Father's Day

I noted when I reviewed ‘The Long Game’ that Russell T. Davies’ remit of focusing on characterisation in the new Doctor Who series has actually resulted in characterisation of the two regulars but left the supporting characters shallow, two-dimensional ciphers, and that it has fallen to the other writers to show him how it should be done. Paul Cornell becomes the third writer to do this, bringing all the strengths the best of his previous work to the screen with powerful effect.

Paul Cornell’s detractors tend to dismiss his work as sentimental, but the reason for this is that in all his Doctor Who novels and audios he’s focused on the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. It’s so rare to see this in modern British television writing, in which grim and gritty plotlines are currently in vogue, that I can’t bring myself to condemn the optimism that permeates his work, and ‘Father’s Day’ is no exception. It is sentimental, yes, but the emotions on display here ring true and its’ hard not be moved during the scenes between Rose and her father. The plot of ‘Father’s Day’ is predictable, but only in the way that a tragedy always is. Even viewers who hadn’t seen the trailer at the end of ‘The Long Game’ must have been able to guess what would happen when Rose asks if the laws of time permit her to witness her father’s death and the Doctor quietly tells her, “I can do anything, I’m just worried about you… be careful what you wish for.” Rose’s inevitable interference allows her to see the relationship between her parents first hand and bereft of the, erm, rose-tinted view her mother imposed on her own memories. Naturally, she gets a bit of shock as she realises that her dad is human; she sees them bickering incessantly, with Jacky yelling at Peter, “You bring home cut price detergents, tonic water, betamax tapes, and none of it works”, generally accusing him of being useless, and assuming that he’s having an affair with the young blonde she finds him with. He shouts back, “Yeah, cos I’m that stupid – I play around and then bring her to meet the missus”, eventually prompting a distraught Rose to shout, “Stop this! You’re not like this, you love each other!” Which is of course the truth, as Rose realises moments later when they make up.

Rose’s dad is a great character and his scenes with her are crucial to the success of the episode. For all of his self-deprecation, he isn’t stupid and having been assaulted by flying dragons he soon works out what is going on, telling Rose, “A wound in time… you called me “Dad”” The subsequent scene (“You are, you’re my Rose”) is very moving, especially when he starts asking about his hair and is met with silence, and he quickly realises exactly why she’s traveled back in time to see him, especially when he asks her “Am I a good dad?” She replies “You were there for us all the time. Someone I could really rely on”, and he realises, “That’s not me.” Billie Piper again gets to show her worth, portraying Rose’s emotions very convincingly throughout, and especially at this point, and Shaun Dingwell complements her beautifully as her dad. As soon as the car that should have killed Rose’s Dad starts materializing and dematerializing around the church, the resolution of the plot is obvious, but the point is that it is also obvious to Peter and he chooses to sacrifice himself to save everyone in a very noble and touching moment. We get a genuinely emotional scene as he tells Jacky, “I’m meant to be dead Jacky. You’re finally going to get rid of me” and Piper is superb when he tells her, “Thanks for saving me” and goes out to get run over. Rose’s dad works very well. For all his self-deprecation, he resolves to do the right thing, and sacrifices himself to save the world.

My main criticism of ‘Father’s Day’ is that, yet again, we get an ineffectual Doctor who achieves nothing. In fact, most of what happens here is technically his fault, since he takes Rose back in time in the first place, and when the Reapers appear and start devouring the world, despite his best intentions all he actually does is get eaten. Given the importance in Cornell’s script of the human spirit triumphing over adversity however, this actually works, as it removes him from the picture to allow Rose’s Dad to save the day. The problem therefore is not that the Doctor achieves little in the this episode, but that he repeatedly comes across as ineffectual through the season thus far and therefore rather than being the exception that it should have been, ‘Father’s Day’ boasts just another example of his dithering and incompetence. That said, the Doctor gets some magnificent scenes here, and Christopher Eccleston puts in one of his best performances. I’m coming to the conclusion that his performance achieves its potential far more in episodes not written by Davies, which require him to do some serious acting instead of just grinning like an idiot, rattling off atrocious puns, and acting like Rose’s jealous boyfriend. After Rose saves her dad’s life, Eccleston conveys the Doctor’s emotions through facial acting alone until the Doctor gets the chance to speak to her without Peter being present. Although he does shout, “I did it again, I picked another stupid ape” at her, his best line here is when he coldly gives voice to his concerns that he’s been manipulated all along, reminding Rose, “When we met, I said “travel with me in space”, you said “no”. Then I said “time.”” The moment passes, but it’s an interesting insight into a hitherto unexpected insecurity, and afterwards we get a quietly delivered but heartfelt reference to the Time Lords, as he tells her, “My entire planet died, my whole family. Do you think it never occurred to me go back and save them?” Later, when he finds the Doctor finds the empty TARDIS shell, the look of panic on Eccleston’s face is very convincing. And whilst I have criticized the fact that he achieves little here, the Doctor’s willingness to step between the Reaper and the crowd in the church, announcing, “I’m the oldest thing in here!” is the sort of behaviour I expect from him. But the Doctor’s finest moment here, and one which is also typical Paul Cornell, is when Stuart and Sarah ask him, “Can you save us?” and there follows a conversation culminating in the great line, “Who said you’re not important? I’ve traveled to all sorts of places, done things you couldn’t imagine. But you two… street corner, two in the morning, getting a taxi home. I’ve never had a life like that. Yes, I’ll try and save you.”

