Modern Series Episode 50:
The Doctor's Daughter
The TARDIS is drawn to the planet Messaline, where a war between human
colonists and the piscine Hath has been waging for generations. Martha
is kidnapped by the Hath, while the Doctor and Donna discover that the
humans breed by accelerated progenation: a single individual's DNA is
recombined to produce an adult ready for battle. Subjected to this
process, the Doctor abruptly comes face to face with his daughter. As he
struggles to relate to the girl, whom Donna names Jenny, they discover a
series of hidden tunnels beneath Messaline. Soon, the time travellers
start to realise that there is more to the war than meets the eye.
Stephen Greenhorn had written The Lazarus
Experiment for Doctor Who's twenty-ninth season, and
executive producer Russell T Davies was eager to invite him back the
following year. While developing his preliminary ideas for Season
Thirty in early 2007, Davies read an interview that Greenhorn had given
to Doctor Who Magazine, in which he discussed the unchanging
nature of the Doctor as a character. Davies decided to assign Greenhorn
a narrative which would challenge this very notion, by pairing the
Doctor with a character who would be his genetic offspring. However,
unlike Susan -- the Doctor's granddaughter who had accompanied him
during Doctor Who's first ten serials in 1963 and 1964 -- this
new character would initially be conditioned with attitudes very much at
odds with the Doctor's. As such, the episode would complement the
preceding story -- eventually The Sontaran
Stratagem / The Poison Sky -- which would explore the
sometimes uneasy relationship between the Doctor and the Unified
Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT).
Greenhorn began working on the script -- eventually given the title
The Doctor's Daughter -- after meeting with Davies on March 13th.
In addition to the Time Lord's newly-created progeny, Davies indicated
that former companion Martha Jones should appear. Martha would
inadvertently rejoin the Doctor in The Sontaran
Stratagem / The Poison Sky, but the events of The
Doctor's Daughter would prompt her to decide against further travels
in the TARDIS. Other elements -- including the underground war and the
Hath's mode of communication via bubbling liquid -- were also suggested
by Davies.
Jenny was meant to die at the end of the story, until
Steven Moffat suggested that this denouement was too obvious
One of the first set pieces conceived for The Doctor's Daughter
was Jenny's acrobatic tumble between the laser beams; it was inspired by
the 2004 music video for Britney Spears' Toxic. Other aspects of
the script evolved considerably during its development, with various
plot points -- such as the war's seven-day span, Donna's investigation
of the mysterious numbers, and the greenhouse venue in which the Source
was located -- added to later drafts. The resolution originally saw
General Cobb taken away for execution, but this was replaced by the
Doctor's threat to shoot Cobb, and his decision against doing so. For a
long time, Jenny was meant to die at the end of the story, until Steven
Moffat -- who was writing Silence In The
Library / Forest Of The Dead for later in the season --
suggested that this denouement was too obvious. Instead, an epilogue was
developed in which Jenny revived and headed off to new adventures.
The Hath initially fought humanoids called the Takrans, but the
pronunciation of the name was found to be ambiguous, and Davies
eventually decided that it was simpler if the Hath's opponents were
simply humans. Even though they communicated by gurgling, Greenhorn
wrote all of the dialogue for the Hath so that the actors under the
masks would have an impression of how their characters should behave.
The two main Hath were named Peck and Gable, after Hollywood icons
Gregory Peck (To Kill A Mockingbird) and Clark Gable (Gone
With The Wind).
The Doctor's Daughter was paired with Midnight as the sixth block of the Season
Thirty production schedule. The director would be Alice Troughton, who
had previously worked on Small
Worlds and Out Of
Time for the first year of Torchwood, plus Revenge Of The Slitheen and
Eye Of The Gorgon for the
inaugural season of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Troughton would
initially focus on Midnight, since it
was being double-banked with Block Seven, which consisted solely of Turn Left.
The critical role of Jenny went to Georgia Moffett who, ironically,
really was the Doctor's daughter. Her father was Peter Moffett; under
his professional name of Peter Davison, he had played the Fifth Doctor.
Indeed, Davison himself was given the privilege of informing Moffett
that she was to appear in Doctor Who, having learned of the
casting decision while making the charity mini-episode Time Crash on October 7th. Moffett's
involvement in The Doctor's Daughter was not a stunt: she was an
experienced actress in her own right, with credits on programmes such as
Peak Practice, The Bill and Where The Heart Is. She
had also appeared alongside her father in the 2000 Doctor Who
audio play Red Dawn from Big Finish Productions. Despite her
heritage, Moffett had not been particularly interested in Doctor
Who until her young son, Ty, became an avid devotee with the series'
2005 revival. Now a Doctor Who fan herself, Moffett had attracted
the attention of the production team some months earlier, when she
auditioned for the role of Robina Redmond in The
Unicorn And The Wasp.
