“Human Nature” is the eighth episode of the third series of the revived British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was originally broadcast on BBC One on 26 May 2007. It is the first episode of a two-part story written by Paul Cornell adapted from his 1995 Doctor Who novel Human Nature. Its second part, “The Family of Blood“, aired on 2 June. Along with “The Family of Blood”, it was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form in 2008.^[1]

In the episode, the alien time traveller the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) hides from his pursuers, the Family of Blood, in 1913 England. He transforms himself into a human and implants false persona of a schoolteacher called “John Smith” to avoid detection until the Family’s life runs out.

“The Family of Blood” is the ninth episode of the third series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast on BBC One on 2 June 2007.^[1] It is the second episode of a two-part story written by Paul Cornell adapted from his Doctor Who novel Human Nature (1995), co-plotted with Kate Orman. The first part, “Human Nature“, aired on 26 June.

In the episode, aliens called the Family of Blood attack an English boarding school and its surrounding village in 1913 to seek a fob watch which contains the essence of the long-lived alien time traveller the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant).

In a Doctor Who Magazine interview, Executive Producer Russell T Davies characterised the “Human Nature”/”Family of Blood” two-parter as perhaps being too dark for the programme’s audience.^[2] In 2008, both “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood” were nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.^[3]

EXCERPT FROM THE EPISODES

PLOT

The Doctor and Martha run to the TARDIS as an unseen enemy fires at them. The Doctor tells Martha that they are being pursued by the Family of Blood, who seek the Doctor’s Time Lord life force to prevent themselves from dying. He tells Martha that he must transform into a human to escape the Family’s detection until they die out, and gives her a list of instructions to follow. He uses a device called the “chameleon arch” to turn himself into a human and transfer his Time Lord essence and memories into a fob watch that he asks Martha to guard.

They land on Earth in 1913. The Doctor has taken the persona of John Smith, a teacher at Farringham School for boys, and Martha acts as a maid at the school. John is quiet and timid, but faint memories of the Doctor slip through in his dreams. He catalogues the dreams in a book he has titled A Journal of Impossible Things. John keeps the fob watch on his mantle, but a perception filter around it keeps him from being curious about it. John has also become infatuated with the school nurse, young widow Joan Redfern, and shares his journal with her. Martha is concerned, as the Doctor did not instruct her on what to do should he fall in love. She also struggles with her lowly position at the school, but her resentment at the arrogant public schoolboys is tempered by the knowledge that many of them will die in the upcoming World War I. Timothy Latimer, a young student at the school who has extrasensory perception, discovers the fob watch and bonds with it, seeing visions of the Doctor.

The Family of Blood track the Doctor to Earth, and cloak their ship in a nearby wood with an invisibility shield to keep it hidden. The Family seek out humans to possess, and take the bodies of several people including one of the schoolboys, Jeremy Baines. They also animate scarecrows to use as their soldiers. When Timothy briefly opens the fob watch and experiences portions of the Doctor’s memories, the Family detects its presence at the school. They try to get information from Martha about the Doctor. Martha realises that the Family has found them, and attempts to retrieve the watch but cannot find it. She talks to John and tries to awaken his Time Lord self, but instead causes him to become angry with her and fire her. John asks Nurse Redfern to accompany him to the village dance that night, and she accepts. At the dance, Martha again tries to persuade John to become the Doctor by showing him elements of his past such as his sonic screwdriver. Now aware that John Smith is the Doctor, the Family interrupt the dance and confront him. In a cliffhanger ending, they take Martha and Joan as hostages and give John a choice to either become a Time Lord again or watch his companions die.

Following the events of “Human Nature“, the Family of Blood hold Martha and Joan Redfern captive at the village dance and are forcing John Smith to choose which of them to sacrifice. While John struggles to understand what is happening, Timothy Latimer briefly opens the fob watch containing the Doctor’s Time Lord essence. This momentarily distracts the Family, enabling Martha to grab a gun and escape with the others back to the school. John sounds the alarm and helps to organise the school’s defences while Martha and Joan search for the watch.

The Family assault the school with an army of animated scarecrows, but the schoolboys, who have military training, defend themselves against the first wave. When the Family shows John that they have discovered his TARDIS, Joan accepts the truth that John is really the Doctor. The Family continue their assault while John, Joan and Martha escape to an empty house in the village. They are found by Timothy, who returns the watch to them. Discovering that the Doctor has escaped, the Family begin an aerial bombardment of the village from their hidden ship. Martha and Joan implore John to use the watch to become the Doctor and save everyone. John breaks down in tears, reluctant to give up Joan. The two share a vision, enabled by the fob watch, of what their lives would be like together as humans.

John makes his way to the Family’s ship, and stumbles in clumsily while offering to surrender the watch in exchange for the Family stopping the bombardment. The Family open the watch and discover it is empty, meaning that John has already changed back into the Doctor. The bumbling was a ruse to quietly initiate an overload of the ship’s power source, which causes the ship to explode. The Doctor and the Family escape the explosion, but the Doctor captures them and issues each member an eternal punishment. He pushes the mother out of the TARDIS into the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy, wraps the father in unbreakable chains forged in the heart of a dwarf star, traps their daughter in every mirror everywhere in existence, and suspends their son in time before putting him to work as a scarecrow. Narrating this conclusion, the son realises that the Doctor was capable of defeating them from the start, but chose to hide instead out of mercy. The Doctor returns to Joan and offers her a chance to travel with him in the TARDIS, but she refuses. The Doctor offers to start over with her, but she rebukes him for having chosen to hide in her time period; she asks, as a way of making a point (and assigning blame), whether anyone would have died had he not done so. The Doctor wordlessly departs, leaving his journal with Joan.

Timothy bids them goodbye and the Doctor gives him the fob watch to keep. One year later, during a battle in World War I, Timothy remembers a vision of a bombing and avoids being killed. Later, in his extreme old age, Timothy spots the Doctor and Martha in attendance at a Remembrance Day ceremony. Timothy, the Doctor, and Martha silently acknowledge each other as Timothy still clutches the watch.

Continuity[edit]

A clip of the Doctor confronting the Empress of the Racnoss in “The Runaway Bride” is shown when Latimer opens the fob watch at the school.

In part two of The End of Time (2010), while the Doctor was revisiting all of his past companions prior to his regeneration, he visits the granddaughter of Joan who authored a book containing her diary. As she autographed the book for the Doctor, she realizes who he is. The Doctor asks her if Joan was ever happy, to which she responded that she eventually was happy. She then asks, “Were you?”.