Doctor Who (2005) 1-08: Father's Day (Quick Review)

Episode:

704

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Serial:

163

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Writer:

Paul Cornell

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Director:

Joe Ahearne

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Air Date:

14-May-2005

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Father's Day, by veteran Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell. He only ever wrote two stories for the TV series, with this being the first, but he'd been writing Doctor Who novels, audio dramas and comics since the start of the '90s, so he'd had a bit of practice by this point.

The episode wasn't released on Father's Day, by the way. Wrong month entirely. Just like how the Christmas episode, The Unquiet Dead, wasn't released on Christmas. It's a weird thing to point out, but the series loves its holiday specials so much that these days that if you see a character eating an Easter egg, for example, the episode probably aired at Easter.

Alright, this is where the SPOILERS start, so it's your last chance to get off. Though I'll only spoil things that happen in this episode or earlier. As far as this review is concerned I've time-travelled back exactly 20 years to 2005, so if you're watching the series for the first time this will be safe to read.

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RECAP

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Rose asks the Doctor to take her to see her father on the day he was killed by a hit-and-run, so she can be by his side. Unfortunately she freezes up and misses her chance, so the Doctor returns to the moment again to give her one final try. This time she runs out early and pushes her dad out of the way of the car, saving his life and changing history.

The heroes get into a furious row, so Rose goes with her dad, Pete, to a friend's wedding. There she finds that he and Jackie haven't been getting on. Meanwhile the Doctor finds that the TARDIS's interior is missing. Plus flying monsters are attacking everyone, so he gets the wedding guests into the church. There Pete realises that Rose is his daughter from the future and also spots a car outside coming in and out of reality.

The Doctor's clever plan to summon the TARDIS fails when baby Rose is handed to adult Rose causing a paradox, allowing a creature to get in... and eat him. But Pete has pieced everything together now, understanding that he was supposed to be dead and that his death is the only thing that will fix things. He runs in front of the car and the Doctor reappears to tell Rose to go be with him. A few years later Jackie tells a young Rose about how a mysterious woman waited with Pete until he died.


REVIEW

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On paper Father's Day should be a highlight of the season, one of the most emotional episodes of the modern era. Actually, I suppose that depends on how the episode is presented on the paper.

If it's "A tragic story of Rose saving her dad's life, meeting him for the first time, and having to let him go again," then that's exactly the kind of episode that sticks with people. But if it's "A bunch of people hide out in a church doing nothing for the whole story until the dad walks out and gets hit by a car," then that maybe doesn't sound like much of a winner.

This is an unusually personal story about people talking and arguing, where the companion is the villain, the Doctor dies about two-thirds through, and the guest star is the one who saves the day. Also, bizarrely for Doctor Who, time travel plays a big role.

I think when it comes to the stuff between Rose and her dad, the episode works, despite even the Doctor wondering where it came from all of a sudden. There's been basically no set up. Okay The Unquiet Dead did have a moment where Gwyneth mentioned that Rose was thinking about her dad more than ever lately, but so far the main thing that's been drawing attention to Rose's father is his mysterious absence. The episode does more to develop Rose's character than it does to pay off anything we already knew.

This is absolutely Rose's story, especially as the plot is mostly 'Rose talks to her dad a few times', and even though she never knew the guy there's a connection there right away. This could've been about her learning the truth about her dad's flaws and learning to love him regardless, but she doesn't really give a damn that he's a failed entrepreneur who cheated on Jackie. She just wants to have a happy family and it's tragic because it's kind of obvious from the start she's not going to get it.

The episode gives the audience all the same clues that it gives to Pete, and we can see him working things out as it goes, so there's a good chance that a viewer will have picked up that he's got to walk out in front of the car to fix time. It's funny how many bad futures are averted by getting someone run over in sci-fi stories.

It's actually kind of interesting how well the episode communicates the solution to the time paradox, considering how nonsense the time travel rules are in this one.

For one thing, if you change history too much then these CGI creatures appear and start eating people to 'sterilise the wound'. Who even knows how a creature that feeds on paradoxes could've evolved naturally. I suppose they look pretty good for 2005 though. Way better than the CGI flying time monsters in the Stephen King miniseries The Langoliers.

I haven't actually seen Langoliers to be honest, I just watched clips on a 'Worst VFX ever video', so I can't say if Father's Day has a similar Stephen King feel to it. It's definitely a change of pace from some of the previous episodes though. No burping wheelie bins in this one.

Other inexplicable time weirdness includes: the first phone call being repeated, the car driving around in a loop, and the TARDIS interior vanishing leaving only the Police Box shell. I get why they did this, they thought it'd be a striking image that'd get viewers worried that something very very wrong had happened, but there's no explanation for it. I still have no idea how this happened or what it means, other than time is messed up.

