Father's Day

For the early part of the nineties, the only real source of new Doctor Who was Virgin’s New Adventures, a series of books which although aimed at Doctor Who fans took the wise step of moving the series on in style and tone, or in its own words doing stories that were too broad and deep for the small screen. The New Adventures were for the most part a solid run of hugely engrossing stories, occasionally pretentious, occasionally a little too subversive and every so often a bit too unlike televised Doctor Who, but always at the heart of it were a core group of characters that truly lived and breathed on the printed page. I have not followed much of the subsequent Doctor Who expanded universe, but have found a lot of Big Finish and BBC’s stuff has fallen way short of the standard Virgin set.

Whenever there were rumblings of a return of Doctor Who I always thought that taking a leaf out of Virgin’s book wouldn’t be too bad a thing. The tv movie was poles apart from this approach as has been much of this series so far, but finally with Father’s Day Doctor Who grew up a little and finally put on screen what Virgin did for a select audience all those years ago.

Father’s Day was a very rare thing, a Doctor Who story where flaws were very few and far between, which itself is a remarkable thing in a season where the word flawed comes to mind more times than it should. In short Father’s Day was perhaps the most perfect Doctor Who story ever put on screen, possibly not the best, but definitely the most perfect.

Performances, writing, music, direction, effects, photography, all were top notch.

>From the word go, the story took you in its grip and didn’t let go, doing that thing that only Doctor Who can, putting the mundane and the fantastic together and making it seem totally believable.

I am sure this sort of story has been done somewhere before, in fact the whole time paradox thing is one of the biggest sci fi gimmicks going, but Paul Cornell’s script was so well written and inventive that the whole thing felt totally original, afterall I don’t think anybody else has written a story about a wedding being jinxed by time travelling dragons. The eighties feel was well captured without ever being overdone.

In fact the whole script played on one of the things anyone who ever fantasised about time travel must have thought about, as fascinating as a trip back into the distant past would be, who wouldn’t be more tempted to travel back into their own lifetime, to revisit old memories or perhaps even right a wrong.

Much as I am sure we would all discover, Rose’s past is not as rosetinted as she thinks, and the November day in 1987 much like any other day to anyone who is living it is fairly normal and mundane. Her father also turns out to be less than the saintly figure she had hoped he would be, perfectly set out in the scene where Rose lies to her father about what they used to do together and he replys ‘that isn’t me’. Pete Tyler’s slow realisation that he is a doomed man was as good a piece of drama as anything that BBC1 is likely to put out this year.

I had initially been dubious about the inclusion of monsters in this story, thinking that for once the series could have attempted a bog standard down to earth drama about Rose and her father, but the Reapers were a master stroke. They are by far the best monster for many a year, and crap all over this seasons array of Moxx’s, walking corpses and Slitheen’s from a great height. The eerie shots of the reapers circling the church provided a true iconic Doctor Who moment, to easily rival Daleks on Westminster bridge, Cybermen coming out of tombs, Sea Devils rising from the sea etc. Obviously use of the creatures is limited to a certain degree by them having no dialogue, but I for one would like to see more, perhaps a future story could explore their origins and their exact nature.

Once again the star of the show was Billie Piper, and although she has been more or less faultless throughout the whole season, here she rose (no pun intended) to a new level. She has an astonishing range and makes all her scenes totally convincing and never gives less than 100%. Although nostalgia always plays a part in Doctor Who appreciation, I think it wont be long before she takes her place as number one Doctor Who assistant. Sadly I wish I could say the same about Christopher Eccleston. The more this season goes on the more I come to the conclusion that the guy has been miscast. I initially liked his Doctor and felt it would grow on me over time, but after a few episodes it has settled down into a rather mundane portrayal which only very occasionally feels anything like the Doctor as we know him. Eccleston is a great actor, probably one of Britain’s biggest talents and I was initially very impressed at the coup of his casting. But rather ironically given that everyone thought Billie Piper was going to be terrible, Eccleston has created in my eyes possibly the least memorable Doctor ever put on screen. The combination of the leather jacket, the northern accent, in fact the whole package has had the effect of turning an iconic fantasy creation into the sort of working class character you’d expect to see on a picket line or a building site. To be fair he has chemistry with Billie Piper and his acting in this episode was for the large part faultless, but this season still often feels like a series missing its central character.

Despite this, the episode had some great Doctor moments particularly the line about ‘ how he would try and save the couple’, which reminded us of the Doctors creed that every individual is important no matter how mundane their existence may seem.

Shaun Dingwall as Pete turned in a hugely impressive performance with a down to earth, believable character which never veered into cariacture as Camille Coduri’s Jackie has often done. Indeed the scenes between Rose and her Dad probably showcased some of the finest acting ever in Doctor Who. Pete’s inevitable sacrifice, turning a flawed everyman into the hero, was again one of the series most poignant moments and proved that much like the destruction of the Earth in episode 2, that Doctor Who can do emotion without sinking into overt sentimentality.

Joe Ahearne has been the only stand out director on this season of Doctor Who so far and much like his Dalek episode, brings a pace and atmosphere to this story which is not too far from feature film standard. The whole episode exuded an ominous feeling of impending doom, without resorting to cheap gimmicks like thunderstorms or lightning. I am particularly glad that he is returning at the end of the series as he brings that extra quality, which the glossy by the numbers direction of the earlier episodes particularly those of Keith Boak lacked. And special praise must also go to Murray Gold whose music has got significantly better as this series has gone on. The music to the early episodes was very patchy, but the last few have got better and better, and the score to Father’s day was nigh on perfect, sinister and moving all at the same time, just keep it up Murray.

And so we get to the inevitable flaws and there is only one major thing that comes to mind. What exactly happened at the end and why? Why did the Tardis suddenly return to normal? Why was the Doctor returned to life after Pete’s sacrifice, it wasn’t like time reversed or anything. What has happened to time at the end of the story, obviously time must have been altered, so Jackie will now no longer experience the events of Rose or Aliens of London in the same way, so whichever way you look at itI there’s still a paradox . While some of this may very well be addressed later in the season, I still feel a more thorough explanation could have been forthcoming.

But gripes aside this story was head and shoulders above anything else in this season even Dalek, and was probably the most emotionally involving since Caves of Androzani. Indeed it gets my vote as the series first 21st century classic. After a shaky start to the season, I feel with Dalek this new Doctor Who has hit its stride and is now blooming into something very promising and deserving of all the hype and promises.

The other observation I cant help but make is that another standout episode is once again not written by Russell T Davies. Perhaps he should come down from his self congratulating on Doctor Who Confidential and in the pages of DWM, and start taking stock of his own scripts, because although he picked Billie Piper and has made some strong artistic decisions, his scripts at their best have been rather run of the mill (Rose, The Long game), at their worst utter tripe (AOL, WW3 and parts of EOTW). With only three more of his own episodes to go, the works of Gatiss, Shearman and Cornell should give some food for thought.

That final shot of the Doctor and Rose hand in hand making their lonely walk back to the Tardis ended this story perfectly. For many years Doctor Who was has been written of as cheap bit of outdated tat by critics, Father’s Day proved that Doctor Who in 2005 can still be just as relevant and fresh in 2005 as it was over 40 years ago.