N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
I can’t claim to remember a great deal of Paul Cornell’s original New Adventure version of Human Nature. I do remember being excited that a New Adventure was being adapted for Nu Who, and that Human Nature was one of the books I’d enjoyed the most, although even at the time of the episodes’ original broadcast, it would’ve been at least a decade since I’d read it. But as to what the differences might have been (other than the obvious change of Doctor and companion), I am at a loss to recall.
“How can you think I’m not real?”
John Smith, The Family of Blood
Thankfully, the TV version does not disappoint. Even if the Doctor’s reasons for hiding are a bit of an overreaction, his becoming a human unaware of his actually being a Time Lord is a wonderful premise — and David Tennant plays it perfectly. You’ll really believe the Doctor and John Smith are two different men.
The boys at the school at which John Smith teaches — well, Baines and Hutchinson at least — do not strike you as the decent sort of chaps you’d find in one of P.G. Wodehouse’s Edwardian school stories; they’re more the type of charmless toffs who end up running the country. (Martha’s mate Jenny even makes a reference to this being their fate although, unlike Martha, she doesn’t know there’s a war to end all wars coming.)
But I was impressed the story didn’t shirk from showing the racism and class prejudice of early 20th century Britain. Even Nurse Joan isn’t immune to the attitudes of the time.
The acting here too is top-notch. Tennant understandably draws the plaudits, but Jessica Hynes and, of course, Freema Agyeman are excellent too. Of the rest, I was also impressed with Pip Torrens as the stoic, patriotic, but ultimately out-of-his-depth headmaster.
If I were going to fault Human Nature / The Family of Blood, the ending perhaps goes on a bit too long, or at least tries to do too much, but I’m not going to criticise the story for being too ambitious. Human Nature / The Family of Blood is exactly the kind of Doctor Who I wanted to see during the Wilderness Years.
As such it’s something to treasure.
These are my potential Target Library titles for Human Nature / The Family of Blood:
— Doctor Who and the Family of Blood
— Doctor Who and Human Nature
— Doctor Who and the Fob of Destiny
