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Original Transmission
Crew
Plot Outline From Wikipedia The story is told partly in flashback to scenes in which the TARDIS is being pursued, under attack using some kind of energy beam weapon. The Doctor tells Martha that those who are pursuing him could trace him across the universe, and he must undergo a transformation to turn him into a human. His pursuers are dying, the Doctor says. His plan is to transform into a human for three months, by which time those beings should all be dead. His Time Lord configuration is stored in a pocket watch and Martha is charged with guarding it.
As a human, John Smith, the Doctor becomes a schoolteacher in a private school in England before the Great War. The story picks up two months into his human life. Smith is unaware of his previous life as a Time Lord, and his character is quiet, a little timid and introspective. He has dreams of being a Time Lord and sometimes sketches them in a notebook. Martha (who is aware of what is happening and remembers everything) is his maid. His pursuers, who refer to themselves as the Family, show up on Earth in an invisible spaceship and take over the body of a school prefect who stumbles upon their ship while digging up a hidden cache of beer. They have scarecrow-like creatures as their henchmen, who round up more victims to use as vessels.
Smith is cajoled by the school nurse, Joan Redfern, to attend a dance. Martha is distraught as she realises that he has fallen in love with a human, particularly someone other than Martha herself. The Doctor left recorded instructions telling her what to do in any nearly eventuality. One of these was "Don't let me abandon you". But his instructions did not foresee that he might fall in love.
Meanwhile, one of Smith's pupils, Timothy Latimer, who has previously demonstrated extrasensory perception in an encounter with other students, finds and takes the pocket watch, having heard the Doctor's thoughts despite the perception filter the Doctor had placed on it. When he briefly opens the watch, the Family sense that the Time Lord they are hunting is located somewhere within the school. Capturing and possessing a friend that Martha has made whilst working as a maid, one of the Family attempts to question Martha, but she escapes. Martha realises she must bring the Doctor back, but the watch is gone, without which she cannot restore him. Shocked by Martha's bizarre claims (and a slap to the face), Smith fires her.
The climax comes at the dance. Martha retrieves the sonic screwdriver and rushes to find Smith there, hoping the familiar object from his other life will help convince him. Meanwhile the Family arrive, one of them having overheard Martha trying to convince Smith he is the Doctor. They take Martha and Joan hostage, demanding that he "change back" into a Time Lord. Still believing he was born human, Smith does not understand the Family's words. In a cliffhanger ending, he is further horrified when they tell him to choose whom they should kill: "Maid or matron, your friend or your lover. Your choice."
This one isn’t going to please those Doctor Who fans who just want to see explosions and monsters and special effects. There ARE monsters, and there ARE special effects, but they are very much secondary to the slowly unfolding story of John Smith, Edwardian gentleman, his maid, Martha, and Nurse Jean.
That The Doctor could change his species by using a machine that is actually IN the TARDIS, is a bit of a surprise to those of us who haven’t read the Paul Cornell novel this two parter is based on. But in science fiction you can make it up as you go along. We never even knew he was half Human until 1996. Nobody expected Gallifrey to be blown to smithereens. So being able to turn Human for a short time is plausible enough.
John Smith was an odd man. He had unlikeable moments. When he turned his back on the older boy thrashing the younger one he seemed a long way from The Doctor. But at other times he was a sort of Human version of The Doctor, with the same strange shyness about relationships, the same quick wit, and once the relationship with Jean got going he was very sweet and tender with her. Yet I felt uncomfortable about John Smith and really wanted our Doctor back, and I will be happier next week when he DOES return and sort out the aliens in the invisible spaceship and their scarecrow helpers.
The scarecrows clearly play the same role here as the leather-clad slabs in Smith and Jones. They are the brainless hired muscle. Being scarecrows without a brain is a neat little cultural joke, of course. But these are scary scarecrows that might well line up alongside the gas mask zombies for making the commonplace creepy. And chances are they’ll make next year’s toy collection.
One other cultural joke had all the hallmarks of Russell T. Davies’ humour. And he admitted it in the Confidential. John Smith’s mother and father – Sidney and Verity. Anyone who doesn’t get it needs to check their Doctor Who history right now. A good episode if you are interested in story and not spectacle,
and genuine Doctor Who fans SHOULD be expecting story. So it should
have hit all the right marks.
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