TV Club: The Doctor’s Daughter

[monkeyshaver]

@PuddingBrainMummy

But the fish would’ve still had a dislocated shoulder(?) if not for Martha

& would not have died. RIP Fish person.

[grlgoddess]

so true, objectively her presence made things worse no wonder she got recruited to Torchwood /jk

[Zpaceman]

really liked this episode. reminds me alot of my (COUGH COUGH) doctor who oc. but I think the “i never would” line was pretty fire. classic unresolved plot hole episode

[Smallsey]

There are 2 good ideas at the core of this story. The Doctor having a “daughter” and the multi-generational weeklong war are both compelling premises to build an episode around. Unfortunately neither idea really works for me, it all feels so incredibly under-developed.

There’s no depth to the Doctor’s relationship with Jenny. You’d think the show would use Jenny as a link to the Doctor’s past (he did have an actual family before the time war), but besides a single brief scene with Donna, the Doctor never really delves into his past or his grief. Instead we just get the Doctor not liking Jenny, then suddenly loving Jenny. It just doesn’t work for me.

The weeklong, multi-generational war thing is also so lazily drawn. I have no idea why these two groups are fighting, they just are. I have no idea why they decided to go to war over a cramped underground base instead of just releasing the terraforming ball and then sharing this entire planet (like they do at the conclusion). It feels like the writers came up with a cool hook for a story, but then decided that was enough and that it didn’t need any real fleshing out.

Donna gets to shine at least, using her “SuperTemp” skills to work out what’s actually going on. Martha is also here… which is nice I guess, I like Martha. She doesn’t really have any reason to be here though. If you cut out Martha’s subplot it would change absolutely nothing about the main story.

So overall this episode has some cool ideas and some nice moments. But you only have to scratch the surface here to see that there really isn’t much in the way of actual substance. It’s watchable but for me it’s the weakest episode in S4

Review of The Doctor’s Daughter by Smallsey

[Zpaceman]

ahah I would never have a doctor who oc! why would I do that!! /sarc

[PuddingBrainMummy]

@Smallsey

I have no idea why these two groups are fighting, they just are. I have no idea why they decided to go to war over a cramped underground base instead of just releasing the terraforming ball and then sharing this entire planet

I might be misremembering but I think there’s a line about both sides thought they should lead the colony or something.

And also everyone thought the ball was a weapon to wipe out the other side or something. No one knew it was terra forming ball just the key to victory or something

[Tlotoxl]

Arguably my favourite thing about this episode is years after broadcast when Moffat joked that Jenny immediately crashed into a moon and died

[TrocaNero]

It’s one of the weaker S4 episodes but it’s still good IMO. It’s a cool concept, I think Jenny’s alright and I really like Martha’s sidequest with Hath Peck (though I wish the episode didn’t forget about him after his death).

I can see why people don’t really like the speech at the end, but I don’t mind it that much. I think it’s fitting for the enraged mood Ten found himself in and it’s slight foreshadowing for him going off the deep end in The Waters of Mars. This series has several way better episodes though.

7/10.

Also, while many say this is S4s weakest, I disagree. That distinction goes for the following episode.

[Smallsey]

They might now think (after countless generations of chinese whispers) that the terraforming ball is a weapon. But the initial crew of the ship new what the ball was for. They were literally on a colonisation mission. So why didn’t they terraform the planet to be colonised, and instead decided to go to war in an underground complex instead?

It makes no sense that they’d just immediately abandon their mission because… these two species don’t like each other or something.

[Tlotoxl]

Also, pretty funny in hindsight:

Russell T Davies has stated that this episode “does exactly what it says on the tin”. Stephen Greenhorn’s episode has the Doctor facing a dilemma unlike any before, and it is wildly different to The Lazarus Experiment. He also said that his episode was designed by Russell to “change the Doctor” in a big episode that will have “a real impact on him” and that, in terms of the series continuity, it will be a “lasting impact”. This was inspired by Greenhorn stating in a Doctor Who Magazine interview that the Doctor doesn’t change.

