10.24: The Family of Blood

In which we find out just how powerful both Doctor Who and the Doctor can actually be.

Broadcast: June 2007

Watched: September 2021

“God you’re rubbish as a human.”

Devastating. Unlike the earlier weepies, this one’s lost none of its power with time. 

I think part of its greatness comes from the decision to make Smith a snivelling coward. That serves to highlight just how great everyone else is (Joan hyper competent, Martha hard as nails while entirely on her own – oooh that sets up the finale! – etc). It also means when he does the right thing anyway – choosing to open the watch after the bombardment starts, knowing he will “die” – it makes it mean more.

But part of it is that it has both A and B plots (or possibly two A plots?) that break your heart in different but related ways, so there’s never any relief. Firstly there’s the thread in which you’re literally watching the war come to England and arrive a year early, seeing teachers arming terrified school boys. The bit with sobbing children using machine guns to mow down scarecrows, all set to the soundtrack of To Be A Pilgrim is genuinely haunting. So is their relief when they realise they haven’t in fact killed anyone. And so is the knowledge that they’re all going to be doing this for real soon enough.

Then there’s the more personalised “how can you think I’m not real” bit. Tennant is amazing as Smith breaks down, but Joan’s “if I could do this instead of you” may be the most heartbreaking thing in there. 

Also, it’s just really well done. The music. The performances. Tennant is absolutely fantastic, twice, but everyone else is great, too. Lloyd and Staton (who is married to Anthony Flanagan, who was in 42, btw) are creepy as hell. I love the sort of shared visual language they give the family: the simultaneous head tilts and so on.

The moral message of the plot is not *great* though, is it. If the Doctor’s only in the watch out of kindness, so that he doesn’t have to kill the family – which he could do really easily! – then that does kind of mean sacrificing a bunch of human lives to protect these murdering dicks. When Latimer says “You’re as bad as them!” he’s right: Joan calls the Doctor on it at the end, but it’s not entirely clear the show has noticed this problem. The only handwave I can think of is that Son Of Mine is wrong, and the Doctor couldn’t swat them away like flies after all. 

It is kind of funny that the story has more endings than the Jackson Lord of the Rings (I count six: victory, punishment, Joan, Tim, war, remembrance). But they’re all amazing so it gets away with it.

Buy me a coffee

Other things:

• I understand why they moved the story from the novel’s spring 1914 to 1913 – clarity, etc. – but I don't entirely understand why Tim Latimer becomes a soldier, not a conscientious objector.

• I think maybe this one deliberately breaks normal storytelling logic to ramp up its power? There's Latimer's description of the Doctor as a sort of god (the first of these, I think?), which shifts from tell to show with the ironic fairytale punishments. 

• Also, is there an Othello-like double time scheme thing going on? This is a couple who just had their first date and, let's be honest, it was not a complete success, what with the murders.In part one, Smith and Joan are shyly glancing at each other, in part two they're the loves of each other's lives. Yet, as with Othello, the double time scale makes the story better at communicating what it needs to, even if it doesn't follow real world logic

• The "You filthy coward!" "Oh yes sir every time" exchange not only mirrors Parting of the Ways, but prefigures Smith calling a retreat after the head's death. I do sort of love that the headmaster isn't a hypocrite – he's a decent man of his era (that is, an imperialist arse), who is just way in over his head.

• The moment the Doctor doesn't recognise the TARDIS feels like a real violation.

• The fact Joan works out that the Cartwright house will be empty because the little girl's parents have been murdered is *so* bleak.

• The flash forwards are amazing. Love the period touches like the 20s clothing.

• "I will give you one word of advice... run." This is Moffat's Doctor, too. Also, Tennant runs faster than the family. Practice counts, clearly.

• For some reason I have been convinced for years that the "Why does he need you?" bit from the mid-season trailer was actually cut. But no, it's there, and in the transcript, too. Funny what the brain does.

• Obviously the NA version is canon, it just unhappened because of something something Time War something.