The Family of Blood

As predicted, "The Family of Blood" turned out to be one of the best episodes of Doctor Who ever. Period, as they say stateside. Last week's episode flawlessly set the stage -- Paul Cornell masterfully condensed the bulk of his acclaimed novel into one astonishing forty-five minute script. Naturally, all of the superfluous plot elements were excised: the fake Doctor; the suffragette; Alexander; even the Doctor's very motive for becoming human. But we were certainly given a lot more in exchange: Scarecrows; Gallifreyan fob watches; the Family of Blood. And this week, the last hundred pages or so of Cornell's novel are brought to life explosively along with so much more?

"God you're rubbish as a human. Come on!"

This episode is the perfect response to the Freema Agyeman-bashing media. "The Family of Blood" is without doubt her strongest outing to date, both in terms of Freema's performance and also in how her character really shows her mettle. The resolution to the cliff-hanger says it all -- Martha holds the Family at gunpoint allowing Joan, Smith and all the other villagers at the Dance to escape. And what thanks does she get?

This situation is so hard on Martha for so many reasons. In the novel, Benny certainly had no love lost for Smith's lover. Joan came across as stuck-up, pompous and patronising in the scenes that they shared. For Benny though, it was a little bit easier for her to just grit her teeth and get on with the job in hand as for one thing, she wasn't seething with jealously over the Smith / Joan relationship, and for another, Joan's bigotry didn't cut quite as deeply with her as it does here with Martha for obvious reasons. But to her credit, Martha shows what she is made of; the Doctor trusted her with his life and she does not let him down, no matter how dejected she feels.

"Women might train to be Doctors,

but hardly a skivvy and hardly one of your colour."

What I really like about how Cornell uses Martha here is that she does not hit back in a predictable way. Had Ace, for example, been treated in the way that Martha is in this story then she would have busted some heads. Martha, on the other hand, keeps her cool. She knows that Joan is not a bad woman -- the racist slurs that she makes do not come from the heart; she has just had certain views drummed into her since birth and Martha knows this. And so when she is insulted and belittled, how does she respond? She names every bone in the hand and forearm. She shuts Joan up with her expert medical knowledge. She proves that she is telling the truth.

"Super, super fun!"

Another standout performer here, as in the first episode, is Harry Lloyd. All the Family are very impressive on screen, but Baines is something else. Last week we were treated to a few fleeting glimpses of his deliciously mischievous, over-the-top, almost playful brand of evil but this week he really lets rip. He is loving every second of the hunt; every moment of the chase. He takes great delight in every death; in every humiliation. The way he bates the Headmaster is absolutely brilliant. His mockery is as grotesque as it is chilling.

"Do you think they will thank the man who taught them it [war] was glorious?"

I have to admit though, the Headmaster is so disagreeable that I was rooting for Baines to vaporise him! When he does eventually meet his doom at the hands of Daughter of Mine it is almost gratifying. Perhaps it is his arrogance or his pig-headed refusal to look facts in the face that make him so utterly loathsome. Perhaps it is that he seems to encapsulate everything that feels so wrong about the time period and the school -- it is men like this Headmaster that keep boys like Timothy down and encourage boys like Hutchinson and Baines to be aggressive, cruel and ruthless. It is also men like the Headmaster that make young boys fight with machine guns.

As do men like John Smith.

Young boys weeping and panicking as they are forced to discharge firearms in a battle situation is one of those haunting images that stuck in my mind for a long time after I first read the "Human Nature" novel. On screen it is even more of a disturbing picture. This is as nothing though when compared to seeing the man who should be the Doctor holding a rifle, armed and ready to fire. Charles Palmer directs this battle sequence skilfully, particularly in how he singles out David Tennant for those profile shots, aiming the weapon straight at the camera. It really hammers home the gulf between John Smith and the Doctor.

"I'm John Smith, that's all I want to be!

With him? his life and his job and his love?

why can't I be John Smith?"

And then, as a slightly corrupted version of the 'Face of Boe' music plays, the real tragedy of the story unfurls. The Doctor hadn't even considered the possibility that his human self might fall in love. More importantly, he hadn't considered the possibility that his human self might not want to relinquish his existence.

SMITH: You're the Doctor's companion, why can't you help? What do you do for him exactly? Why does he need you?
MARTHA: Because he's lonely.
SMITH: And that's what you want me to become?

My favourite scene in the whole two-parter takes place in the Cartwright's cottage. In my opinion it is one of the greatest scenes ever in Doctor Who; it simply says it all. It is the point where it all stops being implied.

The human Doctor, terrified.

His loyal companion, smitten.

His lover, enamoured.

The young boy with the extra engram, enchanted.

"Because I've seen him and he's like fire and ice and rage.

He's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun.

He's ancient and forever.

He burns at the centre of time and he can see the turn of the universe.

And he's wonderful."

Tim's description of the Doctor is sheer poetry. I've never - not even in the novel - heard him described quite so succinctly and flagrantly. In a single paragraph Tim sums up what the Doctor is all about and why he is so fantastic, and then in one line John Smith says exactly what he lacks: "He won't love you."