There was apparently going to be even more time weirdness, but I don't think the story needs it. Honestly, I'm not even that keen on the time weirdness we got as it feels, I dunno... fake. Why are they picking up the first ever telephone call, on a loop, on a mobile phone? It's like if George Washington showed up because he's the first US president.

I suppose the episode could've given us a glimpse of how bad things had gotten for the rest of London, or the rest of the planet, but it might actually be better that we're just as clueless as everyone else. End of the world/universe or not, the monsters outside the church are enough of a threat to worry about, especially with Jackie and Mickey at risk.

It's one of those episodes which is about people in a confined space chatting to each other, but it's not about them working out plans or showing the ugly side of humanity as they turn on each other under pressure, they're just chatting for the most part. I especially liked the scene where the Doctor talks to the bride and groom about how he's never had an ordinary life like they've had. The guy's been so rude to humans so far this season that it's nice to see him show a sweeter side for once.

But this is clearly Rose's episode. In fact the episode is about 40% Rose and Pete talking and I'm not mad that Simon Pegg wasn't available for the part as Shaun Dingwall does a fantastic job. I never doubted for a moment that he was her dad. The episode does a great job of making him sympathetic despite his flaws, or maybe even because of them. The way the guy figures out he dies in the future just by Rose telling him he was a good dad just makes it more tragic.

Though the episode kind of cheats and makes his flaws an informed trait, as the guy we meet is so smart that he figures everything out without the Doctor's help, and is so much of a dad that no one can talk him out of sacrificing himself for his daughter.

Something that only really occurred to me afterwards is that Pete is actually a lot like Rose, as he's bad at living a normal life, but he's able to thrive in weirdness and he has it in him to be a hero. The guy could've been a great companion.

I'm not usually keen on episodes where the main characters play no role in resolving the drama, and I'm not even sure what I think about them being the ones who cause all the mayhem in this story.

The Doctor should've known better than to put Rose in that position and Rose should've known better than to ignore her Time Lord companion and mess with history. The fact that they didn't go back to rewrite that year Rose missed and that he hasn't gone back to save his own people should've been a clue that this is something you don't do! To be fair the Doctor hadn't really told us the rules yet, this is the first story which really makes it clear that changing the past is not something they should be doing. Except for when there's monsters and space ghosts and stuff.

Though Rose definitely screwed up more here and the row the two of them have at the start shows that a: they're both played by great actors, and b: she's not at the place yet where she can accept the blame or let her dad go.

Rose is fairly passive for the rest of the episode and Pete pretty much takes over as the protagonist, so it's important that it comes back to her making a choice at the end. It reframes the story so it was all about her getting to the place where she could take that third opportunity to be at her dad's side when he dies.

Incidentally, it's nice to get to visit the recent past in this story. Well, relatively speaking. The episode takes place in 1987, which is 18 years ago for Rose and 38 years ago for us now. So we're in the Seventh Doctor's first season here. Or we would be if it had any episodes set on present day Earth.

One thing I like about these historical episodes is seeing all the old cars parked in the street. Classic cars, dated fashions and retro hairstyles can do 90% of the work needed to put you back into another time period. Well, unless you go back to a point before cars were invented.

There's the Bad Wolf mention for this episode, written on one of the posters.

Incidentally, I'm glad that there was nothing weird about this moment that the heroes didn't cause themselves. Pete wasn't cursed by a time god, they didn't encounter an alien conspiracy to drive a car over him, it was just regular normal life. If they'd just stood there, there would've been no monster at all.

The episode ends with the Doctor and Rose being the only people who remember that the episode even happened. It's all just a bit reset button. Well, except for the circumstances of Pete's death. They ultimately changed history for the better, giving Jackie a bit of closure about the person who hit him, and the poor driver a whole lot less guilt. So there's a little ray of sunshine to the ending.

But no explosion this time! The streak has been broken.



RATING

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Overall I'm not sure how much I enjoyed Father's Day, as it's kind of confined and depressing, all about grief and human drama. But it does earns points for having moments of lightness without including farting aliens. Plus the writing was pretty solid, there were some great shots and the music actually worked really well this time.

The episode nails what it set out to, so I'm giving it:

 8/10.

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NEXT EPISODE

Next on Sci-Fi Adventures, more Doctor Who with The Interstellar Song Contest! Unless the episode literally destroys me. I barely made it through The Devil's Chord, I don't think I can take another musical number from this show.

Just in case, you should tell me what you think about Father's Day now, before I watch it.