Rate and Discuss 3.9: The Family of Blood

[WhiteCrow]

Also why was a ten-year old fighting in the war?

Si.

I think he was older than 10 years old, to me he looked about 13-15. And a lot of under age boys lied about their age to join up, that was part of the horror, they all thought it was their duty and they'd be missing out on an adventure.

[Alex]

But that's what the Doctor was trying to do - that's why he made himself human so as to let them die humanely. Instead, they forced his hand and brought out his brutal side - another aspect I loved. We started to really see it with the 10th Doctor with the way he rounded on Harriet Jones, having just dispatched the Sycroax leader with his "No second chances". And we saw it a year later with the way he sorted out the Empress of Racnoss - and Donna's shocked reaction to it.

I think this is a fascinating direction for the show and the character, and much to my liking.

Oh, and how fantastic again was Martha/Freema when single-handedly protecting "the Doctor" and the others in the hall from the Family of Blood?!

I see your point Jonno, though it does seem a bit of a long winded way to do such a thing! Also, by trying to give them a second chance, he's responsible for a great deal of deaths (at least if the Family's shooting spree from the spaceship was accurate) which is a morally complex issue to say the least.

I just wish they'd spent a little more time on that part of the story, it seemed a little rushed whilst I felt the scarecrow fighting scenes went on for far too long.

Gah, it's sounding like I didn't like the episode, when I did! I just feel a bit underwhelmed by it at the moment after having such high expectations - hopefully a second viewing next week along with the first part will make me like it more anyway!

[P-Bal]

Pity poor Martha. She goes through absolute agonies to get the man she loves back, but he decides to broker a deal with his newer conquest and when that falls through settle for good old Miss Jones. There's a moral there, folks. Men will take you, use you and try for something better. I'm not bitter.

I don't think you could ask for better though. From the story that is, not men. And on a superficial level, albeit a slightly sinister one, P-Bal might have some kind of swaying towards one of the actors.

For shame.

[Jonno]

Also, by trying to give them a second chance, he's responsible for a great deal of deaths

Indeed - as Joan also pointed out to him when he'd become the Doctor again. The look on his face when she pointed that out spoke volumes! I also liked the way he just assumed she'd want to travel with him and couldn't understand why that just wouldn't be the same for her.

Oh and cheers Milky - I really must slip in the odd untruth now and again to keep you on your toes!

[Darren]

Well, again, I didn't like it, although it was a slight improvement on last week. It's great that, for so many people, this two parter has been the best of the New Series, but I'm struggling to see this as anything other than (just)average.

6 out of 10.

[SiHart]

The scene with Joan and The Doctor at the end were the most moving the show has ever done. IMO of course. She's hurt and she hurts him too. Look at his eyes.

This has been an absolute gem of a story. I knew it would be brilliant, but I wasn't expecting anything this great.

Si xx

[Milky Tears]

My idol was impressed:

I wish there were some way to vote more than 5. Some kind of special vote reserved for once in a lifetime classics.

How amazing that forty four years after the series started, it delivers its best ever story from its entire lifetime of existence.

And how sickening that Paul Cornell (who I never rated this highly until now) isn't writing again for series four.

I have no words to describe the brilliance of this story.

[SiHart]

We're glad he found something to rant about there despite all the love!

Si xx

[Milky Tears]

He's like an older version of Jon Masters.

[WhiteCrow]

I really enjoyed it. In some ways it reminds me of the Deep Space 9 story "Far Beyond the Stars", a story which really on the surface has disposed of all the trappings of usual Star Trek, yet achieves something great and is more about the spirit of Star Trek than many an average episode.

In the same way this was a story about the Doctor, in which he doesn't really appear that much. And very much like Love and Monsters it gives us a different perspective to the Doctor than we're used to on your standard story.

Like Si I'd like to single out the scenes between Joan and John Smith prior to him becoming the Doctor, and afterward he'd changed. Somehow the after scene really showed a coldness to the Doctor, which seemed to contrast the passion of John Smith. I liked the idea that something we took for granted, that the John Smith would want to revert to the Doctor got to be explored.

And I loved the dark and somewhat haunting way he dealt with the family at the end. I felt (and here comes controvery) there was something a little vengeful in the way he dealt with them, as if because they'd made him fall in love and then choose to abandon that love, it really brought out his dark side.

Which leads me to the Master/Saxon rumours. We've been exploring the Doctors darker side increasingly. Of course the Master and the Valeyard have always fullfilled the role of showing the Doctor if he'd taken a slightly different path. Feels like this is coming to a head at the end of season.

