(733) The Family of Blood

Nice little bit of trivia to start off with that this episode was transmitted in my 24^th birthday. I now feel old but at least this episode makes up for it. I have started to read the novel and at the moment it’s very different even though I am only a dozen or so pages into it. Bernice Summerfield is in 1913 and no sign yet of the Doctor but back to today’s episode. Rather interestingly they use the pre-title scene to replay what happened in the previous episode. Normally there is something that happens before the title

I like how Martha is the one calling the shots at the beginning of the episode. Quite literally calling the shots. She continues being the one that is watching over the Doctor.

The family are quite a good group of villains considering that they using human forms that aren’t related to each other. The little girl is quite creepy and very similar to the girl in Remembrance of the Daleks. When she goads the Doctor/John Smith into one of the schoolboys into shooting her I was surprised at how good the actress was. It’s revealed that The Doctor ran away cause he was being kind cause he knew that he would have to finish them off for good. They wanted to live forever and the Doctor made sure that they did in rather ingenious ways. I like the encounter between Jeremy/Brother of mine and the Headteacher. The headteacher is rather gung-ho and Baines tries to show him how he’s a fool. The shootout between the schoolboys and the scarecrow with a hymn being played is a very strong moment and his death at the hands of the little girl is perhaps inevitable.

The sight of several dozen scarecrows behind Baines is another cracking shot and Charles Palmer deserves a lot of praise. The weeping angels are coming up in the next episode but its fair to say that the scarecrows are another great creation and it would be cool to see them in something else.

The discussion about Martha’s ability to be a Doctor between Martha and Joan is interesting cause its another example of the attitudes towards women more specifically ethnic women in 1913 England.

I actually feel sorry for the Doctor cause as John Smith he doesn’t want to change. He wants his current life. There is a lovely final scene between John Smith and Joan. There’s a lovely flash forward to life as a married couple, kids and his death. He looks old for the first time this series. When they meet with the Doctor as himself it’s very different and both Tennant and Hynes deserve credit for the scenes they have together. In fact everyone worked really well over these two episodes and there wasn’t a weak link the entire cast.

The scene where the Doctor encounters the family and starts off by pretending that he’s human is a great scene and a great moment from the Doctor. It’s a moment where as a viewer I was relieved that the Doctor was back and doing what he does best.

Tim fights in the First World War and its a moment that is superb and not something that would have been done in classic Who and shows how the show as developed since 2005. That moment is followed by a Remembrance Sunday service which I thought was another classic moment and it shows that even though this is a piece of drama that war isn’t all fake guns, explosions and tomato ketchup.

I was worried that todays episode would disappoint me, that it would live up to how good the opening episode was but this was one of the best episode of the series and in fact ratings wise it’s the ebst episode since its 2005 reboot. Human Nature is third with The Parting of the Ways at number two. As a two parter it’s the best two parter beating the Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways season finale. It’s the first time since The TV Movie that a story has rated in the 8’s and the first time since Remembrance of the Daleks that a series story has rated in the 8’s. I haven’t until now appreciated just how good this story actually is. It is definitely the best Tennant story and tomorrows episode is another of the Doctor-lite episodes but one that is way better than Love and Monsters.

(732) Human Nature

Human Nature and Family of Blood is held in high regard by most Doctor Who fans and it’s not hard to see why. This is the first Doctor Who story to be adapted from a novel. Dalek had elements from Robert Shearman’s Big Finish play Jubilee but this was the first novel to be used. In that book it’s the seventh Doctor and Bernice Summerfield and Paul Cornell has had to obviously make some changes. I will be honest that I haven’t read the book but I am going to start today and see what the differences are so I wont be doing much comparing but this is a story that could have only been done from this series onwards because I don’t think that viewers would have gone with this story in 2005.

There’s a great dramatic opening with the Doctor and Martha before it suddenly changes gear and the Doctor has gone posh and Martha has turned into a maid. The Doctor and Martha are being chased by the Family of Blood who are after the Doctor’s life force to stop them from dying.

