A few more thoughts on Family of Blood

[owl]

...which I keep typing as Family of Blodd.

This is a (slightly) deeper review rather than a reaction post, veering a little into meta territory.


I can't help thinking there is some meta significance in Joan's choice of refuge: a domestic scene complete with teapot. Admittedly a domestic that has just been destroyed by the Family of Blood—the episode in miniature?

Why 1913? Did the TARDIS chose it? Is this a hint that she doesn't like Martha very much?

IMO, David Tennant Brought It this episode. I didn't realise how different John Smith was from the Doctor until the Doctor was back. You can tell whether it's Smith or the Doctor just by expression and body language.
The difference in the voices—a little more Estuary, a lot more babble—the first time you hear them juxtaposed it's startling, and the second time the relief is overwhelming.

I have obviously read too many old novels and biographies for this episode. Beatings, fagging and OTC—this is an English public school in 1913, why is Confidential insisting I'm shocked?

What the Doctor did to the Family is deeply disturbing. Ten hasn't been pulling the Lonely Oncoming Storm God since the Christmas Special, has he? Probably Martha doesn't realise yet how cruel the Doctor is when he goes his length because he doesn't do it when she's there. It's obvious from the episode that Martha doesn't know at the time what he's doing (he's on his own with a time machine, after all), and there wasn't space in the last three minutes for her to ask and then deal with the answer. Of course I want Martha to step on all pretensions to godhood, but I have a sad premonition that it will be forgotten about by next week as per usual. If they turn Martha into a yes-woman I shall be raging. Perhaps she did ask, but he lied, or blocked her off like he did about Joan.

I hope that it'll be come back to bite him at some point. Didn't Ten learn anything from the whole Torchwood fiasco? I thought that was supposed to be his punishment for hubris. I really hope he doesn't get away with it because it's coool.

Tim ending up a soldier instead of a CO in the Red Cross like in the book- I wonder why they changed it. Except perhaps Ten isn't really a good person to teach people to be pacifists? I don't think that Cornell would write two episodes hammering in what a useless bloody waste WWI was only to do a 180 in the last 5 minutes. Perhaps Tim meant that he had to go to save the other boy, because he'd seen it he knows it has to happen? Or--he said we not I--perhaps he meant that the war would be inevitable considering all the jingoism of the population, that the war was the only way the Empire would die? Not a necessary or a just war, but an unavoidable one?

I suspect it may have something to do with being a Doctor-avatar, right down to having Nine's line about being a coward (but then that's inconsistent with the one about having to fight, gah). The Doctor doesn't shoot people, but he's committed multiple genocide. It would all have been so much simpler if they'd stuck a Red Cross armband on Tim, however.

I'm not bothered by the Doctor wearing a poppy because I don't see it as glorifying war-it's the rivers of blood in Flanders and the boys' bodies in the mud. It's remembering the dead even if they died for nothing. And I do know about the white poppy, but most of the viewers wouldn't.



Has anyone a cap/icon of the Doctor and Martha hugging at the end of the episode? I can't decide whether I prefer the shot where you see her face over his shoulder, or the one with his over hers.

Comments

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

The Doctor doesn't shoot people, but he's committed multiple genocide

It is fortunate for the plot that he doesn't remember about the OMG Waste of Life business each week until he has killed off most of his opponents.

Beatings, fagging and OTC—this is an English public school in 1913, why is Confidential insisting I'm shocked?
Really? Where have they been? And have you read "England, Their England", in which the author apologises to the reader that there isn't going to be a kinky flogging scene.

[owl]

It is fortunate for the plot that he doesn't remember about the OMG Waste of Life business each week until he has killed off most of his opponents.

TRU FACS.

I suppose they were expecting a large part of their target audience to have never cracked open a book published before 1997, but it made me feel that I was being talked down to.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

>>>>>>I'm not bothered by the Doctor wearing a poppy because I don't see it as glorifying war-it's the rivers of blood in Flanders and the boys' bodies in the mud. It's remembering the dead even if they died for nothing

And it raises money for the British Legion to help support families/survivors - so I wear both.

[owl]

I say this every November; living in Northern Ireland opens a whole new vista of possible arguments over poppies.

I wear both.

Yes, and you're a Quaker, aren't you?

[richenda.livejournal.com]

>>>>Yes, and you're a Quaker, aren't you?

