Hello Dad!
Synopsis
The Doctor, Donna and Martha arrive on the distant planet Messaline, which is in the middle of an endless war. While there the Doctor meets the most important woman of his life; his daughter, Jenny.
But as General Cobb threatens genocide, and Martha is kidnapped by the Hath, the Doctor faces an even greater battle – can he find peace with his own child?
Plot
The TARDIS takes the Doctor, Donna and Martha to the planet Messaline, where armed men seize the Doctor. Recognising them all as people who can provide new DNA to the army, they use his diploid cells to produce the titular character, Jenny. She emerges from a machine after being grown at an accelerated pace as an adult soldier, and almost immediately is engaged in a skirmish with a species the Hath. During the disarray Martha is kidnapped by a Hath soldier. The Doctor and Donna are separated from Martha by an explosion triggered by Jenny. The Doctor tries to go after Martha, but the soldiers detain him and insist he be brought before General Cobb.
Cobb explains that originally the humans and Hath can come to this planet to share it, but the Hath lied and they have been at war for generations. Cobb also explains a desire to recover lost divine knowledge from their goddess of “the source”, which would effectively end the war. While trying to use a holographic map to find Martha, The Doctor accidentally reveals a previously unknown route to the temple to Cobb. Unbeknown to them, the Doctor has also inadvertently revealed the map to Martha and the Hath, who have come to trust her after she helps one of their injured. The Doctor tries to talk Cobb out of going after "the Source", which he intends to use to slaughter the Hath, but Cobb is distrustful of the Doctor and Donna's peaceful intentions and has them along with Jenny (as she comes from the Doctor) imprisoned.
The Doctor is having trouble perceiving Jenny as his daughter, claiming she is nothing more than a soldier. As he plans how to stop Cobb Jenny perceives the Doctor to be akin to a General, making plans and strategies, which the Doctor denies. He used his sonic screwdriver to convert Donna’s mobile phone to a superphone to contact Martha, which Jenny remarks is much like a weapon used to achieve a goal. Martha is studying the tunnels on Messaline herself, working with the Hath she saved, and plans to travel to the surface to reach the Temple. Donna persuades the Doctor to use his stethoscope to confirm that Jenny has two hearts, but he remains convinced that Time Lords are defined by their shared suffering. And that while she and he may be biologically alike, there is much more to being a Time Lord. Jenny is confused by what they are saying and the Doctor explains he is the last of his kind, a traveler of time and space. He explained that all his people died in a massive war, that he had to kill, which Jenny indicates that they are more alike than unalike.
The Hath use a battering ram to break through a barrier in the tunnels. Martha and her Hath friend reach a hatch that leads the surface which is barely hospitable. Although there is a cold wind, they are both grateful to be on the planet’s surface. Meanwhile, Jenny has helped the Doctor and Donna to escape their cell, where Donna notices a plaque indicating 8 numbers. As they travel she continues to notice more plaques, counting down as they near the Temple. The Doctor opens a door with the sonic screwdriver, finding a system of deadly lasers on the other side. Jenny runs off to try and hold off Cobb, which the Doctor unsuccessfully tries to stop as he knows how killing can change a person.
The Doctor disarms the lasers while Jenny holds off Cobb’s men with gunfire without injuring them, as the Doctor's words had an impact on her. As Jenny tries to follow the Doctor and Donna, the laser grid reactivates and she is forced to traverse the lasers with an impressive display of acrobatics. Meanwhile Martha falls down an incline while travelling to the Temple and starts to sink in some black quicksand, but is saved by the Hath accompanying her, who subsequently drowns. She continues onto the temple, crying in mourning.
Jenny questions the Doctor and Donna's relationship, which both are adamant is purely platonic. Donna that they save planets, rescue civilisations, defeat awful creatures. And also do an outrageous amount of running. This leads to a conversation about Jenny's future and to her happiness the Doctor wants her to come with him. After Jenny runs ahead to scout, The Doctor explains to Donna his previous parenting, the pain of losing the Time Lords and his family, and the fact that he is reminded of them when he sees Jenny. That is why he has been having a hard time dealing with this. Donna is sure that having Jenny in his life will help him heal those old wounds though.
The Doctor, Donna, Jenny and Martha are reunited in the temple, which the Doctor recognises as the original and fully functional colony spaceship. While the Doctor discovers that the city was built by robots, Donna discovers the numbers they have been seeing are dates. She realized that the city must have been built in sections outwards from the spaceship. She deduces the war, which has gone on for so many "generations", has in fact been going on for just seven days. The Doctor realizes that the term "generations" is a relative term here as that the method of reproduction the humans and the Hath use allow for 20 generations to be born a day.
