Let’s not make this episode’s grave deeper than it needs to be, I don’t like it. It’s not a bad episode by any stretch, and it’s not poorly directed either. There is enough of a focus on the lead characters, and generally, it is fine. However, it is very domestic, a bit supernatural, and looking back, a bit in the vein of Life on Mars and not in a good way. It is typical of a Doctor Who episode and it usually happens once or twice a series. However, for it to be followed by the best double-bills of the series, it stands out a little more as a rough episode to watch. If only this show had some John Simm, a bit of time travel, and some music I liked. I’ll settle for watching Life on Mars again.

The episode cold-opens with young Rose and what’s meant to be a younger Jackie looking at a photo album. Rose (Billie Piper) is doing a voice-over as she talks to The Doctor about Peter Tyler, Rose’s dad. She wants to go back and see him before he was killed. The Doctor is of course, confused about where this has come from, asking her why she wants to, specifically at this point in time. Dejected she says it’s fine, like anyone who knows when to drop something. Questionably, this is where he suddenly becomes the magic genie for no good reason other than to make this episode sadly happen.

They first head back to Jackie and Peter’s wedding day, not in a church, but a chapel. Announcing their vows, Pete gets Jackie’s name wrong, twice. Bouncing back to the photo album scene, Jackie says she wished that someone was there when he died, something Rose gets The Doctor to agree to. Standing on the side of the road where he is about to be hit, right in front of “No Third Term for Thatcher” posters, they wait for him to park. He gets out, holding the wedding present for the wedding he was about to attend with Jackie and a baby. In a hit and run, he’s left on the road with bits of a vase everywhere, The Doctor tells her to go to him.

This is where the episode gets on my nerves, not because it’s domestic, but because The Doctor should know time travel and emotions well enough. You don’t get to cross over into events that you are established within, it creates a ripple in time where events change and the universe has to balance that out. So he takes her back to the roadside, this time, not only watching for Pete but also themselves. Brushing past herself after standing by the Energize poster with “BAD WOLF” on it, she pulls Pete from the oncoming speeding car, saving him and erasing the first version of herself and The Doctor. Happy with herself, Rose and Pete start talking about her saving him.

Somehow she wrangles herself into Sarah Clarke’s wedding, the same one Jackie, Pete, and baby Rose are all meant to be at right now. Pete asks if Rose and her “boyfriend” need a lift, distraught at what he’s done. The Doctor stands stock still knowing as a result of his actions Rose has done unbelievable damage to everything. This is where I point out that we’ve just had an episode where a companion did something selfishly through the means of time travel and The Doctor kicked him out the TARDIS. As a standalone episode it works, but surrounding circumstances point out flaws in logic and the concept. With that, we get a point of view shot from the sky with a red tint and animal-like yell.

Soon enough Pete, Rose, and The Doctor are back in Jackie and Pete’s flat, as he tells Rose where everything is in the home she lived in for 19-years. As Rose tells The Doctor about Pete though Jackie’s stories he stands there with anger painted across his face, he’s not just angry at himself, he’s angry at Rose for everything she’s done. He tells her about the first time they met, she didn’t care when he suggested traveling through space, but she did when he said time travel was on the table. “Another stupid ape,” as he puts it, someone else who wants the universe to do something for them instead of them doing something for the universe.

It’s a great emotional performance from Piper and Eccleston, the whole episode is filled with exceptional performances from the entire cast. However, it’s a lesson we’ve already learned from Adam using time travel for his means, “Father’s Day” is just another domestic story to make people care about Rose. As much as the show is about companions on a sci-fi adventure, home drama with a touch of 6 PM horror on top doesn’t solidify adventure. In fact, it’s just a really creepy and dull episode when you’re looking for a bit of adventure.

That’s why once The Doctor is out of the way, Pete starts hitting on Rose, his fully grown daughter. I get that he’s meant to be made out to be really creepy, hence Jackie’s hatred of him later on, but it is a much darker tone than the rest of the episode. The red-tinted point of view shots result in three deaths, they look more like Saturday morning cartoon deaths next to the overt incestuous implications of his sleazy character. Nevertheless, following her scrambled mess of telling him to keep it in his briefs, he states “I’m sure I’ve met you somewhere before.”

Walking back to the TARDIS, The Doctor is seen by whatever owns the red eyes in the sky. He opens both doors on the box, something that’s not meant to happen. Speaking of things that aren’t meant to happen, while Rose is talking with Pete the radio switches from Rick Astley to generic white London Hip Hop that doesn’t release for several years. To put the cherry on the cake, Rose pulls out her Nokia 3200 (Thanks crazy Who fans!), a phone that doesn’t release for 16 years. When checking her messages all she gets is some Scottish bloke in Boston from March 10th, 1876, saying, “Watson, come here, I need you.”

It is a phrase repeated on a brick of a phone used by the father of the groom at the wedding. Meanwhile, the bride arrives looking well…let’s just say that 80s were a different time, and looking like a semi-deflated balloon of two vibrant colors was all the rage. However, she has to go back around the block a couple of times, there’s no one from The Lamb and Flag, a wedding needs a Richie and Eddie. It doesn’t help that the blushing bride (blushing with fake tan) lost her train, to which Jackie pops up with baby Rose. Just in time, Rose and Pete come round the corner as the same car that was meant to kill Pete nearly goes head-on with them, to which Rose shouts “DAD!”