On December 11th, executive producer Julie Gardner's
forthcoming departure was announced
Work on The Doctor's Daughter began on December 11th, the same
day that Troughton taped the last material for Midnight. The venue was Doctor Who's
regular studio facilities in Upper Boat, where the TARDIS material and
the closing sequence of Jenny leaving Messaline were recorded. This was
also the day that the BBC announced the forthcoming departure of Julie
Gardner, who was stepping down as both the executive producer of
Doctor Who and the Head of Drama for BBC Wales as of January
2009. She would be replaced in both roles by Piers Wenger, although she
would maintain her involvement with Doctor Who until the last of
the specials planned for 2009. Wenger had formally accepted the job on
December 7th.
On December 12th, the scenes of Martha and Hath Peck on the surface of
Messaline were filmed at the open cast colliery in Cefn Cribwr. All of
the action at the Hath encampment was then scheduled to be recorded on
the 13th, in the Marble Room at Cardiff City Hall. Unfortunately, the
location was being picketed due to a controversy over school closures,
causing Troughton's team to lose several hours, and forcing the
postponement of a number of shots. The next location was the Celynen
Colliers Institute and Memorial Hall in Newbridge, which offered space
suitable for the human encampment. Work there began on December 14th and
continued after the weekend, from the 17th to the 19th. Part of the 18th
was also spent on the Hath encampment material which Troughton had been
unable to record at Cardiff City Hall. The latter part of December 19th
and all of the 20th took the cast and crew to the Dupont Building in
Pontypool's Mamhilad Industrial Park, for sequences in the spaceship
corridor. The final day of work on Doctor Who before the
Christmas break was December 21st, when the greenhouse containing the
Source was actually Plantasia in Swansea.
2008 was a week old by the time the cameras again rolled on The
Doctor's Daughter. On January 7th, the tunnel where the Doctor
located the secret panel was part of the Lewis Merthyr Colliery, in the
Rhondda Heritage Park at Trehafod. Troughton's team then returned to the
Mamhilad Industrial Park on the 8th and 9th, albeit now at the Johnsey
Estates, for the material in the tunnel where Jenny disabled the laser
beams. The sequences in the area where the TARDIS materialised were
filmed on January 10th and 11th at the Barry Shooting Range, a disused
railway tunnel in Barry. The last major scene on Troughton's agenda was
Martha's return home, which was taped at Mark Street in Cardiff on
January 18th. The same day, greenhouse inserts were captured at Roath
Conservatory in Cardiff. Lastly, a pick-up shot of the toy mouse
exploding was filmed at Upper Boat on the 24th.
During the early part of Season Thirty, Davies was vocally dissatisfied
with the early timeslot accorded to Doctor Who. The Doctor's
Daughter finally saw a later start, at 6.45pm, by virtue of
Outtake TV's addition to the schedule earlier in the evening.
Meanwhile, it transpired that the production of The Doctor's
Daughter had seen an attraction develop between Moffett and David
Tennant. The series star had recently concluded a two-year romance with
Sophia Myles, who had played Madame de Pompadour in The Girl In The Fireplace, and he had
formed a good relationship with Moffett's son, Ty, during his visits to
the set. The pair began dating soon after finishing work on The
Doctor's Daughter; they would marry on December 30th, 2011, with
Tennant becoming Ty's adoptive father.
- Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #20, 19th November 2008,
“Episode 6: The Doctor's Daughter” by Andrew Pixley, Panini
Publishing Ltd.
- Doctor Who: The Complete History #58, 2018, “Story 193:
The Doctor's Daughter”, edited by Mark Wright, Hachette Partworks
Ltd.
- Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale by Russell T Davies and
Benjamin Cook (2008), BBC Books, ISBN 978 1 846 07571 1.
