The Family of Blood

Family of Blood

Well, this conclusion must rank as one of the most missed opportunities ever in the history of Who. Human Nature was probably the best episode so far of new Who (just having the edge - by virtue of such unique storyline - to Dalek, Father's Day, Unquiet Dead, Tooth and Claw, Girl in the Fireplace and Impossible Planet) and promised so much, but unfortunately Family of Blood in general seems to take a wrong turn, or should I say, a lazy one, in what is rapidly becoming the new Who two-parter tradition (and horribly reminiscent of the various let downs of Season 22). Not to say that Family of Blood is a bad episode, far from it, in new Who terms it is still a high-ranking slice, and in places it still reflects glimmers of its opener's poetry ('he's fire and ice... he's... like the night' - nice but actually a bit lame in true poetical terms and ironically not a patch on an immortal line about the Doctor from the otherwise deplorable romp Meglos in Season 18: 'he takes the strands of the universe and binds them back together' (sic)).

The sad fact is that the very kernel of this unique story in the history of Who is also its downfall: what in Human Nature starts out as an almost profound and deeply enriching take on 'what if the Doctor was suddenly a human, what would he be like etc.', in Family of Blood egenerates into a cod-Messianic take on the Timelord ('he's ancient and forever...' - no he isn't, he only has 12 lives!), which echoes back to the 'God in the police box' of Season 26 and to the literally messianic post-regeneration prostration of the Eight Doctor ('Who am I?'), but goes even more overboard than before. The flash forward of the Doctor marrying Redfurn, having kids and then dying of old age as a human is of course a direct copy of Last Temptation of Christ - it is quite moving in a way but again is possibly taking things a bit too far when one considers the nature of the film it is copying. As soon as one start supposing the Doctor to be some sort of 'lonely God' or even Messiah, the whole history of the series is in danger of losing its real substance in that this implies the Timelord is omnipotent and invulnerable and not the character of old who had to use his wits and intelligence to solve various dilemmas. Whereas in classic Who the Doctor was more equatable with Sherlock Holmes in space (a celebate genius - juxtaposed quite literally in Talons of Weng-Chiang), the clumsier new Who goes the full hog and practically equates him with a Christ-like figure.

This hint at ominpotence is only further cemented in the almost absurdly poetic/arthouse-esque conclusion in which the Doctor quite callously traps the family of blood in inert immortality (the girl is apparently that thing in the corner of the eye when we look in a mirror and the boy has been more fittingly imprisoned as a scarecrow - the latter was a nice touch, a potent and crucificial motif, but again a rather ruthless curse by the Doctor). This smacks of the fate of Borusa in The Five Doctors, frozen forever immortal as a face on the base of Rassilon's tomb. If we always wondered who the third of the Rassilon-Omega triad was, it seems we're looking at him every week, apparently.

Flawed poeticism aside, my other criticisms of Family of Blood are as follows:

a) the complete failure to develop the character of Latimer, who we find out in the end is nothing more than an Earth child with precognitive abilities, who just happens to be the one who eventually finds the Doctor's watch, which in turn enables him to see into the future, which he could do anyway - therefore a red herring of a character
b) the mawkishly sentimental and ridiculous scenes of Latimer, still visibly too young to be in combat, managing to avoid a shell thanks to his insights of the future from the Doctor's watch - ok, wonderful, so of course there weren't any other shells or bullets to strike him down in No-Man's-Land, only that particular one!
c) the very Schindler's List -esque overkill of the last scene at the war memorial
d) the complete lack of development or explanation about who exactly the family of blood are, what they really look like etc. - the glib description of them 'living only three months, like mayflies' thus needing the Doctor's regenerations to cheat death was again poetically put, but more insight into their true nature and form would have been nice
e) why in the first place did the Doctor decide to change himself into a human for fear of being detected by the family when he hasn't done this before in same circumstances, and also when he was only going to change back and defeat them in the end anyway? Ok, so we're told that it was his compassion to avoid defeating them that led him to do this - that's fair enough - but then it doesn't hold up considering people are killed in the process. On the surface it seems it's just a convenient plot device to explore him as a human.
f) the ludicrous and unexplained process of changing his entire biology with some unsubstantiated 'device' - had it been a 'cloaking device' - a true parallel to the chameleon device of the TARDIS - to simply disguise him as human, it would have sounded more plausible, but to actually physically transform into one - come on! The Timelord part of him (his bio-data extract?) put into a little watch!? Yes, but how? This all smacks of hocum and magic symbolism.
g) the performances of the family are a mix of menacing and hammy - but in this episode, more the latter, especially with the leader's increasingly over-zealous articulations - and the ray guns are clumsy and unsubtle and undermine any real menace
h) the absolutely inappropriate and tedious lapses of Martha regarding her apparently 'loving to bits' the Doctor - whom she hasn't known that long anyway; we have a companion simply filling the shoes of the previous, offering nothing new in terms of personality or perspective, but who is unfortunately far less of an actress than her predecessor, so seemingly has nothing to offer but just air-sprayed looks and doe eyes
i) why does the Doctor have talk and act like a flippant, trendy nerd in order to emphasize the contrast between the real him and the frankly more preferable and interesting John Smith? With a flick of those Jarvis Cocker glasses and he's back!
j) why on Earth did the Doctor offer to take Redfurn with him? What's all this about? What did he mean by saying 'all those things he was I am'? Was this an offer of marriage? Surely this undermined the whole storyline of the Doctor only being suitable for such a union in human form?

The good aspects to this episode: the battle against the scarecrows was very well choreographed, and was a very nice juxtaposition to the oncoming war, the scarecrows falling down instantly at the bullets, a powerful motif for the futility of the oncoming conflict, in which the soldiers may as well be just stuffed of straw for all their chances against the enemy guns. These scenes were very effective indeed and the highpoint of the episode.

As I said, the poeticism of some lines and moments were well done, if a little over-done; the shot of the Doctor dying of old age in his present incarnation was fairly profound; the acting of Redfurn was exceptional in the parting scene with the Doctor; Tennant's acting as John Smith when hearing the truth of his true nature was also exceptional, though a little bizarre to see the Doctor bursting into tears (though I suppose Eccleston was often near to it, especially in Dalek, and didn't even have humanisation to answer for that).

I've never read Human Nature (nor any of the new adventures), but I'm assuming some bits were hacked out of this story for televisation, as the fans have always railed about how good it was. On the basis of this dissapointing conclusion, I'm not entirely sure why. I suppose the premise, and certainly the first half of the story, might be the reason for this. Human Nature was and remains a classic episode - but I am very dissapointed that Family of Blood proved an unworthy successor. It is still a very good episode in places, but it just doesn't fulfill the huge promise of the opener, due to a lapse into sentiment and mawkishness which isn't quite rescued by its better, more resonant and poetic aspects.

Next time, why not adapt Lungbarrow? Now that really could make a classic, and surely now Human Nature has paved the way for an even more penetrating look at the Doctor's true nature and background?

Family of Blood: a disappointing 6.8/10, considering the near perfection of its first part.