Joan: “The Timelord has such adventures but he could
never have a life like that”
John Smith: “But I
could”.
With an ending as tense as Martha and Joan held at gunpoint by two
members of the The Family Of Blood and John Smith struggling to fathom
their demands for him to change into a Timelord, you really had to
wonder how his women would get away from being murdered like many others
and that answer comes sooner than later.
Still holding the watch and determined not to see any potential blood
shed, Latimer opens it up long enough to get the sniffing Family
distracted and proving her assertiveness much more effectively, Martha
soon pulls the gun on her old mate Jenny as John Smith and Joan manage
to get everyone out of the village dance hall.
There’s a delicious bit of goading between both the supremely nasty
Baines and the more frightened Martha as the two of them try to scope
out the other’s weakness and while Jenny is free thanks to the Jack
Straws, we’ve already come to the conclusion that the people whom the
family have possessed are now long dead. It helps later when punishment
comes their way.
With everyone out of the hall, the only real sanctuary for John, Joan
and Martha seems to be the school, which would strike you as odd seeing
as even Martha more than realises that the school would be the very
first place the family would look for The Doctor.
At the school there are a multitude of things going on so the least
interesting one is John actually setting up the kids to help fight off
The Family and the Jack Straws and more to do with the personal stuff
all circling the building.
If Martha had a hard time beforehand convincing Joan that her would be
husband was too different for the ordinary life, then she really doesn’t
have to try too hard here as given her near death experience at the
village hall, Joan seems more in the frame of mind to believe anything
really.
Okay she has a hard time believing that a black woman can be a doctor
but Martha soon puts that one to rights and soon enough Joan is quizzing
John about intimate details regarding his childhood, to which John can
barely muster a reasonable answer for. You’d think at this point this is
where the penny would begin to drop for John that perhaps there’s truth
behind both Martha and The Family’s assumptions but it takes a while
before he’s forced to admit anything extraordinary about him.
As for The Family, it didn’t take them long to get to the school and
soon enough Baines is at his snarky and commanding best as he violently
demands for John Smith to be handed over to him and callously kills Mr
Philips when he tires of the Headmasters demands for him to stop.
Suffice to say, it’ll take more than a cane to stop this particular
problem.
Much more assertive in her mission is that little girl with the red
balloon known as Lucy Cartwright who manages to sneak into the school
and makes the simple deduction that Smith is attempting to draw The
Family into a trap of his but more notably she also figures out where
that smell of Timelord is coming.
When he isn’t brushing off John Smith, Latimer then keeps using the
watch as a neat way of distracting The Family and in some ways pissing
them off too as him and Lucy have their own little confrontation before
the girl gets hit with a big ray of light and Latimer scrams from the
scene.
Now that The Family are closer, Baines summons the Jack Straws to
actually attack and the rather terrified students take aim on them with
the still annoying Hutchinson deducing that no human lives have been
taken after he labels Latimer a coward for disappearing earlier.
Hutchinson is one of those annoying macho types you kind of hope would
just disappear but low and behold, the several opportunities there are
for him to be killed are never taken. I know it’s because he’s rude to
Latimer but the guy just continued to annoy me in all of his scenes.
Still though, the war loving Hutchinson is nothing compared to little
killing machine Lucy who humours the Headmasters stupidity and arrogant
assumption that she’s harmless before she does him in and with the
Headmaster dead, everyone is forced to retreat as The Family try to find
Latimer and that watch he’s nicked.
John, Joan and Martha however are clever enough to actually escape their
clutches while Jenny scrambles her noggin long enough to remember her
human friendship with Martha and more importantly where the girl would
often go in the woods during her spare and once she does, The Family
have yet another advantage up their sleeve.
Already this lot have possessed important enough members, summoned Jack
Straws to life, killed and seriously frightened enough people so while
they may not have completed their quest for immortality, you can’t
exactly say they’ve been slack in their efforts to do so you have to
wonder what else can they use against John Smith?
The answer is of course finding the TARDIS and holding it to ransom
which seems a bit lame seeing as they are unable to enter it and Smith
himself in his deepest of denials is unable remember it too. Out of all
of their ideas, it’s not necessarily their most inventive of ones but
seeing as they are having trouble ensnaring Latimer, I guess they’re a
bit desperate.
Once in the woods and away from earshot, John is finding himself faced
with too many things he can’t ignore but doesn’t want to acknowledge
either. When Martha asks him if he recognises the TARDIS, he’s all too
quick to admit that he does and his biggest incentive to remain
blissfully unaware, Joan is the one who now knows that her John really
is The Doctor.
That was already conveyed when he couldn’t answer stuff about his
childhood but she recognised the TARDIS immediately and was taking all
of Martha’s warnings on board. At this point you can see Joan trying to
wrap her head around the reality of soon losing another man she loves
and it’s pretty heartbreaking stuff to put it mildly.
Then again so is David Tennant’s performance as John simply asks Martha
why he can’t stay the way he is and her mixture of determination to get
The Doctor back and sympathy for John is nicely displayed. Joan then
interrupts by showing them a safe place hide for the time being.
With neither the watch or John Smith in their hands, The Family really
have little options left so they decide that not only will they use the
TARDIS as a hostage but also to open fire with a slew meteorite like
explosions causing panic and just generally looking quite evocative as
well.
Inside the house, the three of them are met by Latimer who is quicker to
show John what he really is and also manages to realise that while there
may be destruction wherever The Doctor, there’s also some good points
too but even with this knowledge, Smith is still having a hard time
coming to terms with this.
