Father's Day

I have found in the past, during disappointing seasons of Dr Who (or imposter programmes which are broadcast under that banner), that there usually comes a pivotal story which bangs the nail in said season's coffin. For example, Silver Nemesis part one was the episode of season 25 which made me finally accept that nothing good was going to happen that year, and I basically gave up expecting it.

Watching Father's Day last Saturday evening was the moment that I gave up on the new show. Or at least gave up on this first season of it - maybe David Tenant's Doctor and the new batch of scripts will turn things around. Reading some of the other reviews that have published on Outpost Gallifrey, I'm at a loss to know where people are coming from with Paul Cornell's episode. The whole idea of the Doctor and his dramatic funcion in the show has now been as comprehensively undermined as it was in the McCoy era. Personally I'd rather have McCoy's all-seeing superhuman incarnation than the increasingly pathetic, ineffectual, unstable, nasty adolescent we now have pilotting the TARDIS.

I'm not going to bang on about what happened in the episode, we all saw it. I'd just ask everyone to step back for a moment, and imagine the best stories Dr Who has ever given us, but with their respective Doctors replaced by Eccleston's incarnation. The Doctor winds up trapped in the cottage in part four of the Seeds of Doom. "Sorry, I don't have a plan" he tells everyone, throws a big strop when Scorby comes on to Sarah, then gets eaten by the Krynoid. The Doctor gets dragged off to Androzani Major by Stotz in Caves of Androzani part three. "Wow, I can't believe it's going to end like this" he says, sitting back in his restraints and seething about the fact that Jek is now going to have his wicked way with luscious young Peri. "I really fancied her" he admits to himself, lost in his own impotence and despondant self-pity. The Doctor arrives on the Nerva space station in Ark In Space, calls Noah a stupid ape for allowing himself to become infected by the Wirrin, gets trapped in the control area, tells everyone he has no plan then gets eaten by a load of bubblewrap.

Come ON people!! The Doctor ALWAYS has a plan - he's the effing Doctor!! The whole joy, the whole blessed point of Doctor Who is that it is a programme about profoundly nasty people and creatures with profoundly nasty intentions, all of whom and all of which get thwarted by the brilliance of the Doctor. A Doctor who is never cruel or cowardly, who is always non-violent, who always uses his brain and who never, ever EVER despairs or stops fighting. Rob him of these qualities, tamper with his essential character and you are messing with the guts of the show. Any other considerations - quality of direction, guest performances, music, lighting - pale into utter insignifiance.

Bring back Doctor Who! The new show needs him.