Who Reviews The Doctor's Daughter by SF Cambridge

 

Starring David Tennant as The Doctor, Catherine Tate as Donna Noble. 
Georgia Moffett as Jenny & Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones.

 

The Doctor: “Why did the TARDIS bring us here?”

Martha: “Oh, I love this bit.”

Donna: “I thought you wanted to go home.”

Martha: “I know. But, all the same. It’s that feeling you get.”

Donna: “Like you swallowed a hamster” 

After reuniting with Martha, The Doctor and Donna take an unexpected trip to a planet called Messaline, arriving right in the middle of a war between humans and an alien species of fish men known as the Hath. They land totally unprepared for what awaits them outside the TARDIS doors and even though Martha initially complained when the TARDIS took flight that she didn’t want to travel with The Doctor anymore, she was as excited as ever when they landed knowing that an adventure waited for her. 

They are met by armed men who order them to drop their weapons and they raise their hands to show they are unarmed. A man obviously in charge, an older looking general called Cline, orders the other two soldiers to force The Doctor’s hand at gunpoint into a machine nearby; The Doctor is confused, until he realises as he yelps in pain, that the machine is taking a sample of his tissue which is then transferred into a cabinet next to him, reproducing his biology to form another being, one he later finds out will become a soldier to be used to help fight the already raging war. As the door to the cabinet opens, a girl steps out and is handed a gun by Cline and she already knows how to use it. 

The Doctor: “Something tells me this isn’t about to check my blood pressure”

Martha: “Where did she come from?”

The Doctor: “From me”.

Donna: “From you? How? Who is she?”

The Doctor: “Well she’s… well. She’s my daughter”

The girl: “Hello Dad”

The Hath suddenly appear and gun shots are heard as there is an explosion which causes a blockage between The Doctor, Donna and the girl and Martha who is thrown clear but is knocked out. The others learn they have to go the long way round the battle zone to find her assuming the soldiers are right about the Hath and that they are the enemy and now think Martha is in danger, but in the meantime as she comes to, she manages to communicate with the Hath and helps one of their injured soldiers with a dislocated shoulder. The Hath then helps her to find The Doctor, taking her on a route outside the camp onto the planet surface itself where he sacrifices himself to save her in a distressing scene that leaves Martha distraught. 

Throughout the episode, we learn that all the soldiers who were created with the extrapolated flesh from a host, have a built-in memory of the war and are born ready to fight, just as the girl was who Donna has decided to call Jenny after The Doctor referred to her as a generated anomaly. It seems that not only do they all know how to fight, but that the war between them must be won and that the planet they are on is dying because they have been fighting for so long. 

The humans base camp is inside an old theatre and very reminiscent of the war on Earth in the 1940’s. 

As they go on their search for the truth and for Martha, Donna discovers that the war which has supposedly been raging for generations, is really only a week old and the soldiers have been confused when their ship crashed in their search for “The source” which they assume is a weapon they can use to finally destroy the Hath with. The Doctor concludes that although Cline is their leader, he is warped in his mind and has become very hostile. His reason for existing is to fight, something he installs into the soldiers he creates. The Doctor knows he is dangerous, and forms a plan to find the source before he does. 

Jenny: “What do you mean seven days?”

The Doctor: “Seven days since war broke out.”

Donna: “This war started seven days ago. Just a week.”

Jenny: “A week? They said years”

Donna: “No, they said generations”.

The Doctor: “They’ve mythologized their entire history” 

Initially The Doctor was hostile towards Jenny as he continues to struggle with his past and the loss of his people. They argue about wars and fighting when she insists that he acts like a General himself as he makes plans and form strategies and carries a weapon in the form of his sonic screwdriver but when Donna reveals that Jenny has two hearts just like him and that she could in fact be a Time Lord, he begins to warm to her and even agrees to take her with him to travel with him and Donna. If she is at least part Time Lord, then he knows he has to take care of her and it gives him some comfort knowing that he’ll no longer be the last of his kind. 

Martha finally catches up with them all after a struggle to survive outside on the planet’s harsh atmosphere and after escaping from the ongoing pursuit of the soldiers, they finally discover exactly what the source is, a terraforming agent that was supposed to revive the dying planet and create a better world that the humans and Hath could live in together. 

The Doctor tries to reason with the soldiers and the Hath and tells them they have their whole history wrong, he gives them an explanation of how they can create a better way to live together but Cline who refuses to believe anything The Doctor says, tries to shoot him but Jenny gets in the way and is shot instead and the grieving Doctor leaves the planet thinking she has died……Too many spoilers if you haven’t seen this episode so I’ll leave it there. 

The Doctor: “Jenny, be strong now. You need to hold on, you hear me? We’ve got things to do, you and me. Hey! Hey! We can go anywhere, everywhere. You choose.”

Jenny: “That sounds good.”

The Doctor: “You’re my daughter, and we’ve only just got started. You’re going to be great. You’re going to be more than great. You’re going to be amazing.” 

It has been noted by many Whovians that The Doctor’s daughter is played by the 5th Doctor’s daughter, Georgia Moffett who later went on to marry David Tennant. 

The Doctor: “Jenny was the reason for the TARDIS bringing us here. It just got here too soon. We then created Jenny in the first place. Paradox. An endless paradox”