Inspirations: The Doctor's Daughter

The story's title is little more than "click-bait" - an on-line headline designed to provoke curiosity. Its sole purpose is to get the casual browser to click on a particular link. This might lead to a genuine item of interest, but more often than not it is a means to artificially boost internet traffic for a site, or it could equally lead to a problem location (adware, malware, spyware or worse).

Here, Russell T Davies simply intends to provoke viewers into thinking they need to see this episode, since it sounds as though something really monumental is going to feature.

It artificially boosts traffic (more people watch), but also leads to a problem location - a fairly rubbish story.

Back in the 1980's, producer JNT employed a similar trick, but his intention was to root out a BBC spy who was leaking details of new episodes to fan groups. He wrote "The Doctor's Wife" on the office planning board, then waited to see who printed the news.

JNT deliberately did not want the story title to get out - or at least hoped it wouldn't, as that would have confirmed his spy fears - so wasn't trying to boost viewership for a change.

The main reason for the title being classed as click-bait is because the Doctor's "daughter" is nothing of the kind. She is simply a clone, bizarrely full-grown. She has some of his biology (two hearts and she can regenerate at least once, though it is very different from the usual Time Lord process where you adopt an entirely new physical and psychological form) but the idea that she can also inherit the Doctor's ideology is a nonsense.

Stephen Greenhorn - the writer - had earlier complained that you couldn't do a story in which the character of the Doctor developed to a great extent. This was when interviewed for his previous episode The Lazarus Experiment. RTD took note of this and told him he could come up with a story which did provoke a change in the Doctor. He has to accept then adapt to Jenny being his offspring. RTD wanted to give David Tennant something to get his teeth into, and also wanted to develop Donna as the Doctor's conscience - teaching him how to be more "human".

Jenny was supposed to stay dead at the end of the episode, but RTD thought the audience would want to see her survive.

One of the key moments in the episode - the Doctor threatening Cobb with a gun - was only a late addition.

Martha Jones comes along with the Doctor and Donna as she was earlier set up at the conclusion of The Poison Sky. She gets separated from the others almost immediately, so one wonders why bother to include her at all. She gets side-lined with the latest "stick an animal head on a man wearing a boiler suit" alien. The Hath are fish people who, for some inexplicable reason, are capable of drowning in water.

The cloning plot is a little too similar to the preceding Sontaran story - another militaristic race.

It is obviously a cheaply budgeted story, with a war being fought by around four soldiers per side.

The gimmick of the war having only been going a couple of days is a twist straight out of The Twilight Zone, or the many many "Weird Stories" anthologies which inspired that series.

In terms of series story arc, the only thing is the running joke of people thinking the Doctor and Donna to be a couple. 

Donna's mobile gets upgraded, as had Rose's and Martha's previously.

The actress selected to play the Doctor's daughter was, of course, a Doctor's daughter. Georgia Moffett's father is Fifth Doctor Peter Davison. She had previously auditioned for the role of society thief "The Unicorn" in The Unicorn and the Wasp, which was filmed earlier. It was claimed that her casting in this was purely coincidental, but no-one believes this.