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.