10 Best Doctor Who Time Travel Stories
8. Father's Day
"Did I mention it also travels in time?" were the words that convinced Rose Tyler to leave Mickey and run through the doors of the TARDIS. In Paul Cornell's Father's Day, we find out why that was such a deal breaker.
It starts, as universe ending catastrophes often do, quite simply. The Doctor agrees to take Rose back to the 1980s to see her parents get married. Deciding she wants to be there for her father at the moment of his untimely death, Rose makes a choice that threatens to doom all of mankind.
The first half of the Ninth Doctor's era is quite breezy, murderous Dalek and PTSD aside but it's in The Long Game and Father's Day that Russell T Davies begins to introduce the audience to the more painful side of travelling in time. We see it in Adam's greed in The Long Game, and we see it again here.
At odds with earlier and later attempts to "just save one", everything hinges on Rose's decision to save her Dad's life. By giving this one man a new lease of life, time and reality begins to unravel. There are rules to saving people's lives, and you can't just do it willy nilly as Rose finds out to devastating effect.