Doctor Who (TV Series) The Doctor's Daughter (2008) User Reviews

Surf verses Turf...

[Xstal · 8/10 · 9 December 2021]

Human and Hath don't get on, no recollection of how this began, perpetually fighting, genetically rewriting, the meaning of life down the pan.

The TARDIS takes control and whisks the Doctor, Donna and the unsuspecting Martha off to Messaline, where two warring subterranean factions are at loggerheads, although neither has a log attached to their heads but one does make use of a futuristic soda stream. After inadvertently spawning a daughter through a clone machine, losing Martha and subsequently breaking out of confinement, there is a good old chase, lots of running, and we find out that Donna is probably a pretty useful Sudoku player. Oh yes, a door is opened to a spin off - which failed to rotate.

Family Business

[A_Kind_Of_CineMagic · 8/10 · 22 March 2019]

This is an interesting episode. Mostly a decent solid episode but not exceptional high quality imo. It is a bit of a filler filler in that respect but with a strange and surprising addition in that the Doctor gets his DNA cloned against his will and used to generate a 'daughter'! This is itself is quite shocking to many viewers and it is made even more challenging for the viewer because the Doctor reacts so badly to it causing Donna to have to step in and question the Doctor's behaviour.

The humans are OK but not overly brilliant. They are effectively the aggressors in this story and the alien Hath are quite cute in a weird way and attracted my sympathy. The cloning idea and the revelation of what everything has been about are pretty strange and inventive but not necessarily fully convincing.

It is well documented but still amusing that Georgia Moffett who plays Jenny the cloned "daughter" of the Doctor is the real life daughter of 5th Doctor Peter Davison and went on to marry David Tennant therefore becoming both the daughter of the Doctor and the wife of the Doctor!

Some fans obsess over Jenny and want her to return but I find it better as a one off idea for an standalone adventure.

Jenny coming back to life -

One of the things that bugs me is everyone was left with the wrong impression that Jenny regenerated when she didn't.

She was brought back to life by the machine that brought life back to the planet. Like the Genesis thing that resurrects Spock in Star Trek III.

It was obviously not made clear enough in the episode because almost everyone thinks she regenerated.

The clues are: The Doctor said in the episode she can't regenerate.

She wakes up as herself without changing bodies.

It happens after the machine reboots the planet with the life bringing energy going into her and the same gas that terraformed the planet is shown coming from Jenny.

Fans think she is a full on Timelord that regenerates but that wasn't supposed to be the case.

RTD era, unlike Chibnall era, was good at "show don't tell" - telling us stories without spelling stuff out in dialogue. The only problem with that is if it isn't done clearly enough people misinterpret it.

If you want to have your own head canon that is up to you but if you check TARDIS wiki online (screenshot is in comments section below) you will see it confirms she didn't regenerate.

Georgia is good in this and Tennant, Agyeman and Tate are as brilliant as ever.

Another thing that bugs me is that the plot reveal of the war only lasting a short time with generstions of clones thinking many years have passed doesn't quite fully ring true for me.

A pretty good episode but not a particular favourite for my personal taste. Series 4 has no failures at all in my opinion so this just feels a little overshadowed for me by the fantastic stuff in the series around it.

My Rating: 7.5/10.

Time Lady

[MrFilmAndTelevisionShow · 9/10 · 2 April 2021]

This episode is great, it's IMDb score doesn't do it justice, underated one might say (and I do). I think this episode is one of the more unique episodes of the four seasons of Doctor Who so far, I don't recognise the Hath but it's refreshing to see an alien species that isn't either self-righteously "better" than humanity or simply plain evil. This was a stunner of an episode. Must watch.

The Two Companions! Plus this story is seriously underrated...

[wetmars · 10/10 · 28 August 2020]

Just after finally defeating the Sontarans on modern-day Earth, the Doctor's TARDIS takes the Tenth Doctor, Donna Noble and Martha Jones on an unexpected trip to the planet Messaline. Arriving right in the middle of a war between humans and Hath, the Doctor meets someone he thought he never would: his daughter. Can the Doctor accept this clone as his offspring, and can he stop the war before it all ends in massacre on both sides?