[InterstellarCas]

This is an episode with some interesting ideas but also wasted potential. I love having Martha and Donna together but we don’t nearly get to see enough of their dynamic and Martha gets kind of sidelined for most of the story. I really do like the creature design of the Hath though.

Review of The Doctor’s Daughter by InterstellarCas

[TardisSixteen]

@TeamTARDISRacing

If it means anything, my most prominent thought when first watching this was, “Georgia Moffett is super hot.”

TBF it was probably the most prominent thought in David Tennant’s head while shooting it.

[deltaandthebannermen]

The TARDIS is literally a magic door. I’ve never had an issue with things like that in the show because however much ‘science’ you throw at stuff in Doctor Who, it’s still all just made up, magical stuff.

[thirteenswife]

I love Jenny

[thirteenswife]

@Smallsey

There’s no depth to the Doctor’s relationship with Jenny. You’d think the show would use Jenny as a link to the Doctor’s past (he did have an actual family before the time war), but besides a single brief scene with Donna, the Doctor never really delves into his past or his grief. Instead we just get the Doctor not liking Jenny, then suddenly loving Jenny. It just doesn’t work for me.

Yeah I never liked he was immediately judging her from the start

[PuddingBrainMummy]

Well she’s a soldier and I don’t like soldiers

Expect the Brig and Benton and yates

[joerack]

Bit of a dud for me despite an interesting resolution to the plot.

Jenny feels like a bit of a pointless addition to the cannon given she never shows up on the show again.

[ItsR0b0tNinja]

I really, really enjoy this one. It’s not the most complex story, but it makes me happy. The only lull is Martha on the surface, but that is a minor quibble.

Jenny is so good. I wanted her to appear again, but I have to live with the BF iteration.

I think why this one works for me is that, minus Jenny, it feels like a Big Finish serial.

4/5

My rating system

5.0 Perfect/Fav
4.5 Excellent/Fav
4.0 Very Good
3.5 Good
3.0 Enjoyable
2.5 Meh
2.0 Bad
1.0 Very Bad

[paradoxchild]

This episode made no sense in the grand scheme of things, but it was really cool to see Georgia Moffett in an episode.

It was fun, but I rated it only a little above average because it wasn’t great in its execution. I’m usually all for high-concept episodes when done right, and this one is certainly strong conceptually: the Doctor’s DNA used to create a soldier, and the idea that both sides have been fighting a generational war in compressed time. But I feel like there are so many other television shows that handle those concepts better.

I feel I might have liked the episode more had they not had it about the Doctor’s daughter at all, as odd as that might sound. Regardless, I do have the BF audios and plan to listen to them sometime. I really like Georgia Moffett.

Again, cool episode, neat concept, low overall impact for me.

[TARDIS32]

This episode was only going for 45 minutes? Surprising

@TARDIS32

And continuing on with my Tenth Doctor era thoughts with The Doctor’s Daughter. I don’t care for this episode. The big thing is I just can’t accept the premise. You’re telling me this war was only a week long? There’s always officers not on the front lines directing everything that aren’t in active combat, and you’re telling me there’s not a single soldier who’s lived that long from being created by the machine who could remember that whole time? Why is General Cobb old? Did the machine just make him old for some reason? The time span given is just way too short for any of this to be believable. 7 months, maybe that could work. And honestly, I don’t think they do enough to explain why the humans and hath are fighting each other, or convincingly do an “over the years we don’t even know why we’re fighting” similar to the Kaled-Thal War. It’s just in an unsatisfying and underdeveloped middle ground.

