One of fandom's most acclaimed writers finally gets a chance to write a televised Doctor Who story. Surely this is going to be a classic?

Paul Cornell's books have always contained spot-on characterisations, sparkling dialogue, and have packed weighty emotional punches. Father's Day is no different. For all of the above, look no further than the scenes where Pete asks Rose what he's like in the future. Shaun Dingwall and Billie Piper are given the very best material, and they don't let us down in the delivery. The episode is peppered with lovely touches such as the inclusion of Mickey, Pete working out Rose's situation all by himself, and The Doctor's "I'll try and save you" speech to the bride and groom.

I was preparing for the worst when I first saw the pictures of the reapers, and they're very obviously CGI creations, but they're very well-realised and effective ones. The POV shots are creepy, and the abductions from the playground are reminiscent of similarly unsettling scenes in Survival's opening episode.

This episode had all the ingredients of a poll winner, so how does it go so badly wrong?

The faults lie within the actual script. There are countless holes in the plot, and bizarre occurrences which are left unexplained. The reapers had at least two chances to devour The Doctor as he storms back to the TARDIS, yet they don't. Neither do they attack the bride or Mickey. How does the TARDIS interior disappear? Why is there rap on the radio and Alexander Graham Bell on the telephones? Why does the Chevette turn up outside the church? Why does the TARDIS key glow in the church, but not in the TARDIS lock? Indeed, why does it glow at all? How does the TARDIS get into the church - or relocate itself at the end of the episode? How does The Doctor get brought back? And why does Pete's death vanquish the reapers, when history still remains changed?

I promised my better half that this episode would bring a lump to her throat and tears to her eyes. Instead it just gave us both headaches trying to figure out the finer points of the plot. The individual scenes may all be superbly written, acted and directed, but the lack of explanations in the script wrecks the entire production.

What a waste.

6/10 (when it so easily could have been another 10/10).

At last, a win for the single-episode format. A simple story, told simply, 'Father's Day' nevertheless packs a lot in: a half-decent backstory for Rose, top-notch acting (nearly) all round, bags of emotion for those who like a good cry, plus loads of symmetries for the structurally minded. A sense of dreadful inevitability pervades the entire episode: from the moment Rose intervenes to save her father, the end is unavoidable, but waiting for the characters to work everything through was a joy -- in the tearful sense. Best of all, it's a story that actually requires time travel; I particularly appreciated the fact that the demise of the Time Lords has wide-ranging, unexpected repercussions. Even the sound track is, on the whole, kept in check to allow the dialogue to shine.

There are too many highlights to list -- the shock of police box-sized Tardis interior among them -- but I particularly loved the way 'Father's Day' plays with the concept of fiction: Pete is constructed by Jackie as the perfect father, and it's Rose's unwavering belief in this fictional construct which gives Pete the strength to save the day.

It's a pity that the makers got carried away with the cgi -- the reaper monsters were eerily perfect seen circling the church through the stained glass, but more than a touch ridiculous in plain sight. I felt the pace sagged a touch in the middle, bogged down somewhere in the midst of all the group hugs, and Camille Coduri's simplistic portrayal of Jackie continues to be a weak spot.

Though it felt at times like a cross between 'Eastenders' & 'Doctor Who', 'Father's Day' somehow manages to make the mix work, and the simple strength of the ending more than makes up for any shortcomings along the way.

The issue of temporal paradoxes was one that Doctor Who dealt with all too rarely; usually the TARDIS was simply a device for establishing setting, and it was left at that. When it did rear its head, it was treated differently each time: in The Aztecs it was established that history simply couldn't be changed because from the future's point of view your interference has already happened so it's all been factored in. This would seem to be the most logical idea, and is borne out by stories like The Visitation in which the Doctor's involvement results in the great fire of London.

In Day Of The Daleks the Doctor could change history safely as by doing so he was in fact repairing a temporal paradox and generally giving history a bit of a spruce up. City Of Death presented a more standard alternate-timeline theory, while Attack Of The Cybermen told us that to change history would destroy the universe. Now, with Father's Day, changing history results in massive gargoyle like creatures appearing and eating everyone.

Frankly, that one came a bit out of left field.

Maybe I'd underestimated Paul Cornell, but I enjoyed Father's Day a lot more than I thought I would. With such a complex subject it's easy to get bogged down in problems but he subverted this by giving us a character study first, monster story second. In this sense it's slightly disappointing as the Reapers are such superb monsters: not evil, but doing what is necessary to protect the time/space continuum. I must admit though that keeping them in the background increases their menace, and the shots of their silhouettes swooping round outside the staned-glass windows of the church work wonderfully.

As with Dalek Joe Ahearne's directing was excellent, a particularly good example being the washed-out overcast effect used when it seems that the good guys have lost. The shot of the time-looped car going round and round is chilling, and Murray Gold provides one of his best scores for the series.

Now to the most contentious aspect: the Doctor's apparent death. The Doctor's plan fails, and it takes the noble sacrifice of Rose's father to bring him back. Ordinarily this would be fantastic, but in a series where the Doctor seems less and less involved in the resolutions of the stories it seems to be taking it a bit too far.

What this episode is first and foremost though is an emotional journey for Rose. This was something the original series never really got the hang of (sometimes it did though: the Doctor comforting Victoria in The Tomb Of The Cybermen is my all time favourite scene), and this completely thrashes the most emotionally literate episode of the original run, The Green Death in that respect. It makes it even more of a pity that Russel T. Davies, with his smug jokes and less than subtle subtexts is in charge.

