How Father’s Day Rewrote Doctor Who’s Rules on Time Travel
Time travel always has consequences, but Father’s Day was the first to show them in brutal detail, testing the relationship between Rose and the Doctor.
Plot summary:
Rose travels back go save her long-dead father, wounding time itself.
Notable for:
Written by Paul Cornell, writer of several impactful New Adventures
The “Watson, I need you,” quote is actually “I want you” or “I want to see you” depending on which record you use.
Billie Piper’s personal favorite episode from Series 1.
Pete commentary:
It’s amazing to see a real-deal time-travel story in Doctor Who, one that tries to answer the question: “Why can’t you just keep going back to the time and place over and over again in case you get things wrong?” The answer, apparently: if you manipulate things wrong, time becomes so wounded that it conjures up pterodactyls that fly around and eat everybody.
Yes, the Reapers are mostly a mechanism to introduce a Doctor Who monster, but the physical manifestation of wounded time is a fascinating thing to think about. And it is not without precedent: When I first saw Father’s Day, I thought the Reapers were NuWho’s version of Chronovores from The Time Monster. I honestly still believe they are, even though the Doctor doesn’t mention their name.
There are a host of questions you could ask about the Reapers — why do they seemingly only consume humans? Are they confined to just the Earth or does the wounding of time go beyond? — but the biggest question, I think, is why the Doctor doesn’t quite recognize them or how they work (he’s surprised when it becomes apparent that the church is a sanctuary from them because it’s old). Here’s my headcanon:
The Doctor taking Rose back AGAIN is a clear violation of the laws of time. Yes, you can do it (as a Time Lord), but it’s extremely dangerous, which of course is ultimately why he never goes back to save anyone. It’s not just philosophical — time itself will “sterilize the wound,” causing massive collateral damage and potentially killing billions.
He’s clearly never done this before. He knows the potential damage of doing this — he’s always known, and the Time Lords were there to police things — but this is the first time he’s tried to do something like this, post-Time War (“There used to be laws,” he says). No one to fix his mess, no safety net. He knows the theoretical consequences of doing this, but his actual experience with wounded time is limited.
The Reapers/Chronovores manifest differently every time this happens. Basically, wounded time takes on a form that makes sense for the environment where the wound happens — in this case, Earth. This feels in keeping with Kronos in the Time Monster, who, in its natural form, was basically a pair of giant eyes. The Doctor is surprised/unsure about the Reapers because he’s never seen Chronovores manifest in exactly this way. Yes, Atlantis was on Earth, too, but at a different time, which altered Kronos’ physical form somewhat (though it was still basically a powerful flying beast that essentially “ate” Atlantis).
OK, headcanon aside, this is a superb character piece, with Rose at the center of it. The script is brilliant — using Doctor Who’s fundamental time-travel premise in a personal way that turns over some rocks in the relationship between Rose and the Doctor.
Billie Piper delivers a fantastic performance — she really “gets” the script, making Rose sympathetic throughout even though she makes a few questionable decisions (the main one obviously being saving her dad when that was never the plan). The script is excellent at writing the gradual progression of the bond between Rose and Pete, leading some of the most powerful scenes.
And the red herring of the TARDIS saving them is pretty great. Obviously it solves the pacing problem — you need to re-introduce the peril of the Reapers without doing something dumb like forcing them to go outside for something. Then take away all hope — the Doctor, the TARDIS — only thing you can do is sacrifice your dad.
Or rather, Pete sacrificing himself. That’s essential to this, and I greatly respect Cornell and Davies for forcing the characters to make decisions and not rely on technobabble and deus ex machinas.
Except one: the idea of having the car that struck Pete actually come to the church is a strange thing, physically. It’s like time is saying, “Dude, just do this and it’ll be all better.” Certainly, it would be a longer episode if you needed to literally go back a third time and have Rose (or Pete or someone) stop Rose 2 from saving her dad, but that’s really what we’re talking about if this were to make actual sense.
