Discovering Doctor Who – Season 3, E8 & E9: Human Nature and The Family of Blood
This two-parter answered the question of what would The Doctor be like if he was human? And, I must say, it did so in a really incredible way. These episodes were exciting, full of interesting characters, and allowed David Tennant to really show that he can do some pretty great acting.
I seriously loved The Doctor as a human – I would never want to watch an entire show of him, of course – but it was really intriguing to see him in that context. And, I thought it was very touching to see him fall in love with Nurse Joan. It was fun to see him happy and flirting, but also very sad to have the understanding that such a relationship is something The Doctor probably wants most in the world and will never really be able to have. It was a very smart and revealing way to show what this side of The Doctor might be like.
Okay, let’s talk about Martha here, too. I really appreciated that the show did not shy away from the racism that would have so present at that point in time. And, I so loved the way Martha handled it all. She never got mean, but she did get feisty and still remained herself while playing the role of the John Smith’s attendant. Great work there in writing and acting, I think.
The villains – soooo creepy to me. I always see people commenting on the creepiness of the Weeping Angels and the Silence and what not (and those are all very creepy) but, this family was up there on the scary ick factor list in my opinion. The actor who played Baines was one of the creepiest people with the creepiest faces I have ever seen. I seriously hope that it was good acting and he doesn’t look like that all the time because if he does, I don’t understand how anyone would want to be his friend.
Also, I loved the young boy, Timothy Latimer (played by one of the actors from Love, Actually, I noted). He fit right into the Doctor Who world and did a great job with his role. I would have loved to see more of him.
I have to talk about the ending of this story, too. I have had several discussions with people about David Tennant’s Doctor versus Matt Smith’s Doctor and who is darker, more vengeful, more full of rage. My personal opinion is that Matt Smith’s Doctor definitely has a higher rage factor (he wears his anger more loudly and open for others to see), but this episode really showed me David Tennant’s dark, “I don’t give a damn attitude” (Two very different, albeit related personality points, I think). His treatment of the ‘family’ at the end of the episode showed this well. He just goes about it in a much more subdued way than Smith, I think. Tennant’s Doctor is almost quietly vindictive, somewhat selfish, definitely sinister. This isn’t to say that he’s not wonderful and heroic, too, but we all know that there are two sides to The Doctor, right?
Anyway, two really, really great episodes that I felt gave great insight into both The Doctor and Martha. And, I enjoyed the little epilogue-type bit where we got to see Latimer in the future. Nice touch.
