The Doctor's Daughter

Donna, I've been a father before.

The Doctor's Daughter closes the three part Martha interlude in Series Four. It is also one of the least regarded stories of the series. I don't remember it being terrible but with as provocative a title as that, it led a lot of fans to think one thing and what they ended up with was so far away that they grew resentful of the difference. That we're well removed, is it still worth all the disdain?

Plot Summary

The TARDIS is pulled through the time tunnel with the Doctor, Donna and Martha all clinging for any kind of support. They arrive in a tunnel scattered with debris and are immediately set upon by three human soldiers. The soldiers grab the Doctor and force his arm into a machine which extracts a tissue sample and uses it to create a new female soldier, genetically descended from the Doctor.

While trying to process this, the squad is attacked by a group of humanoid fish called the Hath. The two sides fire at each other while one sneaks around and grabs Martha. With two soldiers down, the squad leader detonates explosives in the tunnel, collapsing it and trapping Martha on the other side. He then takes the Doctor and Donna to see General Cobb.

On the other side of the tunnel, most of the squad was killed in the explosion. Martha tends to one with a dislocated shoulder. She pops it back into place as a second squad comes up. The Hath whom Martha tended to stops the others from killing her and together they take her back to their own headquarters. Because of her compassion in healing them, she is welcomed by the group.

At the human headquarters, General Cobb relates how the humans and Hath had come to the planet together, hoping to forge a new society. Things broke down and they have been fighting a war for generations, the origin of the war long since forgotten. The Doctor is shown a map of the complex and he is able to extract additional information, hoping to find Martha. Cobb however sees that the map is showing the lost temple where the Source is located. Believing that it will be the ultimate weapon to destroy the Hath, he decides to mount an expedition in the morning to recover it. He then orders the Doctor and Donna locked up because of their protests to the fighting. Not wanting to take chances, he also locks up the soldier extracted from the Doctor, now named Jenny, fearing her fighting spirit having been taken from pacifist stock.

Unbeknownst to any of them, at the same time, the Hath had been showing Martha the map, trying to explain where they were. They also saw the additions the Doctor extracted and form up to also head for the Source. Martha is left behind with the Hath she healed, who points out where they are going. He also rotates the map to 3-D and Martha realizes that it would be faster if they went outside. The Hath brings up the atmospheric conditions but Martha figures that she can survive the exposure for the journey and makes her way to the outer hatch.

In the prison, Donna talks the Doctor into accepting Jenny as his daughter, demonstrating that she has two hearts just as he does. The Doctor does accept her but relays his own genocidal past in trying to explain how killing the other side is simply wrong.

Jenny teases the guard and grabs his gun, allowing them to get out of the cell. They sneak into the outer tunnels and follow the Doctor's map, trying to reach the Source first. As they progress, Donna notes that each room they were in holds a serial number that is steadily going backwards.

They enter a new room just as Cobb discovers their escape and launches a raid after them. They are blocked by a series of lasers set up in a hallway. Jenny doubles back to cover them but the Doctor insists that fighting isn't the answer. Cobb calls out for Jenny to join them but she instead shoots a pipe creating a steam barrier. The Doctor temporarily shuts off the laser barrier allowing him and Donna to get through. Jenny, caught up in the euphoria of refusing to kill, hesitates allowing the lasers to cut off the path again. She however performs a series of acrobatics which allow her to get through the hallway, separating them from the Cobb's pursuit.

Martha and her Hath companion reach a hatch to the surface and open it. The Hath hesitates but follows Martha out the hatch to the surface. They make their way towards the spire of the central building. As they approach, Martha looses her footing and falls into a pit where a tar-like liquid has pooled. She is trapped and begins to sink. The Hath follows her down and tries to pull her out but can't reach her. He then jumps into the pool and pushes her out. This however causes him to sink and drown in the pool. Martha cries out for him but then crawls back to the top of the pit and continues towards the spire.

The Doctor, Donna and Jenny reach end of hallway just as they hear General Cobb break through the laser barrier. The Doctor finds a door and they enter the Temple, which is actually the control center of the ship that brought the settlers here. They find a log which details how the captain died and a power struggled formed between the human and Hath colonists. Donna also finds a clock and determines that the numbers etched into the various rooms are completion dates from when the robot excavators finished each section. From this they determine that although the war has lasted for generations, it has actually only been going on for a week of actual time.

They move further inward of the control room where they find Martha, having just entered from an exterior hatch. They also hear Cobb's men trying to break through and see the Hath cutting through another door. They also smell flowers and follow it to a center location where the Doctor discovers a terraforming globe, designed to rework the surface of the planet once the colony was established. Both armies converge on the site but the Doctor stops them, pointing out that their ancestors worked together before to create life and they can do it again. He then breaks the globe and the chemical compound moves out and begins to rework the planet.

