4x06 The Doctor's Daughter

I'm not too keen on this one.

It's better than The Lazarus Experiment, Stephen Greenhorn's last Who episode, but not by much - and suffers from just not being as good as the rest of Series 4, which - because it's so good, makes the weaker episodes stand out all the more - put this in Series 3 and it's a solid middle of the road episode. It'd probably be one of the better ones of 2 or 7. Jenny needed a bit more development as the show never gives her any room to breath and it struggles to quite get the Doctor/Donna/Martha/Jenny/both factions balance right in this episode, even if I like the dynamic between Donna & Martha (which is refreshingly not combative in the way that Rose/Sarah Jane was) and the reveal about the war only lasting 7 days, 7 days being "generations" to the clones was a pretty effective moment - the emotional beats in this episode did a good job at landing, thanks in no small part due to Tennant's brilliance which makes up for the revelation about The Doctor's daughter being a clone being something of a copout - I remember the days of the speculation back in the runup to this episode as it aired! Not sure all of it stuck the landing.

On the plus side, this is the last (and only) not-as-good episode of Series 4! There's nothing but great episodes from here on out.

I think I prefer the themes of The Doctor's Daughter more than I enjoy its overall execution. The exploration of the Doctor's relationship with his daughter while not my jam at first really stuck the landing. What Jenny means to him as the last Time Lord and in the context of the loss of his other children (ie Susan) was fascinating. Tennant really captures a breadth of emotion throughout the episode. I also respect the theme of pacifism and especially that last speech about building a world without violence and vengeance. Honestly the anti-gun thing works much better here than in the Sontaran Stratagem because the story hones in on how pointless the war is.

But I can't get over how the logistics of this episode trip me up. I get that the whole seven days thing is probably there as a biblical allusion but you cannot convince me this full scale contextless war broke out in 7 days. Given that the episode doesn't have the budget to realize what war with the Hoth actually looks like outside of skirmishes in hallways I just can't believe generations of soldiers were bred and died in 7 days to the extent that a game of telephone myth was legitimately believed by everyone. Sure they're all clones but they can track the passage of time.