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Human Nature
From spoilers I'd seen I was scared it would be rubbish, but it was a bit good actually. I'm reserving my final judgement until next week, but I am hopeful, yes.
I like the look of the school and the costumes and stuff. I used to spend summer camps in a boarding department that looked like the décor hadn't been updated since 1913, so I suppose it has good associations.
The John Smith persona is oddly sweet, when he isn't being a Man of his Time in the worst ways, especially when he's trying to ask Joan out. I loved him falling down the stairs. (And you have kissed a girl before, you big liar, you do it about once a fortnight these days.) I think it's interesting that she sees he's not certain about anything—is it because so much of him is missing, or is it deeper?
The Doctor got put through the wringer last week, now it's Martha's turn. It must have been bad enough being a maid and having to put up with the racist jokes (and you can bet what we saw wasn't the worst of it; a school full of teenage boys in the racist sexist classist days of 1913), and having Joan slapping her down about medicine (isn't interesting that she's a nurse, given that he's a Doctor and Martha's a doctor—and Doctor—in training?), but whenever she's trying to get the Doctor to remember himself, and he starts explaining these are what we call stories! I actually cried out at that point. Not very bright of him anyway, as Martha said she's come from London not Colony of Simple Natives.
I like that Martha got to slap him this week. For medicinal purposes, of course. I loved the gradually disintegration of Martha's façade of Knowing Her Place and the real Martha coming out in her actions as the situation got desperate. And going to the TARDIS for comfort. She's not just a machine, though, Martha!
The Family are creepy, but not as terrifying as they've been cracked up to be. We'll see next week. The thing about them is the way they take humans, but that's not new, we've had possession and Slytheen and I'm sure there was something else. The time that they really scared me was when they took Jenny—I'm afraid I didn't have much sympathy for Baines, I was too busy wishing it had been the boy who made the racist joke. And teenagers are always the same—beer.
I didn't really get into Joan much, I suppose because I was empathising with Martha. I take it her husband died in the Boer War. Shouldn't the veterans of the Crimea have all been about 90 by 1913? Oh, and I love the Doctor being a history teacher. The thing with the cricket ball was a bit over the top, however. If he'd thrown it straight at the milk churn and knocked it over I would have bough it, but not all that Heath-Robinson malarkey :) I loved that he's still got the instinct to save the day even as a human.
And he mentioned Gallifrey and he didn't know what it was! That was only the second mention, too, wasn't it, or has he said the name to Martha? And the diary! With the sketches of his previous selves!! Paul McGann! I love that Ten can draw, and I liked the portrait scene with Joan.
I thought that they laboured the Great War a little. Martha mentioned it, the Doctor and Joan discuss wars, there was the whole business at the gun. I presume that that was OTC or something, although surely they wouldn't have been doing it in their day suits, John Smith complete with square cap? Khaki kit or something, I should have thought.
The boy Timothy is a little creepy himself. I take it he has the second sight. Was that his own death in the trenches he was seeing? I hope not, he's rather sweet. And he hardly looks old enough to be fighting even 5 years down the line. But he shouldn't steal other people's watches, even if they don't have their soul shut up inside. Martha would have opened the watch before the Family got to the Doctor. But why isn't his Time Lord-ness not coming back when Timothy opens it?
The last scene was pretty harrowing—Martha trying to warn Joan off, I think mostly for her own sake, even though she's jealous, Martha accidentally blowing the gaff, then the two woman are being threatened and the Doctor not only doesn't know what to do, he doesn't know that he should be doing something. I do hope that the wedding and the baby are figments of John Smith's imagination, I don't fancy the idea of Time Babiez. Anyway, next week looks too fraught to be settling down to domestic bliss. I hope.
I like the look of the school and the costumes and stuff. I used to spend summer camps in a boarding department that looked like the décor hadn't been updated since 1913, so I suppose it has good associations.
The John Smith persona is oddly sweet, when he isn't being a Man of his Time in the worst ways, especially when he's trying to ask Joan out. I loved him falling down the stairs. (And you have kissed a girl before, you big liar, you do it about once a fortnight these days.) I think it's interesting that she sees he's not certain about anything—is it because so much of him is missing, or is it deeper?
The Doctor got put through the wringer last week, now it's Martha's turn. It must have been bad enough being a maid and having to put up with the racist jokes (and you can bet what we saw wasn't the worst of it; a school full of teenage boys in the racist sexist classist days of 1913), and having Joan slapping her down about medicine (isn't interesting that she's a nurse, given that he's a Doctor and Martha's a doctor—and Doctor—in training?), but whenever she's trying to get the Doctor to remember himself, and he starts explaining these are what we call stories! I actually cried out at that point. Not very bright of him anyway, as Martha said she's come from London not Colony of Simple Natives.
I like that Martha got to slap him this week. For medicinal purposes, of course. I loved the gradually disintegration of Martha's façade of Knowing Her Place and the real Martha coming out in her actions as the situation got desperate. And going to the TARDIS for comfort. She's not just a machine, though, Martha!
The Family are creepy, but not as terrifying as they've been cracked up to be. We'll see next week. The thing about them is the way they take humans, but that's not new, we've had possession and Slytheen and I'm sure there was something else. The time that they really scared me was when they took Jenny—I'm afraid I didn't have much sympathy for Baines, I was too busy wishing it had been the boy who made the racist joke. And teenagers are always the same—beer.
I didn't really get into Joan much, I suppose because I was empathising with Martha. I take it her husband died in the Boer War. Shouldn't the veterans of the Crimea have all been about 90 by 1913? Oh, and I love the Doctor being a history teacher. The thing with the cricket ball was a bit over the top, however. If he'd thrown it straight at the milk churn and knocked it over I would have bough it, but not all that Heath-Robinson malarkey :) I loved that he's still got the instinct to save the day even as a human.
And he mentioned Gallifrey and he didn't know what it was! That was only the second mention, too, wasn't it, or has he said the name to Martha? And the diary! With the sketches of his previous selves!! Paul McGann! I love that Ten can draw, and I liked the portrait scene with Joan.
I thought that they laboured the Great War a little. Martha mentioned it, the Doctor and Joan discuss wars, there was the whole business at the gun. I presume that that was OTC or something, although surely they wouldn't have been doing it in their day suits, John Smith complete with square cap? Khaki kit or something, I should have thought.
The boy Timothy is a little creepy himself. I take it he has the second sight. Was that his own death in the trenches he was seeing? I hope not, he's rather sweet. And he hardly looks old enough to be fighting even 5 years down the line. But he shouldn't steal other people's watches, even if they don't have their soul shut up inside. Martha would have opened the watch before the Family got to the Doctor. But why isn't his Time Lord-ness not coming back when Timothy opens it?
The last scene was pretty harrowing—Martha trying to warn Joan off, I think mostly for her own sake, even though she's jealous, Martha accidentally blowing the gaff, then the two woman are being threatened and the Doctor not only doesn't know what to do, he doesn't know that he should be doing something. I do hope that the wedding and the baby are figments of John Smith's imagination, I don't fancy the idea of Time Babiez. Anyway, next week looks too fraught to be settling down to domestic bliss. I hope.