There is where the Eastenders episode kicks in, a wedding, some death, marital tiffs, and someone finding out who their daughter is. This is also where it’s hammered home that Pete is just horrible. As hard as it is to say with a straight face, putting aside the unknowing incest attempt, he’s regularly cheating on Jackie. After a lifetime of Jackie telling Rose how wonderful, charming, and lovely Pete was to her, Rose’s fictitious world her dad lived in is now on the floor in pieces. It’s sad and very well written, what does that add to The Doctor and Rose’s adventures? Nothing of note this series.

In a nearby play park, a woman is pushing a kid on a swing while two others are on a weird seesaw and one other on a climbing frame. In comes another moment of red vision and some kids have disappeared along with a woman, leaving only a small black boy who’s dressed to go to a wedding. Running back to the church he yells that everyone was eaten by monsters, all the while The Doctor runs up from behind Rose shouting about getting in the church. A “Reaper” materializes in front of her the same way she and the first Doctor vanished when this second Rose saved Pete.

It looks less like the Grim Reaper and more like an angry seahorse with wings and a scythe-like tail. As all the wedding party clambers into the church, another couple of these 6 PM horror monsters appear. Of course, the groom’s dad tries to run around the back of the church to no avail. The priest also becomes a meal for one of these Reapers. In the church, The Doctor takes charge while Jackie gets on his nerves. The groom hands The Doctor his dad’s phone telling him that it’s not working properly. The Doctor knows that it’s Alexander Graham Bell back in Boston in 1876, they can’t call for help.

The Reapers are here to “sterilize” the world of a paradox, hence the working title for the episode being “Wounded Time” or “Wound in Time.” While checking all the entrances to the church, The Doctor looks out a side window and sees the car that was meant to hit Pete burst through a hole in time, going back through once it was meant to hit Pete. Repeatedly going around corners, punching through these holes, waiting to kill Pete. Meanwhile, Pete asks Rose why he trusted her, why she called him dad, and why she sounds like Jackie when she shouts.

Finally, he realizes that his Rose is standing right in front of him, albeit with brown eyes, not the blue of baby Rose. The couple that was meant to be getting married ask The Doctor is he can save them, “I know we’re not important,” which he refutes, saying he’ll save them. Having a chat with her dad, Rose tells him everything aside from his death; Jackie shouts after a “Micky” as the young black boy runs in to hug Rose, it turns out Ricky has always loved Rose. Meanwhile, Jackie is making a sly comment about Pete and his ability to run up to women and hold on to them too.

Back in the main part of the church, The Doctor is watching Rose, talking to her like she’s a baby and she’s “not going to bring on the end of the world.” Rose (the adult Rose) walks up behind him, “Jackie gave her to me to look after, how times change,” he tells Rose. A bit of telling off, kissing, and ultimately making up, Rose and The Doctor are back to their usual selves. They also notice the TARDIS key that Rose gave back to The Doctor during their big fight back at the flat, it glows red hot. It’s their way out, use it to call the TARDIS and save the world.

Soon after Rose talks with Pete again, he asks if he is a good dad, of course she lies and he can tell. He’s worked it out, he’s meant to be dead. In one of the best lines after Rose blames herself, giving real credit to Paul Cornell for writing the episode, Pete ends up saying “I’m your dad, it’s my job for it to be my fault.” During possibly the worst time for Jackie to rock up with Rose in her arms, she doesn’t understand why he says he’s adult Rose’s dad. Attempting to explain, Pete tries handing baby Rose to Rose, the one thing The Doctor said not to do because it will create a paradox making the Reapers stronger. One of the Reapers can now materialize in the church as a result of the paradox, ultimately eating The Doctor and cutting off their plan of escape.

Looking out the window Pete notices the same car, once again coming around the corner waiting to kill him. Taking a swig of communal wine, he walks up to Rose and explains that if The Doctor was here he might have found another way, now there isn’t. He’s resigned himself to go out and be hit by the car. Rushing out the front door with the vase in hand and a Reaper in toe, he watches for the car to appear, he’s out of time as the horror seahorse closes in. Just in time, he drops the vase and the driver covers his eyes, much like the first Rose and The Doctor, the Reapers vanish.

To recount the earlier scene where he told Rose to go to her dad’s side, The Doctor comes back, this time she does as he suggests. Unlike the timeline before, the driver stops, and now in Jackie’s story to Rose (as a child) there is a young blonde woman by Pete’s side. Everyone in the church has forgotten everything that happened, all those that were devoured by the Reapers are back, and the timeline is restored.

As I’ve said before, this isn’t a bad episode, it is quite a good character piece with a muddy metaphor for how not to time travel. The Reapers feel like a cluttered mess, not only in design but in concept too. I won’t say either showrunner could have guided this in a better direction though. Between Moffat and Davies, their worst episodes could out sci-fi the best of Chibnall. “Father’s Day” feels like a stop-gap between episodes that got a bit too bloated when early production started, where writer Cornell and BBC’s Jane Tranter injected the Reapers.

As usual, the acting is top-notch, not just from Eccleston but the whole cast. Even in the most inelegant moments of the acting there’s still something there. There’s some proper care from the entire cast, so much that I’d say Eccleston doesn’t steal the show this time around. In fact, that honor would go to Shaun Dingwall who plays Pete. Eccleston still brings his anger followed by happiness but is overshadowed by the story between Rose and Pete.

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Doctor Who "Father's Day"

0.00

6

Score

6.0/10

Pros

• Brilliant acting.
• Fantastic character writing.
• Shaun Dingwall is a delight in this episode.

Cons

• A little too domestic for my tastes.