It's just a story.

[torquill]

That was so. much. better. than "Father's Day".

Paul Cornell wrote both that and the more recent "Human Nature/The Family of Blood". The latter was apparenty adapted from a novel that he wrote. I wasn't incredibly impressed by "Father's Day" -- it had an okay gimmick, but it just didn't grab me... this was different. Oh, it was beautiful. Right up there with Steven Moffat's stories (his "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances" won a Hugo award, rightfully so).

"Human Nature" had a delightful hook, and it didn't slow down for an instant.

I've been somewhat disappointed with this season to date. It wasn't bad as such, it was just a bit... derivative. It felt like they were re-doing plotlines, visiting the same places over again... the writing wasn't really snappy either (though the pilot had some fun dialogue). It was missing the sparkle I've come to love in the modern Doctor Who era.

As soon as I saw this, I knew it was different. There were elements I could predict, but instead of annoying me they just seemed "right". Of course he was Headmaster at the school. Of course he fell down the stairs. Of course the piano was threatening to fall on the baby carriage. It was a tip of the cap to tradition, rather than a tired cliché.

Overall John Smith was charming, as he was meant to be. The creepy bits were properly creepy (am I the only one who thought of Steven King's "It" when watching the little girl with the red balloon? Maybe I don't know "It" that well). Sure, all the scarecrows looked the same, but it's okay that no one would notice that most of the scarecrows in a five-mile radius were identical. They were effing scary, and that was what mattered.

Speaking of creepy -- Jeremy was a little weird even before they got to him. They must have cast him solely because of that face he could make.

Oh, and I just want to say: Martha is smart. Something's weird here -- offer something totally off-the-wall. She agreed without blinking? Keep a straight face, don't let on anything's wrong, and walk at a normal pace until you're down the hall and you just have to run away. I'm hard-pressed to think of any other companions with that much presence of mind, save perhaps Sarah Jane in her prime... A+++.

The first time through I literally said it in unison with Martha -- "How could you go and fall in love with a human.... who wasn't me." She's honest, that one.

At the end of the first one I wasn't sure where they could take it. Now I know. The fact that the watch led the little kid directly to John Smith was expected; what wasn't was how John Smith reacted to the whole idea. I guess to him, the end of himself would be like death, no matter that he would live on in the memory of this adventurer he had dreamed of. The juxtaposition of realizing that the story was fact, and that he was the fiction... that was an understandable shock. It pleased me that the Matron came to terms with the reality of it more easily than he could.

David Tennant's Doctor has spent more time frightened and in pain than any other Doctor I can think of. Peter Davison's was worried, concerned, and occasionally outright scared, but that's the closest I can find to the hell that the Tenth has gone through, between this set and "42" before it... I'm also thinking of his horrible sense of loss in "The Impossible Planet" and "Doomsday". Tennant's a wonderful actor, but I have too much invested in the character not to find it a bit painful to watch at times. (I felt the same way about G'Kar on Bab5).

What strikes me the most about this pair of episodes is that John Smith was even more of a coward than the Doctor is. It was referenced elsewhere (when the little kid with the watch ran off, he admitted to being a coward, much as the Ninth Doctor replied to the question "Coward or Killer?" with "Coward. Any day.") John couldn't pull the trigger even to mow down scarecrows, though he didn't understand why as easily as the Doctor could... but when it came to the choice between living and using the watch, he went into total meltdown. Paralysis in crisis I could understand from someone unused to these sorts of events ("You're rubbish as a human, aren't you?") but when he just broke down crying... it was a horrible dilemma, and he wasn't brave enough to sacrifice himself for the sake of a world he had always thought was imaginary.

They never did show the watch being opened, but I suspect it was the Matron who gave him that courage. He didn't have it.

Poor Matron. The trouble is, when you pick up a beautiful stone and it turns into a dragon in your hand, you can't keep it and pretend it's still a stone, no matter how lovely it was. It's not part of your world, and never will be. It was cruel of him to ask, and still crueler to make her hurt him to get him to stop.

The only one to win in this one was the little kid, and the epilogue was satisfying.

"He was being kind". They wanted to live forever -- be careful what you wish for. The girl in the mirror was oh, such a nice touch. Seeing him do those things to dispose of the Family capped off the creepiness of the whole arc.



Time to move on.

I can see that Steven Moffat's latest is coming up. He'll be hard pressed to top this, but if anyone can, it's him.

Comments

[knaveofhearts.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think he was almost too cruel to the family, to the point that I wondered if he was lashing out in a response to how he had acted as John Smith and how Matron had treated him in the end.

Bloody fantastic, though. Most pleasing.