Who In Review: Father's Day

The 7th of November 1987 marks the date that Pete Tyler died. Paul Cornell's 9th Doctor story Father's Day is probably my favourite of Christopher Eccleston's episodes for very selfish reasons - at the time it aired it was only a little over six years since my mother had died - but aside from the purely personal reasons for it being my favourite, it's also a dramatic, tense episode which deals with it's subject matter with the sensitivity and understanding it deserves.

Just as The Aztecs illustrated to Barbara Wright that you can't rewrite history, not one line, Father's Day shows Rose Tyler what happens when you take action and succeed. In a way, this follows on from The Long Game in setting up the rules of time travel for a new audience; whilst that episode had shown Adam using his trip to the future for personal gain, and the Doctor's (rather cruel) response, Father's Day puts Rose in a position where she can alter the past and save her dad's life. Which she does, and brings about the end of the world.

Cornell cleverly uses that old Troughton staple of the 'Base Under Siege' as the framework for an incredibly emotional script. A familiar set up to hundreds of horror films, we have a small group of survivors trapped in an easily recognisable building, in this case a church, under attack from tireless monsters. The Reapers bear a striking similarity in concept and look to the Vortisaurs from Paul McGann's debut Big Finish Audio Storm Warning, being winged, dinosaur-like creature which live in the Time Vortex and feed off the energy of disturbances in time - in Father's Day they're described as cleaning the wound in time caused by Pete Tyler's survival. I think they're one of the most successful creations from the first series and it's a shame they haven't returned (although if they had they would most likely have been diminished in the same way as the Weeping Angels post-Blink). Hovering invisibly above their victims before swooping down into reality and devouring them, scenes such as the emptied playground young Mickey flees, and abandoned cars and children's shoes in the Autumnal streets echo the first episode of Invasion Of The Dinosaurs. The POV shots in a slightly distorted blood red also serve to up the tension before the Reapers are finally revealed.

The episode is brilliantly paced, setting up the premise in the pre-titles sequence and quickly dealing with putting Rose in a situation where she's in a state where her emotions lead her to acting instinctively having been unable to go to her father after seeing the accident which ultimately killed him. Rose and Pete's awkwardness once she's saved him and the argument between Rose and the Doctor in Pete and Jackie's flat help set up Pete's character and sow the seeds of doubt over what's going to happen. The scene where the Doctor finds that the TARDIS is just an empty Police Box is great and it makes you wonder whether he really would have abandoned Rose in 1987. Camille Corduri is fantastic as a younger but just as bolshy Jackie, and she and Pete have exactly the kind of relationship you'd expect. Her constant verbal barrage throughout the episode sits perfectly with her tender reminiscences in the scenes where she's telling the young Rose about him years after his death, and makes their relationship more real than if they'd been entirely happy. This is particularly important in setting up the scene where Pete tells Jackie that Rose is their daughter moments before he runs out of the church.

Once inside the church, cowering from the Reapers that scrape at the walls and windows, the focus turns to a more personal level. The sequence where the Doctor says he'll save Stuart and Sarah, the bride and groom, because they're not unimportant is incredibly touching and underlines the Doctor's attitude to those he meets (and is vastly more impressive than the Eleventh Doctor's more sound-bitey statement "I've never met anybody who wasn't important"). His confrontation with Jackie is a welcome wedge of humour amongst the drama and his reconciliation with Rose pleasantly lacking schmaltz. The resulting hug leads to a brilliant false conclusion where he attempts to save the day by reconstituting the TARDIS using the key he demanded Rose return and the battery of Stuart's dad's huge mobile phone. The appearance of the Reaper when Pete hands baby Rose to her older self, the destruction of the TARDIS and the Doctor's sacrifice come as a shock - if you haven't been paying attention. Because the story can only end one way, and a phantom car has been circling the church.

Pete's slow realisation that he should've died is sown through the church scenes, inferred by how Rose describes growing up with him and her initial inability to answer his questions about the future. What really makes the episode stand out is the utter lack of heroics on display. Pete is aware of the fact that the car that killed him has followed him to the church, but allows the Doctor to try and sort it out. He knows he should have died and that the world is ending because he didn't, but it's only when the Doctor is gone and there's no other way out that he chooses to leave the sanctuary of the church and run in front of the car. The dialogue is simple and straight forward, the acting subtle. When he's lying in the road, dying in Rose's arms, there isn't a final speech; it's all visually portrayed whilst Jackie narrates the action in an updated version of the earlier scenes with the young Rose. Pete dies, the Doctor and Rose walk away and that's the end.

Father's Day is by far my favourite Eccleston story because it's steeped in emotion but avoids being sentimental (which can't be said about many more recent episodes). It also doesn't shy away from showing that every action has consequences, an important statement which, again, I feel is notable in its absence from a lot of later Doctor Who. But it's also well Directed and acted, it has one of Murray Gold's best scores, the locations and creature design is wonderful and it's beautifully shot. I admit, I connect with the story on a personal level, but regardless of that I think Father's Day is one of the most mature, and one of the best scripts in the show's history.