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Wow. I have not reviewed any episodes before, although I read the reviews every week. I was so impressed last night that I felt moved to write in. Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I have a sneaking suspicion the current makers of Doctor Who have a How To Make A Classic handbook and not only that, they've been following it step by step, and have read it backwards with a test afterwards to make sure it has really sunk in. Involving intriguing plot? check. Multiple engrossing subplots? check. Aliens signified by a glowing green light? Check. Asides for the fans, scary monsters and an accurate BBC-made period setting? Check, check and check. Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
It's a pleasure to be able to say that with Paul Cornell's 'Human Nature' that Series Three has at last given us its benchmark episode despite the fact that we've got another five to go! This was a sublime piece of television drama and a brilliant synthesis of the original novel's theme and plot and the Russell T. Davies game-plan for the new series. Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I am sure that I am misquoting somebody when I say that stories are never finished, they are abandoned. But not Paul Cornell's "Human Nature". Times and Doctors and formats may change, but stories as powerful as this one can evolve right along with them. Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
"Which one of them do you want us to kill, Doctor? Your Friend..... or your lover? Your choice." Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The best of the season so far easily in my view. Not that the rest have been bad -- even the episodes I would count as outright failures, namely the Dalek two parter, have been honourable ones, failing through an excess of ambition rather than a lack of it. I didn't read Paul Cornell's source novel, so the material was new to me. It's the first story this season which has had anything like the impact of 'The Girl in the Fireplace', say, which while managing to stay true to the spirit of the show took genuine risks with its storytelling and pushed the format envelope. My general observation of this season is that while it has generally been more consistent than Tennant's first, in that none of the episodes have been actually boring (sorry, but wasn't anybody else stifling yawns through fillers like 'The Idiot's Lantern' and -- worse even than that -- 'Fear her'), it's lacked the standouts like 'Dalek', Steven Moffat's two stories, or 'The Impossible Planet' two parter from the first two series. Here's hoping the second part doesn't degenerate into much shrieking, running, and blasting with ray guns. The Russell T Davies template for upping the ante in terms of dramatic tension does seem to rely heavily on subjecting the actors to bursts of aerobic exercise, and Russell, it isn't actually intrinsically much more interesting if they're being required to scamper up and down ladders as opposed to running along corridors. I am hopeful that the story won't fall into that particular pit. Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I must first confess that I have never read Paul Cornell's original treatment of his novel Human Nature, so I am unable to comment on this story from this perspective. I will say that I was looking forward to this story with intense interest having read a little about it's origins and the basis of it's plot line. Any long time fan of Doctor Who would find some interest in a story such as this, and its execution did not fail to impress. More importantly, the episode skirted the fringes of the poetic and romantic DOCTOR WHO; better than any attempt has ever done so before. . There are things in the series that every fan regards deeper than the average entertaining adventure yarn. This, hard to describe intangible thing, we tend to refer to as the "magic" of Doctor Who. The "Magic" is woven into the framework of the series. Long time fans are more in touch with it because there are moments in the course of that 40 odd year journey when the fabric is exposed, torn away and we see the intangible, and it feeds the souls of the starving. In the case of this season, a few stories you would have expected to be satisfying have fallen a bit short and HUMAN NATURE seems to be the oasis in a season I feel sure is going to click into overdrive beginning with HUMAN NATURE. You can never keep a good Doctor down, and I must say, David Tennant is beginning to crystallize into a Doctor of extraordinary depth and HUMAN NATURE does much to further that belief. Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
"Take this watch, my life depends on it. This watch Martha, this watch?" Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Three years ago, I sat in a caf? at the University of East Anglia with Paul Cornell, as he drank a cup of tea and we chatted about Doctor Who. I was at the time involved with the running of the university's student television station, Nexus UTV, and that year we were hosting the annual National Student Television Association Awards. Not just an excuse for a single booze-up but a whole three day shebang, we were tasked with putting on various events over the course of the conference. At my suggestion, we'd invited Cornell -- who'd already kindly agreed to judge the drama category that year -- down to the campus for an afternoon to give a talk about writing for television, which he was generous enough to also agree to. A very nice chap, I have to say. Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Quite simply spellbinding. My favourite episode of Doctor Who since it returned to our screens and screaming pure quality from every second of its precious celluloid. Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The name's Smith. John Smith. Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In any other era this story would have been seen as as controversial as The Deadly Assassin (which revealed more about the Doctor's background than ever before, and also, by placing him tangibly among his own kind, portrayed him for the first time as vulnerable, out of his depth and thus more mortal) was in its day, in its radical take on the nature of the Doctor and the Timelord makeup. But in a revamped series already littered with romantic lapses on the main protagonist's part, the radical departure of this episode has had its way softened. Nevertheless, finding the Doctor living as a literal 'human' school teacher in 1913 England, enamoured to the school matron, is still quite disorientating, albeit in a well-articulated and quite moving way. Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Now this is more like it; a beautiful, properly-paced old-style adventure that really shows up the frantic one-episode runarounds like 42 and Lazarus as the empty vessels they are - and this story actually has a decent central premise that makes it both unlike anything that's been attempted before, and oddly remensicent of the slow-burning more surreal adventures of early Davison. Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Last week I mentioned the series perhaps being stuck in fourth gear. This week, maybe, we shifted into top. If next week's "Family Of Blood" worthily wraps up this two-parter then we will have the most successful adventure of 2007 for the good Doctor. Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Continuing on the strengths of HUMAN NATURE, FAMILY OF BLOOD takes us further into the story of The Doctor's singular human adventure hiding from a band of shapeless chameleons who seek his time lord lifespan. Tucked gingerly into a fold in time, we find the Doctor and Martha exiled in hiding at a private boy's school in England of 1913, just before the start of the Great War. Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
While extolling the many virtues of Human Nature last week, I speculated that we might be celebrating the arrival of the best Doctor Who story since the series returned if Part Two, The Family Of Blood, was of similar quality. So. Was it? Let's discuss. Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I find this episode difficult to review. I also find it hard to praise. Ultimately I was disappointed. I have to hand it to those who say that Paul Cornell is overrated. He set up a great first episode, only to disappoint with the conclusion. Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I must admit I was almost nervous sitting down to watch this episode. It could surely never live up to last week's 'new series'-conquering triumph - the second installment of two-parters have traditionally been weaker since the show returned; and to be fair, even in the original series it was finding out about the problem in episodes 1 and 2 which was almost always more fun than solving it in 3 and 4. Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Family of Blood Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
'We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved, and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.' Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
As predicted, "The Family of Blood" turned out to be one of the best episodes of Doctor Who ever. Period, as they say stateside. Last week's episode flawlessly set the stage -- Paul Cornell masterfully condensed the bulk of his acclaimed novel into one astonishing forty-five minute script. Naturally, all of the superfluous plot elements were excised: the fake Doctor; the suffragette; Alexander; even the Doctor's very motive for becoming human. But we were certainly given a lot more in exchange: Scarecrows; Gallifreyan fob watches; the Family of Blood. And this week, the last hundred pages or so of Cornell's novel are brought to life explosively along with so much more? Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Come back John Smith we miss you already! One of the strongest images from this outstanding two-parter is of the Doctor slouching by the door asking Joan nonchalantly if she might like to go travelling with him - this in contrast to his former alter-ego John Smith's kaleidoscopic imagined life in which as he faces his maker on his deathbed he remembers to enquire solicitously about his children/grand children. Is Paul Cornell having a sly dig at the cyber punk generation? Despite the moral dilemma of the First World War and the racial and class hypocrisies we see displayed before us - the undeniable values and courage of 1913 England are played pretty straight. John Smith's straightforwardness and selflessness make a nice counterpoint to the Doctor's damaging wilfulness. Filters: Television Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Not so long ago, in an English springtime... Filters: Television Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I didn't want to see 'Human Nature' adapted for television: it's one of my favourite of the New Adventures, and I had a horrible feeling that the trappings of the new series would ruin it. It turns out I was wrong, since 'Human Nature'/'The Family of Blood' is easily the best Doctor Who television story since the Welsh revival began. Filters: Television Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
At this point in its history, Human Nature is pretty much as perfect a story as I think Doctor Who is capable of producing on TV. Even the arguable classics of the new series (themselves all too few and far between) haven't come anywhere close to this -- even Dalek, The Girl in the Fireplace, et al. Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A lot of people over the years have said it's the best Doctor Who novel ever. Personally I think it's far from perfect: naturalism is often a problem, and so is melodrama, for the novel inhabits the Cornell-verse, a peculiar take on reality in which all soldiers are cowards and any problem can be solved simply by complete emotional honesty. It has a whacking great info-dump half way through that takes you right out of the story, and the wisecracking, self-aware dialogue is such that companion Benny's speech patterns are indistinguishable from those of the villains (an alien race called the Aubertides who want to conquer Gallifrey and become Time Lords using the Doctor's DNA). Nevertheless, the strength of the fundamental conceit, the Doctor's desire to escape from his cold, inhuman Time Lord existence and become a human being, and the consequences it has for the people around him, makes it a big winner in spite of everything. And it benefits greatly from a hilarious cameo by Steven Moffat, writer of two new series stories! Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Every now and then, an episode leaves such an impression on me that I feel duty bound to sing its praises as loudly as possible from the rooftops. The first such story was Father's Day from series 1, and Paul Cornell's latest offering has my vocal chords at full stretch once more. Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Oh dear... Filters: Series 3/29 Tenth Doctor Television |