Both sides lay down their arms but Cobb shoots at the Doctor. Jenny, seeing Cobb's movement, jumps in front of the bullet, killing her. Cobb's men disarm him and hold him down. The Doctor hopes for a minute that some of his regeneration energy passed through her but she remains dead. Angered, the Doctor picks up Cobb's gun and points it directly at his head, holding there for a few seconds before dropping the gun and pointing out that he never would and that should be the credo of their new civilization.

The humans and Hath join camps and lay Jenny out in a funeral ceremony. The Doctor, Donna and Martha then slip away in the TARDIS. They drop Martha off at her home before journeying on. However, back on the terraforming planet, a small burst of regeneration energy does trigger and Jenny leaps off the bier she was laying on. She takes a small ship and launches into space, determined to explore the galaxy.

Analysis

I don't think this story is as bad as it is often made out to be but it is a story of wasted potential. I happened to watch this one for the second time in two parts. By coincidence, it was just before the laser barrier scene and that is a bit of a key marker. Before that point, you could see the potential of the story: two races locked in a bitter war, people created just to be soldiers and perpetuate the war, the Doctor angry at the creation of an offspring that only reminds him of all that he lost. That all sounds really good. However, when the story picked back up, all the depth went out the window and the story became running, silliness and a slapped together, schmaltzy ending.

For the most part, I enjoyed the acting. The Doctor and Donna were the best both with the light teasing and the seriousness that developed when the Doctor opened up. Martha was pretty good, especially since she was interacting with a non-verbal group and had to carry most of that load herself. Most of the side characters, like Cobb, were also pretty good.

Jenny was a less good. When obeying orders and acting like a genuine soldier, she worked well. Her interaction with the Doctor was less so. I think she couldn't decide just how child-like she was supposed to be. Her enthusiasm for doing anything that pleased the Doctor seemed very much like a toddler that has just gotten praise from their parents. It made her sacrifice later seem unearned, though it did play in with the tumble through the lasers.

Let's just get it out of the way now, I hated the tumble through the lasers. It was ridiculously stupid especially as the Doctor had already cleared the path. Jenny could easily have come back after refusing to shoot just as the Doctor shut down the lasers. They beat a quick path through and just make it as the lasers come back. The worst offense of the scene though is the fact that it took what had been a somewhat thought provoking story and turned it into a cartoon. From that point on, everything they did seemed disingenuous as though they were trying to get back what they had lost. They didn't try that hard but that's a different point.

As noted above, it was after this point that the story took a different tone. Martha's little adventure was completely pointless. The story needed to have someone go to the Hath to show them where the temple was and set up the race. But Martha's overland journey and the death of her Hath companion did nothing. My impression was that they wanted to show the Hath as having similar values to the humans, including self sacrifice, but the Hath had already been established as that with their fair treatment and acceptance of Martha after healing one of their own. Martha could have been taken along with the patrol and reunited with the Doctor when the Hath showed up. It was going for an emotional punch but it just wasted time. If Martha had gone with the main group, she could have continued to show kindness and compassion with the Hath. As told, the main group could have easily assumed that Martha killed the Hath who was with her and then ran ahead to warn the Doctor to create a trap.

And that plays into the slapdash ending. I liked that the war had been going on for only a week but that the death of generations had destroyed that memory. It made for a nice twist. But I don't see how the Doctor pointing to a swirling green ball that's going to terraform the planet encourages both sides to lay down their arms. The Doctor could have dropped the ball releasing the gases and still had both sides start shooting at each other, determined to take control of the new world for themselves. Instead, they lay down because the show was nearly over.

Jenny's death was also hastily done. I think they were going for poignant sacrifice but her range of emotions had been all over the map so far that there wasn't much of a connection to her. It also felt like a very stagey death and I couldn't help but draw mental comparisons to Talia's death in The Dark Knight Rises in how silly it felt. Then what little emotion had been established, especially in the Doctor's threat of Cobb, it thrown completely out the window by Jenny's healing regeneration and liting out into space. That especially felt slapped on and out of place as it felt like she had been completely self aware of everything around her, knowing that the war had ended and that the Doctor had left. What little goodwill I could have had for the death scene was just washed away in that moment.

I hate to be so negative but there was a good amount of potential for this story in the first half and it all just fell apart in the second half. Now, I don't think it's the horrible thing and stinks up the series the way many fans do. It's an ok watch and if you're in the mood for something silly and light, it'll be fine. It's just a whiplash in terms of the tone. I will say that I think it's the worst of the series and if going through, I'd be eagerly looking forward to The Unicorn and the Wasp, which might explain some of the bad feeling on that one too.

Overall personal score: 1.5 out of 5