Doctor Who: Human Nature/Family of Blood

Eh. Very well executed (in parts), but still irritating. Creepy scarecrows, forsooth. We've had the robots, the cyborgs, the pepperpots, the clowns, the tentacled faces, the animated shop dummies, etc. So why not scarecrows? At least they can do a better job of scaring humans than scaring crows. And there's a psychic boy, and an evil little girl. There's always an evil child, isn't there?

Not a very original plot (see also Harlan Ellison's Outer Limits story "Demon with a Glass Hand" Peter S. Beagle's "The Last Unicorn", Diana Wynne Jones's "Dogsbody", to name three off the top of my head) but still entertaining, and we haven't seen it done onscreen with the Doctor before. This was written by Paul Cornell based on his New Adventure "Human Nature", adapted for the tenth Doctor and Martha. Probably an improvement (for one thing, David Tennant pulls it off much better than Sylvester McCoy would have.) There were lots of great scenes in this two-parter. It benefited tremendously from having the luxury of time for some character development.

But it's still a cliche. (And full of plot holes.)

"Every single time! I tell them, 'Don't fall in love with a human.' Rule one. Don't fall in love with a human!"

Real humans go to ridiculous lengths to find the right person to fall in love with, but every time these transformed folks find True Love. It just falls on them. Even if the immortal turns into a freaking DOG ("Dogsbody" by Diana Wynne Jones) they STILL fall in love.

The plot goes the same way every single time. Every single time! The temporary mortal has to turn back into a supernatural being in order to save lives (which wouldn't have been in danger if the supernatural being hadn't gone there in the first place). Someone who knew the person both as an immortal and as a mortal observes and shakes head in exasperation and knowing. Someone is sad. The immortal can't or won't turn back into a mortal once the crisis is past. Whee.

And he did it to be kind?! Since when was Mr. "No Second Chances" Doctor that nice? Well, I suppose the scene where he says "Don't come after me. Consider yourself warned." is just implied.

The Doctor should just admit to his human fetish already. He wanted to be a human, and this was just a convenient excuse. The ending shows he could easily handled things without going to so much trouble to turn into a human.

I miss the old days when the Doctor was an alien wanderer, not a god. But I suppose once they slap the "Last of " label on someone, the mythical factor goes up.

But I like David Tennant's Doctor a lot more this season. Maybe it's that his performance has improved, or just that the Rose character is gone. Lovely portrayal of a human "John Smith". And this Doctor seems to have a talent for acting (unlike, say, the seventh Doctor).