This episode was spectacular, too bad it's very underrated. It's funny, entertaining, had a great new move throughout 45 minutes, also had a very great Dark Doctor moment, the music there is just fantastic, I liked the gargling monsters, Donna had great moments of being a genius, we got Martha being sort of a bad-ass, just absolutely fantastic.

10/10, sorry if this review isn't long like the others, I was busy traveling and took me hours to get home.

Average episode with strong performances from Tennant and Tate

[DVD_Connoisseur · 8/10 · 11 May 2008]

"The Doctor's Daughter" is a fast paced episode with the title explained within minutes of the titles rolling.

The Doctor's daughter is played by the wonderful Georgia Moffett. Moffett's natural beauty is hardly surprising given that her parents are Peter Davison and Sandra Dickinson. She gives a great performance here and delivers her lines with zeal.

My only reservation about the episode is the level of emotional porn that is shoe-horned into the 45 minutes. Even Spielberg would blush at the audience manipulation present here. Still, despite this criticism, I cried like a baby in this tale so the makers are doing something right.

8 out of 10. The eagle eyed will recognise one of the locations out of Torchwood's "Captain Jack Harkness" episode.

"She came from me."

[farleyflavors10 · 6/10 · 29 May 2008]

Hmmmmm... Oh Well There's always gotta be one lackluster per series. well unless something worse comes along (which ain't too likely, thank god) this would have to be the black sheep of the series four.

Now just for assurance there is a lot of positives about this ep. I'm not saying it was terrible, but there were a series of negatives which bogged the story down. The things I liked about this ep are as follows...

-The dialogue is top notch. Noticeably, dialogue is one of Stephen Greenhorn's strong suites. They were definitely one of the stronger elements of his previous entry "The Lazarus Experiment" which helped to compensate for a traditional storyline. -Donna beautifully acts as the bridge between The Doctor and Jenny and lends a lot to The Doctor's progression throughout the story. Plus we get to see a whole new side to her cleverness with the way she was able to sort out the numbers. -It's refreshing to see how far Martha has come as a companion that she was able to trek the dangerous terrain and see past the Hath potentially being a danger. -The Hath were a remarkable creation, and it's impressive how they were able to express so much without really saying a thing, and I was saddened with the demise of the Hath that accompanied Martha. -The twist with the war being only seven days long was actually quite unexpected, clever, and it's resolution was immensely satisfying and poignant. I love that The Doctor strives for life to be the ultimate solution. -Georgia Moffett is definitely Peter Davison's Daughter and her performance is very solid and layered just right to the point that I was able to watch her and not think "Eye Candy." I did like that by the end she practically could be The Doctor's Daughter but...

There were key things which really brought the ep down.

Firstly, and most importantly the whole essence of the story the very thing which intrigued us to watch it, was a total and complete cop-out. Frankly it's exceptionally weak to insinuate that you're going to tackle a controversial topic and then roundabout it by taking an invariably hackneyed route. Why waste our time thinking that we may actually meet someone who might shed some light about The Doctor's past and even what happened during The Time War, and then all you do is take the road often traveled? It gives me the vibe that they are intimidated by the hardcore fans and their inevitable backlash. They live to complain, it's inevitable, live with it. It didn't stop Marc Platt when he wrote "Lungbarrow."

Let's face it the new series is generating new canon every week which means that anything that happens in word or action in the series now is indisputably a part of the series history. The Production team have it at their fingertips to create new aspects of the title character's back story, they can even change things that we thought were true through clever writing and outlining. Are they intimidated of taking advantage of such a power? Are they afraid of alienating their core audience? Well I don't know about the rest but I have absolutely no problem breaking taboos to learn more about my favorite character. So, to tease us with the real deal and then just give us a clone right out of the gate is a cowardly gesture, and it basically ruined the spontaneity of the story.

