The 2005 episode "Father's Day" in which the character is introduced also establishes the background of Pete; he was born on 15 September 1954 and died on 7 November 1987 when Rose was an infant, after being struck and killed in a hit-and-run.

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.

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.

[1] 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".

[citation needed] SFX magazine felt Shaun Dingwall to be the "lynchpin" of the episode "Father's Day" and opined that "he gives one of the series' best performances."

The magazine felt that "it was inevitable that Rose's sanitised image of her dad would turn out to be far from the truth" but commended the production team "for not making him as much of a shit as they could have done."

"[7] Mark Braxton of the Radio Times also praised Dingwall's "unbelievably good" performance and stated that this helped distance Pete from being "a cut-price Del Boy".

[9] In his book Who is the Doctor, Graeme Burk reacted negatively toward Pete in "Rise of the Cybermen"/"The Age of Steel", feeling that the writers had "jettisoned all the subtlety that made us love him in 'Father's Day'".