Father's Day

Father’s Day, like Dalek, was one of those episodes fans were waiting to see and their wait was well rewarded. The episode wasn’t without its flaws, as is the case for most programmes, but it was still a highly enjoyable but deeply moving episode.

The concept of the episode is interesting and one that was bound to come up sooner or later in the new series. Rose decides to use the power of the Tardis to visit her dead father. And it’s a perfectly reasonable and understandable move by Rose. She has the means to visit someone she doesn’t remember and if I were in the same place I would do the same. It’s also something that wasn’t really tackled in the last series. The nearest they came to tackling it was with Barbara in the Aztecs but that was an accidental landing and Barbara attempted to use the situation and her future knowledge to her advantage with little success. Here the situation is slightly different. Rose, unlike Barbara, isn’t planning to change time on a massive scale and doesn’t intend to change it at all. It’s only when the situation presents it self and Rose realises, perhaps for the first time, that she actually can change time and save her father that she does.

When she does save her father I think the audience completely sympathised with her actions and would have done the same. In a programme you have to identify with the characters and by putting Rose in this situation the audience immediately sympathises with her. It’s a brilliant move and one that works so well as throughout the episode you feel what Rose is feeling, this is certainly a really emotional episode and you can feel what Rose is going through. The emotional turmoil that she’s facing and the realisation of what she’s done mixed with the fact she’s meeting her father for the first time but with dire consequences. There’s one slightly programme I have though and it’s not with the idea or concept but more to do with The Doctor’s reaction to it. The first Doctor was furious with Barbara for attempting to change time and warned her “You can’t change history, not one line of it”. This seems to me to suggest that its impossible for time to be changed although it’s real meaning might merely be its plain stupid and dangerous to play with time. After all at that point in time the Doctor was effectively on the run from his people and Barbara changing time would have altered the Time Lords to his presence. Anyway the First Doctor was furious at Barbara’s actions, though he did sympathise with her, but Eccelston’s Doctor didn’t seem that furious. Christopher Eccelston tried very hard to seem angry that Rose was changing time and was betraying him like Adam just had. But he failed. The line “another stupid ape” didn’t have the amount of anger it should have had. It didn’t come across as the Doctor feeling betrayed and angry but instead it came across rather lame. Similarly the line “my wish is your command but be careful what you wish for” should have come across more as a note of caution rather than a joke.

While Billie Piper, Camille Coduri & Shaun Dingwall are strong throughout the episode Christopher Eccelston is strong in parts but weak in others. While telling Rose that he could save Gallifrey and his family if he wanted but couldn’t because the laws of time forbade it Eccelston was strong but in the aforementioned parts he was disappointingly weak.

The Reapers while a good idea were poorly realised due to the fact they looked like computer generated creations, which is a shame. They were a nice addition to the episode as they created an extra level of tension, held everyone up in the Church and even eat the Doctor, a twist that I didn’t see coming. The story suggests that since the demise of the Time Lords creatures the dwell in time have become much more of a threat to the Universe and there’s nothing that can really stop them. It will be interesting to see if this idea is carried on into Season Two and it will also be interesting to see if the Reapers appear in the future or not.

I’m surprised there wasn’t more of a reaction when Rose came into contact with her own self. The last time something similar happened was with the Brigadier and that event caused a massive amount of temporal energy to be released and was dangerous enough for the Black Guardian to order Turlough to follow the Doctors orders. This time around the consequences of such a paradoxal contact allowed the Reapers inside the church and to sallow the Doctor before hitting the Tardis and leaving Rose to cope with the situation on her own. Without the Tardis the only way to end the situation was for Pete to sacrifice himself and allow the car to run him over. The last few minutes were extremely emotional as Rose said goodbye to the father she had only just regained. The consequences of Rose turning up in 1987 was that time was altered if only slightly.

A truly brilliant and deeply moving episode that deals with an idea that surprisingly hasn’t been tackled in this way before. It adds a new lawyer of depth to Rose and was brilliantly acted by Billie Piper but also added some much needed emotion into the series instead of the needless humour of previous tales.