[Pip Madeley]

Some interesting facts from the Beeb site:

In the Year of Our Lord 2007, there were fewer than five veterans from the First World War still alive and living in the UK.

At over a hundred years old, Timothy Latimer is the oldest human character ever to appear in the series.

One thing that 'Baines' never did was Blink.

Also mentions Dwarf Star Alloy, I bet Si Hart loved that

[Jonno]

At over a hundred years old, Timothy Latimer is the oldest human character ever to appear in the series.

Hmmm, not so sure about that. The most recent original series story I've watched/listened to was Abominable Snowmen, and I'm fairly sure Padmasambhava was at least a couple of centuries old.

Sorry, I'll take my anorak off now.

[Milky Tears]

Hmmm, not so sure about that. The most recent original series story I've watched/listened to was Abominable Snowmen, and I'm fairly sure Padmasambhava was at least a couple of centuries old.

Sorry, I'll take my anorak off now.

They probably mean "Russell T Davies's Doctor Who"!

[Alex]

Indeed - as Joan also pointed out to him when he'd become the Doctor again. The look on his face when she pointed that out spoke volumes! I also liked the way he just assumed she'd want to travel with him and couldn't understand why that just wouldn't be the same for her.

That's very true, and that was definitely one of the finest moments of the series - but RTD's supposedly magical and wonderful and all but perfect Doctor should have thought about that before doing it all!

I guess it shows just how fallible he can be at times, which is definitely a good thing, but again I just wish we'd had a bit more time to explore his decision to do it / his revenge on the family of blood.

[Jon Masters]

He's like an older version of Jon Masters.

Almost - I've never rated Mr Cornell's writing, even including now, but since I didn't rate HN/FOB higher than 5 even given the opportunity, I'll have to bring out a 'Bring Back Paul McGann' charity record to catch back up again

[Jason Thompson]

Hmmm, not so sure about that. The most recent original series story I've watched/listened to was Abominable Snowmen, and I'm fairly sure Padmasambhava was at least a couple of centuries old.

While that may be true, I would have assumed they were referring to natural lifespans. It's pretty clear in The Abominable Snowmen that Padmasambhava is being kept alive by the Great Intelligence far beyond his normal lifespan, since he immediately dies and crumbles once he is freed at the end of the tale, whereas Latimer reached his grand old age all on his own (with perhaps a bit of help from a Time Lord about dodging a particular shell during the war).

Are there any other artificially aged or kept alive human characters in the series?

[Andrew Curnow]

I really enjoyed it - perhaps not quite as much as last week, but still a lot. Although a lot of people seem to have loved it, I didn't really see the point of the final scene with the old Tim - it is just the sort of epilogue the NAs used to do, but didn't seem to add anything to the TV version (IMHO). It wasn't bad, or anything like that, it just felt a little tagged on (although I'm sure it wasn't) and I can't really say I'm 100% certain why the Doctor and Martha went there anyway?

Aside from that though, it was another very impressive episode - the scenes in the school, of John Smith setting a squad of boys to defend the school, were really very harrowing, and those scenes were played for all they were worth.

However, for me the real jaw-dropping triumph of this episode was David Tennant - he was just so superbly human as John Smith, so different to the Doctor, so realistic in just wanting to live his life, and not become some (as he saw it) unfeeling alien. The scenes where Smith is struggling against his inevitable fate are some of the most amazing the new series has given us, and really do show how good an actor Tennant is - maybe, like Hartnell, some of his more annoying Doctorisms are in fact all deliberate acting?

All in all, good script, good production, good performances - good show!!

[Jon Masters]

Are there any other artificially aged or kept alive human characters in the series?

I'm not sure why but I've always had the impression that Li H'sen Chang was older than old; something to do with him taking in Greel when he arrives in China when Litefoot was a boy, and yet not looking as old as Litefoot does (maybe he had a play with the Bird's Nest Soup machine )

[Jason Thompson]

And I suppose I ought to say what I though of the episode itself.

Lovely. Truly brilliant. Apart from the climax.

The escape from the hall, the 'making a fight of it', the despair of John Smith as he effectively wrestles with the decision to sacrifice his life, all brilliant. The only niggle I had was the army of scarecrows: why did they fall when shot? Shouldn't the bullets go straight through? (Though I did like the way the one whose arm Baines pulled off looked at his shoulder, then at Baines, as if to ask 'why did you do that?'). Also, they glossed over their reanimation as we just heard Baines yell 'reanimate!' over the escape and then there they are again. Couldn't we see them getting up again from the floor?

