I have strange conceptions of what Doctor Who should be. I believe it should be about the Doctor, his companions, his adventures. This is one of the problems I had when we started getting novels back in the mid-1990's in which the Doctor was tangential to the action: they ceased being about the Doctor, or his companions, or in fact anything to do with him, but seemed instead to be diversions into universes the writer wanted to piggyback onto the one we love. There's nothing wrong with that, per se, except I refer you to my original comment.

Last year's experiment in Doctor Who sans Doctor was unique, something that tore my opinion in two: nice piece, pity about some of the execution. Apart from my widely-varying opinions on the quality of the story, there was something I decided I held in complete conviction: no more. No more stories that really don't have anything to do with the Doctor or his companions; we get 14 episodes a year, and that's not enough time to spend on other concepts. That's the realm of Torchwood or The Sarah Jane Adventures or Margaret Blaine's Adventures in Wonderland or whatever else Russell T Davies and company come up with. When I first heard that "Blink" was going to be this year's experiment in Doctor Who sans Doctor I was undoubtedly ambivalent; the only thing that kept me from expecting very little was the pen (or keyboard, this is 2007) of Steven Moffat. Moffat's first-season tour-de-force, "The Empty Child," was the highlight of that year, and last season's "The Girl in the Fireplace" was perhaps the closest Doctor Who has ever come to being lyrical poetry. But even though Mr. Moffat was behind the story, my fears of a 45-minute jaunt into the life of someone I have never met were readily apparent.

How wrong I was. Fresh on the heels of Paul Cornell's staggering two-part epic comes this little gem of an episode, so fresh and interesting and unique in its storytelling that, for a moment, I actually forgot all about the Doctor. Which is a hard sell, considering just how omnipresent David Tennant was throughout the story -- the Doctor may not be on screen the entire time, but the episode actually stays about him, and his predicament (shared, of course, with Martha, who's really the only one who suffers a lack of screen time). They're stuck, of course, in 1969, with no way back to the TARDIS except to play one great gamble with time that has roots in, for instance, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: take advantage of the opposing cause-and-effect time travel provides by sending messages through the lives of ordinary people. It all looks like great fun, of course, until the chills start running down your spine, thanks to the Weeping Angels, truly one of the (if not the) most frightening Doctor Who aliens of all time. A masterstroke of design turns innocuous-looking stone statues into terrifying nightmares, and some brilliant direction makes scenes such as the one with Sally and Larry in the cellar of the old house the stuff of nightmares.

The episode may have fallen apart without a good actor in the center seat, and Carey Mulligan (as Sally Sparrow) lives up to the challenge -- she's intelligent, articulate, free-spirited and feisty. Sally is a character worthy of that role of companion (and it's a nice thought that, maybe some day, the Doctor comes back for her and takes her on the trip of a lifetime; he's obviously already impressed with her upon their brief meeting outside the DVD store at the end.) I also must confess that I found some great chemistry between Mulligan and Michael Obiora, who played the role of D.I. Billy Shipton, whose fate I was sure was going to be disasterous the moment she gave him her phone number. How nice it is, though, that from the mind of the man who wrote the episodes in which "Everybody lives," we get another alien race for whom their plan of attack is to let people live to death. D.I. Shipton and Sally's friend Kathy both end up happy, which for victims in a Doctor Who serial is a very nice touch.

One of the things I like most of all in Moffat's script is that everything seems to work logically; here we have a whole succession of improbabilities which, by the end, make perfect sense. The linear structure of time works against most stories like this, but that's where Doctor Who gets to play around with things -- the transcript of the DVD leading eventually to the Doctor making it in the first place, the DVD easter eggs being targeted to Sally in the first place. The only logic flaw I've managed to find is how the Doctor knew which 17 DVDs Sally -- who he just met in front of that store -- had on her shelf. (If she gave the list to him at the end, when did she write it down? In the split second between the time she noticed the Doctor and Martha getting out of the taxicab and running out of the store?) But that's really a minor quibble...

If we're forced to have a Doctor Who sans Doctxor story every year, this is the sort of story I'd like to see: the Doctor is a part of the action, even when he's off the screen, and meanwhile the story is clever and entertaining. "Blink" could have been a nightmare; instead, it only induces them... and I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'm sure I'm going to see those Weeping Angels somewhere between bedtime and morning.

Wonderful, exciting and absolutely creepy - another triumph.

