Doctor Who - "Father's Day"

WHOSCALE: 4.8 OUT OF 10

In my opinion probably one of the worst examples of a Doctor Who episode. While the backdrop of the plot was sound - that of Rose saving someone's life who should be dead and causing a paradox - the episode seemed primarily focused on Rose. So much so that the Doctor even temporarily was killed of in the latter bit of the episode, leaving Pete Tyler to save the day. I'm no upset with the solution - as it makes perfect sense - the only way things could be set right would be if history continued to read that Pete Tyler died that day.

Up until now, we had not been revealed any information regarding Rose's past, particularly regarding her family. However, this episode opens with a flashback from Rose's childhood, and then brings us to the present inside the TARDIS as Rose finishes explaining her story to the Doctor.

I still can't believe that Adam was booted off the TARDIS without ever actually damaging the timelines, but Rose willingly broke the 1st Law of Time in this episode, utterly ignoring the Doctor's warnings about what would happen. In my opinion, selfish - with no regards to the rest of creation. Ace was 3 years younger than Rose and never flirted with disaster like this.

Staying focused, my biggest complaint with this episode was that the Doctor had a very small part in it, and the people getting trapped in the church seemed like only a plot device to allow Pete and Rose time to chat about the past/future. The episode was oozing with domestic violence between Jackie and Pete, and as I said before, focused mainly on Rose getting to know her father. The initial plot - the Reapers destroying everything due to the wound in the timeline - seemed to take a backseat in this episode.

I'm still not sure I understand some of the solutions either. For example, the Doctor discovered relatively midway through the episode that because of Rose's folly, the TARDIS was now nothing but a empty Police Box. I never understood what made the TARDIS key glow, nor is it explained what causes the TARDIS to materialize around the key suspended in midair. Naturally, its likely that these plotholes were overlooked because the main focus of this episode was not to tell an entertaining piece of science fiction, but rather devote 45 minutes to Rose getting to know her family. Don't get me wrong - my father is into geneaology (tracing family trees), and I have no objection to meeting one's ancestors and getting to know them. But breaking the 1st Law of time for your own selfish reasons by changing established points in time (AFTER you've been warned) is taking it a bit overboard.

What's worse about this episode was the title. The story was not even set on "Father's Day," so again the title and 85% of the episode was pure character development.