In The Essence of Fairness

I was critical of the latest (at least here in the States) incarnation of Doctor Who. The British import always had laughable special effects, long after us yanks had it figured out sometime in the 70's and 80's. The latest version features much better SFX which is nice because it doesn't distract me away from the story. The writing, has been getting better and better. (I should point out that the premiere episode featured trash cans coming to life and eating people.)

Last Friday's episode, Father's Day, began as a typical time-travel adventure. Rose wants to go back and be at her Father's side when he's killed. He was killed by a hit-and-run and in flashback, we learn that he died alone in the street. Rose and the Doctor go back but she can't bring herself to run into the street until it's too late. The Doctor agrees to take her back a second time but stresses how dangerous this is as they are *already there*. As you might guess, Rose ignores the danger and her altruistic nature kicks in. She pushes her father out of harm's way and saves him, thus altering the past.

At this point, every other time-travel show goes the same direction. This one though, written by Paul Cornell, goes another way. Time has been altered, and is not happy about it at all. Instead of the future just lumbering forward until the protagonist fixes things, Time itself becomes a character of sorts, working to repair the damage. Flying creatures appear and begin killing everyone who came in even remote contact with Rose and the Doctor, and then pretty much the entire planet. It had a very "The Langoliers" feel to it and it was really just a plot device to push the characters into an enclosed space (an old church) for the drama.

Rose gets to spend time with her dad and in a very nice touch, he comments on how he gave her his car keys. "You don't just give your car to a stranger, but for some reason I trusted you. Since the moment I met you. Why?" Eventually, he figures out that Rose is his daughter and that he's not supposed to be alive. He blames himself for what is apparantly the end of the World.

The beautiful plot device here, is that the car that should have originally killed him, makes a second attempt on his life. Then, when in the church, they see the car constantly driving around the church, appearing and disappearing after the point that should have been the killing blow to Paul. It's an odd lesson since the Doctor has changed the past before, but there was no effort by Time as an entity to "fix" things. Still, the idea was compelling. The backstory with Rose and her father could have taken the maudelin route but never did. It was sweet and very human. In fact, it was Paul who figured out what needed to happen and made the decision to run out in front of the car, resetting everything, if not slightly different.

There was one last nice touch. After Paul is saved, there's an angry exchange between Rose and the Doctor about what she'd done. Rose says "But my father won't do anything important, he's just an ordinary man." The Doctor replies that "ordinary people are the most powerful in the universe". It loses effect in translation, but there was a very nice uncurrent about the power of people who just live and enjoy their time while they're on this Earth.

So, a big thumbs up on this one. If this is the kind of writing we'll see from the series, I'm on board. It's a shame that this version of the Doctor quit after only one season.