Holistic Review: Unsurprisingly, the top-ranked New Adventure becomes an instant modern classic.

Paul Cornell's done it again, hasn't he? After the emotional powerhouse that was 2005's Father's Day, he returns with a multilayered rewarding plotline adapted from his award-winning New Adventure. I've always enjoyed Cornell's books, but more often than not, I found them a little heavy-handed on the symbolism and the angst. Back when I reviewed Father's Day, I mentioned that the only book of his I'd really enjoyed was Human Nature, not realizing at the time, of course, that in a mere two years, I'd be able to watch it adapted for the small screen. It's been so long since I originally read the book that I can't remember exactly how I felt about it when it was first released. I definitely remember thinking that the second trilogy of Bernice-solo books (Infinite Requiem, Sanctuary and Human Nature) was far better than the first (Transit, The Highest Science and The Pit, gaaah) had been. I do remember having some reservations about it, but overall thought it was a very enjoyable and well-written novel. I did go back and re-read it a few weeks before the television episodes aired, and there were several themes in the novel that struck me as particularly wonderful. What's even better is that the televised adaptation really holds close to the spirit of the original in all of these areas.

One of these themes is the idea that the Doctor wants to experience humanity, and learn what it means to be human. In the book, the contrast between the Doctor and John Smith is so interesting because all of the seventh Doctor's mysterious alien, manipulative nature has been stripped away, leaving him as nothing more than a small, meek man. Here, the tenth Doctor is already more in touch with his humanity, and he doesn't seem to be seeking out humanity specifically for the learning experience, so the contrast isn't quite as great - but we still see that as a human, he seems to be much more laid back and at peace with himself, and his mind seems to be working on a mere one track at a time, instead of twelve. (I do wish he'd changed his hairstyle, though - it really doesn't look very period for 1913. Still, they do put him in a mortarboard, as so dramatically worn by the seventh Doctor on the original cover of the novel.)

I really loved the fact that, in both the novel and the adaptation, the morality of 1913 is presented as fact, not apologized for, but seeming so small-minded in comparison to today's perspective. John Smith seems to basically possess all of the same morals as the Doctor, but he knows that some of them are considered unacceptable, and he doesn't seem to feel that he can stand up for his beliefs in the context of the boys' school. Hence we get the scene in which Latimer cruelly asks if he can beat Latimer for being inept at handling a gun, and rather than objecting, Smith's only reply is an offhand "Permission granted." And, in a later scene, Smith calls all of the boys to take arms and fight the alien invaders, despite Martha and Joan's protestations that the boys might be killed, and despite his own distaste for the situation, which becomes apparent as he watches the children firing their guns and realizes that he cannot do the same or allow them to continue doing it either. In fact, Joan almost seems to serve as Smith's conscience here, probing him to realize that the societal beliefs he's taking for granted aren't necessarily the best method, or even the method that he himself really believes in.

The ethics of war, in fact, is another of the big themes of the book that's represented really well here. On one hand, we have the headmaster, whose staunch belief in the necessity and glory of war leads him to train his boys in the art of killing, never realizing that within one short year they'll be forced into battle. (It's never mentioned here, but one does have to admit that this training and early exposure to conflict may well have saved some of these boys' lives, so as horrible as it seems to be training children to be killers, he may not have been that far off the mark.) And on the other hand, we have Joan, whose anger at the army after her husband was killed in the Boer War leads to her vocally opposing the schoolboys' training. Ironically, the possessed Baines also vocalizes this opinion eloquently, despite the fact that the Family is engaged in a take-no-prisoners war of their own: "War is coming. In foreign fields, war of the whole wide world with all your boys falling down in the mud. Do you think they will thank the man who taught them it was glorious?" Smith falls somewhere in between - his human nature is telling him that the boys must fight, but the lingering remnants of the Doctor's personality mean that deep down, he's not happy with it at all, and it takes Joan and Martha's persuasion to make him realize that he isn't a born fighter and he doesn't want anyone to risk their lives doing it. One of the best scenes in the episode, which really drives this point home, is the shot of the boys preparing to engage the enemy, and one or two of them sniffling and wiping away tears of terror as they realize that they just might die. Boys playing a deadly grown-up game which this story regards with both contempt, and an understanding that it's sometimes necessary. Really well-done.

