Father's Day (Doctor Who)

Plot

The episode opens with a flashback of Jackie Tyler telling a younger Rose about her father Pete, who died in a hit-and-run accident on the way to a friend's wedding.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor agrees to take Rose to the day her father died so that she can be there when it happens. Upon their arrival in London on Saturday 7 November 1987, they witness the accident, but Rose is unable to move when The Doctor tells her to go comfort her dying father. Rose asks the Doctor if she can try again, and the Doctor allows it but warns Rose to not run until their former selves have left to prevent a paradox. As the accident is about to happen, Rose suddenly runs out and pushes Pete aside, saving his life. The younger versions of the Doctor and Rose vanish. Rose and the Doctor fight about her actions, with the Doctor rebuking her for potentially damaging the timeline. The Doctor takes Rose's TARDIS key back and storms off without her. Rose decides to go with Pete to the wedding, while the Doctor walks back to the TARDIS only to find that it is now an empty shell. Strange flying beasts called Reapers appear and begin consuming people.

Rose and Pete drive to the wedding together, and the car that had been meant to kill Pete nearly collides with their car. They join the other guests, including Jackie who has brought the infant Rose with her. Rose is surprised to find that Jackie and Pete argue frequently. A young Mickey runs in to warn the guests about the Reapers, who think it is a joke until a Reaper appears above and attacks them. The Doctor runs to the church and directs everyone inside, noting that the age of the church will protect them against the Reapers. The Doctor explains to Rose that her actions have caused a paradox that normally the Time Lords would have prevented. Without them, the Reapers are sterilising the wound in time by consuming everyone within it. The Doctor further warns Rose not to touch her infant self, as it could cause further damage to time and allow the Reapers into the church. Feeling that his TARDIS key is still warm, the Doctor sets it up in the middle of the church and the TARDIS slowly begins materialising around it.

While waiting in the church, Jackie sees Pete talking to Rose and thinks he is having an affair. Pete and Rose talk alone, and he comes to realise that she is his daughter. When Rose is unable to answer questions about how good of a father he was, Pete realises he was meant to die in the accident. Jackie thinks Rose is Pete's daughter with another woman, and in a fit of frustration Pete hands the baby Rose to adult Rose. The paradox worsens, and a Reaper is able to enter the church. The Doctor declares himself the oldest thing in the church and offers himself to the Reaper, who consumes him and disappears. The TARDIS key goes cold and drops to the ground. Pete realises that they now have no other choice and that he must die in order to restore the timeline. He bids Rose and Jackie an emotional farewell, races out of the church and throws himself under the car that was originally meant to kill him. The timeline is repaired, and those previously consumed by the beasts reappear. The Doctor sends Rose off to be with her dad as he dies, and she holds his hand until he is gone. Rose and the Doctor walk hand-in-hand back to the restored TARDIS.

The episode ends with a flashback similar to the opening, as Jackie explains to a young Rose that Pete did not die alone. She tells Rose about a young woman who stayed with him until he died. In a voice-over, the adult Rose eulogises her father.

Continuity

Continuing the "Bad Wolf" arc of the series, a poster advertising a rave on a wall near where Pete was supposed to die in the beginning has the words "BAD WOLF" defacing it. Rose refers to the ending of this episode in "The Parting of the Ways", telling Jackie that she met her father and was the girl who held Pete's hand as he died. Although Pete Tyler dies in this episode, an alternative universe version of him appears in the second series episodes "Rise of the Cybermen"/"The Age of Steel" and "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday".

Production

According to producer Phil Collinson, showrunner Russell T Davies came up with the concept for "Father's Day" at an early stage in the planning of the series, as it was a "perfect time travel story". Davies wanted the storyline to be easy-to-follow and drawn from human emotions. Additionally, the previous seven episodes had established why Rose was a good companion, and so "Father's Day" shows that she does make mistakes, but in a relatable way. Davies chose Paul Cornell to write the episode; Cornell was a successful writer of Doctor Who spin-off material, especially in novels for the Virgin New Adventures, which bridged the gap between the classic series and the new. Davies originally intended that the episode be a small budget-saver character piece investigating the death of Rose's father, but Cornell suggested the addition of the Reapers and BBC Head of Drama Jane Tranter encouraged the additions of monsters to the new series. Working titles for the episode included "Wounded Time" and "Wound in Time". Davies came up with the final title of "Father's Day" in February 2005, shortly before the series began airing.

