Doctor Who: Series 3, Episodes 8-9 – “Human Nature” / “The Family of Blood” (2007)

This is Paul Cornell’s other new Who story, after series 1’s exquisite “Father’s Day.”  While I don’t think this two-partner is quite as great as that episode, it’s still beautifully done.  Fine writing is brought to life by top-notch acting, and our heroes are tested in incredible ways (premise spoilers.)

The Tenth Doctor and Martha are being hunted by The Family of Blood, malevolent aliens that survive by stealing the bodies of others – for them, a Time Lord’s body is the key to everything, and they’re relentless in their pursuit.  The only way the Doctor can see out of it is to undergo a radical process that temporarily rewrites both his biology and his memories.  He and Martha go into hiding in a small village in 1913, the Doctor as the slightly-absentminded dreamer John Smith and Martha posing as his maid, getting a job in the school where he works.  To be safe, they have to stay for three months, and as the only one who remembers why they’re there, it’s up to Martha to keep the temporarily-human Doctor safe and watch out for the return of the dangerous Family.

For starters, can we just talk about the Family of Blood?  I love it when Who can take aliens that appear human (in this case because they’re stealing people’s bodies) and still make them seem absolutely, 100% alien.  The Family has that in spades, and it’s all down to the excellent acting; everything about them feels supremely-otherworldly and just wrong, and you can immediately tell that the human minds aren’t in those human bodies anymore.  This story was my introduction to Harry Lloyd (who I’ve since seen in roles as varied as Viserys Targaryon on Game of Thrones and Herbert Pocket in a Great Expectations miniseries,) and it was a great one.  As Son of Mine, he leads the Family with creepy, unnerving precision, so cold and so deadly.  I love it!

Oh yeah, and bonus points for the scarecrows – creepy as all get out!

It’s really neat to see David Tennant playing an entirely different character.  Because even though Mr. Smith is a construct, a fake human with implanted memories who has tiny bits of the Doctor bleeding into his dreams, he is altogether different.  Obviously, it’s an acting challenge for Tennant, with shades of Dollhouse, and it’s interesting from a character standpoint too.  The Doctor has given over to being this other person in order to keep his body out of the Family’s hands, and to do so, he loses all control over the situation.  He can’t stop Mr. Smith from doing things the Doctor would never do, and he also has no part in Mr. Smith being able to try his hand at the sort of life that the Doctor could never have (thanks to the school nurse, played by Jessica Hynes in a very different role than Daisy from Spaced!)

Okay, you remember that part in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when Dumbledore tells Harry, “Once again I must ask too much of you”?  That’s basically Martha’s whole season in a nutshell, and it’s especially true here.  In this story, Martha is tasked with a) babysitting the human Doctor, b) keeping an eye out for sinister aliens that want to steal the Doctor’s body and most definitely kill everyone, and c) maintaining their cover story while stuck working as a maid in a racist prep school in 1913.  So much is placed on her shoulders with virtually no preparation, but even when she doesn’t know what to do, she keeps fighting and clawing her way forward, determined to save them all by sheer force of will.  Martha is a wonder and a stone-cold badass in this story – I love her so much, and my biggest gripe with series 3 is the fact that the Doctor never deserves her or seems to really get how awesome she truly is.