Doctor Who Series 4 Episode 6 - The Doctor's Daughter - Review
Starring: David Tennant, Catherine Tate, Freema Agyeman & Georgia Moffett
Written By: Stephen Greenhorn
Directed By: Alice Troughton
I
must admit to being a bit worried before I first watched The
Doctor's Daughter. Although
the Doctor has stated before that he has been a dad, and the very
first episodes saw him travelling with his granddaughter, the idea of
seeing the Doctor's own daughter, that may even have been Susan's
mother, removes a lot of mystery from the character. As a result, I
was happy to find out that the “daughter” in this episode, while
still the Doctor's biological child, wasn't anyone that had existed
off-screen until now. So seeing as we're already off to a good start
with this, can the rest of The Doctor's Daughter
hold up?
Picking
straight on up from the end of The Poison Sky,
the out of control TARDIS brings the Doctor, Donna and Martha to the
planet Messaline. On arrival, they encounter a group of soldiers who
immediately process the Doctor in a progenation machine. The machine
takes a sample of his diploid cells, splits them into haploids and
reconfigures them to create a female soldier – the Doctor's
daughter. Naming her Jenny, the Doctor, Donna and Martha learn of a
war between humans and a race known as the Hath that has existed on
Messaline for generations. Both sides are fighting over a mystical
object called the Source, which promises great power. It's up to the
Doctor and friends to put a stop to the war...
One
area of success for The Doctor's Daughter
is that it gives David Tennant's Doctor some really great and
well-written scenes. Rather like Stephen Greenhorn's last story, The
Lazarus Experiment, the
story in The Doctor's Daughter
may be flawed (more on that later), but he still at least understands
the character of the Doctor. His initial rejection of Jenny and his
inability to look her in the eye because she reminded him too much of
the Time Lords and everything he lost, feels so natural and makes the
relationship between the two characters just the right amount of
complex. However, while the Doctor initially rejecting Jenny because
he reminds her of the Time Lords is a brilliant plot point, there are
times where this episode states the Doctor's rejection of her is
because she was born as a soldier. Coming from a man who fought and
killed in the biggest war ever, this feels very hypocritical. I'm not
sure if that was the whole point, but even Jenny points out this
hypocrisy. The Doctor rejecting Jenny because of what she represents
is a far better idea than rejecting her because she's a soldier.
Jenny
herself is a very likeable character, and Georgia Moffett proves that
she's far more than just being eye candy for viewers. She seems to be
having a lot of fun in the role, works well with David Tennant
(Duh!), and the character is clearly very resourceful and can look
after herself. Her moment of flipping and spinning her way through a
corridor of lasers, is admittedly ridiculous and over-the-top, but if
you can look me in the eye and tell me that it wasn't just amazing
and your inner kid was grinning like mad … then something's wrong
with the way you're watching the show. (Spoiler Warning!)
All this helps to make her final
scene with the Doctor very moving and emotionally hard-hitting.
Our
two companions for this episode, Martha and Donna, are for the most
part well-written and enjoyable to watch. I love seeing these two
such great companions getting on (taking notes School
Reunion?), at least during
the brief time they get to spend together. Admittedly, there is a
little bit of inconsistency with Donna's character this week,
regarding her attitude towards Jenny. She seems to have a different
opinion on her from scene to scene, arguing one moment that she's not
a proper person, and then lambasting the Doctor for not accepting her
in the next. But still, Donna is just as entertaining as she has been
in the previous five episodes, and gets some of the biggest laughs of
the episode, particularly her “Womanly Wiles” moment. Martha on
the other hand gets similar treatment to what she got in Series 3, in
that she is sidelined and ends up rather unnecessary to the plot.
She's as eager to help as ever, but still has little to do. That
being said, her time on the surface of the planet with Hath Peck does
contain one of the most unexpectedly powerful moments of the episode.
(Spoiler Warning!) The
scene where Martha gets caught in a quicksand-like substance and Hath
Peck has to sacrifice himself to save her is genuinely uncomfortable
to watch. Maybe it's because I once briefly found myself in quicksand
a few years ago, but it's a horrifying scene and kudos to Freema
Agyeman and Paul Kasey for making the scene work in what looks like
very uncomfortable conditions.
So
while our characters are generally solid, it's at this point where I
have to become more critical of The Doctor's Daughter,
because unfortunately the story that they're in isn't interesting or
engaging. The war between the humans and the Hath just never
captivated or interested me when compared to the relationship between
the Doctor and Jenny. There was no sense of threat whatsoever,
certainly not from the Hath who, while a great design, were too
morally ambiguous and lacked the necessary intimidation to become
proper antagonists. The human characters don't solve this problem
either, as Nigel Terry, while I'm sure he's a great actor, never
really sold it as a ruthless and brutal military general. The story
is full of really unnecessary twists and turns too. Throughout the
episode, Donna is shown trying to solve the meaning behind a series
of mysterious numbers inscribed on the walls. (Spoiler
Warning!) Eventually, it's
revealed that the numbers are markers of the date where each part of
the building was completed, and that because more than twenty
generations are bred from the machines per day, the war has only
lasted seven days. But what does this actually change? How does the
war lasting seven days as opposed to countless years change the story
or the situation? It's supposed to be this grand twist, but it
changes absolutely nothing. The one element of this story I did quite
like was the idea of two races fighting over an object called the
Source, believed to be the origins of life, but in reality a
terraforming device used to make barren planets habitable. The
release of gases from the Source at the end of the episode looked
really good and made for a fitting conclusion.
The
last thing to talk about with The Doctor's Daughter
is its production design … which unusually this week is something
of a mixed bag. In a series that up until now has looked stunning,
The Doctor's Daughter lets
the side down a bit. The design for the Hath is one of its greatest
successes, and I thought the combination of human plus fish with a
respirator that allows them to breathe was quite inspired. Messaline
itself never really stood out as an alien world. The scenes in the
theatre and most of the underground system felt quite lazy and a bit
cheap, despite director Alice Troughton doing the best with what was
available. The scenes on the surface of the planet did look a lot
better, with their dusty winds and hostile landscape, and it's a
shame that we didn't get to spend more time up there.
It's
ultimately a shame but I have to say The Doctor's
Daughter is certainly the
weakest episode of Series 4 so far. I wouldn't exactly deride it as
anything bad as a fair few fans and critics have already done, but I
can't call it good either. Its main concept of the Doctor having a
daughter, within the circumstances this episode presents, can
work, but it needed a far stronger and more interesting story to run
alongside it. As it stands, The Doctor's Daughter
is a highly flawed but still mildly enjoyable entry to the series.
The Doctor's Daughter
5/10