Father's Day

Dear Gary—

“An ordinary man; that’s the most important thing in creation.” I love the fact that Father’s Day celebrates the ordinary.  In the process, Father’s Day goes a long way in rehabilitating Rose’s character; it humbles and humanizes her.

The episode starts by putting the self-importance of Rose into a commonplace perspective. A little girl who lost her dad before she was old enough to have memories. She has since built up the image of her father in her mind: “the most wonderful man in the world.” Now a young adult, she pleads with the Doctor to take her back to a time when her dad was alive. It’s all about Rose; but it’s relatable.

Her first glimpse into the past starts to knock her idol off his pedestal. A dingy little wedding ceremony with her dad stumbling over his lines. “I thought he’d be taller,” Rose says.

Her next thought is to go back to the day he died so that he won’t be alone at that tragic moment.

“The day my father died,” Rose says as she finds herself on the fateful street. “I thought it’d be all sort of grim and stormy. It’s just an ordinary day.” An ordinary day and an ordinary man.

Slowly her illusions are being shattered.

She stands immobile and watches as the car hits her dad. She cannot act; except she knows a man with a time machine.

“It’s a very bad idea,” the Doctor tells her. But he puts his faith in her; he grants her request; he gives her another chance.

“I did it,” Rose exults after pushing Pete out of the way from the oncoming car. She did it; she really did it; and the Doctor knows exactly what she did.

Echoing Rose, the Doctor says, “I did it again. I picked another stupid ape.” Rose is not the only one to be disillusioned in this episode. At last the scales are falling off the Doctor’s eyes and he is seeing Rose as the imperfect human being that she is.

Rose doesn’t comprehend this immediately. She still thinks she’s the center of the world. “I get it,” she tells the Doctor. “For once, you’re not the most important man in my life.” She’s really rather cold hearted and treats the Doctor similarly to the way she treats Mickey. “I know how sad you are,” she cruelly states, and then she gloats, “You’ll be back in a minute, or you’ll hang around outside the TARDIS waiting for me.” And then as he walks out the door, “And I’ll make you wait a long time!”

It’s an ugly, squalid little spat that brings out the worst in Rose; the Doctor’s stony stare glares a revealing spotlight on the deepest defects of her character. And it is that condemnation that finally brings Rose down to a human level.

Of course the Doctor isn’t going to leave Rose; he is a better person than that; he is not going to strand her out of place and time. Plus there is the whole “wound in time” business that needs sorting out. In the process, the two slowly rebuild their relationship on a more realistic basis.

“Now Rose, you’re not going to bring about the end of the world, are you? Are you?” The Doctor reestablishes a connection through baby Rose. Subsequently he is able to turn to adult Rose, and after a brief but stern dressing down he coaxes an apology out of her.

Doctor: “Just tell me you’re sorry.”

Rose: “I am. I’m sorry.”

Rose at long last has to admit that she is in the wrong. I love it. Not only does she tell the Doctor she is sorry, but she repeatedly takes the rightful blame, culminating in: “This is all my fault. Both of you. All of you. The whole world.” The Doctor is gone and the entire world is in danger of ‘sterilization’ because of her egotistical and selfish desires. And for once she reproaches herself. I love it.

And yet her desires are not totally selfish and egotistical. Yes, she wants to play hero and she wants to meet her idol; she wants, she wants, she wants. But at the heart of it is simply a little girl’s longing for her dead daddy.

The story of Rose and her father plays out in a similar fashion to the deconstruction and reconstruction of the Doctor’s and Rose’s relationship. As her idealized vision of Pete Tyler is brought down to earth, Rose comes to accept this man as the flesh and blood, flawed and imperfect person that he is. A man. An ordinary man. Only with that admission can love, a true love, grow; only with that admission can the father/daughter bond be formed; only with that admission can the final “Peter Alan Tyler, my dad; the most wonderful man in the world” have real meaning.

And it plays out in beautiful fashion. Simply because Pete Tyler is an ordinary man. And “that’s the most important thing in creation.”

Rose triggers the Blinovitch Limitation Effect when she wheedles the Doctor into allowing her to cross her own time stream. The result is larger than life devastation as the Reapers descend to fix the damage that has been done. Amidst this universal carnage the intimate emotional tale unfolds. The elegant tale of an inelegant man.

A man who can’t even remember the full name of his intended. “It’s good enough for Lady Di,” Jackie says, but this man is not Prince Charming.  “He was so clever,” Rose says of her dad; and then her mother tells her, “He’s a failure. Born failure, that one.” The same mother who once upon a time spun castles in the air built around his memory.

“Be careful what you wish for,” the Doctor warned Rose. Her wishes have come true, but they are not what she had imagined. Instead she is confronted with the simple, plain, unvarnished truth that is Peter Alan Tyler. An ordinary man.

Rose weaves an idyllic picture for her father when he asks about the future; an ideal that any little girl would crave.

“That’s not me.” Pete knows better. He knows that he is not the fantasy Rose describes. He is a man. An ordinary man. A flawed and imperfect human being. A disappointment and a failure. “I couldn’t even die properly.”

But he is also a dad.

Pete: “Who am I, love?”

Rose: “My daddy.”

The most important thing in creation; the most wonderful man in the world. An ordinary man.

“I’ve never had a life like that.” The Doctor is extraordinary. An extraordinary show about an extraordinary man with an extraordinary machine; and isn’t it great that for a change the salvation of the world rests with an ordinary man whose heroism lies in his mundane life and death.

There is probably a lot more I could say about Father’s Day. There’s little Mickey, Jackie with big hair, 80’s cell phones, ominous monsters . . . .

But Gary, I’m leaving this one with the ordinary man, “the most important thing in creation.”