The Doctor's Daughter (TV story)

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Hello Dad!Jenny


Synopsis

The Doctor, Donna and Martha crash 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

Following immediately from the end of DW: The Poison Sky the TARDIS is flying out of control, Martha and Donna are having trouble keeping their balance. The console emits smoke and sparks while the ship bucks violently hurling its occupants about. The Doctor notes that his severed hand (lost in DW: The Christmas Invasion) is bubbling furiously.

Finally the TARDIS lands on the planet Messaline, almost immediately upon exiting the ship armed men seize the Doctor. Realising that they have "clean" hands (meaning that they have not yet had tissue samples taken, these leave a tell-tale scar) they force the Doctor to use a machine which takes his diploid cells, splits them into haploids and produces the titular Jenny.

At once a skirmish with the Hath breaks out, in the chaos Martha is kidnapped by a Hath solider and Jenny triggers an explosive tunnel collapse which prevents the Doctor and Donna from rescuing her. Notwithstanding, the Doctor attempts anyway, but the soldiers seize him and demand he be brought to General Cobb.

General Cobb explains that originally the humans and the Hath came to this planet to share it, but he claims the Hath lied and they have been at war for many, many generations. Cobb and the soldiers recount what superficially appears to be a creation myth, a story of how The Goddess created the universe, looked at her work she sighed. According to the human's religion, that breath was captured in some form which is now referred to as "The Source. The humans believe that The Source is lost somewhere in the maze of tunnels they show the Doctor on a holographic map and that recovering it could allow them to effectively exterminate the Hath.

Meanwhile, Martha has convinced the Hath to trust her by helping one of their injured. The Hath are showing her an identical holographic map and bubbling, although the exact nature of what they are saying is not known to the viewer, Martha appears to at least partially understand.

While trying to use the Human holographic map to see where Martha has gone, The Doctor inadvertently reveals a previously unknown route to the "Temple" where the Humans believe The Source is located. The Doctor's manipulation of the map has also revealed the full map to The Hath. The Doctor tries to dissuade Cobb from locating the Hath, which he intends to use to commit genocide. Cobb however refuses to listen and orders The Doctor and Donna to be imprisoned, as well as Jenny as she came from The Doctor. The Hath also go on the warpath.

The Doctor is displeased by the notion of Jenny being his daughter, dismissing her has a mere soldier. As he plots to stop Cobb Jenny compares The Doctor to a General, noting that he makes plans and strategies. The Doctor claims this is false but is not able to clearly demonstrate why. When He uses his sonic screwdriver to augment Donna's mobile, in order to call Martha. Jenny draws comparisons between the device and a weapon, saying that both are implements used to achieve purposes. The Doctor again dismisses the idea.

In the mean-time Martha and the Hath she healed, Peck, are studying the tunnels, Peck manipulates the controls and is able to convert the map into a three dimensional projection, delighting Martha. Noting that the distance above ground is shorter than the distance through the tunnels she plans to beat both the humans and the Hath to The Source.

To compel The Doctor to realise that Jenny is actually his daughter Donna uses his stethoscope to show him that she has two hearts, proving she is the same species. The Doctor, however, insists that Time Lords are defined by their shared tragedy and therefore Jenny is not a Time Lord.

Jenny is confused by this and in the explanations The Doctor is forced to admit that he killed during the Last Great Time War. Jenny empathises, again comparing him to herself.

The Hath use a battering to create a short cut, in the meanwhile Martha and Peck reach a hatch and escape to the austere surface.

Back with The Doctor Jenny seduces the guard and enables the party to escape their cell. Outside the cell, Donna notes a plaque of eight numbers. As they travel she continues to notice more plaques, writing them down she realizes that they are counting down as they get closer to The Temple.