Overall then, a 9/10. The least of the three non-RTD scripts we've had so far, but when you consider the brilliance of The Unquiet Dead and Dalek this is hardly a dreadful criticism.

Well, that was certainly emotional and dramatic television - my wife and I both had watering eyes - but was it Doctor Who?

Rose and the Doctor travel to November 1987 so that Rose can be with her father as he dies. But instead, being an emotional human, Rose saves him and unwittingly causes a rift in time. This brings demon-like "reapers", and we're told their intent is to put right the time rift. They seem to believe they can accomplish this by randomly attacking and eating people.

Good use of location work sees Rose attending a church wedding with her father, mother and baby self. The reapers attacking a church was good symbolism and handled well by the effects team. An amusing moment was Rose meeting a four year old Mickey, who is frightened by the goings on and clings to her.

As the story progresses, Rose's dad realises who she is and why she travelled back in time. He also realises that the only way he can heal the rift is to sacrifice himself and be run over by the car that Rose saved him from. In the meantime He and Rose have a few hours to bond and get to know each other.

All emotional stuff, great television and a lovely story...but what has this to do with Doctor Who? Not a lot really, as the good Doctor admits he doesn't know what to do (in fact he does know, but isn't willing to tell Rose that the only way forward is to lose her dad). He really doesn't do anything much in this story, and seems an inconsequential character.

So, as far as this season of Doctor Who goes it does provide more answers to Rose's past and to the Doctor's own lack of feeling (except anger) at the loss of the Time Lords this was a success. But as a slice of Doctor Who, it didn't "do it" for me.

Eight episodes down and to my mind we have two absolute classics, two duffs and four good episodes. I can't complain but I do seem to prefer episodes not written by RTD. Which is a shame as without him we wouldn't be watching this show at all. I was glad that he stated in tonight's episode of "confidential" that he does not want Doctor Who to become a soap opera.

We're over halfway through the season now. So what does Father's Day show us we haven't seen before?

Well, it brings much more of a touchy-feely emotional side to Doctor Who. We see [through some superb acting by the entire ensemble] depth in the characters and in the script that we wouldn't see otherwise. The BBC keeps up it's reputation for doing 'the past' [does 1987 count as a period drama?] well, as everything seems, well, 1987-ish, besides the large mobile phone [I thought they still had large, briefcase-sized power sources/aerials back then].

The script would, in any other sci-fi series, be excellent, but after some of the Dr Who episodes we've seen here seemed not as good as it could be. In the first half of the show [especially when Rose gets a lift off her dad] there's some incredibly unsubtle hints at the paradox of Rose being in the past, which to be honest made me wince.

We see more of the BBC's favoured 'let's show a monster-eye-view of people being destroyed to lower CGI costs by omitting the monsters', which we saw in the past two episodes too - we saw Max the Jaberwocky come down, and Dalekcam. Nothing wrong with this, but when we already know what the monsters look like from previous weeks' spoilers it seems somewhat pointless.

One thing definately noteworthy is Murray Gould's score of incidental music. It received a panning in previous weeks, but this week it was, in my eyes [or should that be ears?] perfect. Violins were out in full force, beautifully realised, but the touch of genius was having silence when Rose's Dad died [for the second time]. It takes skill and nerve to write good incidental music, to omit said music to heighten the tension, drama and emotion surely takes more. Mr Gould is talented; let's call last week an off week.

What else? The CGI remains impressive. I'm not sure how convinced children used to entire CGI films or PC games found the Reapers, but I found them convincing [although possibly not quite as flowing as a real biological creature would be]. The highlight in CGI terms though would be either the Tardis semi-appearing and glowing yellow, the Doctor [or the passers-by] being "swallowed" by the reapers, or the disappearing and reappearing car [an Austin something? Not my era].

One thing struck me this week - the continuity. The reapers only arrive now [for the first time in Doctor Who canon, I assume] because the Time Lords can no longer control them. That's continuity for you. Plus, we see baby Rose, 5-year-old Rose [who, by-the-by, looks nothing like 21-year-old Rose] and adult Rose. We see wee 5-year-old Mickey [who looks more like adult Mickey, but also gets some cheap shots lobbed in his direction].

So this week showed us a different side to Doctor Who - one where the emotions have higher priority over the flashy CGI, over the plot, over everything else, really. And it's not the worse for it. Roll on World War Two next week.

After the more mellow and traditional Doctor Who romp in the form of The Long Game, we are introduced to one of the most dramatic Who stories to ever grace our screens.

Father's Day is the story of Rose's encounter with her father on his death-day in 1987, and the consequences of her actions when she prevents his fatal hit and run accident.

The episode is perfectly written, with some beautiful dialogue between Rose and her father, as well as the Doctor and his companion. The arguments between the Doctor and Rose add to the mysterious layered texture to the Doctor's character, once again played perfectly by Christopher Eccleston.

It is nice to see Billie Piper given a much more substantial and more challenging role to play, which she copes with well. Her acting ability is no doubt proved as a gem by her emotional confrontations with her dad, and the revelations as to his true character.

The episode visually is good, but one wonders how the younger generation will react to this much more 'talky' episode. However, the Reapers save the day, with a chilling appearance and attitude, and manage to be entertaining monsters, which profit from the lack of in-depth study towards them.

The abduction of the Doctor is a good idea, with the limelight falling onto Rose's father to save the day. The climax and its build up are by far some of the most tear-jerking and dramatic scenes in Doctor Who's history, and they make the episode an instant classic.