(704) Fathers Day

The Doctor takes Rose to November 7, 1987 where Rose’s dad was killed and this is an episode which builds up the Tyler backstory in a way which yesterday I thought was going to be a problem. There have been episodes that I have feared in some shape or form and this is one of them.  Using a hit and run in primetime is quite a brave thing to do and to do it repeatedly is even braver.

The Doctor is the one that goes over his own timeline when Rose batters her eyelashes and jumps out in front of the other Rose and Doctor to stop her dad from being killed. Everything that happens in this episode is down to what he does. You would have thought that after all this time he would have known better but I guess everyone can be wrong. Pete Tyler is basically a Del Boy type person. To be honest a first I didn’t think the Doctor Who world really needs Rose’s dad but as the episode progresses he becomes more interesting and despite Rose’s best efforts, I quite like the character and I even found myself liking Jackie.

There is a running gag where Pete is trying to hit on his daughter and only Rose (and the viewers) know why this is a terrible idea. They do a good job of trying to skirt around the issue but it’s not long before Pete knows the truth and so does Jackie which makes for a rather amusing face-off between the three. Pete ends up knowing that he needs to die in order to save the day. It’s not so much an alien threat episode but it’s more of a family bonding episode with the Doctor as the guest character.

After about 10 minutes of doing very little it seemed like this episode was going to be worse than I had feared but thankfully things do start to pick up. The episode only gets going when the reapers start to appear. On a visual note, the reapers are really good and the VFX team work wonders making them look as natural as they can. They appear when there are damages in the timeline and they ‘sterilise the wound’. It’s a great idea from Paul Cornell and helps save the episode.

There is a bit where the Doctor is taken by the reaper and this means that he is out of sight and this gives the Tyler’s the centre stage and I have to admit it that I found the final few minutes to be engaging TV. I might be a bit of a heartless sod but I just couldn’t get emotional about what was happening but even I am not that heartless to think that it was a good piece of drama.

This is an episode which has a lot that I could do without but the performances from Shaun Dingwall and Camille Coduri along with Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper help make this at worst an average episode. From my original memory of this series, this was the weakest story so in effect this should be the end of the weak episode and the quality should start going up until the finale. Tomorrow’s episode sees the first story from the Grand Moff and also what I think (and hope) will be the best of the two parters in this series. The NEXT TIME trailer made me wish I could just watch the next episode now even with the knowledge that Captain Jack is about to enter the show.