No, I'm Catholic! But I have Quaker family

[shinji-star.livejournal.com]

I kept trying to comment on other people's post about this at the weekend but LJ was being mean and not letting me comment. I think Tim not being a CO is partly due to timing and pacing restrictions as it would need explaining quite a bit more than the two minutes at the end allowed, partly dramatic as the two of them dodging a bomb blast in a trench together is visually more impressive than Tim appearing over the lip of the hole as the other boy thinks he's done for, and partly due to the change of Doctor. In the NAs the Seventh Doctor was incredibly pacifist and so was his John Smith. He had to be forced into taking the OTC sessions and into allowing Tim and other children to be beaten. In the long list of 'things to not let me do' was to stop him eating meat if Benny could possibly stop him. Tim as the Doctor avatar also cannot fight and makes his granddaughter promise to be an absolute pacifist as well. The Tenth Doctor is a different beast who has been described as a fighter, a soldier and a person who is lacking so much of is former mercy. He fights when he sees it as right or innevitable and this seems to be where the Lonely God side comes out. The only discrepancy with this is how he was with the Daleks but maybe there is a bit too much self recognition there for him to be comfortable with wiping them out once and for all (and so much merch). Tim fits this as well now. He doesn't want to fight but if he feels he must then he will.

I like your meta!

[platypus]

I agree, though reluctantly. It's awkward to come out so strongly against war and then have Tim become a good little soldier, but... your explanations make sense.

I can't decide whether I prefer the shot where you see her face over his shoulder, or the one with his over hers.

There's just something about the Doctor's dopey grin in the one where you can see his face.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v154/bayoubecky/Doctor%20Who/SmallFOB26.jpg (that's not my cap, but since it's photobucket, I figure link = ok)

[owl]

I'm fond of his little giggle when he hugs her in 42, but you can't put that on an icon.

Cute cap!

[owl]

Yes, I thought that the difference between seven and Ten had something to do with it. I think perhaps he can't genocide the Daleks because now that's all tied up with genociding Gallifrey in his head. Maybe?

I like your meta!

Thank! I like your comment!

[unfeathered]

Wow, you bring up so many good points here!

I especially like your comment about Martha not knowing the fate of the Family - I'd like to see that confrontation!

Re Tim: someone said it would have taken too much time at the end of the epiosode to explain about COs, but I like your idea of the Red Cross armband.

And I don't have a problem with the poppies either. As you say, it's about remembering, not glorifying.

[owl]

I think that he left her behind on purpose when he went all Oncoming Storm on the Family. I'd very much like to see him try it in front of Martha, and her to stop him. I've seen people (mostly the ones who wish Rose was there instead) blaming Martha for not stopping him, but I think that's why he didn't let her know what he was doing; because he didn't want to be stopped and he thought she would.

[atropos-lee.livejournal.com]

Why 1913? Did the TARDIS chose it? Is this a hint that she doesn't like Martha very much?

Well, there are worse times and places she could have chosen...

Algiers 1780? Jamaica 1800? Alabama 1958?

It was at least in an era and a location where Martha could survive without needing too much support in terms of culture, language, customs etc, would be in little immediate physical danger (low crime, no active wars), and wouldn't risk crossing paths with any close relatives...

[owl]

True, yes. I was joking a bit with the comment about the TARDIS not liking Martha—I thought of adding something about getting a bit of Rose in during Parting of the Ways, but it seemed a bit bashing to Rose.

There could have been better places for Martha too (how about somewhere where white males are the discriminated-against ones, although the explosion that would result when Teh Hubris meet that situation would have had the Family down like sharks to blood), but I suppose that the book was already in 1913, so...

In from New WHo...

[tmpe5t.livejournal.com]

"Probably Martha doesn't realise yet how cruel the Doctor is when he goes his length because he doesn't do it when she's there. "

I think Donna was right - he needs someone to stop him. He's classic manic-depressive. He needs someone else to pull him out of the downers (or pull himself out of the downers *for*) and someone to be a reality check when he's off on a 'manic'. And anger is manic behaviour as well, whereas most people think its depressive. Mania makes you creative and hyperactive and think that whatever idea you have is THE greatest idea EVER.... It would probably be a bad idea to piss someone like that off...

Re: In from New WHo...

[owl]

I think you have diagnosed Ten's mental condition accurately. I wonder has Martha got on mental health yet? Nine had PTSD, obviously.

I think that he left her behind on purpose when he went all Oncoming Storm on the Family. I'd very much like to see him try it in front of Martha, and her to stop him. I've seen people (mostly the ones who wish Rose was there instead) blaming Martha for not stopping him, but I think that's why he didn't let her know what he was doing; because he didn't want to be stopped and he thought she would.