Or 'What I Did When I Ran Out of Original Ideas, by Steven Moffatt', as he recycles chunks of the plot from his short story 'What I Did On My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow' from the Doctor Who Annual 2006. Given that this comes straight after an adaptation of 'Human Nature', it does rather suggest that the writing team is scrabbling around for ideas.

Nevertheless, sarcasm aside, 'Blink' is rather good. Unusually for the Welsh revival, it actually makes time travel an integral part of the plot rather than simply using it as a means of transporting the Doctor from story to story. The internal logic of the plot works rather well, with Moffat playing with paradoxes whilst avoiding leaving any unanswered questions, although there is a feeling that this is all intended to impress casual viewers who might think it's more complicated and cleverer than it actually is. The highlight of all this is the DVD Easter Eggs scene, as the Doctor uses a copy of the transcript that Lawrence is writing to have a conversation across time, which is very well scripted. In fact, the whole script is very polished, with some good dialogue, such as Lawrence learning that what the seventeen DVDs with the Easter Eggs on have in common is the fact that they are all the DVDs that Sally owns, prompting the incredulous response, "You've only got seventeen DVDs?" The Doctor's line about having to deal with "four things? and a lizard" is also quite funny. And Billy Shipton's comment that the windows of the TARDIS are too small is an amusing nod to the fans.

'Blink' also benefits from some genuinely creepy moments, mostly involving the Weeping Angels, especially during the final encounter in the house, as Sally and Lawrence blink and suddenly find a snarling statue reaching out for them, and end up in a cellar with the lights flickering out. Director Hettie Macdonald does a great job and keeps the story moving along at a cracking pace, with some fantastic shots of the statues appearing in various locations around the city, and wrings every drop of menace out of them that she possibly can. When the nature of the Weeping Angels is first explained by the Doctor in 1969, it sounds worryingly like the sort of one-line infodump used to explain away ill-conceived monsters that Russell T. Davies is prone to, but they turn out to be much better devised than that, with their "quantum locked" nature proving quite satisfying. Although the Doctor's claim that you can't kill a stone does rather raise the question of what effect twatting one of them with a sledge-hammer would have. The means of their defeat, as the Doctor uses the TARDIS to trick them into looking at each other, is also quite neat. Hilariously, the very last scene has bugger all to do with anything else and seems designed *purely* to make kids afraid of statues, which is the sort of thing that even Hinchcliffe and Holmes stopped short of.

With the Doctor and Martha largely absent, it falls to Sally Sparrow to take the lead, and Moffat writes her quite well, although worryingly Kathy is permanently removed from her and Lawrence's lives and it doesn't seem to unduly upset either of them, making her little more than a throwaway plot device. However, on the whole she works very well, largely because of Carey Mulligan's excellent performance. Incidentally, much as I quite enjoyed 'Love & Monsters', she also works considerably better than Elton because she comes across as a real person, rather than a comedic socially-awkward half-wit who sticks his cock in paving slabs. Larry also works rather well because although he's clearly a stereotypical internet-obsessed nerd, he's very much like people I actually know, whereas the cretinous Doctor Who Fan pastiches of 'Love & Monsters' where not. Billy Shipton is also well scripted, albeit not especially well acted in either incarnation (of the two, the younger version fares slightly better due to the Michael Obiora's charisma).

Martha does nothing worth mentioning here, but the Doctor's presence is felt throughout and the fact that he outwits the Weeping Angels from afar is very welcome. Incidentally, trapped in 1969, the Doctor, who wouldn't age, could just hang around until 2007 and sort everything out himself, rescuing Billy and Kathy when he'd got the TARDIS back, so the fact that he goes to such elaborate lengths here suggests that he values Martha's life over everyone else here. Because he meets Sally after she's helped defeat the Weeping Angels but before he has actually encountered them, he just about gets away with this, since he's working to a predetermined plan that has, in effect, sprung up out of time itself due to the inherent paradox at the heart of the scenario, but it still makes him look like a massive sod.

Overall, 'Blink' again demonstrates Moffat's abilities as a Doctor Who script-writer and is a well-made and generally pleasing filler episode. I'm not entirely convinced that a slightly-Doctorless episode every year is wise (and it's a good job that we didn't get one during the Eccleston months), but here it works almost as a reprieve before the season starts to build to its finale, as the next episode trailer shows Jack making his return?

"Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead. They are fast. Faster than you could believe. Don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink. Good luck!"