My point is if they were going to go the cop out route with the whole cloning thing they could have made up for it by taking the story other places. It's not like there weren't other avenues they could have pursued with the story. But since they didn't want to stop and think about the other possibilities the story suffered greatly. Hell, if they wanted the cloning thing to work they never should have even hinted that there was going to be a daughter involved, they could have given it a title that may hint at it like "Offspring" or "A Part of Me." either way just something to make us accept that they are going the cloning route, surprise us when they do, and not actually say that she is The Doctor's bona fide daughter.

In conclusion I just wanna say this RTD and crew "Dont be afraid to be controversial, especially if it makes for a great story." After all it worked for "Dogma," "Jesus Christ Superstar," and it definitely seemed to work for "Lungbarrow"

A reasonable episode with a truly great David Tennant performance

[ametaphysicalshark · 10 May 2008]

One of the criticisms leveled at David Tennant is that he is a lightweight actor when compared to Christopher Eccleston. If "The Doctor's Daughter" isn't a concrete argument against this, what is? This episode features some of the finest dramatic acting from an actor portraying the Doctor in all the 45 years of Who. Tennant perfectly channels the Doctor's frustration and sadness with the aftermath of the Time War and with violence in general and again we get a mention of the fact that he 'once had a daughter'. He mentions that all that is gone now, so I'm assuming Susan is dead.

This was definitely not a perfect episode and I definitely got sick of the overblown emotional set-pieces, which, outside of Tennant's acting, were just all-around horrendous, especially when it came to Murray Gold's complete and utter lack of subtlety when composing. Gold annoys me because he has good knowledge of music but he is an awful, predictable composer who has only got it right once or twice over four years of composing for Who.

So, the mysterious Doctor's Daughter turned out to be some clone thing, eh? Actually, I thought this aspect was executed well because by the end I actually liked her character a lot and she was well played by Georgia Moffet (who, let's admit it, isn't exactly hard on the eyes). The rest of the story was a pretty average plot that allowed the (medicore) Stephen Greenhorn to load on more and more overbearing 'emotional' dialogue.

This was not a bad episode. I liked quite a lot of it, but the ending was just cheesy (apparently suggested by Steven Moffat, which is easily the worst thing he's done for Who). It's not that I wanted her to die, it's that the whole ending could have been written for her to survive rather than this lame death/revival thing.

6/10

What? What? What...? What? What?!

[Chalice_Of_Evil · 8/10 · 10 August 2008]

We begin with the TARDIS taking The Doctor, Martha and Donna to the planet Messaline (The Doctor's still carrying around that old severed hand of his, by the way).

The Doctor: "I don't know where we're going, but my old hand's very excited about it!"

Apparently, all you need is a "progenation machine", The Doctor to shove his hand into it (so you can take a DNA sample) and - hey presto! - you get a full-grown blonde woman, wearing a green army shirt and black leather pants, who's born to fight, to use weapons and karate chop (better than what you'd get from sticking a quarter in a vending machine, I guess). She's a soldier, she's a "generated anomaly", she's JENNY! Oh, and she just happens to be The Doctor's "daughter" as well. What it boils down to is that, whilst she shares certain traits with her biological father, the two of them don't quite see eye to eye on the subject of fighting/war. The Doctor is initially dismissive of her...

The Doctor: "Just because I share some physiological traits with simian primates doesn't make me a monkey's uncle does it?"

Jenny: "I'm not a monkey!"

However, she manages to - on more than one occasion - render The Doctor speechless. Despite himself, he becomes quite fond of her (proclaiming her "brilliant" at one point - which is always the way with the women he meets who manage to impress him). Her most impressive feat during the episode involves her back-flipping through a corridor of laser beams (which puts Catherine Zeta Jones' laser scene in Entrapment to shame). When she's informed about what The Doctor does (travelling through time and space, saving worlds, rescuing civilisations, defeating terrible creatures and "an outrageous amount of running"), she becomes intrigued.

Jenny: "Time to run again? Love the running, yeah?"

There's also something going on involving the human soldiers and fish heads fighting over some breath thing called "the Source".

The Doctor: "Ooh, the Source! What's that then; what's the Source? I like a Source. What is it?"

