Father’s Day

There's a lot I really, really like about Father's Day. It's a very significant episode of Doctor Who in exploring often discussed ideas in fan discussions around time travel stories. Why can't the Doctor just fix every problem with time travel? How are these rules enforced in a world without Time Lords? Just how bad can we make a CGI monster look, if we really, really try?

All this is explored in a story very grounded and almost exclusively taking place in and around a church, on the day of a wedding and the death of Rose's dad. This was new territory for Doctor Who and really showcases how well the series could do things the old one simply never really opted for.

Unfortunately, Father's Day is limited by two fronts. One, is the special effects. I think the Reapers are a very cool idea, but they just look terrible. Even compared to the rest of series one, this episode (along with The Long Game) really stretch credulity with their dated CGI. Wisely, production does avoid relying on them too much and keeps them behind windows a lot, but they do it in a way that feels a little cheap.

I feel like the writing is a lot more dramatic than usual, but that drama is deserved given the sudden and violent death of Pete. That's traumatic and terrible, but I think that point gets underplayed a bit with some of the direction and dialogue given to the Tyler family. Rose is pretty good, but the parents are a little more inconsistent. Jackie was always funny to be sure but her character was never done any favours in the writing when it came to this dramatic stuff. I think it is telling that in spite of the many problems around his character, Danny Pink's car accident is comparably so much more devastating.

On the other hand, Eccleston remains the consistently powerful performer he showed himself to be across pretty much his entire run of TV Doctor Who.

All told, this is one of those episodes I wish I could go higher than 7/10. It has a lot of traits I would normally consider to be along the lines of an 8/10 episode, but there's just enough little issues and problems that hold it back a bit from that distinction. Still, in a lot of ways, a highlight of series one, and a pretty unforgettable Doctor Who story in its own unique way. It's the kind of thing I don't think should be recreated because Father's Day serves as a nice little niche and it doesn't feel like this needs to be revisited.

Bloody hell. What an emotional gut punch this one is. A cautionary tale of the dangers of time travel when you start to meddle in your family’s own history. The fact that The Doctor would even take Rose to the scene of her father’s death shows how alien and envelope pushing Eccleston’s Doctor is. He will drive the show forward in freaky and spooky ways.

As well as this episode seeing the impacts of time travel going wrong pushed further than at most points in the show’s history, it’s a new kind of sci-fi for Doctor Who. It’s more in the mold of The Twilight Zone, where the writer works with a clever concept and then looks at its emotional consequences for our cast.

Rose is given a rich mythology, a sad past with her father which bonds us to her. She gets an uncomfortable insight into her parent’s less than perfect marriage and has to square the past she thought she knew with the past as it really was. Incidentally one of the treats for this story is seeing Jackie Tyler as an equally mouthy and confrontational younger self initially laying into modern day Rose.

And The Doctor dies! He actually dies! In the 1980s! How mad is that? Before Pete Tyler realises what has happened and makes the ultimate sacrifice. Pete is given the chance to save the day and be the hero. There is so much beauty and heart in that.