Rather than have another stab at it himself, this year Russell T. Davies has delegated the season's most difficult episode - the now customary 'Doctor-lite' episode - to one of his best writers. Perhaps it was just the luck of the draw, or maybe Davies realised that an exceptionally talented writer like Steven Moffat could make something out of nothing in the same way that Davies himself did with "Love & Monsters" last year.

Whilst he has more lines than he did in "Love & Monsters", in this episode the Doctor exists for the most part as a mysterious, off-screen character. Moffat handles him much in the same way that many of the writers of the novels -- particularly the New Adventures -- did back in the 1990s. I quickly got sick these of 'Doctor-lite' adventures in print, but every once in a while I have to admit that it works spectacularly. It reaffirms that mystery. Gives the audience a new perspective. And, if I was cynical, I'd say that it also allowed the production team to film two episodes at once so that they might squeeze "The Runaway Bride" into their hectic schedule?

And so this week the burden of driving the plot forward lies elsewhere. Just like with Elton in "Love & Monsters" and invisible Eugene in Torchwood's "Random Shoes", this episode is carried by the non-regular character of Sally Sparrow, wonderfully portrayed by this week's leading lady, Carey Mulligan.

KATHRYN: What's good about sad?
SALLY: It's happy for deep people.

As "Blink" lives or dies by Sally Sparrow, it is fortunate that she is a compelling and endearing character. She is instantly likeable; clever, funny, and with a very dry sense of humour -- she evens laughs at herself quite a bit. She's sort of a twenty-first century Benny Summerfield.

I thought that the episode was very slow to start. The pre-title sequence was distinctly bland and so, at least up until Kathy's was 'zapped' back in time, the episode didn't really hook me. However, when Kathy did arrive in Hull, 1920, I had to laugh out loud. Not only is it the butt of the old Blackadder joke, but it's also the 'top of the crap map' city? where I went to University and where I just happen to work. It's the Hull Daily Mail, mind, not 'the Hull Times'. You'd think they'd have done their homework?

"Because life is short and you are hot".

Once it got going though, I really enjoyed the episode. Moffat's characters are all so funny and real; I especially liked the smooth young cop, D.I. Billy Shipton. Once he had been 'zapped' back to 1969 we were finally treated to some exposition, courtesy of the Doctor and Martha.

"The only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely. No mess; no fuss; just zap you into the past and make you live to death."

The Doctor gives Billy a message to deliver to Sally; a message that it will take him 38 years to deliver. The hospital scene where the old, dying Billy finally gives that message to Sally is beautifully written, and really quite melancholy. On the whole, "Blink" may be much more upbeat that Moffat's peerless offering last year, but it still has its "Girl In The Fireplace" moments.

Moffat has also really tapped into something with his DVD Easter Eggs -- what a concept! It's one of those fantastic ideas that seem so obvious once they've been done -- the Doctor as a DVD Easter Egg! It's contemporary and cool and children will love it. More than that though, it creates one of those seldom-used, head-scratching time travel plots that Doctor Who just does not do enough. We have one half of a conversation recorded in 1969 and eventually published on just seventeen DVDs as an easter egg. The other half of the conversation is then transcribed in 2007. This transcription is then delivered to the Doctor in 2008 so that when he gets trapped in 1969 he can record his half and thus complete the circle? or should I say complete the 'wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey ball'?

"They are quantum locked. They don't exist when they are being observed. The moment they are seen by any other living creature they freeze into rock. No choice; it is a fact of their biology. In the sight of any other living thing they literally turn to stone. And you can't kill a stone. Of course, a stone can't kill you either, but then you turn your head away. Then you blink. And oh yes it can."

There is one devastating moment when on the DVD, the Doctor says that the transcript has run out. The Weeping Angels are coming. From thereon in the fear factor goes through the roof. Larry Nightingale is another brilliant character, but amusing as he may be throughout (with all his nerdish quips like "I've got that on a T-Shirt" etc.), he's even more entertaining when, if you'll pardon my French, he's shitting himself. It's those wide-eyes. He's desperately trying not to blink. But that's the instinct isn't it? Cover the eyes. But he can't, or he's dead.

You can't hide behind the sofa because that is when they'll get you. Genius.

I thought that the most frightening sequence was outside the TARDIS in the basement. When one of the Angels (somehow) does something to the light and it begins to flicker, the Angels begin to move in short bursts. Hettie MacDonald -- the first woman to direct an episode since 1985 -- has shot and edited this part beautifully; it is absolutely chilling. The statues move almost like a piece of animation. A quick series of grotesque freezes. It's horrible. But thankfully, even in his absence the Doctor saves the day. He allows Sally and Larry into the TARDIS which then dematerialises around them. Of course, those pesky Angels were outside it, shaking it about. What they didn't see coming was that once it had dematerialised, they'd all be looking square at each other. Checkmate.