Before The Doctor and Jenny can make with the family bonding, she dies protecting him. Thankfully, Jenny breaths a cloud of green gas and is revived at the end, then sets off in a shuttle to follow in her father's footsteps.

Jenny: "I've got the whole universe. Planets to save, civilisations to rescue, creatures to defeat and an awful lot of running to do."

This is the first episode from Season 4 of Doctor Who that I've actually enjoyed. Excluding 'Voyage of the Damned', I have been pretty underwhelmed thus far. In Season 3, I was still getting over Rose being replaced, so I had my reservations about Martha Jones. Wouldn't you know it - just as I'd started to warm to her character, she was replaced with the much more irritating Donna Noble at the start of Season 4. It's because of Donna that I haven't really enjoyed this season much. However, 'The Doctor's Daughter' changed things. Not only was Donna slightly more bearable, but she and Martha actually got to prove how useful they're capable of being. Donna (with her working out what the numbers meant) and Martha (with her managing to understand a bunch of fish heads whose speech was limited to speaking in bubbles). I felt both characters each got a fair amount of screen time and their own individual moments to shine.

Martha showed that she's a natural at her profession by tending to an injured fish head, then promptly befriending it (I loved the part where she was smiling as the other fish heads patted her). It might've been cheesy, it might've been eye-roll-worthy, but the scene involving the demise of Martha's self-sacrificing fish head friend really showed off Freema Agyeman's acting ability (*sniff* poor fish head). It's a shame, really, that this also happened to be the episode in which her character said goodbye to The Doctor (again). I'd really started to like both her character and her interaction/dynamic with The Doctor. Oh well, I guess she's got that fiancé to get back to. Better than the alternative (ending up stuck in another dimension), I suppose. At least she got this good line:

Martha: (to The Doctor) "All those things you've been ready to die for, I thought for a moment you'd finally found something worth living for."

Watching David Tennant and Georgia Moffett interact as father and daughter was a treat. He really gave it his all in her death scene, and so did she. Georgia was instantly likable as Jenny, from the first moment she stepped out of that machine - that smile on her face - and greeted The Doctor with, "Hello, dad.". I'm thankful that Steven Moffat convinced Russell T. Davies to let her live. I look forward to future adventures with The Doctor's daughter.

Georgia on my mind.

[southdavid · 6/10 · 17 January 2022]

My recollection of Season four is that it has a passible, if uninspired start, but the back half is much, much improved. Unfortunately, for me, that improvement hasn't yet started with "The Doctor's Daughter" an episode that's far more notable for the off-screen events, than for anything on it.

With two companions on board, the Tardis decides to lead an adventure of its own and transports the Doctor (David Tennant), Donna (Catherine Tate) and Martha (Freema Agyeman) to the planet Messaline, where a war between the humans and the fish like Hath has raged for generations. Before they're appraised of what's going on though, the Doctor is placed into a biological sampler and a new soldier, Jenny (Georgia Tennant) is cloned from him. The Doctor takes an instant dislike Jenny due to her militaristic imprint, but also as he reminds her of a family lost long ago.

As I say, this one is more notable for the meeting of David Tennant with his future wife, Georgia Moffett. The title of the episode is an in-joke itself, for those who knew that Moffett is the daughter of former Doctor, Peter Davison. She closely resembles her mother throughout this episode, the American actress Sandra Dickinson, who has an iconic British science fiction role of her own, that of Trillian in "The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy". Whilst she's charming in this, Jenny isn't particularly interesting and I'm not disappointed about the fact the character hasn't really been mentioned again since, not in the main show, anyway.

There are some clever ideas in this episode. The idea of a cloned army and imprinted memories giving a false narrative about the war they are fighting, a reminder that the Doctor once had an actual family. . . But I can't help but feel that everything about this episode is contrived around the idea of casting that specific actress to play that specific role, and the story being retrofitted around that, even down to the "Wrath of Kahn" ending.

Like all of this season so far, fine, if unremarkable.

Daddy (and plot) issues

[dkiliane · 8/10 · 3 March 2019]

While the headline seems a bit negative I actually enjoyed this episode quite a bit. It was fast paced and exciting, but maybe a little too much. It felt like it was trying to be just a little too epic. Some of the acting, the speeches, etc felt a tad too grandiose for what really amounted to a quick run through some corridors.

