Review: Doctor Who 1.8: Father's Day

Pete Tyler

During the era in which Who was off air, the nature of modern sci-fi changed. Notably, time paradoxes and examinations of such became incredibly popular, and to keep up with the times Who was going to have to produce a story that messed with Time. Moffat would later take this and run away with it, but in Series One this task was left for writer Phil Cornell, who was a prolific writer of Doctor Who fiction during the Era. Taking an opportunity to develop the characters as well as present an interesting concept, Father's Day has the right ingredients to make one excellent cake.
     Rose's father Pete Tyler (Shaun Dingwall) died when she was a baby, and the memories of the aftermath have haunted Rose ever since. On her request The Doctor takes her to the incident in 1987, where Rose wants to make sure that her dad didn't die alone. The first time, however, she fails, and so The Doctor lets her do it again with the warning that they can't cross timelines with their past selves. Rose can't help herself, pushing her dad out of the way of the oncoming car and saving his life. The Doctor is angry at her because the laws of time have been broken and now they'll have to pay the price.
     The Tardis interior disappears and strange creatures (not named, but referred to in publicity as Reapers) arive out of nowhere and start eating people. After barricading everyone inside a church The Doctor explains that these are creatures who live outside Time and who have come to sterilize the wound. The Doctor himself is eaten by a Reaper and the TARDIS is destroyed, but everything is set right when Pete realises that he shouldn't be alive and throws himself in front of the car, which had been driving around the block for the entire episode.

Rose and Nine try again. No, not that way. Rude.

     I mentioned in previous reviews that this series touched upon the characterisation of the Companion a lot more than the classic series, and this is a big example of the techniques this series uses to do so. On its own, Father's Day would make a decent if slightly convaluted (the laws of time presented here are never visited again) sci-fi time travel story, but it's the underlying plot with Rose's dad that makes it so compelling. Both Rose and then The Doctor are prepared to rip apart space and time for one man, who it turns out is nothing like the rich businessman of Rose's imaginings but more of a Del Boy. Then, of course, we have the lovely touch where it's revealed that Pete instead sacrificed himself to the timeline to save the woman who he now recognises as his daughter. This is great characterisation right here.
     However, this does strike a pretty big contrast when compared to the previous episode. All Adam did was send some info about futuristic computers home and he was kicked out of the TARDIS; here Rose endangers the entirety of time and space and Nine's hunkey dory about the whole thing. And herein lies its main issue; the episode is more skewered towards an emotional reaction rather than an intellectually satisfying one. Instead of learning her lesson here, Rose would go on to make even more time fuck-ups and there really is no excuse after what happened here. I can accept that The Doctor may have felt some empathy with Rose for wanting to return the people she loves, but Rose had to break more laws of time just to fix the mess she made.

Do not fear the Reaper...

     RTD's Who was always about the big emotional punch and this is yet another episode where that focus gets in the way of what could have been a really good sci-fi story. It could have been perfect, but the story was a little too balanced towards the melodrama and often felt ignorant of common sense - a let down for what is otherwise one of this series strongest episodes so far.

Thanks.