Dr. Who 3/29.08 Human Nature

[selenak]

Vivat Cornell, I say!



Usually, I don't expect historical accuracy from Dr. Who, which is why I wasn't as upset about Daleks in Manhattan as others were, but when an episode goes to the trouble to actually recreate period in ways other than costumes, I'm really happy. Especially if it does so by addressing my pet peeves. You know, a lot of shows and movies, and novels for that matter, let all their sympathetic characters be magically aware of everything that's wrong about their period's attitudes and share not a single prejudice; that's left to the unsympathetic characters. Not so here. The casual racism, the class issues, the public school rules, they're not just demonstrated by some of the boys, but both Joan (telling Martha not to forget her station) and John Smith (most glaringly in the condescending attitude towards Martha but also with the acceptance of the beatings as normal).

And I love how the awareness of the impending WWI is with us from the moment Martha mentions the date - and how she's aware of it, too, aware that the boys with their sneers are soon to face four years of hell, if they survive at all, in a pointless mass slaughter brought by exactly the European-wide versions of the sense of entitlement the school fosters.


If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Never mind scarecrows and creepy possessions, those are the monsters about to descend on everyone, and there will be nothing, absolutely nothing, that can be done to save them.

Though the Family was appropriately creepy and gave me nice flashbacks to Fenric. Speaking of flashbacks and Old Who, I thought I saw some of the previous regenerations sketched in the Doctor's/John Smith's journal, and someone has already put up a splendid screencap, showing clearly the Seventh, Eighth, Fourth and Fifth Doctor. And having read a shared interview with Verity Lambert and Russel T. Davies some months ago, I got the "Verity and Sydney" as the names of the Doctor's parents joke/homage. (I did watch several First Doctor episodes, but had not paid attention to the credits then; Verity Lambert was the first producer.) Lovely.

The John and Joan romance was very period, too, nicely understated, and I really liked that Joan is a widow, not a young girl (and, as mentioned, a woman of her time; her experience lets her be aware where militarism can lead to, which makes sense, but she doesn't, at the same time, lack other prejudices). DT does a nice job in making "John Smith" a believable character, with both the charming and the appalling (and again, courageous choice on the part of the script to give John Smith those period traits, too), and most importantly, different from what he would have been if the Doctor, memories full intact, would have acted John Smith. And for some reason I loved the 23 rules message which has Ten at his most Ten-and-Doctorish to bits.

The unquestioned star of the episode, though? Martha. Also Freema, who blew me away. In every scene, from playing maid in a period that treats her as second class every moment to visiting the TARDIS (and I so want someone to write Martha/TARDIS bonding now) to the increasing desperation as things get worse to the way she realized that Jenny was possessed (Martha, woman of always reliable intelligence) to the dignified way she talked to Joan at the dance and then presented the sonic screwdriver. Her bravery throughout. The wistfulness when she watches the message. And oh, that slap. Donna and Jackie would be proud, not to mention her own mother.

Now, can it be next weekend already?

Comments

[g_shadowslayer]

I am so, SO happy to see these spoiler-free -- I've had to curtail a lot of reading to manage it, but I'm sure those speculation posts people comment to degenerate into spoilery free for alls after a few comments. I adored this episode! I really, really hope the second half lives up to it!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Considering this particular two-parter is based on a novel of Paul Cornell's (written for the Seventh Doctor), and he's writing both scripts, I think we're safe.*g*

And you know, I'm happy I remained spoiler free, too. I'm a big Seven fan, and I love Cornell's writing, but I hadn't read Human Nature for some reason yet, and now I'm glad I haven't!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Oh, and if you want to tell the writer himself what you thought of it, you can do so here (http://paulcornell.blogspot.com/2007/05/human-nature.html#links)!

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Splendid job all around, I think. I really do love the way they treated that period of time so honestly, plus, the weight of what we and Martha know is to come.

They did a really great job of showing us the differences between the Doctor and John Smith and also the places where who he really was bled through.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Yes, this wasn't some idyllic never-never land, and the awareness of the immediate future really was constant.

They did a really great job of showing us the differences between the Doctor and John Smith and also the places where who he really was bled through.

They did. I keep thinking of the Doctor's short stint of playing a teacher the last time, in School Reunion, which is a great contrast because there he was the Doctor throughout, just using an alias. This time, he is John Smith with the Doctor buried in him.

[kathyh]

I got the "Verity and Sydney" as the names of the Doctor's parents joke/homage.

OMG! I didn't get it! Bangs head on desk and blames it on the jet-lag, I thought it was an excellent episode too for all the reasons you mention and Martha shone throughout. I loved the automatic "have you checked for concussion?" and then having to swallow a response to Joan's condescending reply.

Never mind scarecrows and creepy possessions, those are the monsters about to descend on everyone, and there will be nothing, absolutely nothing, that can be done to save them.

That was so well done. I was unspoiled for this episode and I wasn't 100% sure that Martha's memory hadn't gone too until it was obvious she knew what was to come. Can't wait for next week.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

OMG! I didn't get it!