Given the setting, the novel also makes a big deal of bullying, and the importance of being true to yourself even when other people try to pull you down. Sadly there's not quite as much of this made in the TV version, with Tim's bullying being limited to a few lines of dialogue rather than the sometimes-extreme punishment he's dealt in the novel. The influence of the Doctor's personality isn't quite as strong on Tim either, so he doesn't seem to grow quite as much in the televised version as he did in the novel. Still, there's enough reference made to the cruelty of public schoolboys to get the point across, and Tim definitely comes out on top - he sticks to his morals, proudly declares "Oh yes sir, every time!" when Hutchinson accuses him of being a "filty coward" for not fighting, and ultimately he even manages to save the life of the boy who used to bully him, so I was quite happy with how this theme was worked into the television episodes as well.

With his transformation into the meek John Smith, David Tennant is practically given a brand-new role to play, and as such he's allowed to run a whole new gamut of emotions. His best moments, of course, are when Smith finds himself unable to summon up any details about his childhood, which seems to frighten him. Then he sees the TARDIS, and desperately tries to deny the Doctor's existence in the hopes that his life is not a sham, until he ends up sobbing in Joan's arms when he realizes that he can't avoid the choice that he's being forced to make. The more evidence that rules in the Doctor's favor, the more John realizes that he's going to have to become the Doctor again, which essentially means losing everything that makes him human. Unsurprisingly, he equates this to being killed - after all, there have been enough stories of alien possession (this one included) in which the overwritten alien intelligence utterly destroys the personality of its host, that it's easy to understand why John would be so terrified of giving his body up to the Doctor. If Jenny had learned that she was only an invented human persona inhabiting the body of the mother of the Family, would we have been any happier to see her effectively destroyed? I doubt it. It's a testament to David Tennant's convincing portrayal of Smith's agony that, when the Doctor suddenly snatches the watch out of the air and stands up with his usual breezy confidence, I realized that instead of grinning and punching the air with delight, I was actually rather sad. Even though I knew perfectly well what was coming. I feel as though the Doctor's lost something so important, even if it would have destroyed the essence of who he was, and even though he seems to think he can still recapture some of what it meant to be John Smith. What's really interesting is that this storyline has the potential to radically change the Doctor's character. Will he take with him the lessons that he learned from being John Smith? And what lessons did he take away from being human, really, other than knowing what it's like to fall in love? (which alone might be enough of a lesson, given how emotionally distant he's been in the past - stand up, Doctor number nine.)

The core of this episode, Smith's romance with Joan, is so extremely well-done. I have to say that I found it way more believable than his romance with Madame de Pompadour last season - maybe it's just because I already knew Joan so well from the book, but I think it was more down to Jessica Hynes' nuanced portrayal. Honestly, I had this dread that they were going to cast some sultry twenty-something to adjust for the age difference between Tennant and McCoy, but in actual fact, Joan looks pretty much exactly as I had always imagined her - possibly a little less severe, but essentially perfect. I couldn't believe it. And Hynes is only 35 years old, so I think it's down to her mature portrayal and the way she's been made up. This is the first time I've ever been fully in favor of a romance for the Doctor. It's most likely due to the situation - I might begrudge our sexless Time Lord getting some nookie, but the human John Smith falling in love is just plain sweet (kisses included). It also helps that, rather like Mme de Pompadour, Joan is no shrinking violet. She has strong opinions, a backbone, and, one gets the impression, a life of her own. She has a good memory for details, she's analytical and logical (pointing out the existence of the Doctor's watch, even though she doesn't believe Martha's story), she accepts the evidence of her own eyes even if it goes against what she believes to be true (the existence of aliens), she's openminded enough to not attempt to rationalize such things away - as Joan herself says, "How easily I accept these ideas." - and she's clever enough to use her newfound knowledge to develop a plan of action (such as when she subtly probes John for any childhood knowledge about Nottingham, suggests they hide at the Cartwright house, or points out what the Family will do if John gives up the watch). She's modest about her looks, despite looking quite beautiful in her dress for the dance, with a good sense of humor (upon witnessing the Doctor's portrait of her, she points to the Slitheen on the previous page and asks "Are you sure that's not me?"). And she's selfless, not wanting to let John sacrifice himself for her when he doesn't fully realize what that sacrifice will mean. It's no wonder the Doctor offers to let her join him onboard the TARDIS. But you have to wonder: is there really any chance that they could have rekindled their relationship? And how on earth would Martha have felt about it if they had? Poor Joan keeps her emotions so tightly under wraps, but we get a glimpse when she has said her final, strained goodbyes to the Doctor, and once he's gone, clings to Smith's book - the only possession of his that she has left - as she finally lets herself weep over losing him.

