Everytime We Say Goodbye

Doctor Who – Human Nature/Family of Blood

This was by far the best story of this series, probably even the best of the whole ‘new’ Doctor Who. Based on his novel Human Nature, Paul Cornell wrote a fantastically well paced two part story with humour, poignancy, moments of tear jerking sadness and a real, proper cliff-hanger where you can’t possibly see how they escape.

The Doctor Becomes human – not half-human or a bit human, but fully human, no longer a Time Lord. All this is so that he can hide from the Family of Blood, so he transports his Time Lord self into a watch so that he can remain undetected on 1913 Earth, taking the post of a public school master, John Smith. All the while Martha knows what’s going on and tries to keep the Doctor safe, but she can’t stop him from falling in love with the school matron. Then the watch that contains the Doctor is stolen by one of the boys, Tim, to whom it talks, so that when Martha needs to return the Doctor to his true self and save the day she can’t.

The Family of Blood take over the bodies of four local people and begin to hunt down the Doctor with their army of animated scarecrows. They seem to be on a quest for immortality, which the Doctor, as the last of the Time Lords, is the only person who can supply. They close in on John Smith, but are confused by the watch, which Tim keeps opening.

There was a fantastically fannish moment in the first episode when the Doctor (as Smith) is talking about how he learnt to draw on Gallifrey, although he doesn’t know where that is. But the next bit was even better and I spotted the references straight away – he then talked about his parents, Sydney (Newman - creator of Doctor Who) and Verity (Lambert – Doctor Who’s first producer).

The story, being set in 1913 just before the Great War was full of poignancy for the young boys who were being trained in their duty to fight for King and Country, but who would be all but obliterated in the coming years. The closing moments where we see Tim saved by using the Doctor’s watch, followed by the Doctor and Martha visiting the elderly Tim at a Remembrance service was sad.

The bit that really brought the tears though was when John Smith realised he had to give up his life and become the Doctor. The watch somehow seemed to show him what he would be giving up and quickly showed a succession of scenes where he marries Joan (the matron), they have children and finally he is on his deathbed as an old man asking about his children and grandchildren. There have been some sad moments in Doctor Who over the past few years, but none that had me with tears streaming down my face as this one did.

But possibly my favourite moment from the story was when Tim finally knew it was the right time to return the watch to Smith, so that he could become the Doctor again. Tim had opened the watch and glimpsed the Doctor within and described him

Because, I’ve seen him.
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.