Having just taken in Fathers Day, I can honestly, hand on heart, say it was the best piece of television of watched this year. I am a major, major doubter of the 45 minute episode format being suitable for Who. I was proved wrong by episode 3, The Unquiet Dead, and again Fathers Day has re-assured me that BBC can deliver a stunning episode of Who within this format.

The quality delivery of this episode is three fold; the script is simple but very clever (and the concepts of time travel are bent to extremes at points..). The direction is beautiful. It is unmistakably 'new Who', yet re-assuringly traditional. Even before seeing the vulture type creatures, the sense of cold mentioned on screen touches you in your armchair. And the acting....well it's simply superb. Billie Piper does in this episode what Ecclestone did in the Dalek episode - adds a totally new dimension to the character. The stirring exchanges between her and her parents and just perfect. I'm no blubber, but I had tears welling in my eyes.

This was the perfect piece of 45 minute entertainment. I still think the core of episodes should be two parters, but if the bar is raised to this level, then 45 minutes one parters MUST be a part of the Dr Who format. Congrats to all involved with making Fathers Day, it's an absolute gem - one of the best.

Playing The Time Line

Oh Rose, you've been playing with Time,
That harbinger of death or life
Bringing you strife
And grief. Can you hear wedding bells chime?
They're calling out the Time Lord's name,
His lonliness married to awkward identity
Needed to fight the Reaper entity
Again delivered with fine artistry.

Oh writer, you've been playing with Time,
That question of One or Two
Haunts this series through.
Relief . Did you know you're innocent of the usual crime;
Of solutions squeezed in with seconds to spare?
But drama well paced – requiring concentration
Needed to understand Time's rules and machination
Above the younger head and their imagination?

Oh Doctor, you've been minding your Time
Forming that character so Jekyll and Hyde;
Equally caring and then so snide.
Self Belief. Did it leave you - this aura sublime?
Your perfection was nicely questioned.
Your performance deep in its madness,
Desiring human experience your Archilles sadness.
Knowing all Paradoxes yet powerless!!

Mr Tyler you've made a mess of Time,
That point at which you first died
Differed erroneously from where Rose finally cried.
Chief Mistake! You'll know you're in the mire- the slime
When the net awakes to timelines illogical.
Just wait for the hot geek debate
Regarding your change in suit and fate.
By such you wiped humanity off the slate.

Oh Producer you've been playing with Time,
That large quantity and space given to Rose
Takes the focus off the Dr dealing with foes.
So Brief. Have you remembered that our prime
Reason for watching is Who and his intent?
But surely not an episode for every Tyler
What next a long lost cousin from Outer Mongolia.
Or a new boyfriend soldier?

Oh ReViewer you've been playing with Time,
That manmade measurement of experience
Which yields 45 minutes of sci-fi reverence.
High reef!! Have you dissected the promise and grime
With responsible charity and clarity?
For whilst we interweave our opinions fair
Do not forget to influence hearts and minds out there
For pundits' love of the Who can be a short affair!!

This episode of Dr Who will do something that no other will - it'll make you cry. At the same time, it'll blow away any critics of Billie Piper's acting ability since her performance is spot on, and very moving. In fact, everyone in this episode acts their socks off to produce an excellent piece of well-crafted character driven drama. No wonder Dr Who in the UK is knocking the pants off ITV's Saturday Night offering - Celebrity Wrestling !. I'll step into the TARDIS anytime, thanks.
The Doctor takes Rose back to 1987 to be with her father in his dying moments after a hit and run accident. On the second attempt, Rose saves his life and changes the timeline, creating a 'wound' in time. This heralds the arrival of the Reapers, bat-like creatures apparently created by time itself to act as antibodies and cleanse the wound by wiping out the human race. With no TARDIS and everyone trapped inside a church, can the Doctor save the situation ?.Well, this time the answer is 'no', beacuse for once, he has no plan !. Although the final solution is easy to work out, thanks to skillful writing by Paul Cornell, fine performances from the cast and lean direction, the story manages to lose none of it's emotional impact and the closing scenes will guarantee not a dry eye in the audience. This is Dr Who at it's very best where the SF element of the story plays second fiddle to the human drama and characters.Being a time-paradox story, there's a lot of fun to be had too - 1980's fashions and subtle references to the era (US fans might find these puzzling), large mobile phones, Rose as a baby and her future boyfriend Mickey as a toddler. The scene of him on the swing in the kids playground, watching all around him mysteriously vanish as victims of the Reapers is geniunely spooky. It was also a nice touch having the car that killed Roses' father, appearing and disappearing as it runs around the outside of the church, almost like it's stalking it's intended victim.But you know they're all in deadly trouble when the Doctor makes a shocking discovery about the TARDIS.This episode has some beautiful perfomances and emotionally charged scenes, especiallly between Rose and her father when he realises who she is and what must be done to save the day. Although inevitable, the ending is still very powerful and sad.

It was all going so well. Unfortunately, Father's Day was the moment "New Series 1" had a rather nasty prang and ended up sprawled over the bonnet of a speeding gold Chevette.

Let's start with the good stuff. The human elements of Father's Day - and the overall premise - were brilliant. Who hasn't thought "if only" or wanted to change something in their lives, see how the world and their family was before they were born? Shaun Dingwall gave a stunning performance as Rose's dad (all the more so given the material he had to work with - more on this later) and Billie Piper was again excellent; human without being mawkish, understated without being cold, warm without being too cosy. This new, more personal side to Dr Who... y'know it could just work.