And as I said when discussing the themes of the book, I like that we see an accurate 1913 version of Joan, warts and all. She has strong opinions about the war and isn't afraid to challenge people's viewpoints, but she also has very contemporary notions of class and race, admonishing Martha on several occasions for having ideas above her station ("Well, that certainly is nonsense. Women might train to be doctors, but hardly a skivvy and hardly one of your color."). In most other dramas, I think, that kind of dialogue would only go to the villains - but we like Joan, and we know she doesn't mean to be cruel, she's simply a product of her time, just as John Smith is of his, to an extent. So we accept her for her failings, even though we hope for her to be enlightened (which, by the end, perhaps she is), and in the process I hope the children watching get a better sense of how bigoted people could be in the past, and how little in some respects things have changed today. It's at times like this that I love what a wonderful platform Doctor Who can be for social enlightenment.

As for Martha, after really proving her worth in The Lazarus Experiment and vocalizing her deep faith in the Doctor in 42, here I feel like she really comes into her own as a companion. I still wouldn't say that Martha's among my top favorite companions (neither, I might add, was Rose, despite Billie Piper's amazing acting), but here she finds that even when the Doctor isn't around, she can handle difficult situations on her own. And speaking of Rose, I would also point out that when the Doctor has, to all intents and purposes, abandoned Martha, does she give up and go have a good cry? No! She puts on her stiff upper lip and, even though she knows they can't do anything without having the watch, goes bravely forward and tries to determine a course of action. So, essentially, for the first three-quarters of this story (or at least in the third quarter), Martha has to become the Doctor, and when a companion can do that, they've reached a certain level of proficiency that I think makes them very admirable.

Using Martha as a replacement for Benny in this story means that a number of changes have to be made. Instead of being John Smith's niece and underdog-championing suffragette befriender (the suffragettes do at least get mentioned at one point), Martha has to stick closer to the Doctor, and her skin color means that in this time period, she's the housemaid. I'm extremely pleased that for the first time, we see Martha having to endure an era (and situation) in which people don't simply accept her despite the color of her skin. Granted, the racism of an English boys' school in 1913 isn't as brutal as she would have encountered in many other places and times, but it's wonderful to see the way that Martha copes with the idiocy of the people around her. Rather than getting offended, she takes the high road and lets their comments roll off her back, whether it's the headmaster ignoring her, Joan being uppity, or the boys mocking her. And, perhaps in the same way as she cautiously tried to observe Elizabethan customs, she similarly tries to remain unobtrusive as a school housemaid, but she doesn't let the role constrain her. She refuses to be cowed or belittled, or follow protocol that's essentially meaningless to her, and speaks her mind when it's important. I like that a lot. It's impressive that Martha knows when to abide by local custom and when to shove it, and overall makes her seem very capable.

