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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The Family of Blood wants the Doctor’s Time Lord essence, but John Smith doesn’t want to give it up – what to do, what to do?
Plot Points: With Martha’s help, John Smith and Joan Redfern (Jessica Hynes) escape the Family, and hide out in an abandoned house. But the Family are desperate, and begin fire-bombing the countryside, leaving Smith torn about his future.
Doctor Who? When we finally find out why the Doctor had retreated so purposefully from the Family of Blood (rather than stand and fight), it seems as a bit off-character for Tennant’s 10th Doctor, most likely because it was originally conceived for the Seventh Doctor, in the original novel (see below). Even given that Tennant is a “no second chances” kind of man, this still seems overly punitive. Tim describes the Doctor as “Like fire and ice and rage; he’s like the night and a storm in the heart of the sun. He’s ancient and forever, he burns at the center of time and he can see the turn of the universe. And… he’s wonderful.” The Doctor is so oblivious to romance that it doesn’t even occur to him to anticipate falling in love with a human woman. When John Smith asks Martha what the Doctor’s like she says, “He’s lonely.” “And that’s what you want me to become?” he ask incredulously. Not to be too harsh, but John Smith’s a bit whiney.
Martha My Dear: Continuing on from “Human Nature,” this is easily Martha’s best story of the season. For once, her infatuation with the Doctor seems like something deeper. “He’s just everything to me, and he doesn’t look at me. But I don’t care, because I love him to bits.”
Too Cool: As with the last episode, the sets, particularly the Family spaceship, are terrific. And the period setting is finely evoked.
Dumb Stuff: The Family are a little too oblivious to the Doctor flipping a bunch of switches on their spaceship at the end. Even if they believe he’s still John Smith, shouldn’t they be worried that he’s screwing something up, even if by accident?
Classic Who: Okay, so: in the years following the cancellation of the original Doctor Who series in 1989, the franchise was kept alive via a series of original paperback novels from Virgin Publishing dubbed Doctor Who: New Adventures. These continued and expanded upon the rather darker-themed adventures of the Seventh Doctor (played in the series by Sylvester McCoy) eventually developing him into a much more manipulative and serious character. The most popular and best-loved of these NA books was Human Nature by Paul Cornell. Fittingly, it is the first of the NA books to be adapted for the new series and by the original author, although the adaptation is loose at best, and retro-fit for Tennant’s somewhat less intense Doctor. Some of the changes include the repository of the Doctor’s essence being a cricket ball rather than a watch, the nature of the aliens, and their ultimate fate; popular book companion Bernice Summerfield pretends to be the Doctor’s niece rather than his maid, and there are lots of minor character changes. And there are no scarecrows in the novel.
Final Answer: Only slightly less perfect than the previous episode, “The Family of Blood” does rather grind to a halt in its third act to allow Tennant to do some Big Acting as he struggles with the dichotomy of his nature, and whether he will sacrifice his “life” in order to allow the Doctor to re-emerge and save the day. You can’t really argue with the thesis, and the script has certainly earned these scenes, but it does tend to rob the episode of some of the wonderful forward thrust it has been building. Tennant does a pretty okay job, even if he does overdo the angst a bit, but the real acting awards here go to Jessica Hynes, who underplays superbly, and gives us a rather quieter take on the internal agony of losing yet another beau. Once again, Harry Lloyd is a delight as Jeremy Baines, and the closing scenes are very moving. Also, Cornell’s dialogue really crackles, with many memorable lines. “The Family of Blood” is a fitting conclusion to one of the most satisfying two-parters in the show’s history.
This is one of my favorite episodes so far.
I thought it was great too.
The thing that gets me is that the Doctor really can be as evil as he is kind..
my favorite 2 episode’s yet
The thing about “No second chances” is that it’s really been less of a rule and more of a guideline.
Cassandra, Dalek Sec and friggin’ Dalek Kaan all got second chances, for example.
All I can say is, if he’s willing to offer an olive branch to Kaan, we’d better see him make up with Harriet Jones at some point.