Human Nature/The Family Of Blood review:
This won’t be a full evisceration, as this story does succeed in some areas (some of the acting is decent) and isn’t quite as bad as the previous two NuWho stories I’ve previously covered on this thread. Still, here we go:
We open with the Doctor and Martha being shot at and pursued by the family whilst locking themselves in the Tardis. The editing here is so frantic and frankly distracting that it does kill any semblance of tension- there are about 17 cuts in 10 seconds. The Doctor proceeds to make himself human via a ‘chameleon arch’ as a means of hiding himself away. What?! Why would you re-write your biology and erase any memory of yourself from your human self when you know full well that you’re being pursued? It is so easy to put anyone in danger this way, and practically allows Martha to experience overt racial discrimination later in the story, and results in the death of innocent women and children likewise. It’s also established 10 minutes into the story that the Family only live for a mere few months, so why take the risk? Just evade them through time and space until they eventually die- don’t confine yourself physically and mentally to a location where innocents thrive and will ultimately be put in danger! This is already completely out of character, and just isn’t plausible in the slightest when any thought is put to it. Fuck it- why not just ‘stop being kind’ and torture them immediately, you pillock?
After the Doctor awakens as John Smith, he shows his new lover, Joan Redfern, a journal of the Doctor’s life (as key facets of the Doctor still emerge within his mind). He alludes to the character of Rose making constant appearances in the journal- I find it rather hard to believe that Rose would take precedence over Susan, Gallifrey or the Classic Doctors in such a journal as they ultimately defined him much more than a character who he conveniently fell in love with for little discernible emotional reason, so this scene comes across as pandering to RTD’s era. Come to that, how did Martha manage to instil John Smith within the establishment that quickly? She only goes back to the Tardis to listen to his instructions 10 minutes later, so it clearly happened very recently.
The Doctor is established as a ‘romantic...one for the ladies’ type amongst the Doctor and Redfern during later scenes between them both. This does not correspond with the original character in the slightest, and just seems to further pander to both the pious nature of the New Who production team and the teen audience Cornell seems desperate to entice.
The Family’s ship touches down, and Jeremy Baines finds himself possessed by them after entering their ship, in a decidedly over the top scene that isn’t laced with any sort of atmosphere due to the quick cutting and lack of time for the audience to absorb the shots.
Timothy encounters the Doctor’s fob watch, and the Doctor’s consciousness can be deciphered from within, albeit in the guise of a self-worshipping God. This is likewise completely out of character and just seeks to transform the character into a fan-fiction caricature of himself. Some criticise the Cartmel era for doing this first, but the key difference there is that the Doctor merely dabbled with potential Godlike entities and deceived them for his own ends, and never seemed to worship either himself or any other deity in such a manner. There was always a sense during seasons 25 and 26 that the Seventh Doctor wasn’t self-absorbed about any Godlike associations he had as they were always implemented to achieve a bigger goal. Here, the Doctor relishes himself as a deity and never seems to have any bigger objective in mind beyond worshipping himself.
Martha goes back to the Tardis and contemplates the notion of the Doctor ‘falling in love with another woman, and it wasn’t me.’ For fuck’s sake- do we have to go back to this adolescent romantic subplot? This story is so fucking soapish that it hurts.
Clark, Jenny and the little girl are all taken in by animated scarecrows, with none of them being able to overpower them or fight back in any way in spite of being made of straw. A little clunky.
The family ambush the party and try to coax John Smith into becoming human- Tennant’s acting starts to decline here. He seems to go back to his gurning self and starts shouting to high heaven. And Baines is noticeably over the top too- frankly, he was better in the six episodes of Game of Thrones he appeared in. And can I point out how crap the Family’s weaponry looks? People acknowledge this story as being very well made and criticise Classic Who for its special effects defects, yet fail to acknowledge how shit the guns look here.
The next 20 minutes consist of the scarecrows raiding the establishment- this section is probably the most airtight part of the story as it doesn’t dismantle the Doctor’s character as such (barring one exchange with Redfern about the Doctor being a ‘romantic lost prince’, which is the same old bollocks as before), so I’ll not dwindle too much on it here.
The Family just happen to find the Tardis merely 10 minutes after raiding the establishment with no connecting scene to showcase how they find it- what a great hiding place!
John Smith starts wailing and crying over him having to change into the Doctor- this would be fine were it not for the overwrought mawkishness and self-pitying tone of the scene, not to mention Tennant’s OTT performance. This is made all the more insufferable by the “he’s like fire and ice and rage” speech- what child his age would communicate this way, and how the fuck does it relate to the character of the Doctor in any discernible way? Oh- and this is made all the more crap by Martha bringing up her ‘love’ for the Doctor again. Why is this remotely necessary?
John Smith goes to the Family’s ship (as The Doctor), and pretends to play the fool whilst dismantling the ship. This would be perfectly fine were it not for the fact that he is obviously pressing buttons at his own accord- this couldn’t be seen as accidental as he specifically slides his hands down each button. Crap directing or poor scripting? The ship blows up, and the family are defeated in something of a rubbish anti-climax.
The Doctor decides to behave more out of character than ever before and torture the family for all eternity (somehow- we’re never really told how he’s capable of trapping someone in a mirror). What a hypocritical arse. This is merely three stories after he attempted to rescue the Daleks and ‘help’ them after killing infinitely more than the family ever did, and two stories prior to crying over the Master being shot after he massacred millions and subjected Martha’s family to torture (and suggested rape in her sister’s and mother’s case). What is this Doctor’s moral code? And why would he even need to subject them to this torture? They would ultimately die merely a few months later anyway, so why all this sadism? God, this is such pretentious shit on so many levels- I guess I have written a full evisceration after all! And the notion of the Doctor ‘being kind’ rather than imprisoning them immediately further caused the character to decline into a product of fan fiction.
Joan says goodbye to the Doctor in a decidedly reserved scene for an era so overt, yet this is followed by an insufferably sentimental ending that echoes the worst excesses of Spielberg films. Remember that scene in The Curse Of Fenric where the Reverend’s faith is broken by ‘British bombs killing German children’? The scene presents both side of the war as inherently bound by some variation of evil, and Fenric as a story confronts how we can overcome and purge such evils in a mature way, without resorting to such sickening simplicity. It never provides its viewer with a patronising message like this does- an example of active spectatorship. But here, the ending is purely patriotic, with no nuance or subtlety in sight, and Gold’s music simply enhances this.
It seems as if this story is largely praised by many due to tugging at the audience’s heartstrings due to this ending, Gold’s music, Tennant’s emotive performance and due to the period setting as a whole, yet the actual philosophy behind the story is about as simplistic and adolescent as it possibly gets, though this was also present in Father’s Day and is presumably a staple of Cornell’s writing. It has genuinely stunned me how much worse this story is than I initially thought it was.
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