The Family of Blood

This article is about the Doctor Who episode. For the titular characters, see Family of Blood.

185b – "The Family of Blood"
Doctor Who episode
Cast
Doctor David Tennant (Tenth Doctor)
Companion Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones)
Others Jessica Hynes – Joan Redfern Harry Lloyd – Jeremy Baines Thomas Sangster – Tim Latimer Tom Palmer – Hutchinson Pip Torrens – Rocastle Rebekah Staton – Jenny Gerard Horan – Mr. Clark Lauren Wilson – Lucy Cartwright Matthew White – Phillips Sophie Turner – Vicar
Production
Writer	Paul Cornell
Director	Charles Palmer
Script editor	Lindsey Alford
Producer	Susie Liggat
Executive producer(s)	Russell T Davies Julie Gardner Phil Collinson
Production code	3.9
Series	Series 3
Length	2nd of 2-part story, 45 minutes
Originally broadcast	2 June 2007
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → "Human Nature" "Blink"

"The Family of Blood" is the ninth episode of Series 3 of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Preceded by "Human Nature", it is the second episode of a two-part story written by Paul Cornell adapted from his 1995 Doctor Who novel Human Nature (co-plotted with Kate Orman). The episode was first broadcast on BBC One on 2 June 2007.

It is 1913 in England and war has come a year in advance as the terrifying Family hunts for the Doctor. But when John Smith refuses to accept his destiny as a Time Lord, the women in his life — Martha and Joan — have to help him decide.

In a Doctor Who Magazine interview, Executive Producer Russell T Davies characterised the "Human Nature"/"Family of Blood" two-parter as perhaps being too dark for the program's audience. In 2008, both "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood" were nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.

Plot

The Family of Blood hold Martha and Joan Redfern captive at the village dance and are forcing the Doctor, hiding as "John Smith, human", to choose one of them to sacrifice. As John struggles with the dilemma, Timothy Latimer — in possession of the Doctor's fob watch containing his Time Lord "essence" — opens it briefly, which momentarily distracts the Family, enabling Martha to grab Mother's gun and escape with John, Joan, and the others back to the school, where John helps to organise the school's defenses while Martha and Joan search for the watch.

The Family assault the school with an army of scarecrows, but the schoolboys defend against the first wave. When the Family shows John that they have discovered his TARDIS, Joan accepts the truth — John really is the Doctor. As the Family continues their assault, John, Joan and Martha escape to the home of the family of the little girl whom the Family had taken, where they are found by Tim Latimer, with the watch.

Discovering that the Doctor has escaped, the Family begins an aerial bombardment of the village. Sheltered in the Cartwright home, Martha and Joan implore John to use the watch to become the Doctor and save everyone. John is very reluctant; he loves the life he has, but Joan understands that the Doctor is needed now.

John boards the Family's ship, surrendering the watch and pleading for the bombardment to stop. When the Family open the watch, it's empty — John has already changed back into the Doctor. After a warning, the Doctor then wreaks calm, merciless retribution: he gives them a hellish form of what they sought — immortality. He pushes Mother of Mine out of the TARDIS into the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy, wraps Father in unbreakable chains forged in the heart of a dwarf star, traps Sister in every mirror in existence, and suspends Son of Mine as a scarecrow. The Doctor returns to Joan, offering her a chance to join him aboard the TARDIS, but she declines. The Doctor leaves his journal with her.

Timothy bids goodbye; the Doctor gives him the now-ordinary fob watch to keep. Years later, a World War I battle rages. While helping Hutchinson, Timothy recognises the moment from an earlier vision, thus avoiding a shell strike; both survive the war. In Timothy's old age, he spots the Doctor and Martha from afar, both wearing remembrance poppies. Timothy and the Doctor quietly acknowledge each other.

Continuity

• A clip from "The Runaway Bride" is used as a mental projection when Latimer terrifies the Sister with an image of the Doctor at his most cruel and merciless, drowning the children of the Empress of the Racnoss.
• The Master is seen to have used the same "Chameleon Arch" technology in "Utopia", having rewritten his DNA in order to assume the human identity of Professor Yana. His Time Lord consciousness is also stored in a fob watch.
• The Doctor, in the Guise of Mr Smith, is convinced that his parents were called Sydney and Verity, the writer's reference to the programme's original creators Verity Lambert and Sydney Newman.
• In The End of Time, the Doctor has a book, Journal of Impossible Things, signed by the great-granddaughter of Joan, Verity Newman, who authored the book based on Joan's diary.
• When Hutchinson accuses Latimer of being a coward he responds "Oh, yes, sir! Every time!". The ninth doctor responds to the question posed by the dalek emperor if he is a killer or coward in the episode The Parting of the Ways with "Coward. Any day."

Production

John Smith's wedding and the Remembrance Day memorial scene was filmed at Llandaff Cathedral; The female vicar at the service is a recurring element in Cornell's writing. The building used as the school is a private house, the Grade I-listed Treberfydd in Bwlch a few miles south of Brecon

Other scenes, including the cricket ball stunt and scenes at Cartwrights' cottage were filmed at St Fagans National History Museum, Cardiff.

Comparison with the novel

The novel featured the Seventh Doctor and Bernice Summerfield, with their roles replaced on television by the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones. Key changes from the novel include the fate of the villains, who in the novel are shapeshifters called Aubertides. In the book, the explosion traps them for eternity in their own "temporal shields", although the irony of them now living forever is not commented on. Another alteration to the ending is that the Aubertides have captured Joan, and are holding her hostage for the biodata module. When the Doctor arrives, pretending to be Smith, the module is not empty, but contains the John Smith persona. One of the Aubertides therefore becomes Smith, and betrays the others, sacrificing himself to save Joan.

The scenes with the restored Doctor and Joan are also different; in the novel, the Seventh Doctor admits he cannot love Joan the way John did. The Tenth Doctor believes he is capable of everything John was capable of, although there is a clear difference in his demeanor after he has been restored to a Time Lord. Joan can sense the difference and this is just as distressing for her.

The last scenes of the episode are based on the novel's epilogue, although, in the novel, Tim does not join the army, but saves the life of a character who was destined to die in the War (not Hutchinson, who does) as a member of the Red Cross, and at the memorial service he wears a white poppy. This contrasts sharply with the episode, where Tim's reaction to being told "You don't have to fight" is "I think I do".

Martha's blog for the episode^{[citation needed]} starts "Long ago in an English winter". This was the last sentence of Cornell's first New Adventures novel Timewyrm: Revelation. The last sentence of Human Nature is "Long ago in an English spring", concluding a pattern that continued through Love and War and No Future.

Reception

Along with "Human Nature", "The Family of Blood" was nominated for the 2008 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. David Tennant won the Constellation Award for Best Male Performance in a 2007 Science Fiction Television Episode for his dual role as John Smith and the Doctor in this two-part story.

External links

• The Family of Blood on TARDIS Index File, an external wiki
• "The Family of Blood" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage
• "Human Nature" / "The Family of Blood" at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• "Human Nature" / "The Family of Blood" at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
• "We are the Family of Blood": episode trailer
• "The Family of Blood" at the Internet Movie Database

Reviews

• "The Family of Blood" reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
• "The Family of Blood" reviews at Outpost Gallifrey