Doctor Who/Recap/S29/E09 The Family of Blood: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|"Who am I then? Nothing...? I'm just a story?"|'''John'''}}
Continued from "[[Doctor Who
Mild-mannered [[The Edwardian Era|Edwardian]] schoolteacher John Smith is baffled when alien monsters turn up and demand that he turn himself into "The Doctor". But the strangeness is jogging memories deep inside him, memories of a life he's sure he never lived but only dreamed, and more and more fragments of his dreams are turning out to be real. Deny it he tries, but eventually John has to consider the possibility that Martha and the aliens are telling the truth: "the Doctor", his dream-self, is the reality, and John Smith is the fabrication.
Still frightened and confused, John quizzes Martha on the Doctor, and is horrified by her description: a tremendously lonely alien, the sole survivor of the universe's greatest holocaust, as remote and inhuman as a force of nature,
Timothy asks how it's possible that he himself can learn things from John's watch and even see the future sometimes. With John now holding the watch that contains his Time Lord self, the Doctor's [[Motor Mouth]] starts automatically explaining how it's just a regular human "low-level telepathy field" (which will become [[Doctor Who
"--Is that how he ''talks?''" John asks in utter horror, realizing fully that this Doctor is ''real'', and inside him, and that he needs to make the most horrible decision of his life.
John would give anything to stay human and marry Joan. While spending his last evening with her, he even has a brief vision of that future: a long and happy life and a peaceful death, secure in the knowledge that everyone he loves is safe. But even that future is illusory, as the aliens are closing in on John and will spread destruction across the galaxy if they win. John must sacrifice himself and become the Doctor, though he doesn't even know if any fragment of his identity will survive.
With the help of Timothy, John eventually makes the decision to open the watch, essentially commit suicide and become the Doctor again. He defeats the aliens without much effort, and as punishment for what they've done, traps them in different time event horizons... for all eternity. The creatures realize that the Doctor wasn't simply escaping from
The Doctor returns for Joan. She's horrified to see him, even though he tells her that John is part of him now, somewhere deep inside him. He invites her to the TARDIS, and asks her if she wants to give him a proper chance for what he really is, starting their relationship again from a blank slate. She refuses. Decades into the future, Martha and the Doctor visit Timothy, now a war veteran, and give him some closure.
[[Doctor Who
* [[And I Must Scream]]: "We wanted to live forever… so the Doctor made sure that we did."
* [[Badass Boast]]: Oddly, made about The Doctor by someone else:
{{quote|
* [[BBC Quarry]]: The World War I Battlefield, according to the commentary.
* [[Be Careful What You Wish For]]: You want to live forever so badly? The Doctor can arrange that.
* [[Beware the Nice Ones]]:
{{quote|
* [[Boarding School]]
* [[Broken Masquerade]]: John Smith suffers this when he starts to realise the truth about who he really is.
** Then this happens when Timothy asks him why he can hear the watch.
{{quote|
'''As John Smith''': [''gasps in utter horror''] Is that how he ''talks''? }}
* [[Break the Cutie]]: Poor, ''poor'' John Smith.
* [[Can't Stay Normal]]
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: [[Doctor Who
* [[Coconut Superpowers]]: Invisible spaceships are easy on the FX budget.
* [[Creepy Child]]: Daughter of Mine. Making a [[Self-Made Orphan]] out of her human host helps.
* [[Cruel Mercy]]
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* [[Fate Worse Than Death]]: The fates of the Family, as meted out by the Doctor. It's revealed that the Doctor wasn't running from the Family because he was scared of them… but because he was scared of ''what he could do to them.''
* [[Flash Forward]]: John and Joan's aborted future together.
** Also Latimer's vision of his experience in [[World War
* [[Fridge Brilliance]]: This episode is why the Doctor {{spoiler|is afraid to regenerate in "The End of Time"--he remembers John Smith's death.}}
* [[Future Me Scares Me]]
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* [[More Dakka]]: The Vickers machine gun is used to cut down an army of scarecrows.
* [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]: When Smith enters the Family's spaceship. {{spoiler|He's not Smith anymore. He's the Doctor.}}
* [[Oh Crap]]: The looks on the faces of the Family when their ship is blown up and the Doctor is standing over them glaring down at them.
* [[Psychic Powers]]: Tim Latimer.
* [[Psychopathic Manchild]]: Son of Mine. "Super, super fun!"
{{quote|
* [[Psychotic Smirk]]: Son of Mine. '''''[https://web.archive.org/web/20140601233959/http://www.danielkanolik.co.uk/Images/harrylloyd.jpg SON OF MINE.]'''''
* [[Puppet Master
* [[Refusal of the Call]]: Joan. See [[What the Hell, Hero?]] below.
* [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]: A ''[[Tranquil Fury|calm]]'' example.
* [[Shut UP, Hannibal]]: The Headmaster delivers one to Son of Mine (which doubles as the writer criticising the way public attitudes to [[World War
{{quote|
'''Headmaster:''' Don't you forget, boy, I've been a soldier. I was in [[Second Boer War|South Africa]], I used my dead mates as sandbags, I fought with the butt of my rifle when the bullets ran out, and I would go back there tomorrow ''[[Patriotic Fervor|for King and country!]]''<br />
'''Son of Mine:''' ''Etcetera, etcetera!'' }}
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* [[Visible Invisibility]]: When Baines strikes the ship's invisibility field, it briefly becomes visible.
* [[What the Hell, Hero?]]: Joan delivers a devastating [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]] in the episode's denouement. Too bad the Doctor doesn't seem to have listened.
{{quote|
** Though the end of the episode shows that at least two people ''survived'' because of him, thanks to Latimer's knowledge of the future.
* [[What Happened to the Mouse?]]: ''The entire episode'' falls into this trope. Although {{spoiler|a descendant of Joan Redfern has written a book about John Smith and his Journal of Impossible Things}} in ''[[Doctor Who
** A valid explanation is put forward in Series 5.
* [[Who Wants to Live Forever?]]: {{spoiler|The Family certainly don't by the end.}}
* [[World War
* [[The X of Y]]
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Recap]]
[[Category:Doctor Who]]▼
[[Category:Doctor Who/Recap]]
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