That said, RTD and Cornell wisely don’t overthink it, because the important thing is the drama and the character moment. Rose going to her dad and getting to say goodbye, then cutting to her mother telling the altered story… well, it tears you up. So bittersweet, and gets you every time.
The schism between the Doctor and Rose here is very, very good. Not just for the drama of the episode but also as something on their relationship arc. The way Eccleston looks at her after she saves Pete — he saves looks like that for the bad guy. His accusation that she was planning this all along is clearly untrue, but he (understandably) feels so manipulated that you’re unsure whose side to take in that scene.
The Doctor gets meaner later, and again only Eccleston’s Doctor can really get away with this, and mercifully the script has him apologize to Rose right away after implying/saying she’s stupid.
And once the crisis deepens, they need to work together to fix things, and they end up understanding each other more. I honestly think this is the moment where the Doctor and Rose start to fall for each other. No coincidence that Rose dismisses her relationship with Mickey to Pete.
Other great things about Father’s Day:
Camille Coudri is a delight, as always, and her hair is so deliciously ’80s that you really don’t need any other markers. Glad they did that and got it out of the way. The hair and the giant cellphones were enough to emphasize where we are in time.
The TARDIS being just a police box was a fantastic “stakes raised” moment. Don’t ask why it happened, but it’s excellent, and leads to that brilliant moment when the Doctor is running toward Rose, and Billie Piper plays the look on her face brilliantly — the “I knew you’d be back” moment.
Rose emphatically telling Pete that, “I know what you're saying, and we're not going there. At no point are we going anywhere near there. You aren't even aware that there exists. I don't even want to think about there, and believe me, neither do you. There for you is like, like the Bermuda Triangle.” is played perfectly and such an lol moment.
The kids disappearing from the playground moment. Nice horror movie vibes without showing the monster. Much scarier than the Reapers themselves.
I’ve never understood how physical touch between two versions of the same person “shorts out time” and leads to a big problem, it is in keeping with what we saw in Mawdryn Undead. I think my problem with this idea is that it’s a big plot point in Timecop, which is a pretty terrible movie. Although it’s never been explicit, I do believe a benefit of being able to regenerate means Time Lords can cheat this if it’s a different version of themselves. Only in emergencies, of course — since you might still wound time — but at least you don’t have to worry about the touching thing.
What did Pete’s family think?
Grace loved Father’s Day. She particularly liked the timey-wimey aspect to it, that it showed what happens when you go back and try to change things. Coincidentally, we watched The Flash this weekend, which was similarly themed.
Four Questions to Doomsday - Pete
Why did the Randomizer take us here? Whereas Horror of Fang Rock showed that the universe is larger than you might think (Sontaran-Rutan war deciding the fate of the galaxy while we’re blissfully unaware), Father’s Day shows something similar with time: you can’t go back in time and change things, as much as that might feel right. The universe is not built to satisfy your selfish desires, as much as that would be nice.
What if the evil plot had succeeded? There is no evil plot here, but let’s entertain that notion that Rose doesn’t touch the baby version of herself, and the Doctor’s plan works. He fixes things, and at the end of Father’s Day Pete is alive in the “prime” universe. Does Rose still travel with him? I think not — that she decides to stay with her Mom and Dad back in 2006, and the Doctor doesn’t come back to stop Blon Slitheen from destroying Cardiff. She calls him back after that, and they go back to Game Station/Satellite 5 to destroy the Daleks and create Bad Wolf. HOWEVER, this time the Doctor isn’t as in love with Rose and doesn’t sacrifice himself to save her. She dies, and the Ninth Doctor has 3 more seasons. All the Doctors are set back one — Tennant doesn’t arrive until The Eleventh Hour.
Where's the Clara splinter? She’s one of the Reapers! She decides to go for the vicar instead of the wedding party, giving them time to get in the church.
Dalek, Ogron, Professor Hayter, Viscount Banger, Fixed Point in Time, Lady Cassandra, or Zarbi? Love this episode. You can make a solid case that it’s the best of Series 1 (consistently ranks fourth in S1 in DWM polls). Despite its plot conveniences, it still rises high above the rest. Viscount Banger.