She's sharp and quick-witted when Jenny is taken over, cleverly tossing in suggestions that the real Jenny would find absurd ("Or sardines and jam, how about that?") and watching her reaction before slipping quietly away. Her bravery comes out more than possibly ever before when, provided with a distraction, she turns the tables on her captors and holds a gun on them until everybody in the dance hall can escape, including the Doctor! Her medical background gets called upon here, too, most often in her dealings with Joan. I initially wondered why they had changed Joan from the science teacher to a nurse, but I see now that it enabled her to interact with Martha on a different level. While Joan has completed her medical studies, Martha's aiming for an even higher proficiency level, and while Joan frequently doubts the credentials that Martha claims she has, Martha eventually gets to prove her medical knowledge to Joan in a very nice scene.

I'm hoping that this story proves to be the turning point (of some kind) in Martha's infatuation with the Doctor. Things were going so well, and I was loving Martha in this story, up until she stared morosely at the TARDIS scanner and grumped, "You had to, didn't you? You had to go and fall in love with a human. And it wasn't me." At which point I uttered a very loud and very agonized groan. But, you know, things actually improve after that. She again hints at her feelings for the Doctor when she assures Joan that she's no rival for his affections, but it doesn't come out as wistful... more like an acceptance of the situation. And, better yet, she gets a great scene in which she tries to persuade Smith how much the Doctor is needed: "People are dying out there! They need him, and I need him! 'Cause you've got no idea what he's like. I've only just met him - it wasn't even that long ago, but, he is everything. He's just everything to me, and he doesn't even look at me, but I don't care. 'Cause I love him to bits. And I hope to God he won't remember me saying this!" Maybe it's just because it comes across as a love deeper than sexual attraction - which is kind of what Rose's seemed to evolve into (or, at least, so she claimed) - but this seems much more palatable to me. And, either way, at least her feelings are out in the open now, and the Doctor knows about them, so maybe she can move past it finally.

Freema gives a lot of great line deliveries here, most of which I'll be quoting below. When Hutchinson demeaningly asks her name, Martha's reply is a congenial - and not at all intimidated - "Martha, sir. Martha Jones." Her urgent and disbelieving "Did you see it though?" to Jenny is quite nice, and I love her beaming smile when the Doctor's personality starts to reassert itself when he first holds the watch. And I love that finally, Freema gets to wear period clothing.

All praise Harry Lloyd! When have we had such a terrifying guest actor on the show in recent memory? Probably not since The Satan Pit, and who can really compete against the Devil? His perpetual smirk is... a work of genius. And it's not just a smirk, it's sort of... superior, and sadistic. And his eyes, which fairly burn with intelligence and cruel amusement. Can we bring him back to play the Mara too? He also gives the most entertaining delivery to his lines, several of which I'll be quoting below, and his fanatical screams ("Soldiers? Soldiers!", "Attack!" and "Run!") are chilling. I was just thoroughly impressed with him. This was one of those performances that makes me say, I'd watch anything he's ever in. But how could it top this?

The rest of the Family are wonderfully creepy too, particularly the way they sniff the air menacingly, with Rebekah Staton definitely being the next most successful. I love Jenny's friendly relationship with Martha, and the fact that she doesn't care one whit what color Martha's skin is - she's just funny and a very good person. I never would have thought that Staton had it in her to be so terrifying, but she does. Gerard Horan comes across as more dead than alien, as Mr Clark, but it's unnerving nonetheless. Lauren Wilson is maybe slightly less convincing as Lucy Cartwright, but she looks deceptively innocent enough (which is used to good advantage when Baines sends Lucy to infiltrate the school), and I'm quite glad that we at least have a visual substitute for Aphasia from the novel, even if Lucy's balloon is only decorative rather than deadly. Given that this balloon actually came from Earth, I think it would have been kind of silly if it had been converted into a weapon, as much fun as that would have been.

The other main guest character of note is Thomas Sangster as Tim Latimer, who is likewise perfectly cast. He looks young and innocent enough to be a ripe target for bullying, but he's also got wisdom behind his eyes, and a maturity beyond his years. His slightly psychic leanings are introduced well, and aren't overused, being instead mainly used to justify why he can perceive the alien nature of the Doctor's fob watch. Even though, as I said, he doesn't get quite the same chance to "become" the Doctor as he did in the novel, I like that we can clearly see the influence of the Doctor's personality on him - for example, when he declares "That's exactly the problem, sir. They only have spears." I love that he uses his foreknowledge to save both his life and Latimer's, and his quiet "Thank you, Doctor" is perfectly done and very affecting.

