Doctor Who 29.08-29.09: "Human Nature" / "The Family of Blood"

[annathepiper]

I have one word to describe this two-parter of Doctor Who: riveting.

Hands down the best thing they've done so far this season. We should be seeing this in the list of nominees for the Hugos next year.


My oh my oh my this was fun. Starting with hitting the ground running, with "John Smith" having a flashback dream to Ten and Martha running from the Family... and our very quickly figuring out what was going on both from the dream fragments and from the flashbacks we see out of Martha in the TARDIS.

I loved the kid playing Timothy. He had a wonderfully clever face and from certain camera angles almost reminded me of River Phoenix at the beginning of Last Crusade.

Big sniff for Martha's friend getting glommed by the aliens, too. Another heavy awwww-inducing moment, especially after that wonderful little scene they had where Martha was trying to encourage her to believe that being a girl doesn't mean she has to accept limits in her life.

The aliens? Creepy with a side order of creep. That young fellow playing "son of mine" definitely had his Creep on, with that inhuman way he kept tilting his neck, and that insane look to his eyes, and that chilling quirk to his mouth. The little girl with the balloon was also very effective.

Joan: very good. Entirely charming in her little courtship scenes with "John", and entirely believable.

Martha: oh. My. God. This whole story is really the Sucks to Be Martha storyline. I kept thinking practically every single minute throughout this story "awww, Martha!" Getting looked down because she's playing the part of a menial. Getting looked down on because she's black. And having to watch the Doctor, who she's now admitted to loving even if only to herself, falling in love with somebody else entirely.

And last but not least, the Doctor himself, and "John"... Jesus, that was a brilliant performance out of Tennant. I'd already had a healthy respect for his acting ability, but seeing "John" utterly anguished at the discovery that his entire existence was just a "story", seeing him absolutely frightened by the prospect of becoming the strange and frightening Doctor to whom it would never occur that he might wind up falling in love... damn. Absolutely riveting.


And now I'll be able to read the ebook version of the original Seventh Doctor novel this pair of episodes was based on--many thanks to seimaisin, from whom I snarfed the link! It'll be quite fun to compare the differences between the novel and the TV adaptation. Certainly the BBC had fun with it; they have a page up about it here.

Comments

[alstaria.livejournal.com]

I agree...an absolutely amazing two-parter; both David and Freema's acting blew me away. The kid playing Timothy, btw, is the same actor as the kid in Love Actually (if you've seen that). I loved him in both roles.

[annathepiper]

I haven't seen it, but we'd looked him up during the first half of the episode, because we were curious. :)

And yeah, the both of them were just absolutely stunning!

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

*avoids reading the review because I haven't seen the episodes, but:*

I actually know Paul Cornell, the writer, so I IM'd him with your first couple comments there from before the cut, and so from Paul, "Oh, thank you! Thank you very much for such a nice start to my bleary day."

:)

[annathepiper]

Well then! He is most welcome. :D

[petrukio.livejournal.com]

I particularly liked how the Doctor punished the Family of Blood. We don't get to see the ruthless side of the Doctor very often. People are a production of how they are brought up... and people seem to forget that the Doctor and the Master are/were contemporaries, becoming Timelords at the same time.

[annathepiper]

Oh, and even aside from how the Doctor might have been raised, I think the experiences that he's gone through all throughout his ten incarnations have influenced how ruthless he can be. Ten specifically has said that he has "less mercy" than he used to. The Great Time War, which presumably happened somewhere between Eighth and Ninth Doctor, affected him immeasurably. And if you go back and look at the number of times that earlier Doctors might have wiped out the Daleks and/or Davros and didn't, contrasted with how Ninth Doctor was ready to "wipe every last stinking Dalek out of the sky", you can see this in action.