Episode #189 - Human Nature / The Family of Blood

"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 he can see the turn of the universe. And... he's wonderful."

Episode #189:   Human Nature / The Family of Blood.
Companions:    The 10th Doctor and Martha Jones.
Air Date:          26th May to 2nd June 2007.


England 1913, school teacher John Smith experiences amazing dreams of living an incredible life as a mysterious adventurer called "the Doctor", fighting monsters and seeing far away worlds. Is this man just a look-a-like of the real Doctor with a psychic link, or could there be another answer for all this?

This adventure starts with the time travellers being chased through time by some unknown opponents and they scare the Doctor so much that he is prepared to become human to escape them. He uses some previously unknown bit of Time Lord technology called a Chameleon Arch to become human but it creates a new persona, memories and I guess, alters history a little to let him fit in. The Doctor becomes a school teacher and Martha is a a scullery maid. Everything is fine until those pesky aliens show up and start to ruin everything.

At first glance it seems like an interesting story, and not surprisingly as this is based upon a 7th Doctor novel that came out in the mid 1990s. The drama between the Doctor and his new love, the snooty rich boys and Martha being stuck in the middle is all rather good. For me the story goes down hill because of the aliens, the Family of Blood. We are told nothing of them other than they have extremely short life spans and want the Doctors life energy to extend their own. The acting for them is just a little too over the top for me though and it spoils my enjoyment.

Where this story really earns its stripes however is in both the conflict between "John Smith" and Martha as she tries to convince him to "die" and return to being the Doctor, and the lead up to the Great War in which these young men will fight and die. The final scene of the episode still brings a tear to me whenever I watch it.

Human Nature and The Family of Blood is one of those modern Doctor Who stories where the writing and the drama are both spot on and enjoyable but something silly or OTT spoils it a little too much. Especially as this story is really just here to introduce the idea of the Chameleon Arch for later on in the series.

Episode #188 : The Infinite Quest

"Let's just say... there are things out there in space, Martha. Things that pre-date our reality. Relics from the dark times."

Episode #188:  The Infinite Quest.
Companions:    The 10th Doctor and Martha Jones.
Air Date:          2nd April to 29th June 2007.


The Tenth Doctor and Martha must find the legendary lost starship, the Infinite, before the evil Baltazar, scourge of the Galaxy, gets it.

In this animated episode the Doctor and Martha are set on a quest to find an ancient relic called the Infinite before an evil space pirate named Baltazar. The quest takes them across four worlds in a hunt for the clues that will lead them to their prize.

This was an animated adventure shown on the BBC at tea time for children. Though there is some doubt as to whether this adventure should be considered canonical, by all that I have read it slots in to the current series between episode 42 and Human Nature.

It is a bit of a strange story really. It features such random things as giant intelligent birds made of gold, and an actual "skeleton" crew on a pirate ship stealing oil from giant walking oil rigs. The only references the adventure has to the traditional Doctor Who is some references to Nestene, Racknoss, the Great Vampires, and even a throw away reference to one of the Great Old Ones. Despite my regular dislike of the strangeness in the show now I rather enjoy how it plays out in this one. Maybe because it was made for a younger audience rather than family viewing.

You don't need to watch this adventure but for completeness sake I would recommend one watch.

Episode #187 : 42

"The wonderful world of space travel... The prettier it looks, the more likely it is to kill you."

Episode #187:  42.
Companions:   The 10th Doctor and Martha Jones.
Air Date:         19th May 2007.

The Tenth Doctor and Martha follow a distress signal, only to be trapped on a spaceship hurtling towards a sun and cut off from the TARDIS. With only forty-two minutes left till impact, can they save the day? Also, something else is on the ship and it wants everyone to burn.