The Doctor’s life force in in a watch and the big thing is making sure that it isn’t opened yet because the family will find him. This is put at risk when Latimer finds it and opens it briefly.

There’s an interesting bit of racism in this episode which isn’t something that has been addressed in Doctor Who before and its quite a brave thing to do and a sign of how things have perhaps changed.

Jessica Hynes plays the love interest in this two parter and its clear that its doomed to fail in one way or another. She plays Siobhan Sharpe in the very funny W1A and she is very funny but has the ability to do some serious acting.

This story sees the appearance of Thomas Brodie-Sangster who has gone on to have a big career appearing in stuff like Game of Thrones and most recently Wolf Hall. He plays Tim Latimer who has ESP and he sort of hovers around the story for most of the episode and only really becomes relevant to the story towards the end of the episode.

Harry Lloyd plays Jeremy Baines and is one of those that becomes the human form of the family and he is totally horrible and is what most people would imagine private school snobs are like in 2007 not just 1913. When is he taken over by the family he seems to become superb and his performance makes him seem rather dangerous and that adds to the whole two parter.

Journal of Impossible Things is a book that John Smith has created and it has scribbles and loads of drawings in it. One of the most interesting moments comes when there is a page with several previous incarnations

I’m not one for pointing out continuity errors (partly because I never notice them) but at the 25:18 mark whilst the schoolboys are shooting at mock up targets. There is clearly a lorry passing by in the distance. It’s very small because its far away but it’s not something that would have been there in 1913.

I commented how David Tennant gave one of his strongest performances for sometime in 42 but I have to say that its rather bland compared to what he does in this episode. Tennnat gets an opportunity to play the Doctor in a different way and do something different in the lead role and he does wonderfully with it. Ok so he isn’t really playing the Doctor but watching him in todays episode I see the Doctor not John Smith and that is how good Tennant was. Even Freema Agyemen manages to keep up with Tennant. Martha has to ensure that things are going as smoothly as possible until the Family have died but it was inevitable that things were going to go wrong quickly because the story would have been boring otherwise.

There is a nice nod to the show’s creation where John Smith says his father is Sydney (after Sydney Newman) and his mother is called Verity (after Verity Lambert). I thought that this was a lovely nod and one that was designed to please the long time fans and as one of those I have to say that it was lovely.

The episode does move in a slightly slow pace but I didn’t mind it. I thought that there was enough goodwill on screen that I just let it pass by and when it did start to pick then it leads to a rather good cliffhanger. The Family of Blood know that the Doctor is John Smith and are going to kill Martha and Joan if he doesn’t change back but John Smith doesn’t know how to and he has to choose between which of them is killed. This was a great opening episode and the worry now is that the concluding part wont live up to the hype.

Interestingly Phil Collinson is promoted to Executive Producer and Susie Liggat has become producer making her only the second woman to be a producer in Doctor Who. Not quite sure what the reason was for this because he goes back to being producer in Blink but it’s interesting that it was 42 years between female producers.

(726) The Shakespeare Code

Martha’s first trip into the past takes her to 1599. I will be honest that I haven’t been the biggest fan of Shakespeare. I did the usual stuff at school but could never really get into it and so the idea of spending 45 minutes in his companion wasn’t something that I was particularly looking forward to. This isn’t the first time that Shakespeare has been in Doctor Who. It was way back in 1965 and it was a blink and you’ll miss it moment but this is the first time that he’s so integral to the plot. The thing about this episode is that they filmed inside the actual Globe Theatre. Not even the Oscar winning film Shakespeare in London was allowed to film in there. I think that the fact they were able to film in there helps create a wonderful atmosphere.

