Rate and Discuss 3.9: The Family of Blood

[Dirk Gently]

Oh, I forgot to mention the mirror problem.

People have a problem with the Doctor trapping the girl in the mirror? Well if it was just one mirror then I'd say maybe the Doctor learnt more during Warriors Gate than we know but in every mirror...I can't square that one.
Part of the reason it lost a point. Although stylistically I can see why it's there, to scare the kids.

[Andrew Curnow]

My assumption of this scene was that although Tim & the other couple of chaps had survived not only the battle for the school but also WWI. And if you listen to the words the Vicar when she says:
"They shall grow not old*,
as we that are left** grow old;
age shall not weary them*,
nor the years condemn."
the camera moves over to show the Doctor & Martha*, not looking a day older than they were when they left Tim in that field & yet he was left** behind & lived those 80+ years in between then & now. It also shows (to my mind) that they came to pay their respects to Tim & those that lost their lives that night & may be they chose this Remembrance Sunday because it was Tim's last?

That all makes sense, and I agree it was well done... but it didn't seem the 'right' ending for the story (to me) as it wasn't really Tim's story at all. But I accept that I'm in the minority, as an awful lot of people have singled that scene out for special mention.

[Jim]

I have just got to see it and voted a 10 - as it was perfect in my book!

[Middle Aged Loomsy]

Hmmm - I still think, "No beginning, no end, and a muddle", although I appreciate the comments you've all made since my comment.

I still wonder how the Doctor and Martha came to find the old guy at the Remembrance Day service. Perhaps the Tardis is a "sniffer" dog. Would they have recognised the exact guy, too? Not sure about all that.

I've forgotten how the Doc disposed of "Father of mine", but the bit about leaving the "son" as a scarecrow - well that's a bit risky..... (but could make for a future story, not it?)

After all, whoever owns that field may at some time or other want to do something about that scarecrow - what would happen then? If he took the sack off the head?

Maybe, as I say, that would be a good excuse for another story.

[Jason Thompson]

Personally I think it's as acceptable (or unacceptable, depending on your point of view) as Fenric being "trapped in the Shadow Dimensions" and all that.

I think a primal force being trapped in another dimension is fine, but an alien in a human girl's body being trapped in a mirror is silly.

I do find it surprising that the lack of detailed background for the Family is coming in for such a battering though. Take the Animus, take the people behind the War Games, there are plenty of examples from other stories where the villains of the piece simply are, with little or no history to them other than the needs of the story.

But the Doctor comes along, finds out what they are doing and works to stop it because it's wrong. By that time we don't nevessarily know why the bad guys are doing what they are doing, but we do at least know what they are doing. Here the Doctor takes a seriously drastic action in response to something we never see, and it is never explained why the Family are so bad that he has to take such drastic action rather than just land the TARDIS and sit behind its impregnable doors for 3 months if all he wants to do is hide, or land on their ship and do something clever straight off. It's a huge event, the Doctor becoming human, and I just felt let down that I couldn't understand why he had to do it, especially since he disptached them so easily at the end.

[Jason Thompson]

I've forgotten how the Doc disposed of "Father of mine",

He wrapped him in chains of dwarf star alloy, apparently, and seemed to drop him in a cellar.

but the bit about leaving the "son" as a scarecrow - well that's a bit risky..... (but could make for a future story, not it?)

After all, whoever owns that field may at some time or other want to do something about that scarecrow - what would happen then? If he took the sack off the head?

Maybe, as I say, that would be a good excuse for another story.

Well, the fates of the Family were narrated by 'Baines' in the past tense, something he surely couldn't do while frozen in time standing in a field....

[Logo Polish]

Good opportunity for a Worzel Gummidge crossover, I would have thought. Imagine, the Crowman cycling up on his rusty old bicycle, investigating this strange scarecrow he didn't make, and on examining the head...

...nice chance for a temporal battle between Baines/Son of Mine (well, theirs) and Worzel and Aunt Sally.

As for tracing the elderly version of the boy, well, they could have researched his life - wouldn't have been that difficult, I'd have thought.

[Nicky74]

This was a great 2 parter. Harry Lloyds acting was good. I never would have guessed he was the same guy that played Will Scarlett in the new BBC version of Robin Hood.

[Rob McCow]

And five years later...

It's not a brilliant story, but the brilliant bits that are brilliant are so brilliantly brilliant that they're just brilliant. Overall: Brilliant.

It's possible that the direction let the side down a bit. The scarecrows could have been so much scarier in the second part when they're advancing on the school. The build up with the children crying as they wait for the enemy to burst through the gate is perfectly done but the scarecrow massacre lacks bite, at least in my opinion.

And the real moment of tension is when the little girl (Hawthorne?) turns up in front of the guns. That should have been an edge-of-seat moment when it was just a middle-of-seat moment.

Never mind though. Tennant is at his absolute best as John Smith, a man desperate not to become the Doctor. Why is he at his best? He abandons the happy-go-lucky Doctor persona and becomes a more believable, terrified man. Smith is far more stiff and restrained than the Doctor, but it's only a subtle and slight change.

The brilliant brilliant bits are the flash-forward to the John and Joan's future life together, plus the scene at the end at the Remembrance Ceremony. The fact that both these scenes left me sobbing again is a good thing!

Far from perfect, but quite magical. That's my opinion half-a-decade later...

[Dirk Gently]

And what a good opinion it is.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Still think that last scene was laughably ruined by having a man who was far too young playing someone who was presumably supposed to be in his 90s by then. And I didn't like a single thing about the Doctor's revenge at the end - either the fantasy story methods or the fact that he even did it.

[Rob McCow]

Different strokes and all that! I don't think he looked too young. My cursory research has not revealed how old he actually is.

Anyway, the point is that he lived to be old and that he always remembered the Doctor and Martha. We fleetingly glimpse him as an old man for a few seconds at the end of the episode in an unspecified year. That's why I don't have a problem with it.

Hey! Human Nature is now set exactly 100 years ago. Spook.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I did a bit of research at the time and he was in his 60s I think. Which would mean that scene would have had to have been set in the 60s... fair enough if you didn't notice it, but to my eyes they might as well have just put a bald cap and some fake wrinkles on the actor who played the boy and said "that'll do, it's the thought that counts".

[Rob McCow]

It is the thought that counts!

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Let's see if you still say that when we get revenge of the tin foil and toilet roll Cybermen

[Rob McCow]

If it was in one brief scene and used to illustrate a dramatic point and make an emotional impact, then maybe.