As both armies close in, they next discover "The Source", a terraforming device which would make the environment outside more hospitable. Thus, despite the belief that the source kills, it actually brings life. The Doctor, now surrounded by both armies, declares the war over and smashes the source to release its gases and start the terraforming process. Both armies lay down their weapons in awe of the new planet forming around them.
However Cobb tries to shoot the Doctor out of revenge, but Jenny sacrifices herself by shielding him, getting shot in the heart instead of him. Cobb is immediately restrained by his soldiers. Martha realises Jenny will not survive as the wound is fatal. Jenny apparently dies in the Doctor’s arms without regenerating, even though the Doctor recalls she has two hearts, so she may survive given enough time. Martha points out that there is no sign of her regenerating, and that while she is like the Doctor, it may not have been enough. The Doctor feels she was actually too much like him. After he lays he head gently on the ground, the Doctor holds Cobb at gunpoint but does not pull the trigger, saying, “I never would”.
He asks both armies that they let the idea of a man 'who never would', be the foundation of the Hath-human society that will now emerge. The Hath and Humans ask the Doctor to allow them to give Jenny a proper funeral, which he grants sadly. Later, the Doctor concludes that, Jenny's creation was the reason the TARDIS had brought them to Messaline, they had just gotten there a little too soon. They then created Jenny, creating a unending paradox. He returns Martha home, and Donna resolves to stay with the Doctor while Martha leaves. Meanwhile, Jenny comes back to life as the Doctor had expected would happen if she was given enough time. She escapes Messaline in a shuttle and resolves to travel the universe, saving planets, rescuing civilizations, defeating creatures, and to do an awful lot of running just like her father.
Cast
Production crew
to be added
References
- Once again the Doctor and Donna are mistaken for a couple.
- Messaline has relatively high radiation.
- Messaline is terraformed.
- The Doctor's hand sent the TARDIS to Messaline, detecting the presence of another Gallifreyan, but they arrived before Jenny was created therefore creating the circumstances for her creation, creating a paradox.
- Jenny's regeneration/rejuvenation closely resembles the Seventh Doctor's regeneration into his eighth incarnation, both were shot and then both recovered in a mausoleum. Both also exhaled in similar manners as the process ended.
- Just like Rose Tyler, Donna expresses interest in staying with The Doctor "forever".
Story notes
- 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 anything 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".
- Stephen Greenhorn wrote The Lazarus Experiment which coincidentally was also the sixth episode of the series it was in.
- Georgia Moffett is the daughter of Fifth Doctor, Peter Davison. In 2004 Georgia was considered for the role of Rose Tyler.
- Jenny's impressive acrobatics in a corridor full of deadly laser beams was inspired by Britney Spears' Toxic video.
Ratings
to be added
Filming Locations
- Barry Island, Barry Shooting Range (Tunnel sequences)
Myth
- It was heavily rumoured Jenny would be Susan's mother, but this proved out to be false as Jenny was born in this episode.
- An interesting part of the episode references to "their goddess" and then Jenny says "female, I like that".This may be part of the story arc, so maybe Rose visited Messaline as part of her search for the Doctor?
Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors
- If the war had gone on for only seven days then surely General Cobb would have known this considering he looked in his fifties possibly sixties. Now given that the soldier generating machine created the doctor's daughter to look in her late-teens/early twenties and later on a different machine created a male human soldier at roughly the same age then either it means he was one of the original colonists or the machine created him that old to be the general straightaway. In the podcast, RTD explains this as saying the machines can be used to clone, as well as reprogenate, hence explaining his age but his lack of knowledge, if the clone did not have the original's full knowledge.
Continuity
- In the original first series the First Doctor was travelling with his granddaughter Susan Foreman, who is to date the only relative of the Doctor to be seen on screen. The Doctor's other two grandchildren John and Gillian also appeared in some of the comic strips.
- In DW: The Empty Child Dr. Constantine remarks "Before the war I was a father, a grandfather now I am neither. But I'm still a doctor." To which the Doctor replies, "I know the feeling."
- In DW: Fear Her, the Doctor mentions to Rose; "I was a dad once.".
- The Doctor mentions his family, his family is first mentioned in DW: The Tomb of the Cybermen also in Delta and the Bannermen, his granddaughter first appeared on screen in DW: An Unearthly Child , he has a brother who first appeared in NA: Theatre of War, an (adoptive) daughter who first appeared in EDA: Father Time and a wife PDA: The Infinity Doctors/MA: Cold Fusion.
- At the end of this episode Jenny escapes from her home planet in a spacecraft to travel the universe. This mirrors her father's actions.
DVD and Other releases
to be added
See also
to be added