I don’t like how quickly and strongly Ten is to just directly reject Jenny for most of this. While to an extent I agree with his assessment that she isn’t really his daughter beyond genetics, she still deserved more respect from him in the way he treated her. Also, he’s the last of the Time Lords, always so affected by that, so you’d think he’d be jumping for joy at the prospect of even if not culturally a Time Lord, a new biological Gallifreyan at the very least. And a big part of it is him rejecting her because she’s a soldier, just like 12 will do with Journey Blue or Danny Pink, it’s stupid here too, but arguably worse to do to someone being framed by the story as your own daughter. And fine, maybe the Doctor lost all his family in the Time War, but it’s not like he kept in touch with them even before then, he didn’t seem to give the slightest thought to his children and grandchildren since The Dalek Invasion of Earth so the idea that Jenny is just something he couldn’t go through again because of the loss of his “real” family just doesn’t ring true to me.

Also about the Doctor. “The man who never would” who has in fact killed so many in his many lifetimes, both directly and indirectly and compounded with some of the stuff we’ve seen this Doctor himself do and will see this Doctor do is just a laughably stupid moment in this episode. I understand the principle of don’t be a society built on someone killing another, but when he’s a man who absolutely “would” and has, it’s just eye-roll inducing.

What was the point of having Martha join them in this one if they were just going to separate her from the Doctor and Donna and not have her do all that much? The map scene was the Doctor activating the map, Martha just happened to be there. She did help the one Hath with his dislocated shoulder, but her whole thing with walking through the wasteland to find the Doctor was just that, there was little other point to it, her side story line is just superfluous and the episode would have been no better or worse without it. Her losing her Hath friend is a bit sad, but I didn’t feel enough of the attachment needed to really care, and I’m not sure if Agyeman really sold it either. The Hath are a neat looking alien I guess.

Jenny herself is all right I guess, but I don’t know how much of that is I find her an interestingly written character or just attractive. Moffett’s performance is fine, I don’t want to imply that she has nothing going for her but looks, since that’s simply untrue, but I don’t think the material is all that interesting for her. Soldier learning that she doesn’t actually have to kill isn’t that shocking of a revelation like the episode wants you to think it is. I definitely don’t see why so many were clamoring for a Jenny spinoff after this, other than simply the fact that this episode sort of creates a loose end that they may want resolved. It’s even a bit unclear if she can regenerate or if it’s just the Source restoring her (I lean toward the latter, since the effect was more consistent with the Source than regeneration). It feels like her existence was for the next time trailer moment of “what, the Doctor has a daughter now?” with very little additional thought to the character. Also, it’s kinda hilarious that the machine goes to the effort of giving her make-up when it spits her out.

Donna of course has the rather cool moment of figuring out that everything was the dates, the war only having been going on for seven. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t at this point want Donna to figure something out for a reason other than “because she’s a secretary.” I think they’ve done it enough times at this point and I’d like to see other sides of her intelligence than just what her career has trained her in. The scene where they basically just said that Donna wasn’t pretty enough to distract or seduce a guard felt a little mean too. And as much as I think the Doctor’s immediate rejection and other ways he treated Jenny was harsh, especially in some of the things he directly said to her, I’m not sure I liked the way Donna just kept pushing him about it. It’s not like the Doctor chose for Jenny to be created, or chose an action that led to her creation, he was forced into the machine. And it wasn’t a case of something like an accidental pregnancy, where the father should have to take responsibility given he made the choice to engage in activity where that is obviously a risk. However, as indicated before, I’m fine with Donna at least trying to make the Doctor treat Jenny with respect, but I don’t think it’s fair for her to expect him to just immediately take her in as his daughter either given the circumstances. The people on Messaline who created Jenny are the ones that should have to take responsibility for her.

Not sure if I believe that they’d suddenly stop fighting each other just because the Doctor threw a ball of gas on the ground and didn’t kill a guy. Ending felt a little rushed. And apparently a little ball of gas can somehow terraform a whole planet. It really is just there as a MacGuffin, and significantly adds to how contrived the entire premise of this story is. I looked at my 3/10 I have for this and thought about whether or not that’s fair, but I really couldn’t come up with any good reason to give it any more than that, so it’s gonna stay there. Easily the weakest from Series 4.