Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 1, Episode 8 - Father's Day

Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 1, Episode 8 - Father's Day

As we open the story with a strangely eerie zooming in shot of Rose's Dad's eyes, Rose asks The Doctor whether they can go and visit him while he was still alive, as she was only a baby when he died. The Doctor agrees, telling her to be careful what she wishes for.

Cue music...

Rose and The Doctor are watching her parent's wedding, her father fluffing Jackie's name as only a bit of a dimwit could do. We see flashbacks of Jackie telling young Rose how no-one was around when he died, and modern Rose tells The Doctor she wants to be the person who is there for him as he dies. They travel back to the day he died in 1987, which we know because there are posters protesting Margaret Thatcher, which never happened recently at all, ever. As her father gets out of his car, another car rounds the corner and ploughs into him, knowing him over and leaving him fatally wounded. The Doctor tells Rose to go to him, but she's too devastated to do anything about it. She asks if she can try again. We then see the two of them from behind, as we realise that we're looking at the two of them from two minutes ago, and the 'real' Rose and Doctor are hidden behind a wall, watching it all, waiting for the two of them from two minutes ago to leave to go back in time by two minutes and that's all irrelevant because the 'real' Rose goes crazy and runs out to save her father from getting run over. She succeeds, and Rose and The Doctor from two minutes disappear. Her father (I'll start calling him Pete now) grumbles about the speed of the other driver, before thanking Rose for saving him, and they both agree Rose is a great name. The Doctor is glaring at them though, and as we last saw that look when he refused to let Adam travel with them again in the last episode, I don't think he's best pleased with Rose. We cut to an aerial view of the council estate, with a red filter and a strained noise, and it doesn't exactly seem like a friendly image.

The three of them head back to Pete, Jackie and Rose's flat, but The Doctor is still being stern with his eyes. This is less 'grumpy Northern', and more 'really annoyed Time Lord'. Rose enjoys looking at Pete's things in the flat, before she finally acknowledges that The Doctor isn't best happy. He calls her a 'stupid ape', waves away her protests that he does this sort of thing all the time by saying that he knows what he's doing, and that he never went back to save his entire race when they died in The Time War. I think he's deliberately skipping the fact that it was time-locked, so he couldn't do it even if he wanted to, but let's ignore that bit. Rose and The Doctor seemingly break up at this point, she accusing him of being jealous at not being the most important man in her life at that second, and he demanding the key to the TARDIS back, storming out. 

As The Doctor heads towards the TARDIS, the red filter and screeching noises come into play again, and this time they attack several people out doing ordinary things like trimming a hedge, hanging out the washing and drinking cider against a wall. Pete tries to console Rose and her 'boyfriend' troubles, although she has to stop him when he starts mildly flirting, before it turns a bit Back To The Future on us. Rose and Pete leave the flat, heading for the wedding Pete and Jackie (and baby Rose) are attending. There's quite a few missing people in the church though, and my money's on the red filter flying things. The Doctor reaches the TARDIS, sensing something up in the sky, but the real horror awaits him when he opens the blue box to discover that it's now just an ordinary sized blue box. He panics, running back for Rose.

In the car, Pete and Rose bond talking about Jackie, although there's obviously something wrong with time when music from the future begins to play on the radio. Her phone is acting strange as well, repeating a message of 'Watson, come here, I need you' (which, of course, was the very first telephone message), but the car that hit Pete appearing behind them and disappearing in a flash shortly afterwards is the strangest bit of all. It then reappears in front of the church, causing them to swerve, and Rose to shout out 'Dad!'. He's interrupted from questioning her too much on this though by 1987 Jackie calling him a plonker. It's all a bit much for Rose, seeing her mother's hair, herself as a baby, and learning that her father may have cheated with a cloakroom attendant (they just fell over under some duffel coats, apparently). Worst of all, her parents clearly argue and are fed up of each other, ruining the image she had in her head of a wonderful marriage. 

The red filter has moved onto taking children from playgrounds now. Jackie and Pete sort of make up, but then the lone escapee from the playground appears shouting about monsters, and when The Doctor rounds the corner shouting for her to get into the church, the monster itself makes an appearance. Imaging a Pterodactyl crossed with a Gargoyle, and you're sort of there. All the guests run into the church in a panic, but not before a few of them are eaten. The Doctor shuts the door once they're all inside, explaining that there's been an accident in time, and that the monsters are here to sterilise the wound, and that Jackie should really shut up for once. Rose asks if it's all her fault, and The Doctor can't bring himself to answer, but at least he seems to have partially forgiven her because it's a pitying look he gives her, rather than the grumpy eyes. He watches the car outside appear and disappear, but doesn't do anything about it at the moment.

Rose looks mournful, thinking over how it’s all her fault, when Pete comes in to ask her why. She won’t give him a reason, but Pete says he trusted her from the moment that he met her, and that’s all a bit weird, considering there’s a wound in time and she called him Dad, and has his eyes, and Jackie’s attitude, and then he strokes her face, and realises it’s his daughter, which is probably a good thing otherwise he’d have got a slap.

Meanwhile, the bride and groom are asking The Doctor if he can save them. After learning how they got together, and assuring them that they’re as important as anyone else, he tells them he’ll try to save them.