When he grills Martha about her use to The Doctor, she opens up about
The Doctor’s loneliness and her unrequited love for him which I have a
feeling will not sit well with some viewers but either way, it’s easy to
understand why John wouldn’t want a life of destruction and loneliness.
Look how appalled he was that The Doctor never considered him falling in
love when coming up with his plan of hiding from The Family.
If you’ve also bought a tabloid this season and watched the exclusive
trailers we’ve had before “Smith And Jones” and “42”, you’ll have
noticed scenes of John and Joan getting married as having children and
settling into old age together but these are only of what would happen
if John Smith remained himself. Anything else might get a jump the shark
moment but they are beautiful no less.
Getting the alone time they need and mulling over what could’ve been,
Joan is obviously the one who points out to John that he is The Doctor
and he can’t hide from it and despite her own desire to be with this
man, Joan urges him to change back and stop The Family before any more
lives are destroyed. It’s another great scene between Tennant and
Jessica Hynes and although you know it’s gonna happen, you still feel
for Joan no less.
The Family on the other hand with all the destruction they’ve inflicted
in the space of two days get exactly what they deserve and because The
Doctor and John Smith can’t blame Martha for what has happened, it’s
them who bear the brunt of his anger but not before The Doctor pretends
to still be Smith long enough for them to be given an empty watch and
him being pushed aside and able to hit all the right switches.
The Family were clever and goaded enough to steal the TARDIS; The Doctor
is also clever and enraged enough to blow up their invisible ship. It
seems fighting fire with fire is a best solution after all because it’s
Baines who lets us know well and truly what fate has for them.
The Family caused devastation just so they become immortal and enough
people have died because of their ruthless pursuit of a Timelord. Oddly
enough they get their wish of immortality but at such nasty prices with
Clark being bound in unbreakable chains, Jenny thrown into an event
horizon, Lucy trapped in a mirror and Baines forced to be a scarecrow.
And I thought what Simon Pavagne got in the Angel episode “Hell Bound”
was suitably nasty. These fates are arguably just as bad.
Weirdly enough after an abrupt final scene in which The Doctor naively
offers Joan a chance to be a companion and she sensibly declines, the
emotional continuity between The Doctor and Martha is kept to a minimum.
He thanks her and pretends not be privy of her crush on him while giving
Latimer the empty watch.
Funnily enough this episode then ends on Latimer’s point of view as
during World War One, his excellent guessing manages to save him and the
more cowardly Hutchinson from being blown up and in 2007, during Poppy
Day his much older self spots The Doctor and Martha watching him from
afar. I’m not really sure why they do but it’s an interesting way of
ending the episode so no complaints from me.
Also in “The Family Of Blood”...
I’ve noticed that stirring music from the BBCi trailers was being used
for the “Previously On” bit. It’s probably the most intriguing score
from Murray Gold this season.
Jeremy: “I’ll shoot you
down”
Martha: “Try it, we’ll
die together”.
Harry Lloyd who plays Baines is also Will Scarlett in Robin Hood. Paul
Cornell has scripted two episodes in the show’s first season.
Headmaster: “You speak
with someone else’s voice, who might that be?”
Jeremy: “We are the
family of blood”.
Joan: “Then tell me in
this fairytale, who might you be?”
Martha: “Just a friend”.
A new description came for The Doctor this week when Smith called him a
“Romantic Lost Prince”. It’s more simplistic than Latimer’s description
later on.
Hutchinson: “Latimer you
filthy coward”
Latimer: “Yes sir,
everytime”.
Lucy: “You’re funny”
Headmaster: “Now take my
hand”
Lucy: “So funny”.
How did Joan know what happened to the Cartwright’s when her, John and
Martha were hiding in their cottage?
John Smith: “Why can’t I
stay?”
Martha: “Because we need
The Doctor”.
John Smith (re The Doctor):
“What exactly do you do for him, why does he need you?”
Martha: “Because he’s
lonely”.
Joan finally read to the very end of John’s diary which explains why she
was more open to The Doctor being something more than Smith or Martha’s
imagination.
Latimer (re The Doctor):
“He’s like fire and ice and rage. He’s like the night and the storm in
the heart of the sun. He’s ancient and forever. He burns at the centre
of time and he can see the turn of the universe.”
John Smith (re The Doctor):
“He won’t love you”
Joan: “If he’s not you, I
don’t want him to”.
After two thirds of the season, Martha finally has a proper change of
clothing and once again wears her hair down. Not to be overtly fashion
but it suits Freema with her hair down.
Jenny (re The Doctor/John Smith):
“He’s made himself into an idiot”
Jeremy: “Same thing isn’t
it?”
Jeremy: “We wanted to
live forever so The Doctor made sure we did”.
I wonder if The Doctor asking Joan to be a companion came to fruition
after the idea of him asking Reinette in “The Girl In The Fireplace” was
scrapped.
Joan (to The Doctor): “He
was braver than you in the end, that ordinary man you chose to die”.
Martha: “If you want I
can go...”
The Doctor: “Time to move
on”.
Chronology:
In the present day, is it the same day as the one we saw with Francine
in “42”?
Well after such a brilliant start, there was always the pressure of “The
Family Of Blood” not being able to deliver the goods and luckily all of
those fears got allayed pretty quickly. It’s every bit as chilling,
emotional and thought provoking as the previous episode and with some
truly startling moments, this season and series has hit an all time high
and with four episodes what other great heights are there to be
achieved?
