Doctor Who/Recap/S29/E08 Human Nature: Difference between revisions

{{quote box|[[File:Human_Nature_2761.jpg|frame]]}}

"Human Nature" / "The Family of Blood" were adapted for TV by [[Paul Cornell]] from his [[Virgin New Adventures]] book ''Human Nature''. The two-part episode was nominated for a Hugo award.

The story opens on the TARDIS, where Martha and the Doctor are trying to escape from a family of alien hunters. The Doctor finds himself forced to use a last-ditch Gallifreyan escape method...

[[And Now for Someone Completely Different]].

It's [[The Edwardian Era|1913]]. Mild-mannered [[UpperclassUpper Class Twit]] schoolteacher John Smith ([[David Tennant]]) teaches history at a [[Boarding School]]. He's having a great time keeping a beautifully illustrated dream journal and chatting with Joan, the school nurse. Lately, his dreams have been about blue boxes in space, strange men who are all the same somehow, frightful aliens, and being a "Doctor". Joan tells him that she'd love to read his tales, and as they grow closer, he ends up asking her out to the school dance.

Weirder yet, John's maid Martha ''also'' insists that he is the Doctor, and begs him to change back. Obviously, she's gone mad; she believes that his dreams are real, that she can travel among the stars, and even that -- withthat—with her skin color! -- she can secretly be a medical student. Smith dismisses her ideas as African lunacy. But some of her ramblings spark memories inside him, memories of a life he's sure he never lived. And there was an odd watch in his living room, which Martha desperately wants, but which has been stolen by a young school boy named Timothy Latimer.

It turns out that the Doctor has changed himself into a human to escape the hunters. Completely. Because the aliens will die after three months without food -- andfood—and the Doctor is food -- hefood—he's decided to subject himself to the agonising process of reprogramming his own body during that time. He has one heart, one human brain, and one hell of a confused look on his face when he's eventually cornered by the monsters, who demand that he turn himself into the Doctor again. But he, completely bewildered, still has no idea what they're talking about... not even when they take his friends hostage.

Continued in [[Doctor Who/NS/Recap/S29/E09 The Family of Blood|S3 E9 The FamilyofFamily Blood|Doctorof WhoBlood]].

* [[Absent -Minded Professor]]: John Smith.

{{quote| '''Joan''': Where'd you learn to draw?<br />

'''John''': Gallifrey.<br />

'''Joan''': Is that in Ireland?<br />

* [[Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!]]: Martha

{{quote| "JUST SHUT UP STOP TALKING CEASE AND DESIST '''''THERE'S A GOOD GIRL!'''''"}}

* [[Shout-Out]]: John Smith's parents are named Sydney and Verity, after [[Sydney Newman]] and [[Verity Lambert]], the names of the two people most often considered to be the "creators" of ''Doctor Who'' (they weren't -- the show was created essentially by committee, but Newman offered the most input of anyone there and Lambert was the show's first producer -- butproducer—but they are the next closest thing).

* [[Spanner in Thethe Works]]: Latimer stealing the Doctor's watch.

* [[Wistful Amnesia]]: Joan interprets John's [[Dreaming the Truth|dreams]] as "the man you ''want'' to be", and his [[Absent -Minded Professor|absentmindedness]] is said to be as if he knows there's something he should be doing and wants to go back to, but he can't quite remember what it is.

* [[The Woobie]]: Tim Latimer. The older boys make him shine their shoes and do their homework; one deliberately lies to "John Smith" so that he can beat up the poor guy.

** He's probably their [[wikipedia:Fagging|fag]].

* [[World War OneI]]: Lurks just over the horizon.

[[Category:Doctor Who/Recap]]