The party encounters a corridor of deadly lasers, while Jenny holds of Cobb's men by shooting without killing, the doctor disables the lasers. As she tries to follow the Doctor and Donna, who have already passed down the corridor the lasers reactivate and she is seemingly trapped. However, she astounds The Doctor and Donna with a display of acrobatics through which she traverses the lasers without injury!

On the surface, Martha falls down a scree into quicksand, Peck leaps in to saves her, but begins to irresistibly sink, himself. Martha is devastated and weeps bitterly as the wind howls and her friend disappears beneath the surface.

Jenny questions the Doctor and Donna's relationship, which both are adamant, is purely platonic. Donna flippantly says they save planets, rescue civilisations, defeat awful creatures and also do quite a lot 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 her. 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 realizes as the original and fully functional colony spaceship. This puzzles him as the ship is obviously well maintained; it should have run out of power by now.

The Doctor reads the ship's log, learning that the city was built by robots. Donna stares at a digital clock on the wall, suddenly she has an epiphany! The numbers are dates; the city was built in sections outward from the space-ship. Comparing the date on the clock to her notes, realizes that the clock shows it is seven days since the ship landed... The Doctor realizes that the term "generations" is relative, the technological reproduction system of the Humans and the Hath allow twenty generations in a single 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 malice, but Jenny sacrifices herself by shielding him, she is shot in the heart. When Martha examines the wound she sees that it is fatal. Jenny dies, shortly thereafter, in The Doctor's arms without regenerating.

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 must now emerge. The Hath and Humans ask the Doctor to allow them to give Jenny a proper funeral, to which he sadly agrees.

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 an unending paradox. He returns Martha home, and Donna resolves to stay with the Doctor while Martha leaves.

Meanwhile, back on Messaline, Jenny breaths a cloud of green gas and revives as the Doctor had hoped would happen if she was given enough time. She escapes Messaline in a shuttle and resolves to travel the universe, saving planets, rescuing civilisations, 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 and an earth-like atmosphere.
  • Once again there is reference to the Doctor's children and family.
  • 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 gases in similar manners as the process ended. The manner the gas was exhaled is also similar to the regenerative gas that came from the Doctor's mouth following his regeneration from Ninth Doctor to Tenth Doctor. It was also vaguely similar to the post-regenerative healing the Doctor went through following his battle with the Sycorax, as Jenny was probably in the first fifteen hours of her life, making it possible.
  • Just like Rose Tyler, Donna expresses interest in staying with The Doctor "forever".
  • Jenny takes the ship's shuttle.

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".
  • Jenny's impressive acrobatics in a corridor full of deadly laser beams was inspired by Britney Spears' Toxic video.
  • The two Hath named in credits would appear to be named after famous actors; "Hath Peck" drawing his name from Gregory Peck, and the "Hath Gable" taking his from actor Clark Gable. Whether this is deliberate or a mere coincidence is uncertain.
  • Donna Noble came up with the name Jenny after The Doctor said she was a "Generated Anomaly".
  • According to the BBC Pod cast Russell T. Davies said the original intention was to kill Jenny off at the end of the episode. It was Steven Moffat who expressed the desire to bring her back to life.

Ratings

  • Final BARB ratings - 7.33 million viewers
  • Sunday night BBC3 repeat - 0.95 million viewers

Filming Locations

  • Barry Island, Barry Shooting Range (Tunnel sequences)

Myth

  • It was heavily rumoured Jenny would be Susan's mother, but this proved to be false.
  • Other rumours reported online included the possibility of Jenny being Rose Tyler's offspring (owing to both being blonde and also because of Rose's background appearances thus far in the season), which was disproven in the pre-credits teaser.
  • It was also rumored that Jenny was a clone, a hologram, an illusion or something of that sort. All of these proved to be false, to one degree or another. Technically Jenny is not a clone; she is actually the Doctors Daughter, via asexual reproduction through a process similar to parthenogenesis.