Quite frankly I was surprised -- pleasantly surprised! -- at just how far Cornell was allowed to push the envelope in this scene. As the fob watch shows Smith and Joan vivid visions of their possible future -- marriage; children; deathbed etc. -- the viewer is reminded more than ever that the Doctor could never have that sort of life. In the gut-wrenching 2005 episode "Father's Day", also penned by Cornell, Christopher Eccleston's ninth Doctor regretfully states that he has never had a life like that. And much more memorably, as the tenth Doctor says a tearful goodbye to Rose on the beach in "Doomsday" he says, again regretfully, that she is embarking on the one adventure that he can never have. "The Family of Blood" makes that adventure explicit. We see what might have been. Everything that John Smith has to lose.

Everything that the Doctor can never be.

"The Time Lord has such adventures, but he could never have a life like that."

Last week I got into a bit of a heated debate with my Dad about the Doctor and women. He's firmly against the Doctor having 'a girl in every Fireplace', instead believing that the show should just be about the Doctor and his companion going off and having adventures in time and space. What I couldn't make him understand is that the above is exactly what we have! The Doctor and his companion going off and having adventures in time and space. Stories like "Human Nature" only emphasise the harsh reality that nothing traditionally romantic could ever happen between the Doctor and his companion no matter how strongly he feels about them, just as poor Martha is learning over the course of this series. The Doctor has no concept of monogamy. Of sex. Of love, per se. Not on such a 'small' scale. He certainly loved Rose, just as he loved Sarah Jane and all the others. But not in the conventional human way. It's easily forgotten that the Doctor is an alien, but this two-parter serves as a poignant reminder of just how alien the Doctor is. Perhaps Rob Shearman hit the nail on the head in "Scherzo" when he likened the Doctor's companions to pets. Now I love my cat, and I'd certainly be gutted if she got stranded in a parallel universe, but still?

"He never raised his voice. That was the worst thing.

The fury of the Time Lord. And then we discovered why:

why this Doctor, who had fought with gods and demons,

why he'd run away from us and hidden. He was being kind."

The emergence of the Doctor at the end of the episode is oh so quick and oh so brilliant. He defeats the Family of Blood with ease and then sentences them to fates worse than death. Episode 9 of Series 2 ("The Satan Pit") ended with the Doctor proclaiming himself to be the stuff of legend. Episode 9 of Series 3 ends with the Doctor proving himself to be the stuff of legend. The cold and brutal Doctor that we see chain Father of Mine in unbreakable bonds; that we see cast Mother of Mine into the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy; that we see trap Daughter of Mine in a mirror -- in every mirror -- is Time's Champion of the New Adventures. He's an alien. He's a legend.

And he's a million billion light years away from John Smith.

And as for Baines, his calm voiceover describing the plight of his family seems to reveal a begrudging respect for the entity that thwarted his plans so utterly. Like some begotten creature of myth, Baines is resigned to his perpetual fate.

"As for me, I was suspended in time

and the Doctor put me to work standing

over the fields of England, as their protector.

We wanted to live forever, so the Doctor made sure that we did."

But it doesn't end there. With the alien menace defeated, the story turns back to more personal matters. In what David Tennant describes as his favourite scene, the Doctor pays Joan one last visit with the intention of sweeping her off her feet and showing her the stars, but all she wants is for him to change back into John Smith. And he can. But he won't. And she hates him for it.

"John is dead, and you look like him? If the Doctor had never visited us?

on a whim? would anybody have died?"

The Doctor leaves Joan a broken woman and she too leaves her mark on him. Because whether he admits it or not, on some level that Doctor has tasted this life that he can never have, and part of him wants it - the part of him that was tempted by the Master's trap in "Circular Time". And worse, she leaves another painful mark on him because he knows that she's right, morally speaking. Wherever he goes death and destruction inevitably follow, and there is nothing that he can do about it.

"He took my hands, and he kissed my forehead?

He turned back once and looked around.

And somehow he found where all of us were looking at him.

And then he started to run. With determination. Without a hint of reluctance.

Because he still had things to do?

He had a whole other self that he had to be to do that."

By the time the TARDIS dematerialised I'd already passed my usual limit of one single manly tear shed per tear-jerker, and so when the Doctor's voiceover led us into the Great War and then into a remembrance ceremony it was a bit too much to take. The scene of Latimer saving Hutchinson's life, all thanks to the Doctor's pocket watch, is a wonderful coda to the story. And, even though Hutchinson is so thoroughly unpleasant, there is something uplifting about his life being saved by the boy that he used to bully. For some reason I half expected Rolf Harris to start singing Two Little Boys, though. Thankfully Murray Gold scored the moment much more appropriately.

The final moments of the episode at the Cenotaph are equally powerful, if not more so. Old Tim, clutching his medals and sat in his wheelchair, looks up to see the Doctor and Martha -- neither of them a day older -- wearing their poppies and paying their respects. It says so much about the life that the Doctor leads and the effect that he has on people. He may bring death and destruction in his wake but, more often than not, he also brings hope.

In my review last week I ripped off the old quote 'stories are never finished, they are abandoned', but not "Human Nature". Terrifying, mesmerising and perfect, I think that Cornell has now finished what I'm sure will be considered the definitive version of his Doctor Who masterpiece. This is a fan-pleaser that will live on not only as one of the best new series stories but as one of the best Doctor Who stories ever. I'd also be surprised if it didn't get a BAFTA. It has everything that anyone could ever want from a Saturday Night prime time family drama and even more importantly, it re-affirms exactly what it means to be the Doctor.