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Some disconnected observations about The Family of Blood, which was very, very good indeed, and with last week's Human Nature showed that the promise the revived Doctor Who had in 2005 had not been lost as I was beginning to fear.
I liked John Smith's cry of despair that he was 'just a story'; with last week's revelation that Smith's parents were Sydney and Verity, one could believe that Smith is on the verge of becoming possibly the most self-aware character television Doctor Who has known, and reminds me of the stallkeeper in Paul Cornell's 1991 novel Timewyrm: Revelation who told Ace that she used to enjoy the Doctor's television programme.
Throughout the 1913 characters behave towards Martha as someone who is not playing up and playing the game. It's possible to read the British idea of class (I'm always wary of calling it a 'system') as a form of utilitarianism, a way of putting people into a state of mind where social status is preserved as a way of maintaining broader social cohesion. For Joan, Martha's display of her medical knowledge - one of Freema's finest hours among many candidates - is a gaze into a chaotic future, but it makes the viewer aware that there are many other forms of waste of human potential beyond the warfare that the story foregrounds.
Tim reminds me of one fan archetype - the lonely boy, both intellectual and intuitive, for whom the idea of a police box on a street corner might be seen not just as an escape, but a solution. Tim is more practical, though, than that connection might suggest. We've seen him get on with being a fag; he knows how to insulate himself from his environment and retain his sense of self even though his individuality is at odds with an oppressive social microcosm. Bravery can be knowing when to be a coward in the eyes of those who don't have as much information as you have.
The glory of Joan Redfern, in this episode in particular, is that we recognise her as someone companionable - if the Doctor was a man from 1913, one understand them falling in love. She's loyal, she takes charge of situations with reserves of resourcefulness, she believes what her experience tells her should be impossible, and ultimately will do what is right even if it harms her personal happiness.
The Journal of Impossible Things (surely coming to a bookshop in time for Christmas) tells Joan that the Family of Blood can't be placated; I see no reason why they should not consume Earth first before moving on across time and space. What does this mean for the alternative future John and Joan see together in the watch? It's surely an option which has already been closed, one which would have been possible if Martha and Smith had successfully evaded the Family. The pictures of Smith and Joan as a happily married couple, with children, John Smith adding roots to his flimsy humanity by casting his TARDIS-engineered genes into future generations, wearing early 1920s fashions to show time moving on, and John eventually dying in a sepia-tinged bed as we move firmly forward into living memory. David Tennant's make-up for the death scene - which made the sequence for me - whatever its faults, was at least not as credibility-challenging as Mark Gatiss's make-up in The Lazarus Experiment; there was something friendly about the way John Smith's face had aged, telling us that here was a good man.
I understood the disappointment several other commentators have expressed with the Doctor's use of olefactory misdirection in his confrontation with the Family at first. However, the Doctor does describe it as a form of ventriloquism, suggesting it's a party trick which can't be sustained for long periods; and secondly and more importantly, using the Chameleon Arch and doing something as drastic as disguising himself as human is exactly the sort of thing that one could envisage the Doctor thinking of first. The tenth Doctor is an addict, who likes the adrenalin rush from extreme crisis situations more explicitly than any of his earlier manifestations. He comes down from these highs just as intensely.
The meeting between the Doctor and Joan in the Cartwright cottage has echoes of the conversation between Rose and the Doctor immediately after his regeneration. "Can you change back?" both Rose and Joan asked, and the Doctor gives them the answer they don't want. With the regeneration, the process can't be reversed; but the Doctor could be John Smith again, but chooses not to. He then fails to see why Joan can't come with him; John Smith would have understood.
I can join the chorus of voices saying that the actor playing the wheelchair-enthroned Tim at the end of the episode is too youthful in appearance, particularly in the context of the series' old-age make-up; unless the contact with the watch has given Tim characteristics like Tom Hanks's character in The Green Mile.
I liked John Smith's cry of despair that he was 'just a story'; with last week's revelation that Smith's parents were Sydney and Verity, one could believe that Smith is on the verge of becoming possibly the most self-aware character television Doctor Who has known, and reminds me of the stallkeeper in Paul Cornell's 1991 novel Timewyrm: Revelation who told Ace that she used to enjoy the Doctor's television programme.
Throughout the 1913 characters behave towards Martha as someone who is not playing up and playing the game. It's possible to read the British idea of class (I'm always wary of calling it a 'system') as a form of utilitarianism, a way of putting people into a state of mind where social status is preserved as a way of maintaining broader social cohesion. For Joan, Martha's display of her medical knowledge - one of Freema's finest hours among many candidates - is a gaze into a chaotic future, but it makes the viewer aware that there are many other forms of waste of human potential beyond the warfare that the story foregrounds.
Tim reminds me of one fan archetype - the lonely boy, both intellectual and intuitive, for whom the idea of a police box on a street corner might be seen not just as an escape, but a solution. Tim is more practical, though, than that connection might suggest. We've seen him get on with being a fag; he knows how to insulate himself from his environment and retain his sense of self even though his individuality is at odds with an oppressive social microcosm. Bravery can be knowing when to be a coward in the eyes of those who don't have as much information as you have.
The glory of Joan Redfern, in this episode in particular, is that we recognise her as someone companionable - if the Doctor was a man from 1913, one understand them falling in love. She's loyal, she takes charge of situations with reserves of resourcefulness, she believes what her experience tells her should be impossible, and ultimately will do what is right even if it harms her personal happiness.
The Journal of Impossible Things (surely coming to a bookshop in time for Christmas) tells Joan that the Family of Blood can't be placated; I see no reason why they should not consume Earth first before moving on across time and space. What does this mean for the alternative future John and Joan see together in the watch? It's surely an option which has already been closed, one which would have been possible if Martha and Smith had successfully evaded the Family. The pictures of Smith and Joan as a happily married couple, with children, John Smith adding roots to his flimsy humanity by casting his TARDIS-engineered genes into future generations, wearing early 1920s fashions to show time moving on, and John eventually dying in a sepia-tinged bed as we move firmly forward into living memory. David Tennant's make-up for the death scene - which made the sequence for me - whatever its faults, was at least not as credibility-challenging as Mark Gatiss's make-up in The Lazarus Experiment; there was something friendly about the way John Smith's face had aged, telling us that here was a good man.
I understood the disappointment several other commentators have expressed with the Doctor's use of olefactory misdirection in his confrontation with the Family at first. However, the Doctor does describe it as a form of ventriloquism, suggesting it's a party trick which can't be sustained for long periods; and secondly and more importantly, using the Chameleon Arch and doing something as drastic as disguising himself as human is exactly the sort of thing that one could envisage the Doctor thinking of first. The tenth Doctor is an addict, who likes the adrenalin rush from extreme crisis situations more explicitly than any of his earlier manifestations. He comes down from these highs just as intensely.
The meeting between the Doctor and Joan in the Cartwright cottage has echoes of the conversation between Rose and the Doctor immediately after his regeneration. "Can you change back?" both Rose and Joan asked, and the Doctor gives them the answer they don't want. With the regeneration, the process can't be reversed; but the Doctor could be John Smith again, but chooses not to. He then fails to see why Joan can't come with him; John Smith would have understood.
I can join the chorus of voices saying that the actor playing the wheelchair-enthroned Tim at the end of the episode is too youthful in appearance, particularly in the context of the series' old-age make-up; unless the contact with the watch has given Tim characteristics like Tom Hanks's character in The Green Mile.
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