Standards of direction were high - notably the long shot of Rose's face against the backdrop of the church window - as was production, with big hair and shiny suits all present and 1987 correct. Nice little touches like the Graham Bell phone call and the car radio playing 21st century techno showed good attention to detail. And the Reapers looked fantastic with the moments before they appeared, and their ultimate revelation, genuinely spooky/scary.

However, it's somehow ironic that a Dr Who episode set in the late 1980s should fall down so badly on plot.

Simply, Father's Day made absolutely no sense at all, whatsoever. Even the Doctor couldn't muster anything approaching a sensible diagnosis for why a "wound in time" needed to be "sterilised" by crossbred vulture-dactyl things, scary as they were. Things went from bad to worse when, somehow, a 80s brickphone battery was rigged up to "recharge" the invisible Tardis, which would somehow get the damn things back in their cage, let Stuart and Sarah get married, keep Rose's dad alive and er, wipe everyone's memory. I'm struggling here.

Once again the Doctor passed the buck - here Rose, last week Adam - for events for which he bears a great deal of responsibility. More attempts to underline the doctor's 'alien-ness' perhaps, but yet again, he comes across more arrogant, selfish - and human.

Clueless too. Surely a TIME LORD would be the expert at sorting out disturbances in, er, time? This Doctor is more bodger than schemer. The sum of his character's role in this episode: has a tiff with Rose after showing off to impress her (again), runs around shouting, acts a bit miffy, sulks, apologises, then gets himself Reaper-ed. Eventually it took Tyler senior to obligingly throw himself under the damn car (why had it followed him to the church?), perhaps in hope of terminating the nonsensical turn the life-he-shouldn't-have-had was taking.

Someone in post-production should have intervened to at least ask for some attention to be paid to these problems. Here was a fine premise - meddling in time with unforeseen consequences - but one which to make convincing required depth of imagination and commitment to detail. Sadly, Father's Day had neither. In the end, this story reeked of compromise. Perhaps Russell T upped the human elements to gloss over the holes, perhaps the writers didn't credit the early-evening audience with the intelligence to follow a complicated idea. Perhaps it's enough for children to have an attack of flappy scary scaly things and some big weepy moments. For me however, this episode was a big let down. Maybe Richard Wilson can make amends next week.

From strength to strength! Although I was disappointed by "The Long Game" (which was better received upon repeat viewing) after the exceptional "Dalek", this episode, which looked a very interesting concept on paper, turned out to be one of the most emotional and fascinating stories the show has ever done. More than that though, it was a proper science fiction story. It was about time travel, paradoxes and breaking the "laws" of Time, but at the heart of it was the story of a girl who wanted to save her Father's life.

We were thrown right into it; within minutes Rose had changed history and the Doctor was furious. He wouldn't even speak to her. His "another stupid ape" outburst was fantastic. At this stage in the season both Eccleston and Piper have homed their characterisation to perfection; Eccleston's Doctor is superb, especially in scenes like this where he conveys that real sense of alienness.

The plot had me from the start – I have always wanted to see a story like this with a Doctor's companion altering history for their own ends. Of course, the Doctor, wherever (and whenever) he has travelled to he has always altered history throughout his whole life, often just through his mere presence. Rose lacks the power to do this that Time Lords have, and with no Time Lords anymore (as the Doctor pointed out) to uphold the "laws of time" we finally get to see why they were so keen to uphold these laws so strictly.

I must admit before I watched the show I expected such as complicated story to be littered with plot holes, but even considering its complexity I think it holds up admirably. In fact, it actually answers a few 'plot holes' which people have complained about. "Why doesn't the Doctor travel back and save Gallifrey?" Answered. He can't risk altering history on such a massive scale; just like he couldn't go back and save Adric in "Earthshock."

I thought Rose's Father himself was a great character – a cheating, lying, wheeler-dealer – who by the end of the story is redeemed, sacrificing himself to put history back on (almost) it's right course. Coduri was excellent as always as Jackie – it was interesting to see her younger; married with a small baby, and even more feisty! I had to laugh at young Mickey's inclusion though!!!

My two favourites scenes have to be the Doctor stood on the pulpit in front of the 'congregation' explaining about the reapers and the 'wound in time.' There was something about the Doctor stood in the pulpit that seemed strangely appropriate. I also loved the scene with the Doctor talking to the newly weds, where he says he'll try to save them and he's enchanted by the story of how they fell in love. "I never had a life like that..."

The 'reapers' themselves were brilliantly realised and the Doctor's apparent death was quite shocking, and I was on the edge of my seat for the last ten minutes. Even though the story's resolution was predictable, the scene with Rose, Jackie and Rose's Father was an absolute tear-jerker. I think by this stage it is obvious how deeply the Doctor and Rose care for each other – to see them walking hand in hand back to the TARDIS at the end was a lovely finish. The two scenes with Jackie and a young Rose, where Jackie is explaining the two different versions of Rose's Father's death were also very moving.

I can't praise this story enough – if I gave "Dalek" 99/100 this episode is about 96/100. Phenomenal. And as for next week's trailer... WOW.