The Doctor’s relationship with Rose gets strained here as a result of Rose’s actions, but by the end of the episode, they’re as close as they usually are. Despite nearly bringing about Armageddon, the Doctor only remains angry with Rose until she says she’s sorry, after which he concentrates on trying to solve the problem rather than blaming her. He shows great concern for her when she initially witnesses her father’s death, demonstrating that for all his moaning about “domestics” in previous episodes, he does understand human emotions, and he tries to find an alternative to the obvious solution to try and spare Rose further turmoil; as Peter realizes, “The Doctor worked it out ages ago, but he tried to protect me.” However, whilst I’m on the subject, the answer to Rose’s question, “We’re not a couple, why does everyone think we’re a couple?” is probably due to the Doctor’s jealously of Mickey and Adam in Davies’ episodes and their constant sixth form flirting.

It’s worth discussing the logic of the plot at this point. Some critics have already started questioning how much sense the rules of time travel on display here make sense, especially since the Reapers apparently feed on wounds in time, but disappear when Rose’s Dad dies even though history has still been altered. The model of temporal mechanics utilized here is very much the model previously established in Doctor Who, and also that used in much of Cornell’s work. There is an obvious distinction between the massive paradox caused by Rose saving her father’s life, and the slight hiccup in the time line that is all that is left at the end; the idea that history can change but in ways that time can cope with has been seen previously in Cornell’s debut Doctor Who story ‘Timewyrm: Revelation’ (Chad Boyle’s altered past by the end of the novel). It clearly contrasts here with the situation initially caused by Rose, as she basically causes a reverse Grandfather paradox, travelling back in time to save her father and thus altering her own past fairly drastically. By the end of the story history is still altered, but the wound is much less gaping; Rose ends up having always been part of her families past, Jacky’s memories alter accordingly, and the man responsible for Peter’s death waits for the police. Note that she tells the young Rose at the end, “The driver was just a kid. He stopped. He waited for the police. It wasn’t his fault” whereas originally he was never caught; in both cases, he in a sense “gets away with it”, so it’s entirely possible that the overall picture of his life remains unchanged. What doesn’t really make sense is the fact that Rose can’t safely make physical contact with her past self, but this too is part of the background mythology of the series, first established in ‘Mawdryn Undead’ and since then revisited in such diverse works as ‘Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma’, ‘Happy Endings’, and ‘The Time of the Daleks’ so I have no problem with Cornell using it here. The only problem with all the temporal shenanigans here is that Rose is seemingly unable to understand the consequences of changing her own past; she’s supposed to be intelligent, but whilst Doctor Who writers have always belabored points such as this in an attempt to explain them to even the densest audience member, it shouldn’t be that hard to explain. I know this, because I have in the past explained the Grandfather paradox to a nincompoop, and he understood it perfectly when I’d finished. There’s also no real logical reason for all of the phones in the area to start receiving “the very first phone call, Alexander Graham Bell” either, but as a means of generally indicating that something is wrong with time, it is quite a nice touch.

The guest cast is generally very good here, with even Camille Coduri getting a few decent scenes, and conveying genuine sadness when she tells the young Rose about her father. Mind you, once Rose meets her in the past, I soon found myself wanting her to fall under a car instead of Peter. Bonus points are awarded to the episode for the Doctor’s, “I’ve waited a long time to say this: Jacky Tyler, do as I say! Go and check the doors! I should have done that ages ago.” Overall then, ‘Father’s Day’ is a fine episode. In addition to everything I’ve already mentioned, there is some gentle humour, including Jacky saying of the young Mickey, “He just grabs on to whatever’s passing and holds on for dear life. God help his poor girlfriend if he ever has one” and the Doctor telling baby Rose, “You aren’t going to bring about the end of the world, are you? Are you?” The episode is well directed too, with the shots from the Reapers’ point of view notably creepy, as people start to disappear. The Reapers themselves look good from the side, although from the front when they scream at people, there is something about them that puts me in mind of Muppets. And having provided several episodes worth of aural effluent, Murray Gold’s does his best work for the series thus far, with a score that is entirely appropriate to what is seen on screen.

‘Father’s Day’ ultimately reinforces my growing suspicion that, whilst I’ve generally enjoyed Davies’ episodes, the other writers are far better at writing for Doctor Who than he is. This feeling is further enhanced by the trailer for ‘The Empty Child’, the first of a two part story written by Steven Moffat, which looks extremely promising…