The twist, that they have been at war for only a week (but through several generations via the cloning process) while intriguing, has some holes. How some are years older than others doesn't really make sense and one would think there would be easy access to the ships data banks but whatever.

But for the most part the fast paced excitement is entertaining enough to not worry about it, and Jenny, the Doctor's "daughter," is a delight. Donna too shines as she always does, with her sarcastic humor, heart, and compassion. And we got to see Martha Jones do some doctor stuff :)

This honestly felt like it needed to be a bit more fleshed out to achieve the epicness it was going for (a two-parter perhaps?) but still a highly entertaining romp nonetheless. 8.5/10

"Hello, Dad!"

[identitystaysamystery · 6/10 · 26 September 2012]

Of course the Doctor's daughter is something everyone looked forward to! I mean it's his daughter!!!!! But, this episode was slightly disappointing. The acting was so-so, and the plot was very fast paced! So it did keep my attention. But for some reason the episode didn't give me everything I wanted. You sort of know how it's gonna end at the beginning, but don't jump to conclusions! There are a few twists in the story to keep things interesting. But somehow this story fell a little flat. Maybe it was the way the writers tried to bring the daughter in so quickly and not really give us any reason to like her. Or perhaps the ending that makes you think: "wait...what? so....what?" Or maybe it's just creepy if you know that Tennant and the Dr's daughter are real life husband and wife. Or were at some time. Anyway, high hopes for next week, when it comes to story!

Most of you missed the point

[rremmele · 10/10 · 7 June 2008]

Many of you didn't like the idea of the daughter coming back to life in the way that she did. Some didn't like the green gas coming from the mouth. The green gas regeneration was taken from an older episode of the old Dr. Who where the green gas escaped from the regenerated doctor. It was mentioned at the end that even though she was like the doctor, she wasn't close enough. Some of you were disappointed that the episode showed that she wasn't like the doctor, "just a human with two hearts". How could you think that. The regeneration showed that she was like the doctor in that she regenerated. It's true that she didn't look different, but that was a ploy in the old series to change actors. Having her regenerate also allows for a spin off, which I hope happens because I just learned that this will be the last season for Doctor Who.

Not as good as it should have been

[balkaster · 7/10 · 12 May 2008]

A decent enough ep, even if it was marred by Beeb hype implying that this story would explain the Doctor's professed former parenthood; it didn't, and we still don't know how many children he had, who their mother (or mothers) was (or were) or where Susan Foreman fits into this still untold story. The denouement offers some interesting potential for future stories, but the episode's main plot is unfortunately blown to shreds by a major gap in logic.

Given the true time-frame of the war as deduced by the Doctor and Donna, Cobb (who appeared to be in his 60s) would have to have been part of the original crew, unless the clones age rapidly and die within two or three days (the "20 generations a week" dialog only implies that many many clones are created to replace the fallen, and does not necessarily mean that a clone's lifespan is so short that 20 generations live and die of natural causes within a week). SO WHY DIDN'T HE REMEMBER WHAT THE SOURCE REALLY WAS? Did he receive an amnesia-inducing head trauma in battle? And if a clone's lifespan is really so uselessly short, what does that say about the chances of Jenny living long enough to appear again. As someone else said, there was a lot of potentially interesting stuff here, ruined by cramming it into a 45 minute runtime. I would rather the lackluster Sontaran story had been compressed to a single ep, and this story given the two-parter treatment. Maybe they could have come up with a better solution to the mystery of the Source.

Fair episode at best, rushed through

[unsolicited-2 · 4/10 · 7 June 2008]

I found this episode to be deeply disappointing. Poor character and story line development, coupled with the actors barely above phoning it in.

The story was far too rushed. Grab them up, generate a daughter, get Martha kidnapped, and we're not even 5 minutes into the story. Martha's attachment to the alien was never really developed, they just started hanging out together and she went over the top when it was killed. Jenny's ease at giving up being a soldier was too quick.

