Mickey Smith

Mickey Smith is a fictional character in the BBC One science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. He is portrayed by British actor Noel Clarke and was the show's first televised black companion. The character is introduced as the ordinary, working class boyfriend of Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), a London shopgirl who becomes a travelling companion to the Ninth and Tenth incarnations of an alien Time Lord known as the Doctor. Mickey first appears in the first episode of the 2005 revival, "Rose". Initially someone who struggles in the face of danger, Mickey nevertheless acts as an Earth-based ally to the Doctor and Rose. In the second series he joins the pair as a second companion of the Doctor's, though he leaves during the 2006 series to pursue his own adventures. He returns to aid the Doctor and Rose in the series finale later that year, and then again for the 2008 finale " Journey's End," as well as fleetingly in 2010 in the Tenth Doctor send-off " The End of Time".

Executive producer Russell T Davies created the character alongside Rose's mother Jackie ( Camille Coduri) in order to provide a home context for Rose. The character's dubious personality traits were made evident; both Davies and Clarke postulated that the character "deserved to lose his girlfriend". Though Clarke felt his character was initially "a clown" he enjoyed having the chance to mature Mickey into a more heroic character in his later appearances. Television commentators generally reacted positively to this character growth. In 2007 the entertainment and media news website Digital Spy highlighted him as a "Cult Spy Icon".

Appearances

Television

Mickey Smith is first introduced in the series' 2005 reboot première episode, "Rose". When Mickey's girlfriend Rose (Billie Piper) begins investigating a mysterious alien called the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston), Mickey is captured by the alien Nestene Consciousness, from which a living plastic facsimile of him (an 'auton') is created. Mickey, terrified by the revelation that alien life exists, fails to impress the Doctor, who only invites Rose to be his travelling companion in time and space. In the year after Rose absconds with the Doctor, Mickey becomes the prime suspect for Rose's disappearance and becomes distressed as a result. However, he assists the pair in defeating the Slitheen, a family of extraterrestrial criminals; using his computer hacking skills, he commandeers a military harpoon missile which he targets at 10 Downing Street to kill the Slitheen. Mickey then declines an invitation from the Doctor to join him and Rose in the TARDIS. A much younger Mickey, played by Casey Dyer, appears briefly when Rose attempts to alter her childhood in "Father's Day". In " Boom Town", Mickey later meets up with the Doctor, Rose and new companion Captain Jack ( John Barrowman) in Cardiff, where he helps them foil a Slitheen plot. In the series' finale episode " The Parting of the Ways", when Rose becomes stranded at home at the Powell Estate, Mickey uses a recovery truck to crack open the TARDIS's console, through which Rose is able to absorb the time vortex and save the universe from an invasion of the hateful mutant alien Daleks.

Having investigated a case of possible alien activity on Earth, Mickey alerts the Doctor and Rose to strange goings on at a school run by Headmaster Lucas Finch (Anthony Head) in " School Reunion". On meeting the Doctor's former companions, investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith ( Elisabeth Sladen) and robot dog K-9, Mickey begins to see himself negatively as the K-9 to Rose's Sarah Jane: "the tin dog". In the episode's conclusion, the Doctor finally takes Mickey aboard as his companion. He appears in the next three episodes " The Girl in the Fireplace" and two-parter " Rise of the Cybermen"/" The Age of Steel", where the trio end up in a parallel world where vicious, emotionless Cybermen have just been invented. There, Mickey is mistaken for his parallel universe doppelgänger "Ricky Smith", the leader of a human resistance group called the Preachers. In the story's conclusion, following Ricky's death, Mickey decides to stay behind in the parallel world to look after the parallel version of his grandmother ( Mona Hammond) and fight the Cybermen; Mickey's grandmother is dead in his universe. However, Mickey makes a surprise reappearance in finale episodes " Army of Ghosts" and " Doomsday", wherein like the Cybermen, he and fellow Preacher Jake Simmonds ( Andrew Hayden-Smith) are able to cross the Void into our world. There, they help the Doctor repel simultaneous Dalek and Cybermen invasions. In the episode's conclusion Mickey returns to the parallel world, this time with Rose who is now also trapped there.

Mickey returns again in the series four finale episode " Journey's End" (2008), along with Jackie. Alongside many other recurring characters, they have come to help the Doctor defeat Davros ( Julian Bleach), the creator of the Daleks. Mickey and Jackie save Sarah Jane from a Dalek attack, and the trio then surrenders to other Daleks in order to be taken to the Dalek headquarters, the spaceship ''Crucible''. There they join forces with Captain Jack. After Donna (Catherine Tate) defeats Davros, Mickey is one of several former companions who pilot the TARDIS. In the episode's conclusion, Mickey declines to return to the parallel universe because, having both broken up with Rose and his "parallel" grandmother having been passed away, he can find no reason to go back - in fact, he tells the Doctor, "I'm not stupid, I can work out what happens next," obviously realizing that Rose will wind up with the metacrisis Doctor. Leaving the TARDIS, he follows after Jack and the Doctor's former companion, UNIT officer Martha Jones ( Freema Agyeman). Mickey next makes a brief final appearance in the Tenth Doctor's final episode " The End of Time" (2010), when the dying Tenth Doctor visits all his companions and saves the now-married Mickey and Martha, "freelance alien hunters", from a Sontaran sniper.

Online media

Mickey appeared extensively in electronic literature and tie-in videos hosted by the BBC website. These websites are "in-universe", part of an alternate reality game set within the show. Concurrent with the 2005 series, Mickey ran the conspiracy theorist website "Who is Doctor Who?" (first featured in "Rose"). In the 2006 series, however, the website became "Defending the Earth". Both featured videos of Clarke as Mickey, informing the viewer of facts about the series, or introducing "missions" which would be played out in online Macromedia/Adobe Flash games. Several of Mickey's blog entries tied into the overarching Torchwood story arc, depicting interceptions by the Torchwood Institute. Games include tie-ins to the plots of 2006 series episodes, such as " Tooth and Claw" and " Fear Her".

Clarke also starred as Mickey Smith and Ricky Smith in several online ' Tardisodes'; these were 60-second webisodes and mobisode