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The distinguishing hallmark of the current series of Doctor Who has, perhaps, been the role of human emotion in driving the plot of each story. 'Father's Day' is the most unadorned example of this trend, as a precipitate action by Rose traps all concerned in what becomes in retrospect a teardrop universe sustained by a temporal paradox; for the characters to survive, the root of that paradox has to be eliminated, but the Doctor is unwilling to be the cause of more pain.
One of the best things about this new series of Doctor Who has been the chance to see the series drawing from a refreshed and widened cultural palette. In addition, setting the story in 1987 helped put the 'recent past' of Doctor Who on television at a distance - the Sylvester McCoy era is the best part of two decades ago now. Where the series in the mid-1970s drew from Hammer horror films and their Universal antecedents, it now recognises what writer Paul Cornell, in one of his early Who novels, called the mediasphere. The smileys on the wall near where Rose's Dad died are a more vibrant way of referencing the past than 'Mawdryn Undead''s Silver Jubilee flags. Rose's farewell to her father, calling him 'her Daddy', echoes the idealized father-daughter relationship of the end of the film version of The Railway Children, an almost inevitable ingredient of a television childhood from the late 1970s onwards. The episode also recalls that film's sense of loss of innocence, fuelled by its somewhat over-age actors in the roles of children parallelled by Camille Coduri playing the younger Jackie. The Railway Children, while aware that memories are reconstructed in the light and shadow of later experience, was nonetheless unashamedly nostalgic, but 'Father's Day' tells its audience to be careful what they wish for.
The theme of temptation is carried over from 'The Long Game', and we see the Doctor's faith in humanity tested, but vindicated. For a while he lets himself believe that Rose is 'a stupid ape' - implicitly like Adam, who wants the universe to do something for him and not vice versa. One of the themes of Paul Cornell's Doctor Who work has been the value of human existence and human life, which the Doctor can only experience at second hand. The Doctor's exchange with Stuart and Sarah could have been cloying in the hands of a lesser performer than Christopher Eccleston. He's a hard act to follow.
(to be further updated later)
One of the best things about this new series of Doctor Who has been the chance to see the series drawing from a refreshed and widened cultural palette. In addition, setting the story in 1987 helped put the 'recent past' of Doctor Who on television at a distance - the Sylvester McCoy era is the best part of two decades ago now. Where the series in the mid-1970s drew from Hammer horror films and their Universal antecedents, it now recognises what writer Paul Cornell, in one of his early Who novels, called the mediasphere. The smileys on the wall near where Rose's Dad died are a more vibrant way of referencing the past than 'Mawdryn Undead''s Silver Jubilee flags. Rose's farewell to her father, calling him 'her Daddy', echoes the idealized father-daughter relationship of the end of the film version of The Railway Children, an almost inevitable ingredient of a television childhood from the late 1970s onwards. The episode also recalls that film's sense of loss of innocence, fuelled by its somewhat over-age actors in the roles of children parallelled by Camille Coduri playing the younger Jackie. The Railway Children, while aware that memories are reconstructed in the light and shadow of later experience, was nonetheless unashamedly nostalgic, but 'Father's Day' tells its audience to be careful what they wish for.
The theme of temptation is carried over from 'The Long Game', and we see the Doctor's faith in humanity tested, but vindicated. For a while he lets himself believe that Rose is 'a stupid ape' - implicitly like Adam, who wants the universe to do something for him and not vice versa. One of the themes of Paul Cornell's Doctor Who work has been the value of human existence and human life, which the Doctor can only experience at second hand. The Doctor's exchange with Stuart and Sarah could have been cloying in the hands of a lesser performer than Christopher Eccleston. He's a hard act to follow.
(to be further updated later)