This is the second episode in and Rose is still getting a mention much to the annoyance of Martha. The relationship between the Doctor and Martha is different to what the Doctor had with Rose and it’s refreshing that this is the case. Martha’s reaction to being in that time period is quite amusing and Martha doesn’t make it all about her like Rose did and I am liking Freema Agyeman more and more.

The effects of the surrounding area is truly impressive and looks wonderful. It’s something that they wouldn’t be able to do in a movie so it’s great they are in this episode.  They really have stretched themselves in this series and this is one of the most visually impressive episodes since the show returned in 2005. The effects used when the Carrionites are swirling around the globe is another superb effect and one that I think looks as good as it did in 2007.  If there is one thing that I don’t think works quite well is the masks of Doomfinger, Bloodtide and Lillith. They seem a bit poor but I don’t know if that is just because they haven’t aged as well as most things.

David Lennox Kelly plays William Shakespeare and does a really good job. Bearing in mind that he has free reign to play him as he does, I find that his performance to be truly engaging and it’s a shame that he hasn’t returned. Had he appeared in the Steven Moffat era then he would have been a regular character.

Gareth Roberts has done a great job in making the episode amusing but too much. It still feels like a Doctor Who episode but its having fun in it surroundings and the running gag is that Shakespeare is using lots of words and sayings that the Doctor uses. I have enjoyed this episode a lot and thought that the performances were very good, the writing was sound, the directing was just as good as the previous episode (which makes sense considering it’s the same director) and the whole vibe of the episode was a good one and I am really looking forward to tomorrows episode because its one of my favourites of the series.

(725) Smith and Jones

These new series are going fast. It only seems like five minutes that I was watching Rose and here I am watching the first story to feature Martha. After saying goodbye to Rose and briefly saying hello to Donna, we get introduced to Martha Jones and for a moment I just wanted to stat things up. Between the Christmas Special and todays episode just 96 days had past and that that is the shortest gap between stories since seasons 5 & 6 back in the late 1960’s and it’s the sixth shortest in the shows history. Having thought that the previous series wasn’t as strong as it could have been, this is the first one where the people writing for the show knew what sort of Doctor they were writing for and this shows. Like Rose, this has to introduce Martha and that means that there is a family to introduce as well. It really doesn’t take long for Martha to show why she’s better than Rose. Even her family is better than the Tyler’s.

The Doctor and Martha seem to hit it off straight away and it’s a different dynamic than there was between the Doctor and Rose. The romance is reigned in a lot with these two. There is a nice explanation given by Martha where she says she has a cousin that worked in Canary Wharf and this gets around how the two look the same.

The monster of the week is a Rhino looking race called The Judoon. They look really good and their first appearance is one of the highlights of the episode because to see them marching along the service of the moon isn’t something that could only work on new Doctor Who. The Judoon are basically policeman and it’s a great idea from RTD and I know they appear in future stories but this will always be their best appearance. They show their power in just towering over people and they work well in the story. The cool thing that takes place in this episode is the hospital that the Doctor and Martha are on is taken and placed on the Moon. That is a great idea and the visual effects help make it look really good.

Anne Reid returns to the show after appearing in The Curse of Fenric and in this she plays a blood sucking alien calling herself Florence Finnegan. She gets her blood by using a straw which was a source of irritation to many but I just thought that it was a really amusing way and it sort of doesn’t make the how blood sucking thing seem as terrifying as it would normally be. The Judoon are after her but she’s disguised as a human and she sucks the Doctor’s blood and is discovered by the Judoon so she basically trips herself up.

This is the series where the Saxon story arc begins and its not until the end of the episode where Saxon gets his first mention. It’s a blink and you miss it but at this time of the show, we had all got use to listening out for any mention of Saxon or Torchwood or Bad Wolf. Saxon got mentioned in the Christmas Special but the mentions are now goings to be far more frequent. I think that this is the strongest series opener that we have had. Rose was good just because we were glad to have it back and New Earth wasn’t very good really but this was the one which got it spot on and I am even more excited about this series.