Doctor Who: Fathers Day, Review
Category: Doctor Who, Reviews, Television
Written by 
Eoghann and published May 15th, 2005
Fathers Day was a strange episode of Doctor Who. I can guarantee that an episode like this would never have happened in the original series. But even for the new series it had a very different tone to everything that had come before.
Up to now this new series of Doctor Who has resolutely stuck to its goal to appeal to the family. Here, however, the central thrust of the story was an emotional one that is likely to appeal to an older audience. Yes there were monsters to keep the children suitably scared, but they seemed like an afterthought and as such, not that scary actually.
The emotional elements were brilliantly written and played all round. I doubt anyone who thought about it was really surprised by how things turned out, but that sense of inevitability just added to the general air of tragedy I think.
The problems came in the actual plot elements of the story. The notion that when time is wounded, strange creatures appear and start attacking people just didn't really stand up to much thought. It's such a stunningly impractical and ineffective way to fix the wound. There are much neater solutions that could have been applied.
And the story itself seemed to be in two minds about exactly what is going on. The Doctor again mentions the Time Lords and suggests that they would have stopped this, but the nature of time has always been very hazy in Doctor Who. Is this the universe correcting itself or something outside the universe breaking in?
All in all, Fathers Day was a flawed episode of Doctor Who with an unusually adult tone to it, that struggled to tell the story it wanted to tell while still appealing to the whole of its target audience.
| 2.9 |
Have some Sci-Fi or Fantasy related news? Tell Solar Flare.
2 Comments »
Monte Lin (Profile) December 17th, 2005 - -
I just recently managed to get a look-see at this new series, and I wanted to add a couple of things:
The writer of this episode Paul Cornell has also authored a few of Virgin Publishing’s Doctor Who New Adventure novels. His novels tend to go for more emotional exploration than purely plot, which seems to reflect in this episode.
I think this episode shows the best and worst traits of this series/season of Doctor Who. One on hand, I think it was a good move to focus on Rose’s emotional development, not only giving the audience someone to relate and root for, but a character to change and grow. It also grounds the show in some humanity, both by saving it from technobabble and by allowing depth in the writing and acting.
On the other hand, the nonsensical time paradox plot and gargoyle threat manages to create artificial tension and eye candy. If they subtracted the monsters and added the above paradox, it would have kept the focus of the story squarely on Rose’s relationship with her father, where it belonged.
|
|
2.5 |
URI to trackback this post:
http://www.sflare.com/archives/doctor-who-fathers-day-review/trackback/
June 26th, 2005 - -
I am sorry to see you rate this episode so low. It is one of my favorites of the season. The troubles with the plot take a back seat to the emotional drama which I felt was very well played. Billie Piper is a true marvel, a wonderful actress who needs to be successful for years and years to come.
I did have a problem with the whole, “Two of us in one spot makes this a vulnerable point…” thing. Mainly because, the question of temperal paradox is again raised in “The Parting of the Ways.” and I think the writers should just spell it out to the audience correctly… we are smart enough to get it. The dialogue should have went like this.
“Rose, don’t you realize what you’ve done? I brought you here because you asked me to… you asked me to take you to the point of your father’s death. But now, you’ve changed that!”
“Think Rose! Somewhere out there now… is a little girl… YOU… and she has a father! She’ll grow up with a father. And when she gets to be your age, she’ll meet me… like you did, because she IS YOU.”
“But she won’t ask me to bring her here… she won’t NEED to… we won’t come here… we didn’t come here Rose. We don’t exist! Not here! Not now! Not from the moment you saved your father’s life!”
“You have made us a paradox! You’ve damaged time!”
The explaination that is given is faster and easier. But spelling out the actual temporal paradox to the audience in the correct way in the first place serves the story better in the first place and the series better in the long run.
Then in “The Parting of the Ways.” The Doctor could have reinforced all of this.
“Remember what happened with your dad, Rose. We can’t go back in time specifically to make a change… because as soon as we succeed in changing something, the motivation for travelling back in time disappears… and so do we… paradox… remember… we can never go back in time for the purpose of altering events.”
Maybe explaining all of this stuff is way too complicated… I just wish that they had tried.