As the blurb says, the Doctor and Martha find themselves trapped on a starship falling into a star with very little time left to save everyone as something not human begins to stalk the crew and burning them with a gaze. It is good classic Doctor Who again with our heroes fighting against the clock, running down corridors and trying to outsmart whatever monster is on board the ship with them. Add to that a subplot where the Jones family are being manipulated by the strange men and women in black to find out where the Doctor is and what he is up to, all in preparation for later this season, and you have a spot on adventure.

You can see now that Martha has become a companion. She started out only a few stories ago as someone the Doctor picked up and whisked through time and space as a thank you for her help on the moon. She has since been properly brought on board with this story. Martha is a companion that I can take or leave usually but in 42 when it appears that she is going to die in the grasp of an alien sun I find a side to her that makes me take her in a bit more. 

If it is a good episode why am I giving it an average rating? It is difficult to put my finger on it if I am honest. Something about this doesn't look right. I don't know if it is because the production played with the colours or it was filmed in a different way but something niggles at the back of my brain. To be fair I have noticed this a lot with the David Tennant era episodes as I've been re-watching them and it applies to a lot of them especially in this current season. But also in fairness, it is a good episode but it isn't up there as a four star rating as it is basically the show at the level that I expect of it. Harsh? Maybe but a fair point.

Episode #186: The Lazarus Experiment

"I'm old enough to know that a longer life isn't always a better one. In the end, you just get tired; tired of the struggle, tired of losing everyone that matters to you, tired of watching everything you love turn to dust. If you live long enough, Lazarus, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone."

Episode #186: The Lazarus Experiment.
Companions:   The 10th Doctor and Martha Jones.
Air Date:         5th May 2007.

After travelling backwards, forwards and backwards again in time, Martha Jones has returned home. However, before the tenth Doctor can bid farewell to her, he hears Professor Richard Lazarus announcing that he'll "change what it means to be human." What could this mean? And could it lead to something far more dangerous than a simple scientific failure?

Sometimes you don't need a story about time travel when you can write an excellent science fiction tale about the dangers of messing with science. That is exactly what we have here with this story and despite some bad CGI monster work the story does what it says on the tin. The Lazerus Experiment introduces us to Martha's dysfunctional family and her mother who really does not like the Doctor though with no good reason for it until she has someone try and point out the danger he places people in. Who is this stranger? Well, thats the build up for the end of season.

The story is nicely action packed and flows at a good pace, something that the first few stories of this season have failed to achieve. Some more money needed to be spent on the look of the "Lazarus monster" which unfortunately looks like a mid-1990's 3D computer graphic. Very disappointing.

The new Doctor Who seems to have a bit more thought provoking elements that never really made the surface of the classic show. In this episode we have the Doctor speaking the above quote to Professor Lazarus and we can see that he is getting old as an individual even if his body has youth. He's still an old man who has seen much and lost the people he loved. Where I found the fixation on the Time War a bit much in previous seasons I think you can feel for our hero a bit more when you have dialogue like this.

Re watching this season I have come to realise that I think this is the weakest season of new Doctor Who. Not sure why as I can't quite put my finger on it but it is like the writers were having trouble coming up with decent stories and plot points. It is a season that doesn't stand out very well. The Lazarus Experiment is certainly one of the better stories for this season though.

Episode #185 : Daleks in Manhatten / Evolution of the Daleks

"Daleks are bad enough at any time, but right now they're vulnerable, and that makes them more dangerous than ever."

Episode #185:  Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks.
Companions:   The 10th Doctor and Martha Jones.
Air Date:          21st to 28th April 2007.

During the building of the Empire State Building in 1930s New York, the Cult of Skaro continues their attempts to destroy humanity and reign supreme.

In this story the Doctor takes Martha to visit New York in the 1930s and finds that the Cult of Skaro having escaped from the Battle of Canary Wharf have travelled back in time to save their race. In this instance by combining human and Dalek DNA, an experiment that serves to split the surviving Daleks.