The "20 generations in a week" concept was interesting, but the grizzled old general either should have known what the real story was (he didn't), or they're positing a 5 day or less life span for the generated colonists.

The back flips through the detonation beams section was silly. It was stupid in Britney Spears' "Toxic" video, and was ludicrous here.

At the end of the day, it looked like they didn't have enough script (or inclination) to make this a two-parter, and tried to jam 1.5 episodes into 1. I seriously hope this is the low point of the season. Any lower would start a trend to "watch it when I have nothing better", rather than a "make time for" show.

So it's not just me.

[hgwsavage · 17 January 2020]

I always thought of this as a good episode I dislike, but a quick skim of the reviews say this is bad for other people to. While there's nothing wrong with it, it's just the worst in the season, competing with the unicorn and the wasp (but even that's least good).

Probably just the emthesis on the woman being his daughter, when she's more of a clone based on his DNA.

Also the ending was weird. Like a week old war is cool but the explanation was confusing.

A Surprisingly Emotional Episode

[hwiltshire-06889 · 8/10 · 4 April 2024]

The Doctor's Daughter is a surprisingly heartfelt story that explores themes of family, identity, and the moral ambiguities of war. It's a fast-paced adventure with a focus on character dynamics, earning a solid 8 out of 10.

The introduction of Jenny, the Doctor's genetically-engineered 'daughter', is a brilliant concept. She's instantly likable - a fierce warrior with her father's spark. Her dynamic with David Tennant's Doctor is a joy, filled with warmth, confusion, and the occasional bit of bickering.

The episode's conflict centers on a land dispute between humans and the Hath, fish-like humanoids with striking visual design. The episode does a decent job showing both sides of the conflict, avoiding a simplistic 'good vs. Evil' setup.

Where the episode shines is in its emotional beats. The Doctor's struggle to reconcile his pacifist beliefs with Jenny's soldier mentality is poignant. The resolution offers a bittersweet ending that emphasizes the tragedy of war and showcases the Doctor's capacity for difficult decisions.

While it's generally strong, The Doctor's Daughter isn't without flaws. The pacing feels rushed at times, and some of the science gets a bit hand-wavey for the sake of the plot. Yet, these are minor hiccups in an episode that shines because of its emotional core.

This episode is a treat for fans of the Tenth Doctor era. It delivers a fun adventure, asks interesting questions, and leaves a lasting impact thanks to the delightful introduction of Jenny and a surprisingly poignant ending.

But when they died, that part of me died with them.

[Doctor_Aka · 9/10 · 7 January 2023]

This episode alone made Tennant's doctor absolutely one of my favorite characters ever.

The amount of relatability that I have toward him with his conversation about his daughter, and the part of him that died when she died absolutely brought a tear to my eye.

I do have to say the emotional scene during the ending unfortunately got dragged down a bit when she came back to alive, but it was to be expected.

Nonetheless, I have to say this is a great episode of Who which I am glad, when first walking into it I was under the assumption it'd be very bad as it got downplayed a lot, but I have to say It's a bit underrated!

Cue another spin-off?

[Malcius · 7/10 · 12 May 2008]

In response to a previous comment, I thought Jenny's revival was ambiguous, rather than being definitely down to the gases or down to re-generation. The gases we saw come out of her mouth were rather reminiscent of those we saw come from David Tennant's Doctor when his re-generation was faltering. It might be that the gases, in triggering evolution on the planet, managed to trigger Jenny's body into becoming full Gallifreyan. Maybe we'll find out in a later episode. I personally see no problem with any of these possibilities, even if the Terraforming gases as corpse re-generator concept has been done by Star Trek.

As for the episode being anti-war, it reminds us and the Doctor that despite his avowed pacifism, he is not (or has not always been) so very different from the soldiers himself.

All in all I thought this was quite a good episode although Jenny was a bit too bubbly and chirpy for credibility, given the circumstances. I wonder if another children's TV spin-off is in the cards.

A solid 7.

