DW: The Family of Blood

[usuallyhats]

Very powerful episode. The boys fighting with tears running down his face, John Smith being forced to accept that what Martha was telling him was true and that she was asking him to sacrifice himself to bring back the Doctor and save the day, the war memorial sequence at the end. Knowing that John Smith had sacrificed himself gave a real edge to the Doctor's customary flipness in the Family's ship. Along with Joan asking if anyone would have died if he hadn't gone there "on a whim" - reminding Ten of what he tries to push to one side.

Oh, Martha. She was wonderful this week, self possessed, taking charge and trying to sort things out instead of panicking that the Doctor wasn't there to do it himself. I loved the scene with her and Joan in Smith's room, confronting Joan's unthinking racism with concrete proof that she was wrong. I'm not sure about the "never looks at me" bit, but I can just about believe that this is what she thinks (though it's not true at all from where I'm sitting!). I was really hurting for here when Joan was asking Martha why the Doctor needs her.

The actor playing Baines (whose name escapes me) was very good.

"You coward, Latimer!"
"Every time" - oh, that was a great moment. Nicely subtle way of pointing out how Tim is being influenced by the watch.

I liked the moment when the headmaster looks at the scarecrows and says that they're just straw - interesting parallel with the boys shooting bags of straw in the first part. Varying degrees of realism, shooting bags of straw that you pretend are people, shooting scarecrows who you think are people but who turn out to be straw versus actually shooting real people as we all know that they're going to be doing very soon. Schoolboys -> Cadets -> soldiers, emphasising how horrific that progression is.

And the relief in Hutchinson's (?) voice when he asks if that means they didn't kill anyone was very well done.

Having a female vicar in the war memorial scene was a nice touch, that whole scene was very good (that's the bit that made me cry!).

Not sure about what the Doctor does to the Family. Is he dispensing justice for what they've done or punishing them for what they've done to him? The latter I think and this is not good. The hubris is going somewhere this season, yes? *hopes*



I watched this whilst eating Casserole a la Chessene from the Doctor Who Cookbook, heh. Actually I wasn't eating that much, too distracted by the episode!

Comments

[sparra.livejournal.com]

How do you get a Doctor Who cookbook? Surely there isn't all that much food featured in it?!

[usuallyhats]

Eeeeeeeebay. Or at least that is how I got mine. It has lots of food and also silly cartoons and biographies and puns and such that make me giggle muchly. And some colour photos of people cooking their recipes. It is entirely mad and I love it. Here is its listing on amazon but this does no justice to the WONDER. You will have to come and visit me and look at it (hint hint, though technically I think it's my turn to visit you!)