up. Of course that's before her flask of tea catalyses the whole saving the world thing. I think he just decided that he wanted to keep her on his side really. Try and avoid her slapping him again.

I know Jackie didn't have a big role in the finale (even though her convincing the Doctor she'd named her son Doctor was hilarious), but I'm still glad they brought her back. There was something I liked about Jackie from early on. She was also such a great source of side drama in the first season, as we saw how Rose's absence affected her, and how under all that selfishness, she was still there when Rose needed her. Then there were so many great moments in the second season (my favorite will always be when she first saw the other Pete Tyler). I'm so glad they cast Camille Corduri and I hope I see her in something else soon.

A few months ago, I saw her in King Ralph, the John Goodman flop from the late 80s. She was his love interest, a commoner who was hired to make him fall for her and then cause a scandal (naturally, she fell in love with him for real). She looked about the same as she does now. She gave a nice performance. To think if the movie had been a hit, she may not have ever been Jackie Tyler.

I adore Jackie, but I think she was utterly wasted in "Journey's End", and Ten's gratuitous condescension when he wouldn't let her touch the TARDIS brought back my old urge to slap him in a way I hadn't felt since S3. The way he treated her- and this goes back to "Doomsday", too- is just totally insulting and unnecessary. I never got the notion that Ten is the Doctor who supposedly got along better with Rose's family. (And I say this with love for his S4 self.)

See now I think Jackie is tied with Harriet for the best entrance in the two parter. I mean she just blows up the Daleks then turns round, introduces herself and demands to see the man in charge. Harriet however counters the Daleks jamming tech, then forces Jack to STFU and listen to her.