About JE Smith
Location: Irving, Texas
Occupation: Freelance
Bio: JE Smith, aka Jeff S., is a forty-something guy who was born in Illinois, but has been living in the wilds of Dallas, Texas for almost twenty years. He has been a movie nut ever since seeing Escape from the Planet of the Apes at Steeleville Theater in 1971 and is also obsessed with Doctor Who, Ultraman, Star Trek, The X Files, Batman, Spider-Man, Doc Savage and many other pop culture icons. For fifteen years (1981 - 1996) he published the sf/horror filmzine Wet Paint, and tried his hand at self-publishing his own comics with Bulletproof (1999, 3 issues) and Complex City (2000 - 2003, 4 issues and a trade paperback), both of which bombed. He's been writing film reviews for almost thirty years and is just getting the hang of it. Married to the lovely Barbara for over 15 years, and owned by a sleepy cat named Max.
Posts: 176
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What to do when a family of alien creatures is hunting you down to try and steal your Time Lord-ish-ness? Well, turn yourself into a human, run to Earth, and hide at the eve of the Great War. And hire Martha as your maid.
Plot Points – Earth, 1913: John Smith is a History teacher at a posh English boy’s school, but he has dreams of being a time-traveling adventurer called the Doctor. He has a servant called Martha Jones, and is beginning a relationship with a pretty widow named Joan Redfern (Jessica Hynes). Meanwhile, the Family of Blood – alien scavengers that have targeted the Doctor as a way to increase their short life spans – have tracked the Doctor to this time period, and begin assuming the bodies of local folk, including schoolboy Jeremy Baines (Harry Lloyd), servant-girl Jenny (Rebekah Staton), gruff farmer Mr. Clark (Gerald Horan), and cute little girl Lucy (Lauren Wilson). But John Smith really is human – having deposited his Time Lord essence into a fob watch that he keeps on his mantle.
Doctor Who? – Never one to run from a fight, the Doctor seems unduly unnerved by the pursuit of the Family. As John Smith, he is far more mild-mannered than as the Doctor. And seriously, WHAT’S WITH THE HAIR? (see Dumb Stuff for more)
Martha My Dear – Freema Agyeman is superb in this episode, even if it does play into her infatuation with the Doctor. At one point, noting his relationship with Nurse Redfern, she laments, “You had to go and fall in love with a human. And it wasn’t me.” I suppose, if feeling extra-generous, we could see Martha’s arc for the entire season as a build-up to this story, but I doubt that’s what the producers had in mind. Here, Martha trusts the Doctor implicitly, enough to go along with this bizarre plan. Also, though the racism of the others characters still seems a bit light, at least it’s dealt with here, and not totally ignored.
Too Cool – The production design for this episode is just spectacular, with the interior of the Family spaceship, their cool-looking laser pistols, and even the CG invisible ship stuff – the hokiest of money-saving clichés – looks very cool.
Rosewatch – She’s baaaaaaaack. When showing Joan the book of his fictional “adventures,” she notes that he has an “eye for the ladies,” and we see a large (somewhat scary) drawing of Rose, who the Doctor names. “She seems to disappear (from the stories) later on,” Mr. Smith notes, with a winsome twinge in his voice.
Weird Science – No complaints.
Dumb Stuff – Has there ever been a cinematic piano that has safely reached the second floor landing when being pulled on a rope? And c’mon now: I’ve had my fun complaining about the Doctor’s weird hairdo all season, but this is friggin’ 1913 – why didn’t he adopt a convincing period haircut (after all, in 2.7 “The Idiot’s Lantern,” he had a pompadour), and why doesn’t anybody notice? Where exactly is he getting all this mousse?
Classic Who – If anyone has ever doubted the canon-ocity of the 1996 American-made TV movie with Paul McGann as the Doctor (a pilot for a proposed series that never went forward), this episode puts it to rest; as the Doctor opens his “Book of Impossible Things” to a page showing his past incarnations, McGann’s Eighth Doctor is front and center. Sylvester McCoy (Seventh), William Hartnell (First), Patrick Troughten (Second), and Peter Davison (Fifth) can also be glimpsed on the same page, though most of of the images seen in the book (Cybermen, Daleks, Slitheen, Clockwork Man) are from the new series. The Doctor also mentions Gallifrey once again (though as John Smith), and names his parents as “Sydney” (after Syndney Newman, one of the creators of the series) and “Verity” (Verity Lambert, the very first producer of the series – so in effect, these are some of Doctor Who’s “parents,” though the reference is a bit of a groaner). Also, this story is based on a novel from the Doctor Who: New Adventures line, but more on that in the next installment.
Internal Continuity – The Doctor says the Family is using a “Time Agent’s Vortex Manipulator” to travel in time. Capt. Jack Harkness (from season 1) was a Time Agent, and he had one of these devices. This will also crop up again later in season 3.
Lost in Translation – English schoolboys of the pre-war years really did train with military weaponry, a kind of pre-draft to prepare them for the conflict that was brewing. Jessica Hynes—better known as Jessica Stevenson—is very well-known in the UK from several TV series, notably the superb Spaced, which she co-wrote and co-starred in along with Simon Pegg.
Final Answer – Although it’s always difficult to judge the first half of a two-part story, I think it’s safe to say that “Human Nature” is utterly magnificent. Tightly-paced, with great ideas and superb performances (particularly Harry Lloyd as Baines, and the ever-wonderful Jessica Hynes), this is what nuWho should be doing every week, but rarely seems to manage. The story feels finely crafted, rather than just slapped together from chunks of other Who episodes. This is all the more refreshing, as I was a serious non-fan of Paul Cornell’s first-season stinker “Father’s Day,” which wallowed in emotionalism without bothering to build a cohesive story. But “Human Nature” is its polar opposite, earning the emotional content via a well-constructed plot, and taking us places we’ve never been in Doctor Who. A real corker, on every level.
