The Family of Blood are a family of space scavengers who
desperately need the life force of a Time Lord in order to sustain their own
lives, they pursue the Doctor so relentlessly that he is forced to contain his
Time Lord self in a fob watch to push the Family off of his scent. The fact
that the Family can absorb the very essence of a life is pretty devilish as far
as villains go and their army of animated scarecrows was pretty creepy to
behold.
Martha is actually kind of annoying in this episode, though
she is brave and show’s determination and intelligence in the face of truly awful
odds she is also constantly pining over the Doctor. After Rose’s puppy dog eyes
the arrival of a more confident and intelligent companion in Martha was
something that really got me quite excited however her obvious crush on the
Doctor can be a little tiring to watch. Nevertheless she stands by the Doctor
despite his unwitting slight on her affections and takes the obvious prejudices
around her on the chin definitely not one of her worst episodes.
There is an underlying tragic sweetness to this episode that
comes from the Doctor’s romance with Joan Redfern (played brilliantly by
Jessica Hynes), a young widowed nurse who works at the school that ‘John Smith’
teaches at. The beauty lies in their blossoming love story. However through the
whole episode you know that John Smith will not marry, have children and grow
old with his love because he will have to remember who he is at some point and
you know that Joan will once again lose her love before it has really begun.
For all you Game of Thrones fans out there, there were a couple
of familiar faces in these episodes, Harry Lloyd played Jeremy Baines, a student
at the school who’s body is used by the Family to track the Time Lord and Thomas
Brodie-Sangster plays the part of a young boy named Tim who has premonitions
about the oncoming war and discovers the Doctor’s secret before the Doctor
himself.
All in all, this tear-jerking episode earned a 4/5 in our
eyes.
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