Davies and Cornell debated whether it should have been Rose's plan all along to save her father; this is left ambiguous in the episode. Billie Piper felt that it did not occur to Rose until after she began travelling. In the original script, in the scene where the Doctor opens the TARDIS doors and discovers only a police box interior, the police box fell apart. This was changed for reasons of cost, and Cornell has stated that he thinks the change is an improvement. Cornell also states that the character of Pete Tyler is based on his own father, who attempted many different jobs and schemes (including, like Pete, selling health drinks) before eventually finding success running a betting shop. Pete's line "I'm your dad, it's my job for it to be my fault" is taken from something Cornell's father once said to him. Originally Pete was to take a swig of wine before sacrificing himself, but this was removed because a correlation between alcohol and bravery was not thought to be a positive message.

The entire episode was shot in Cardiff, in November 2004. The weather changed frequently during filming, and the cast began to fall ill; Eccleston had a cold. The production team selected several streets that looked similar. Most of the streets were in the community of Grangetown. The streets did not require much work for them to resemble 1980s streets; only a few satellite dishes were taken down. The church is St Paul's Church, also in Grangetown. The set of the Tyler's flat was redressed for the time period. For the 1980s style, members of the cast and crew brought in photographs of themselves from the '80s; for example, peach dresses and "big hair" were incorporated, but these elements were not meant to be distracting. Camille Coduri, who played Jackie, wore a wig for this episode. Some of the conversation between Rose and her father in the car was cut because the car had made the dialogue delivery too "bouncy". Piper was scared of holding the baby. Because the baby is present throughout the majority of the episode, but they were limited to how many hours they could work with the infant, an "artificial baby" was used as a placeholder in some scenes.

The Reapers went through many designs. Originally, they were supposed to be "men in cowls" based on the Grim Reaper; the final design retains some of this image with its "scythe-like tail". The original design was deemed too similar to creatures seen in "The End of the World", and so were reworked into something more "otherworldly". They were not originally intended to fly. There was also discussion of how much they should resemble animals as opposed to the Grim Reaper; the end result is a mixture of the two approaches. The final design had a "shark quality", bat wings, and a mouth influenced by the praying mantis. Vulture sound effects were used for its screech. The model was made over two months, being finished at the end of February 2005 rather than at the beginning of January as scheduled. The special effects team then had two or three weeks to complete the "40-odd shots" of the completely CGI Reapers in the episode. The episode ended up more expensive than intended because of the CGI.

Broadcast and reception

"Father's Day" was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on 14 May 2005 on BBC One. The episode received UK overnight ratings of 7.47 million viewers, an audience share of 42.74%. When time-shifted viewers were taken into account, the number rose to 8.06 million. It received an Appreciation Index of 83.

"Father's Day" was met with a generally positive reception. Piper stated that this was her favourite episode of the first series, and the most emotionally taxing for her to perform. SFX praised the way the concept of time was explored as well as the accurate representation of the '80s, and stated that Dingwall gave "one of the series' best performances" as Pete Tyler. However, the reviewer thought that the Reapers were the let-down of the episode, finding that "the episode doesn't feel as much like horror as it should". Arnold T Blumburg of Now Playing gave the episode an A for the emotional impact and the acting. Blumburg did note, however, that there were "enormous logical gaps" involving "glowing TARDIS keys and under-explained paradoxes". In 2013, Radio Times reviewer Mark Braxton described it as "a time-travel tale with immense heart" and highlighted the shift of identification from the Doctor to Rose and the acting of Piper and Dingwall. Braxton, on the other hand, felt that the Reapers were redundant and the episode would have done "equally well if you scythed the Reapers from the script". Reviewing "Father's Day" for The A.V. Club in 2013, Alasdair Wilkins gave it a grade of "A", finding the story powerful. In Who Is the Doctor, a guide to the revived series, Robert Smith praised the emotion and the dilemma, which he felt was not heavy-handed. He was also positive about the direction and Dingwall's performance, though he felt that removing the Doctor from the plot suggested that he would have done something else to resolve it, and he was not a fan of the scene where the Doctor tells two ordinary people how important their lives are, because it was "cheesy" and "disconnected" from the rest of the story. Coauthor Graeme Burk was also positive, writing that it may be "the best story this season". He called the direction "wonderful" and the script "sublime", and noted how the story was more about family than time travel.

"Father's Day" was nominated for the 2006 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, alongside other first series episodes "Dalek" and "The Empty Child" / "The Doctor Dances". The latter won. "Father's Day" topped the third place category in terms of votes.