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Original Transmission
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Date |
10th May 2008 |
Time |
6.44pm |
Duration |
45'10" |
Viewers (more) |
7.3m (10th) |
Appreciation |
88% |
Cast
The Doctor |
David Tennant (bio) |
Donna Noble |
Catherine Tate (bio) |
Martha Jones |
Freema Agyeman (bio) |
Jenny |
Georgia Moffett |
Cobb |
Nigel Terry |
Cline |
Joe Dempsie |
Hath Peck |
Paul Kasey |
Hath Gable |
Ruari Mears |
Carter |
Akin Gazi |
Soldier |
Olalekan Lawal Jr |
Crew
Written by |
Stephen Greenhorn (bio) |
Directed by |
Alice Troughton (bio) |
|
Produced by |
Phil Collinson |
1st Assistant Director |
Gareth Williams |
2nd Assistant Director |
Jennie Fava |
3rd Assistant Director |
Sarah Davies |
Location Manager |
Gareth Skelding |
Unit Manager |
Rhys Griffiths |
Production Co-ordinator |
Jess van Niekerk |
Production Secretary |
Kevin Myers |
Asst Production Co-ordinator |
Debi Griffiths |
Drivers |
Wayne Humphreys |
Kevin Kearns |
Floor Runner |
Heddi-Joy Taylor |
Contracts Assistant |
Kath Blackman |
Continuity |
Non Eleri Hughes |
Script Editor |
Lindsey Alford |
Camera Operators |
Julian Barber |
Joe Russell |
Focus Pullers |
Steve Rees |
Duncan Fowlie |
Grip |
John Robinson |
Boom Operator |
Jeff Welch |
Gaffer |
Mark Hutchings |
Best Boy |
Peter Chester |
Stunt Co-ordinator |
Crispin Layfield |
Chief Sup Art Director |
Stephen Nicholas |
Art Dept Production Manager |
Jonathan Allison |
Supervising Art Director |
Arwel Wyn Jones |
Associate Designer |
James North |
Art Dept Co-ordinator |
Amy Pope |
Set Decorator |
Tim Dickel |
Props Buyer |
Catherine Samuel |
Standby Art Director |
Ciaran Thompson |
Design Assistant |
Al Roberts |
Storyboard Artist |
Shaun Williams |
Standby Props |
Phill Shellard |
Nick Murray |
Standby Carpenter |
Will Pope |
Standby Painter |
Ellen Woods |
Standby Rigger |
Keith Freeman |
Property Master |
Phil Lyons |
Dressing Chargehand |
Matthew Wild |
Senior Props Maker |
Barry Jones |
Props Maker |
Nick Robatto |
Construction Manager |
Matthew Hywel-Davies |
Scenic Artist |
John Pinkerton |
Graphics |
BBC Wales Graphics |
Costume Supervisor |
Lindsay Bonaccorsi |
Asst Costume Designer |
Rose Goodhart |
Costume Assistants |
Barbara Harrington |
Louise Martin |
Make-up Artists |
Pam Mullins |
Steve Smith |
John Munro |
Casting Associate |
Andy Brierley |
VFX Editor |
Ceres Doyle |
Assistant Editor |
Carmen Roberts |
Post Production Supervisors |
Samantha Hall |
Chris Blatchford |
Post Prod Co-ordinator |
Marie Brown |
SFX Co-ordinator |
Ben Ashmore |
SFX Supervisor |
Danny Hargreaves |
Prosthetics Designer |
Neill Gorton |
Prosthetics Supervisor |
Rob Mayor |
Prosthetics Technicians |
Lauren Welman |
Helen Walker |
Fiona Walsh |
Tim Berry |
Online Editor |
Mark Bright |
Colourist |
Mick Vincent |
3D Artists |
Serena Cacciato |
Ruth Bailey |
Mark Wallman |
Jeff North |
2D Artists |
Russell Horth |
Bryan Bartlett |
Sara Bennett |
Arianna Lago |
Murray Barber |
Loraine Cooper |
Adriano Cirulli |
VFX Co-ordinators |
Jenna Powell |
Rebecca Johnson |
VFX Production Assistant |
Marianne Paton |
On Set VFX Supervisor |
Tim Barter |
Dubbing Mixer |
Tim Ricketts |
Supervising Sound Editor |
Paul McFadden |
Sound FX Editor |
Paul Jefferies |
Foley Editor |
Kelly-Marie Angell |
Finance Manager |
Chris Rogers |
with thanks to |
the BBC National Orchestra of Wales |
Original Theme Music |
Ron Grainer |
Casting Director |
Andy Pryor CDG |
Production Executive |
Julie Scott |
Production Accountant |
Oliver Ager |
Sound Recordist |
Julian Howarth |
Costume Designer |
Louise Page |
Make-Up Designer |
Barbara Southcott |
Music |
Murray Gold |
Visual Effects |
The Mill |
Visual FX Producers |
Will Cohen |
Marie Jones |
Visual FX Supervisor |
Dave Houghton |
Special Effects |
Any Effects |
Prosthetics |
Millennium FX |
Editor |
Philip Kloss |
Production Designer |
Edward Thomas |
Director of Photography |
Edward Vincze BSC |
Production Manager |
Peter Bennett |
Executive Producers |
Russell T Davies (bio) |
Julie Gardner |
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