Look, I've got father issues. Heck, I put together an entire show to work through them (seriously, if you are in Central Florida please come see The Gospel According to My Old Man at the Orlando Fringe Festival this coming May). So there was never any question that the story about Rose going back to 1987 and the day of her father's death was going to get me right in the feels. And it totally did.

So let's talk about that.

Father's Day

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

Holy cow, what a great episode. Just a properly excellent story written by Paul Cornell (who will return again with Human Nature / The Family of Blood in a couple of seasons, easily my single favorite Tenth Doctor story). The gist of the story is that Rose asks the Doctor to take her back to the day of her father's death, so that he won't die alone in the street after being hit by a car. Rose was only an infant at the time, and grew up only with the stories her mother told her about what an amazing man her father was. After chickening out the first time, the Doctor very dangerously takes her back again to the same moment to try again. Thanks to the Blinovich Limitation Effect this creates a very unstable situation, especially once Rose actually saves her father's life and thus creates a wound in time.

But really, what the story is about is a child finding out that their parents are human, fallible people just like everyone else. Pete Tyler was not the incredible man she had always been told he was. Until the moment in the end that he actually is.

The wonder of this story is that the Doctor actually knows how to fix the situation very early on, but tries to find any other way in order to spare Rose. Ultimately the Doctor sacrifices his own life, rather than do the necessary thing. At no point does the Doctor do a Very Clever Thing (although he certainly tries.) In the end, though, Pete Tyler becomes the man that Rose had always believed he was, and lays down his life in order to save his wife and child. Not to mention saving the world. The wound is closed and everything is reset, with one tiny edit to the memory of that day.

It's just a wonderfully sculpted story. Shaun Dingwall, playing Rose's father, gives a fantastic performance first as a desperately bumbling man trying to do whatever he can to get by and usually failing miserably, and then making the slow transformation into becoming a Good Man. Camille Coduri gets to add some real dimension to her character as Rose's mom. The whole thing is just an excellent piece of drama.

And yeah, I teared up at the end when Pete sacrificed himself and then died in Rose's arms. Like I say, I've got father issues.

In terms of dramatic writing, this for me is probably the peak of the season. Of course, the next two days are the peak in terms of Excellence in Creepiness ("Are you my mummy...?"); It's a good week to be a Doctor Who fan with a treadmill and a TV.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Ninth
Companion(s): Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, Pete Tyler
Episode(s): Father's Day
Steps Walked: 7,773 today, 2,595,388 total
Distance Walked: 4.38 miles today, 1,348.32 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 0 today, 371 total
Weight: 250.20 lbs (five day moving average), net change -57.10 lbs