"Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood"

The scene is set with the Doctor and Martha running into the TARDIS, on the run from an unseen foe and it looks like it’s business as usual. Then, the Doctor’s eyes open- only it isn’t the Doctor, but a schoolmaster. Martha enters wearing a maid’s uniform and we find out that it is 1913 and the Doctor is apparently a dream of this man. Roll titles.

The ideas behind "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood" are pretty sound- The Doctor hides from the Family by becoming human and burying his memories and intelligence behind the personality of John Smith, a history master at Farringham School for boys. However, this is merely a canvas, on which Paul Cornell (using his excellent novel as a basis) has painted an absolute masterpiece. With the Doctor absent, our attention is focussed on Smith and he comes across as a sympathetic and endearing character that is definitely not the Doctor. However, the Doctor finds a way of breaking through when Smith is asleep, making Smith dream of things that seem like sheer phantasy, which he records in his Journal of Impossible Things. The way that the story is structured cleverly mirrors this- after the pre-titles sequence, the story looks like a period drama, but slivers of Doctor Who start breaking through until we have a cliffhanger where a village dance has been invaded by a cross section of pre-war society, armed with disintegrator guns. World War One strongly affects the tone of the story- Cornell accurately depicts the worldview that the Great War destroyed forever- man was capable of anything, an Englishman doubly so. The boys, trained in use of weapons to fight the Enemy in a just and chivalric war will stand in filthy trenches, get mown down by machine guns and choke on from mustard gas. They fight men of straw, just as their fellows will train for combat the next year.

However, this is not just a story of alien invasion, but one driven, primarily by characters. At the centre is John Smith, a timid, yet kindly man who finds love with the school Matron, Joan Redfern. This romance is tenderly done and we come to appreciate both characters to such an extent that, while we want the Doctor back, we are truly sorry to see Smith go. Cornell does not make it entirely clear whether Smith is an invented persona or a kenotic reduction of the Doctor, but this works in the story’s behaviour- is Smith’s heroic act with the cricket ball a piece of the Doctor poking through or is it entirely Smith? Particularly well written is Joan’s dawning realisation of the fact that her love is for a man who doesn’t really exist- her asking Smith about his childhood and receiving encyclopaedia entries as an answer is heartbreaking and written with a Borges-like elegance. Joan comes off as a splendid character, a strong, intelligent and decent woman that one can easily understand Smith falling for, but with the strictness that a School Matron should show, that is a mask of propriety for her true kindness. The rest of the staff and the schoolboys are equally well drawn. One very refreshing aspect is the refusal to make the characters hold anachronistic values- Martha’s colour is an issue with even sympathetic characters such as Smith and Nurse Redfern and Martha’s dignity and resolve throughout is wonderful.

There is one character who permeates the story, yet hardly appears- the Doctor himself. We see people’s yearnings for him both selfish (the Family) and otherwise (Martha). Tangential, yet vital is the character of Tim Latimer, a boy with an unusual gift who understands the Doctor better than any other, giving the most wonderful description of the Doctor ever written:

'He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun... He's ancient and forever. He burns at the centre of time and can see the turn of the universe.'

Critically, when the Doctor reappears, he is impersonating John Smith to lessen the blow before he utterly defeats the Family. The shift of narration to Baines/Son-of-Mine is inspired- we see the Doctor as his enemies see him, an implacable destroyer. In fact, until the time, the Doctor and Martha depart in the TARDIS, we are always seeing the Doctor from another character’s perception of him.

Charles Palmer directs a very impressive production with virtually no weak points. There is no time to list all the memorable scenes, so I’ll just pick a few- the flashback to the Doctor’s transformation, the boys machine-gunning the scarecrows, the heartbreaking ‘dream of a normal life’ and, of course, the wonderful coda, where the Doctor and Martha attend a Remembrance Day service where an aged Tim Latimer is guest of honour. The performances are splendid. Jessica Hynes is compelling as Joan and Thomas Sangster excellent as Tim. Harry Lloyd manages to convey the alien without going over the top, in a hugely skilful performance as Baines/Son-of-Mine. However, the best performances are by the regulars. Freema Agyeman gives one of the best ‘companion’ performances of all time in a thoroughly wonderful performance- her medical ‘talk to the hand’ scene is sublime. David Tennant’s performance is astonishing, possibly the best performance by any actor playing the lead role, although he mainly plays another role. Tennant makes Smith endearing, fearful, yet very brave and we truly mourn his passing.

"Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood" is not one of those tediously trite sci-fi stories that tell the reader ‘what it means to be human’- it points out why the Doctor can never truly be like us, while celebrating the best of humanity- Joan is awed by the Doctor, but not so much that she fails to reprimand him for the havoc he has caused, dismissing him from her presence- while she finally mourns for the man she loved. It seems weird that, a few weeks before, I was thinking that Doctor Who had lost it, for this is truly one of the best Doctor Who stories of all time.

NEXT: "Blink"