This is a story that I am never sure whether I actually like it or not. It reminds me a little of the early classic stories that featured historical situations as a learning experience. In this case Hooverville and the great depression. Add that to the Daleks and the typical Doctor Who troupes and you have a good episode. However it still follows the strange elements that haunt modern Who that don't really fit. In this case it is the pig workers primarily. They just don't feel like they belong. Once again it is an element that feels a bit too weird for me. Even so it is an entertaining story.

One of the complaints that started to appear around this time was that the Daleks were appearing too often in the show. The 4th Doctor only encountered them twice in seven years for instance. In the modern show however we need a major recurring villain and it brings the show in line with modern television formats. It is also nice to have a continuing storyline for them as well which continues through the rest of the series.

Episode #184 : Gridlock

"I lied to you, 'cause I liked it. I could pretend, just for a bit, I could imagine they were still alive... underneath that burnt orange sky. I'm not just a Time Lord, I'm the last of the Time Lords. The Face of Boe was wrong. There's no one else."

Episode #184:  Gridlock.
Companions:   The 10th Doctor and Martha Jones.
Air Date:          14th April 2007.

The Tenth Doctor takes Martha Jones to New Earth, in the far future, only to find that the entire city has become a deadly trap.

Gridlock is a bit of a disappointment for me. Rather than be a fully fleshed out episode we instead receive a filler story. It does set things up for the end of the season but that is tacked on to the end of the episode. The story itself just deals with the Doctor taking Martha to New Earth some time after his visit with Rose. She gets "kidnapped" and the Doctor chases through the underground highway to recover her. Once rescued we get a nice moment where he explains more about the Time War than we had before. It also reintroduces the Macra, though in a devolved form and they do not play a real part in the story. Everything about this story is just there to set up the "you are not alone" reference.

There is only two elements to this story that I fine entertaining. One is the various drivers on the highway and their own idiosyncrasies - a married woman and her catkind husband with their kittens, a pair of married old grannies and the rest. The other is the Doctors explanation to Martha at the end of the episode.

Gridlock is not even close to being the worst story out there but it is real waste of an episode. Had there been something more to it then my opinion would probably be very different. There just isn't enough to this story to make it worth while.

Episode #183: The Shakespeare Code

 

Martha: So, magic and stuff. That's a surprise. It's all a little bit Harry Potter.

The Doctor: Harry Potter. Wait 'til you read Book Seven. Oh, I cried.

Episode #183: The Shakespeare Code.
Companions:   The 10th Doctor and Martha Jones.
Air Date:         7th April 2007.

As a reward for her help in the last episode, Martha Jones gets a trip in the TARDIS. The Tenth Doctor takes her to 1599 England. After viewing a performance of Shakespeare's latest play, the time travellers are beset by apparent sorcery. Under threat of annihilation from a species from the Dark Times, the TARDIS team have to establish whether there is a connection between a witch they've met and Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Won — a play that was legendarily lost to time.

The Shakespeare Code is a typical Doctor Who adventure where the time travellers drop into historical events and become embroiled in the schemes of an extraterrestrial nature. Normally I would see this as a good adventure but as seems to be standard in the 10th Doctor stories the writers start messing about with things and it spoils the episode. In this case everything is fine until Shakespeare himself starts talking in an all too modern style. While it can be interpreted as being the effect of the villainous Carrionites I find it just a little too out of place and it spoils the entire thing for me.

One adventure in and Martha Jones has become infatuated with the Doctor. Why the writers and producers feel the need to do this especially after the perceived negativity from of the Doctor/Rose love story I don't know. At least in this case the Doctor doesn't reciprocate and seems to not be aware that Martha has fallen for him.

The Carrionites are the villains of the piece, ancient enemies of the Time Lords cast out into another reality prisoned for all eternity. Their powers manifest in the real universe as what we would consider magic. They make quite a cool villain for a one off episode.

At the end of the episode we get a short scene that sets up events not to be revealed for a few years. As the Doctor and Martha enter the TARDIS, Queen Elizabeth appears, spies the Doctor and orders her guards "off with his head!"