Worth the watch

[warlordartos · 6/10 · 13 March 2021]

All worth it to see The Doctor on the edge with a gun in hand at the end, something I think we have all been waiting to see

A Misnomer

[Theo Robertson · 5/10 · 29 September 2008]

This was an episode all the fans were eagerly anticipating in 2008 . With a title like The Doctor's Daughter it's a episode heading that leaps up and grabs you . The BBC hype machine also went in to overdrive showing us a clip where Jenny the daughter in question sees the Doctor for the first time and comments " Hello dad " . However early in to the episode it's revealed that Jenny isn't the doctor's daughter . No don't get me wrong Mrs Who hasn't been scoring away from home . The " daughter " is in fact a sort of genetic code thing made by a machine that has the doctor's DNA or something like that

So once we've dispensed with a small piece of cheating that leaves the audience rather disappointed what is there left to the episode ? Not much to be honest . The plot is rather thread bare , one of those two sides fighting a war that could have come from THE TERMINATOR , STAR TREK , BLAKES 7 or any other sci-fi story that comes easily to mind . As for Jenny herself I suppose Georgia Moffett does her best but she's one of those action heroine types that only seem to exist in video games or tampon commercials and is difficult to think of her as any type of real character

A word too on David Tennant . He's certainly better here than a great number of stories he's appeared in . Unfortunately as hard as he tries he seems to be swimming against the tide . A story like this needs gravitas , indigence and belligerence from the lead role and Tennant's pretty boy looks get in the way . Eccleston's angry northerner would have brought a great deal to the story and when you're watching a tenth doctor story wishing that the ninth doctor was still around that can only be something of a failure for the narrative

Bit of a bore really....

[dagget_says_hi · 4/10 · 13 August 2008]

OK, I love Doctor Who as much as the next person. But I have to admit, this was one of the most boring episodes I've ever watched. The Hath seemed to be a really odd and kind of pointless species, Martha's presence in the episode was totally unnecessary, Catherine Tate (Donna Noble) seems to get worse with each episode and The Doctor having a daughter seemed like a cheap way of creating another Time Lord.

And what was with the story? A war raging on, that really isn't a war raging on, but everyone is saying that the war is raging on and they must fight because the war is raging on? Yeah, great stuff. I may have been the only one who disliked the episode, so it's just my opinion.

There were only two things good about this episode, the performance given by David Tennant, and that the episode eventually ended.

4/10 for me, a really disappointing effort in my opinion.

A Doctor's daughter plays the Doctor's daughter......

[Sleepin_Dragon · 4/10 · 24 August 2015]

This is such a lacklustre episode, it could have been so good.

The Doctor, Donna and Martha land on Messaline, when they leave the TARDIS a guard randomly puts the Doctor's hand into machinery, which creates his daughter Jenny. We discover a battle between humans and the Hath. Martha is kidnapped but helps a Hath, the Doctor meets leader General Cobb, he explains the planet's history.

Why did the guards stick his hand in that device? It made zero sense.

I love how Peter Davison's daughter Georgia Moffett played Jenny, it's a great twist of fate.

It doesn't really work, it's flat on so many levels, the script is so random, it feels heavily rushed. I applaud Moffett's performance, she was very good, great performance. I can't decide if I like the hath or not, or the cloning machine.

It is however strangely engaging on an emotional level. Tennant is quite tetchy, it's Donna driving the story once again, and also being the clever and observant one.

Poor Martha seems sadly plonked in this story and her presence is rather pointless, she spends so little time with the Doctor, it's almost demeaning. For a girl that's walked across the whole planet she's looking rather clumsy. Her Hath is so cuddly.

The ending doesn't really do it for me, there's not enough of an emotional connection for it to work, had it been Martha, maybe so.

It's like the TARDIS has landed on site of a dodgy 90's Sega game.

The Doctor's Daughter

[studioAT · 5/10 · 7 September 2021]

This episode had the potential to be fantastic, but tries to cover so many things that many get rushed through.

It's a shame, because having the Doctor's 'daughter' should have been amazing (though the ending is still pretty good), as should having a former companion (Martha - badly used here) and Donna along for the ride, but it all gets a bit messy.

The title got bums on seats for the original broadcast though I'm sure.