10.37: The Doctor’s Daughter

In which a fish drowns, and the writer does his unnerving “There is only one legitimate viewpoint!” act again.

Broadcast: May 2008

Watched: October 2021

“She’s a generated anomaly” - what an awkward line just to get to the name “Jenny”.

My first question is: is Martha in this for contractual reasons? She spends most of narrative apart from the others.

My second question is: did the title come first?

My third is: why does Doctor say she’s his daughter in pre-credits, and then spend rest of the narrative trying to deny it?

Despite that, continuing my experience of finding the less popular episodes better than I remembered (unless I remember them as okay, in which case they’re worse, but then better again next time, and so on)... 

…I rather enjoyed this. I liked it more than most on broadcast, was disappointed on my last rewatch, presumably next time I’ll remember enjoying it and think it’s rubbish again. I think that’s the problem with the episodes that don’t quite work, they’re not generally bad, they’re just not quite as good as they should be.

This one is quite comics-y: it’s almost sort of unfilmable with its fish creatures and being based on a single idea. But it’s a lovely idea, the conceit of the seven day war, a history made up of chinese whispers, and there’s loads of cool iconography: the numbers, the underground theatre, the blocked off windows, the Hath.

I love the idea of the Hath, but pairing one with Freema, who is not the most naturalistic actress ever, is A Decision - I think Piper or Gillan would have made it work, maybe - and it does mean that this will forever be the one in which a fish drowns.

Re the fatherhood bit: Donna keeps pushing this incredibly reductive idea of what constitutes parenthood, and the Doctor argues... but they’re not playing out the debate, he gets utterly crushed by the narrative. This is the exact same thing that happens to Professor Lazarus in Greenhorn’s previous episode.

The big problem, though, is that Jenny isn’t actually that interesting. We care neither that she dies, nor that she comes back to life, and the Doctor’s “I NEVER WOULD!” is a load of self-justifying bullsh*t, because it’s literally an episode after he tricked someone into sacrificing himself to destroy an entire army.

Mind you: since this isn’t the first time this season he’s been told he’s a soldier, or the first he sets himself up as a god, come to that, perhaps this is deliberate.

Only other thoughts:

• Funny how Jenny is born wearing eye makeup. 

• Donna is not allowed to use womanly wiles, it’s played as a joke. RTD being shitty about women over 35 again.

• It is really messed up thinking about how the Doctor and the Doctor’s daughter are now married. We’ve since learned that the latter is incredibly cool and charismatic in a way that really doesn’t come across from this script.

• That’s it. Not the nadir its reputation suggests but pretty thin.