The Doctor's Daughter (TV story)

"Hello Dad!"

- Jenny

You may be looking for the titulular character, see Jenny

The Doctor meets his daughter.

Synopsis
The Doctor, Martha and Donna arrive on the distant planet Messaline, which is in the middle of an endless war. While there the Doctor meets the most important woman of his life; his daughter, Jenny.

But as General Cobb threatens genocide, and Martha is kidnapped by the Hath, the Doctor faces an even greater battle – can he find peace with his own child?

Plot
The TARDIS takes the Doctor, Donna and Martha to the planet Messaline, where armed men working for General Cobb seize the Doctor and use his diploid cells to produce the titular character, Jenny. She is immediately an adult soldier produced to fight under Cobb against the Hath, with whom humans were initially meant to live in peace in a colony, but have long been at war due to the humans’ desire to recover lost divine knowledge from their goddess of “the source”. The humans now only know how to fight and die, and respect a temple to their goddess that contains the source, which the Doctor speculates is a weapon. After Martha is kidnapped by a Hath soldier who she subsequently intends to treat for injury, the Doctor deduces a previously unknown route to the temple, which Cobb wishes to use to win the war through genocide. The Doctor, Donna and Jenny are placed in a cell, and the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to convert Donna’s mobile phone to a superphone to contact Martha. She is studying the tunnels on Messaline herself, working with the Hath. Donna persuades the Doctor to use a stethoscope to confirm that Jenny has two hearts, but he remains convinced that Time Lords are defined by their shared suffering. Having already called the Doctor a soldier from whom she can learn for his use of strategy to try to end the war (she called the sonic screwdriver a weapon because the Doctor intended to use it to make a difference), Jenny becomes all the more convinced that the Doctor is a soldier after hearing about his fighting. Jenny continues to be puzzled by references to Time Lords. The Hath use a battering ram to break through a barrier in the tunnels. Martha wants to reach a detected atmosphere of 80 % nitrogen, 20 % oxygen, but the Hath who kidnapped her does not until he sees it. Although there is a cold wind, they are both grateful to be on the planet’s surface. Meanwhile, Jenny has helped the Doctor and Donna to escape their cell, in which they noticed the number 16. They subsequently notice a similar sign bearing instead 14. The Doctor opens a door with the sonic screwdriver, finding a system of lasers on the other side. While Donna notices a smaller number still, conjecturing an indication of proximity to the temple, the Doctor disarms the lasers while Jenny holds off Cobb’s men wire gunfire. Jenny is subsequently forced to traverse the lasers with acrobatics after the Doctor and Donna have crossed the gap and the lasers have been reactivated. Martha falls and starts to sink, but is saved by the Hath accompanying her, who subsequently drowns. Jenny briefly leaves Donna and the Doctor alone. The Doctor explains to Donna his previous parenting, the pain of losing the Time Lords and his family, and the fact that he is reminded of them when he sees Jenny. The Doctor, Donna, Jenny and Martha are reunited in the temple, which the Doctor recognises as a fully functional spaceship, which he soon realises was the same one that brought the colonists. While the Doctor discovers that the city was built by robots, while Donna discovers the numbers are dates, and therefore the city must have been built outwards. She deduces the war, which has gone on for so many generations the people have only a legend memory, has in fact been going on for just seven days, but their method of reproduction causes their generations to be very brief (the Doctor estimates 20 a day). They next discover the source, a terraforming device. Thus, despite the belief that the source kills, it actually brings life. The Doctor, now surrounded by both armies, declares the war over and smashes the source to release its gases. Both armies lay down their weapons. Cobb shoots Jenny in the heart and is immediately arrested. Martha concludes Jenny will not survive. Jenny apparently dies in the Doctor’s arms without regenerating, even though the Doctor recalls she has two hearts, so should have survived. The Doctor holds Cobb at gunpoint but does not pull the trigger, saying, “I never would”, and asks that a man 'who never would', be the foundation of the Hath-human society that will now emerge. The Doctor concludes that, had the TARDIS not brought them to Messaline, Jenny – its reason for coming – would never have existed, creating a paradox. He returns Martha home, and Donna resolves to stay with the Doctor while Martha leaves. Meanwhile, Jenny comes back to life as the Doctor had expected would happen if she was given time. She escapes Messaline in a spaceship and resolves to fight villains.

Cast

 * Tenth Doctor - David Tennant
 * Donna Noble - Catherine Tate
 * Martha Jones - Freema Agyeman
 * Jenny - Georgia Moffett
 * General Cobb - Nigel Terry
 * Cline - Joe Dempsie
 * Hath Peck - Paul Kasey
 * Hath Gable - Rauri Mears
 * Carter - Akin Gazi
 * Soldier - Olalekan Lawal Jr

Production crew
to be added

Story notes

 * Russell T. Davies has stated that this episode "does exactly what it says on the tin". Stephen Greenhorn's episode has the Doctor facing a dilemma unlike anything before, and it is wildly different to "The Lazarus Experiment". He also said that his episode was designed by Russell to "change the Doctor" in a big episode that will have "a real impact on him" and that, in terms of the series continuity, it will be a "lasting impact".


 * Stephen Greenhorn wrote The Lazarus Experiment which ironically was also the sixth episode of the series it was in.

Ratings
to be added

Filming Locations
to be added

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors
to be added

Continuity

 * In the original first series the First Doctor was travelling with his granddaughter Susan Foreman, who is to date the only relative of the Doctor to be seen on screen. The Doctor's other two grandchildren John and Gillian also appeared in some of the comic stips.
 * In the Series 1 episode "The Empty Child" Dr. Constantine remarks "Before the war I was a father, a grandfather now I am neither. But I'm still a doctor." To which the Doctor replies, "I know the feeling."
 * In the Series 2 episode Fear Her, The Doctor says to Rose "I was a dad once."

DVD and Other releases
to be added