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

  • It appears that Jenny regenerates as a substance similar to the vortex energy or the terraforming gas escapes from her mouth. However her body does not change. She did not actually regenerate. The Doctor regrew his hand in The Christmas Invasion, as a Time Lord has great capacity for self-repair shortly after a full regeneration. It is more likely Jenny internally healed herself as she was probably within the first fifteen hours of her life. The writers purposely left her revival unanswered to allow the viewers to decide what happened.
  • When Donna listens for Jenny's heart beat with the stethoscope she has two. Time Lords only grow a second heart after regeneration. (MA: The Man in the Velvet Mask) It should be noted that the cannonicity of the spinoff material is always in question. Or it may be because she was created from a Time Lord who has already regenerated (I.E. The Tenth Doctor would have had the DNA of someone with two hearts.)
  • During one scene in the tunnels of Messaline, the UNIT logo can be seen in the background.Possibly UNIT is still operational at this time. The Torchwood Institute was briefly mentioned in the far future in DW The Impossible Planet
  • Jenny's clothes appear to have changed after Cobb shoots her. Likely they changed Jenny's clothes for her funeral. Or as RTD suggested in the commentary, in the future they have self-healing fabrics.
  • Some would argue that it is improbable that the Hath would so quickly come to trust Martha, given that she is the same species that they are at war against. However Martha had helped Peck whereas most of the other humans could have killed him. Therefore they quickly identified that she was different. It also was necessary from a narrative standpoint, to allow the audience to quickly grasp that the Hath are different to the monsters General Cobb makes them out to be.
  • The TARDIS's telepathic circuits do not translate what the Hath are saying to the audience but Martha is able to speak to them and know that the Hath she travels around with is called Peck. The reason it was not translated to the audience is a choice by the producers to add comic relief that Martha is the only one who can understand them and translate what they are saying. For example when Peck swears and she tells him to watch his language.
  • All Jenny's knowledge and abilities were given to her by the machine she was born in. This may include her gymnastics skills. It is never explained why the other soldiers do not have the same ability. Jenny is more physically able than the other soldiers as her gymnastic skills clearly go far beyond that of almost any human. The extent of Jenny's gymnastic skills are likely to be as the result of being a Time Lady rather than a human.
  • It is not explained how Jenny would know how to fly a shuttle as the machines embedded military knowledge but not the knowledge of how to fly a space shuttle because the people had mythologised their own history making it unlikely they would have felt the need to know how to fly a shuttle. This may be an example of Jenny's Time Lord heritage. Many times the Doctor has worked things out as he's gone along. Jenny is likely to be doing the same thing.
  • Four apparent facts cannot all be true at once: (a) the war has only been going on for seven days; (b) General Cobb knows about The Source and its purpose only by hearsay passed on through the generations; (c) General Cobb is in his late forties or his fifties; and (d) offspring produced by the machine emerge with the bodies and personalities of human beings in their early twenties. If Cobb is as old as he looks, he ought to have been a member of the original landing party, in which case he would know what the Source really is. Russell T Davies suggested in the pod cast for the episode that, as well as creating a child from a parent, the machines were be able to clone important figures. Therefore Cobb could be the fifth Cobb of that week. As well as the fact that Jenny is around 20yrs old straight away implying some sort of forced aging process. Or Cobb could be delusional and lying, evidence his otherwise inexplicable murder of Jenny.
  • Near the end of the episode, a softbox light can be seen inside the TARDIS, lighting the set.That could be explained in-universe as the way the doctor likes to light the TARDIS but the point is valid nonetheless.
  • If the Hath are half fish, why did Hath Peck die in the tar pit? Because the Hath naturally breath the green fluid in their masks, tar would kill Peck them as it would Martha.

Continuity

DVD and Other releases

  • It will be released as part of the complete fourth series boxset in November 2008.
  • It will be released as part of Series 4 Volume 2 on 7th July, alongside The Sontaran Stratagem, The Poison Sky and The Unicorn and the Wasp.

See also

to be added

External links

Template:Series 4

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