Father's Day (Doctor Who)

Father's Day is the eighth episode of the second series of the revived Doctor Who television series. It originally aired on 16 June 2007 on BBC One. The episode was written by Paul Cornell and directed by Graeme Harper.

The episode features the Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, and Captain Jack Harkness. It centres around a temporal paradox on a seemingly idyllic seaside town, where Rose travels back in time to save her father, only to inadvertently create a catastrophic chain of events that threatens to unravel reality itself.

Plot Summary: The episode opens with Rose discovering a temporal anomaly. The Doctor identifies it as a "temporal rift," a tear in the fabric of space-time. Investigating the rift, they arrive in 1967 and discover that Rose's father, Pete Tyler, is about to die. Driven by emotion, Rose pleads with the Doctor to save him, and he is forced to make a dangerous intervention.

The resulting paradox causes Pete to become an unnaturally aged and powerful being, while the town begins to display increasingly strange and violent behavior due to the instability of the time-stream. The Doctor realizes that Rose's actions have created a fixed point in time — a point that cannot be changed without destroying reality. Captain Jack Harkness unexpectedly appears, offering assistance in resolving the situation.

The episode builds tension as the consequences of the temporal paradox become increasingly dire. Ultimately, the Doctor must find a way to undo Rose's intervention without altering the fixed point, a task that requires a significant sacrifice and a powerful display of his time-traveling capabilities. The episode explores themes of family, regret, and the delicate nature of time itself.

Key Characters:

• The Tenth Doctor: Played by David Tennant.
• Rose Tyler: Played by Billie Piper.
• Pete Tyler: Played by Shaun Dingwall.
• Captain Jack Harkness: Played by John Barrowman.

Reception:

Father's Day received generally positive reviews upon its initial broadcast, praised for its emotional depth, compelling story, and strong performances from the cast. The episode's exploration of the paradoxes of time travel was also well-received. It is often cited as one of the strongest episodes of the second series and a highlight in the entire revived series.