Flashback takes us back to the beginning, to the events of ‘Rose’, the first story of the 2005 series and looks at it from another angle. What IF Rose had not gone to work that day. What if The Doctor had not met her? How would he have got the clues that led him to the Nestene lair without her?

Of course, this is not the same Rose, tired and bored of a run of the mill job. This
is the Rose who has travelled and learned things with The Doctor. So her reactions to the events are NOT the ones she would have had the first time around. She has the benefit of hindsight.

I also wanted to introduce a bit more plastic menace into the story. Compared to the 1970s Auton stories, ‘Rose’ was surprisingly light on plastic killers. So the kitsch-laden living room of the Tyler flat becomes a death trap that Rose’s training with The Doctor fit her to deal with, plastic flowers, telephone wires, and when she is out there on the embankment she discards her plastic fashion jewellery and looks suspiciously at the things around her.

The ending to this story is, on the face of it, the worst possible Deus ex Machina going. Waking up and finding it’s all a dream! Ever since Alice in Wonderland, and including the shower scene in Dallas it has been a lame way of concluding a story. And as a rule I would avoid it like the plague. But the BBC got two series out of a man in a coma going back in time with Life on Mars. So why not? Incidentally, I wasn’t even THINKING about that series when I wrote this story. Honestly!

The differences between Rose as she was in that first episode and how she was by the last episode of the TV series to feature her were remarked upon by Jackie in the story. She changed and grew up a lot. In my stories she grew up a lot more. I wanted to focus on some of those differences. So the chipped nail polish, plastic fashion jewellery, pink pyjamas, are not mere detail. Nor is the fact that her relationship with Mickey has changed over time. The story was about that as well as about the Autons, and a revisiting of the past. Because this is the first story in the final phase of the Unfinished Business, taking the engaged couple all the way to their Alliance of Unity.