Joan Redfern was brilliant, realising gradually that Martha was telling the truth, not hesitating to remind John that he dreamed about and drew the TARDIS, and deducing that the Cartwright household was likely to be empty if the girl had gone back there. More than that, her support of John as he wrestled with his emotions: the true love that means you'll let someone go. She never once tried to persuade him to stay as he was. Wonderful.

Tennant's performance was superb, as he got to do all the things that the Doctor is never going to do. We'll never see the Doctor break down in tears as the world falls apart around him. We'll never see him so uncertain as to what he should do. It was brilliant.

The pacing was great. I honestly thought that by the time latimer handed back the watch we were only halfway through the episode, and was surprised to see we were nearly finished. Not every episode can claim to have held my attention so well I didn't realise how long I'd been watching for.

Now I've been effusive with praise, what about the bit I didn't like? The ending. After giving us some great stuff it was as if Cornell suddenly realised he had to actually finish the story in two minutes flat, and we got an unconvincing 'fall against some controls in just the right way to make the ship blow up' rushed bit that really didn't feel like part of the story. After all the emotion and power and indecision leading up to it I was expecting the return of the Doctor to be a big event, but here it was just as quick 'oh yeah, he changed back, obviously' moment that, to me, felt like it had cheated the viewer out of the climax that the great stuff that came before felt like it should have been leading up to. And then just how was the Doctor supposed to singlehandedly deal with four people in such a way as he did? Did not one of them have a gun on them still? What stopped three of them running away while he dealt with the first one, or all fouor of them rushing him so he'd die with them now that they were denied the prize they had been looking for? No, it just didn't work for me, which was a shame as the preceding 40 minutes had been truly great.

And the whole 'come with me' moment didn't work for me either. The Doctor has been human now, and presumably retains the memories. And yet he never even apologised to the woman whose heart he broke, and just offered to take her with him as if that would cheer her up! Did he learn nothing from all the humans he's interacted with in the past 900 years, or his own experience of it? Sorry, just felt totally wrong.

But the last few minutes with latimer were very nice, and allowed me to switch off the TV after the credits rolled with a smile and, dare I admit it, a slight tear welling in one eye, despite the total shite of the plot's climax.

[Pip Madeley]

The Doctor has been human now, and presumably retains the memories.

He says John Smith is in there, but I don't think he remembers it all, either that or he doesn't quite understand the feelings he experienced anymore, hence his rather blaze treatement of Joan towards the end.

we got an unconvincing 'fall against some controls in just the right way to make the ship blow up' rushed bit that really didn't feel like part of the story. After all the emotion and power and indecision leading up to it I was expecting the return of the Doctor to be a big event, but here it was just as quick 'oh yeah, he changed back, obviously' moment that, to me, felt like it had cheated the viewer out of the climax that the great stuff that came before felt like it should have been leading up

I thought it was quite clever, it put me on the backfoot as it was rather unexpected when the Doctor just suddenly started to act himself again - plus the whole exploding the spaceship thing was SO Terror Of The Zygons, and that's no bad thing for me

Like Jonno, I loved the way the Doctor dealt with the Family and that darkness within him, showing us that he didn't run away because he was scared, but because he was simply being kind enough to give them a chance. I loved the way that whole section was told by Harry Lloyd's voiceover, a very effective moment (also like the movie-style fading as the Scarecrow army came to life).

And finally, the Family looked up from the muddy ground at the Doctor, in his all-consuming shadow, with the lighting on Tennant's face... absolutely superb direction from Charles Palmer, I hope we're lucky to have him back for series four.

[Larry]

I
Like Si I'd like to single out the scenes between Joan and John Smith prior to him becoming the Doctor, and afterward he'd changed. Somehow the after scene really showed a coldness to the Doctor, which seemed to contrast the passion of John Smith. ]

And she hurt him by all but blaming him for all the deaths - as for Harry LLoyed (Bains) I think he has been fantastic with all his creepy looks and fast talking. But I watched it again this morning and it just gets even better and you would have to rate it as one of the best episodes in not just the new series but the old series as well.

[Ralph]

My friends I'm visiting were keen to see Doctor Who - poor people I've missed the last couple of eps...I guess I should expect my ejection papers soon

[Rob McCow]

Have you given up on the show, Ralph?

[Milky Tears]

You're not missing much, Ralph. It ain't no Season Nine.

[Jonno]

It ain't no Season Nine.

Thank goodness for that!