And you a fan of the first hour, too.*g*

I loved the automatic "have you checked for concussion?" and then having to swallow a response to Joan's condescending reply.

♥ Martha so much. So far, we had her doctor-ness come out in every episode, and it was great acting from Freema when you could see Martha biting her tongue at Joan's response. I definitely hope a) there was a reason for 1913 as the year to hide in (perhaps a way to get rid of the Family if they catch up which is possible there but not elsewhere?), and b) that the Doctor treats her like a goddess for a while after getting his memory back for having put up with all this.

On another note, loved that on the Doctor's message to Martha, item 1) wasn't "no interference in the timeline" but "don't let me hurt anyone", and of course that item 4 was "you - don't let me abandon you". Aw.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

...they do things differently there.

I was very impressed too with the sense of another time. The accents, clothes, and attitudes seem wonderfully accurate.

I felt so sorry for Martha, having to be subservient (though not always successfully) and not reveal her knowledge, either medical or historical. She did very well though, as you say. The telepathic boy intrigues me. At first I thought that the Doctor had split himself into two somehow, but no; the boy seems to be human, or at least smell like one.

I wish they'd done without the gratuitous mention of Rose though.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

they do things differently there.

...that was the quote I was thinking of.*g*

The telepathic boy intrigues me. At first I thought that the Doctor had split himself into two somehow, but no; the boy seems to be human, or at least smell like one.

I think he might have something to do with why the watch did not, after having been opened, immediately restore the Doctor to his old self; maybe telepaths are just close enough to Timelords so that the energy stored while aware this isn't the Doctor gets confused and remains in the watch?

The "split himself in two" possibility didn't occur to me, partly because as opposed to John Smith and Martha, both of whom the school knows as new arrivals who came two months ago, Timothy is a pupil who seems to have been there for longer than that.

Rose mention: true. Enough of same already.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

That's a good explanation for why the watch didn't work. I was concerned that the Timelord-ness might try to enter the boy. He certainly seemed able to read it even before he opened it.

I rejected my theory on remembering his mention of the his father in South Africa, but now I think of the Doctor's certainty about his own parents... hmm. I hope we get an explanation for him.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

So do I. What I thought when South Africa was mentioned: OMG it's young Tolkien!

Apparently not, though.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

No, he's called Latimer. In any case, lots of the British were involved in the Boer war, and before and after, so his father being in SA isn't that strange.

[kernezelda]

That was one of the best episodes of the season. I have high hopes for the next. I wonder if there's any significance that the fob watch cover is the same design as the front disk of the Chameleon Device, or if it's just a re-use of the piece?

[kernezelda]

*slaps forehead* Of course, the watch must be linked, as it's the repository of the Doctor's self. The Chameleon Device must create a repository to specifications, in case the user needs to restore him/her/itself.

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

I just watched this (took 3 tries to get it downloaded!).
I loved the whole episode's feel, the way it remained true to era. I was shocked by John's casual acceptance of the boy's beating, but it fits with the way the society functioned, and he's now a product of that society.
I am becoming more of a Martha fan with every episode; I like her intelligence and her determination, and that she isn't afraid to show it.
Can't wait for next week.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Re: John - yes. It's important to remember that he's not the Doctor anymore. I think it's a great storytelling choice to make them different in such a subtle yet crucial way - not in a Jekyll and Hyde way, i.e. John isn't the Doctor's evil side or for that matter his weak side a la Star Trek; he's a human living in 1913 and the type to fit in there, not to rebel against (which was probably intentional as they were going undercover), and no longer the man whose very first thought when leaving a message to his Companion was "don't let me hurt anyone".

Martha is golden. (Though in a horrible situation right now, and I don't mean the gun pointed at her head...)

[cavendish.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you on the epsiode, and I do like the Owen feference you make in this context. Maybe you know this, but Rupert Brooke, in one of his very last poem, also took a rather critical / sad look on WWI. After his jingoist sonnets, this is quite a surprising read:

Fragment

I strayed about the deck, an hour, to-night
Under a cloudy moonless sky; and peeped
In at the windows, watched my friends at table,
Or playing cards, or standing in the doorway,
Or coming out into the darkness. Still
No one could see me.

I would have thought of them
- Heedless, within a week of battle - in pity,
Pride in their strength and in the weight and firmness
And link'd beauty of bodies, and pity that
This gay machine of splendour 'ld soon be broken,
Thought little of, pashed, scattered. . . .

Only, always,
I could but see them - against the lamplight - pass
Like coloured shadows, thinner than filmy glass,
Slight bubbles, fainter than the wave's faint light,
That broke to phosphorous out in the night,
Perishing things and strange ghosts - soon to die
To other ghosts - this one, or that, or I.

oh, and PS.: Sorry for not posting for so long. I am not dead, just very busy ;-)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I knew about Brooke's change of mind, but not the poem in question. Thanks for quoting it!

And hey, I can empathize...