"Blink" ends flawlessly -- the closing montage of all those statues and gargoyles juxtaposed with the Doctor's "don't blink" speech will doubtless leave a generation of children with a deep-rooted fear of statues, gargoyles and grotesques. And if we're honest, probably quite a few adults too?

All told, "Blink" was never going to be a monumental episode like "The Empty Child" or my personal favourite, "The Girl In The Fireplace". You just can't have an episode with that sort of weight without your regular cast. However, given the choice between a 'Doctor-lite' episode of this kind of quality or a Stargate-style clip show, I know which I'd choose every time. The fact that this episode was far better than "The Lazarus Experiment" and "42" - both of which had a full cast, big-name guest stars and a bucketload of C.GI. -- says it all really. With "Blink", Moffat has written an episode that will undoubtedly chill Britain on a warm summer's night.

It's really annoying. A few years ago I had a dream in which a time traveller from the future has a love affair with a young criminal, and repeatedly rescues her from arrest by using details of her exact whereabouts found in her diary he picked up years after the event at a jumble sale (seriously!). I always thought this would make a great short film, but never got around to writing it. Seems I never will now.

The neat paradoxes of time travel make for satisfying storytelling (see Back To The Future, which this episodes references with the letter), yet are oddly underused in a show about time travel. It's strange that there are only a small handful of adventures whose plot revolves around the notion of time travel. Off the top of my head Day Of The Daleks, Timelash, Mawdryn Undead, Father's Day... I'm sure there are one or two others. Though I don't think any have done it quite so satisfyingly as here.

If you don't think about it too hard, it all ties up beautifully; though of course with most of these things, there are gaping plot holes if you give it more than a moment's consideration: for example, how did the Doctor know the exact timing of his conversation with Sally, not to mention some of the incidental details, considering he only had written evidence? How come the Doctor has the TARDIS set up in advance with a device which reads DVDs and gives the bearer a one-way ticket, complete with handy hologram? That said, the actual pre-recorded conversation was done very well, and the messages encoded into DVD easter eggs was quite a Philip K Dick moment, as was the alluded-to cult following that the messages has accrued.

As with last year's Love And Monsters, there was an underlying sense of tragedy behind the frightening haunted house romp, a real feeling of loss; and like last year, the Doctor was stamped all over the proceedings, like Orson Welles in The Third Man, despite his limited screen time. This time around, however, the Love And Monsters trademark silliness was largely absent, making Blink the more memorable and succesful of the two "Doctor Lite" episodes to date.

The weeping angels gave the episode the feel of the childrens drama serials the BBC were so good at during the late '70s and 1980s: The Enchanted Castle, Moondial, The Legend Of Green Knowe, etc. The fast pace and glossy 2007 production values took a fair bit of the edge off the spookiness, and I can't help wondering how much more creepy it would have been done in the slower-moving and more sombre early '80s style. It would probably have scared the bejeezus out of me.

So, other than a (probably) unavoidable modern glossiness and (probably) unavoidable plot holes, were there any down sides? Well, only the usual really. Most of the characterisation felt very standard-issue RTD, and Murray Gold's score undid a lot of the atmosphere by veering into Keff McCulloch territory with those ghastly 'orchestra hits' towards the start - whoever thought they were an attractive or effective noise? And the whole Sparrow and Nightingale thing? This was presumably a dig at low-rent ITV detective drama Rosemary and Thyme, hence the reference to ITV in the dialogue... but if so, why bother including such naffness in the episode in the first place? And anyway, Sally Sparrow (presumably a reference to similar '90s time travel sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart and its protagonist Gary Sparrow) is such an obviously made-up name that it proved tremendously distracting.

These are just small grumbles, though. Blink was yet another Steven Moffat masterclass in how to do 45 minutes of Doctor Who, tantalsingly drip-feeding the viewer information, avoiding the otherwise obligatory last act runaround, and getting the whole thing wrapped up under time (leaving the editors a minute or so at the end to play around with some pictures of statues they had lying around) without it ever feeling rushed. Along with The Shakespeare Code and Human Nature, the third absolutely top notch episode this season. More please.

Blink marked the return of the popular Steven Moffat with his third script for Doctor Who, making him and Russell T Davies the only writers to have penned stories for all three series of 21st-century Doctor Who (and both will be back for Series 4).