Pete and Rose bond a bit more, although he gets the hint that he’s no longer around in the future. It’s all a little bit weird for Rose when 5-year old Mickey runs in and grasps her leg. Jackie comes in and scowls accusingly at the two of them a bit more, before leading Mickey away. The Doctor tries to bond with baby Rose, who looks a bit confused at the strange Northern man, but he has to be firm when modern Rose tries to hold herself. The Doctor apologises for being Northern and grumpy, and admits he doesn’t have a plan for what to do. He tells her that the Time Lords had laws against this happening, and would have stopped it, but that obviously isn’t likely to happen by the end of the episode. All it takes is an apology from Rose, and the two of them are back on friendly terms.When they hug, thinks heat up, but only because the TARDIS key is glowing golden. He borrows a battery from the groom, which is part of the TARDIS-locating plan, but the creatures outside seem to be getting louder.

A bit more bonding between Rose and Pete leads to a few lies, as Rose can’t bring herself to admit he’s died, instead telling the story of who she hoped her father would have been, had he still been alive. In the main church, the TARDIS starts to appear, and The Doctor warns them not to touch the key. Outside, the car appears and vanishes again, reminding us that the plot point isn’t forgotten. The Doctor reassures Rose that everyone will forget what’s happened, and that her father will still be alive. Pete, however, has figured out the truth, and blames himself for the problem, as he is her Dad. He loudly declares that he knows she is his daughter, just as Jackie, Queen of Brilliant Timing, walks in at this point, asking if he was 12 at the time she was fathered, leading to one of the all-time great disbelieving-Doctor head-shakes, and then Jackie finally learns the truth. However, Pete hands Baby Rose to Modern Rose to show Jackie that they’re the same person, which causes the paradox that allows one of the creatures to enter the church. The creature then eats The Doctor, which surely isn’t how the plan was meant to work, and the TARDIS disappears along with the creature, leaving the key on the floor. All because Rose did a little bit of saving-her-father-from-death. Who’d have thought it could cause this much trouble to change the past?

As the creatures try to tear down the walls from outside, Pete notices the appearing and re-appearing car. He decides to make something of his life, by dying. He tells Rose his plan, and that The Doctor knew that was how to heal time, and that he had tried to protect Pete by not forcing him to die. Rose begs him not to, but she knows really that he must. Even Jackie realises that it’s really her Rose, and looks helpless as she realises that he’s going to die. He promises that this way he can be a real Dad to her, as a hero with a supreme sacrifice, rather than stay around and be a failure. He runs outside, and gets hit by the car, just before he becomes one of the creatures’ dinner. The Doctor appears again, allowing her to run and be with him during his last minutes. He dies with her holding him, as the people in the church come out to see what’s happened. We cut back to young Rose, who explains the new version of what happened, of how he ran out in front of a car, and a girl held his hand as he died, and Jackie never found out who he was.

Rose narrates a small eulogy about her Dad, as she and The Doctor walk hand in hand back to the TARDIS.

We’re always warned in science-fiction that messing with the past can seriously screw things up (Doc Brown was very clear in Back To The Future II that a paradox could destroy the entire universe, or if they were very lucky just their own galaxy), and boy, does it mess up in a big way here. I doubt evil creatures were what many people imagine when they think of a paradox, but here it’s a very effective way of showing danger approaching and becoming more dangerous with every passing minute. It's also a pretty important piece of character development between Rose and The Doctor. She betrays his trust, putting the entire world in danger for one selfish reason (although it's a perfectly understandable one), and for a time it looks as if their adventure together could be over, but in the end her sorrow is entirely heartfelt, and the way he smiles at her after her apology tells you all you need to know. That slightly-manic smile is so iconic of Eccleston's Doctor, it's the first thing I think of to do with the character. 

If you wanted to showcase to someone just how good Billie Piper has been as Rose, you need only to show them the scene where Pete explains that he needs to die to reset the timeline. Her distraught ‘[you’re] my Dad,’ packs such an emotional punch. She’s right when she cries ‘it’s unfair’, and it’s not exactly an easy scene to watch if you get emotional at moments like this (which I do, of course). To me, this is one of the stand-out scenes of Rose's entire character, with an emotional resonance close to that of when she is trapped in the parallel world in the Series 2 finale. 

It's also an important moment when Pete tells Rose that The Doctor knew he would have to die right from the beginning in order to reset the timeline, and that he wanted to exhaust every avenue to try and bring Pete back into Rose's life before the ultimate sacrifice had to be made. It's another reason why we love The Doctor, and why people will follow him anywhere. In the Series 4 finale, Davros taunts The Doctor with how he has made his own private army and put them in danger - with actions like this, it's no wonder his companions will do anything for him.

I suspect that, in all honestly, Jackie Tyler isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I love the character. Her overbearing and dominant personality is hilarious, particularly the way she comes in at the wrong moment when Pete discovers Rose is really his Rose, and deep down you know she has a heart of gold. It allows The Doctor to have some great moments opposite her as well, his frustration at her not doing as she's told a highlight of his interactions outside of Rose throughout the season.

There's also Pete mistaking Rose and The Doctor for a couple, again leading to Rose declaring 'Why does everyone think we're a couple?!', one of my favourite running-Who gags. It's great when something like this can span multiple companions. In Rose's case, of course, we know that deep down (or fairly obviously in reality) she IS in love with him, but she still tries to hide it. All this build up makes their split in the Series 2 finale all the more heartbreaking.

How It Fits Into The Series As A Whole

Beyond some character development for Rose, it's fairy stand-alone.

Bad Wolf Sightings

'Bad Wolf' appears on an 'Energise' poster.

Overall

A very important episode for Rose, and a tragic story. Billie Piper really comes into her own, and we see an interesting twist on the idea of what would happen with a time travel paradox. Great stuff.

9/10