Moffat's previous contributions - The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances and The Girl In The Fireplace - were lavish-looking episodes, which would have taken a decent chunk of the show's budget to bring to life, especially the former. Blink, by contrast, was probably the cheapest episode since the series returned, with no CGI required. It was also notable for being what has become known as the season's "Doctor-lite" episode, designed to give the lead actors a break in a hectic shooting schedule.

It is widely known that showrunner Davies provides his writers with a "shopping list" of ingredients to weave into their stories - but "don't write anything which will cost us money - oh, and keep The Doctor and his companion out of as many scenes as possible!" means you're off to Lidl's rather than Harrods. Therefore, it's essential that the script is of the highest quality, which is pretty much a given when the name Steven Moffat is attached to it.

And, having given us faces which transform into gasmasks, followed by clockwork droids which hide under the bed, Moffat has added another ingredient to his own growing Doctor Who "scare list" . . .

Blink was the story of Sally Sparrow, a 21st-century girl who enters an abandoned old house, and is stunned to find warnings to her written on the walls. She returns to the house with her friend, Cathy Nightingale, who mysteriously vanishes as Sally answers to the door to a young man claiming to be Cathy's grandson.

It transpires that Cathy was transported back to 1920, from where she lived her life, and left instructions for her grandson to take a letter explaining this extraordinary situation to Sally. At first, she doesn't believe it, until she sees Cathy's grave.

A similar thing happens to a policeman Sally meets, him being transported back to 1969, where he encounters The Doctor and Martha, also trapped there after being separated from the TARDIS, which is being held by Weeping Angels, a race in the form of statues who feed off energy from other beings. To avoid being consumed by the Angels, and sent back in time, you must stare at them. They can never be looked upon by each other, or they are frozen forever.

The Doctor fears the Angels will attempt to devour the huge energy force from the TARDIS if they gain entry to it, and leaving messages for Sally in the future to help him is the only way he can stop them. He also sends her the TARDIS key.

The Doctor manages to "converse" with Sally in the form of a hidden extra in a batch of DVDs, which Sally owns. Together with Cathy's brother, Larry, Sally returns to the house in search of answers. As the Angels close in on them, Larry and Sally find the TARDIS, and get inside and enter a DVD provided by The Doctor into the console, which enables the TARDIS to ensnare the Angels into looking at each other, and being frozen.

A year later, Sally encounters The Doctor in the street outside the shop she and Larry now owns, and provides him with a transcript of the meeting they'll have in his future, which will enable him to set into motion the chain of events which she has already lived.

Phew. Holy Paradox Batman . . .

A fantastically-clever script from Moffat again. Not just in fulfilling the dual obligations of keeping the costs down and The Doctor's role to a minimum, but for still giving him an integral role and actually making it look like he was in it more than he actually was. And for coming up with a rattling good story, perfectly paced with decent, likeable characters - especially lead girl Sally - and a new, scary monster in the shape of the statues.

More stunning work from the prosthetics team and the performance artists within to realise the statues, to come across as genuinely creepy. Good, fast-cutting work from director Hettie MacDonald to close up on the Angels as their expressions changed, too. Definitely added to the fear factor, along with some understated work from Murray Gold.

Like Marc Warren last year in Love & Monsters, Carey Mulligan was a delight in the guest lead role. And like Elton, Sally Sparrow would, you feel, make a great companion given the chance.

A few chuckles along the way - nice cameo from Martha, muscling into The Doctor's DVD appearance, complaining about having to work in a shop to support him! And a gentle, playful prod at the world of the Internet geek, in the shape of Larry. Would you wear a T-shirt with a Doctor Who quote on it? Hmm . . . still, Moffat gave him the pretty girl in the end - geeks of the world rejoice!

And a nice touch at the end, reminding us that all statues are evil!

Only downside for me was that, brilliant as this script was, I don't really like any "Doctor-lite" episodes in the season, although I appreciate the good reasons behind it. As it's done out of necessity rather than choice, I would rather see just 12 episodes where the eponymous hero is prevalent, if the season schedule is so tight. Doctor Who isn't just about The Doctor, but I missed the dynamic between him and the new characters, which is an important area of the show. And I can't really mark Blink above other episodes in the run which have fulfilled that criteria so well.

Nine and a half out of 10 as a piece of quality TV in its own right, but seven and a half out of 10 as a Doctor Who episode - solid nonetheless, in a cracking season which looks set to be clunker-free, with three weeks to go.

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.