The only element of this story that actually disappointed me was the scarecrows. They had soooo much potential, especially with those freakishly creepy masks, hands-down the best since the clockwork robots. And their first scene, jerking to life and advancing on Mr Clark, actually is pretty terrifying... the problem is that they never really do anything afterwards. Like the pig men, and the Beast, we never really get a sense of what they can do to you (aside from... grab you and carry you around), hence we don't know why they're scary. They aren't even impervious to bullets, despite not having bodies that can be killed. You'd think animated straw would be pretty hard to kill, short of fire, but apparently that's not the case. It is, however, clever that - as Gray pointed out - using scarecrows as foot soldiers alongside the Family means that, unlike in the book, the children don't have to fire guns at sentient beings; mowing down a horde of scarecrows is much more palatable than watching them shoot humanoids that can die painfully.

My respect for Charles Palmer continues to grow. He was a perfect choice to film this story, with lots of really interesting angles and beautiful shot composition the whole way through. I think he makes the Family look sooooooo threatening - such as the shot in which the three of them (minus Mother) all tilt their heads and sniff simultaneously - especially the sort of fish-eye lens he uses for close-ups of Baines. This man really knows how to film a hillside; lots of beautiful shots of tree branches and scarecrows blowing in the breeze against the blue sky, the Doctor strolling away from the Baines-scarecrow, and the TARDIS parked on a green slope in the rain. There's a great shot of Martha aiming the gun at the Family / camera as she backs away from them / it, and the shot of the Family's ship exploding and throwing them to the ground in the blast. The only moment I even question is the amount of time dedicated to watching the Doctor scream in agony as he submits himself to the chameleon arch; I think one quick glimpse of his agony would have been more than enough (although it would be hard to give up the accompanying scene of Martha's excellent reaction). I was pleased to hear that much of this episode was filmed at the St Fagans Museum of Welsh Life, although apparently it's changed names since I visited in the summer of 2000. Sadly I barely remember enough of it to know if I visited any of the particular filming locations, but that still gave me a thrill.

I really really love the effect of the invisible ship, with shimmering green lines that only become visible when the exterior is touched. The effect of Mother invading Jenny's body suddenly, on the most recent viewing, put me very much in mind of Lost's smoke monster. In the realm of sound effects, it's awesome the way that Baines' voice starts to echo around the inside of the ship once the invisible door has been opened. And then we have the incidental music, which is another notch on Gold's belt. Like quite a few of his stories, it's not especially memorable all around, but it's never embarrassing, and that's a plus in my book. (Oh, for the days of Mark Ayres, when even "average" was not even a term to be considered, much less declared with relief.) There are a couple of notable musical scenes, though: the score accompanying Martha's trip down memory lane inside the TARDIS, and the moment when Tim reveals the watch to Martha. I like the boys' choir too, which is re-used to particular effect over the scene in which the schoolboys fire on the scarecrow army, where the innocent sound contrasts really well with the violence onscreen.

I think the historicals overall really benefit from being two-parters, perhaps this one more than most. I'm not exactly sure why, but I felt like this story evoked 1913 better even than The Empty Child gave us 1941, and definitely better than the 1930 of Daleks in Manhattan, possibly because both of those stories relied on more futuristic elements than this one does, so there's more time here to devote to recreating 1913. I'm sure it helps that the threat of World War One looms large in both setting and themes, and Martha's plight as the domestic help is a great assist with the tone. The setting (a boys' school in a small village) is a definite plus, being both unique and contributing to the bucolic period feel.

On a final note, this is just a great plot. I really do love stories that take our heroes and change them into something they're not; Buffy did this really well in both "Halloween" and "Helpless" - or, to take some examples a little more like Human Nature, there's "I Will Remember You" from Angel or perhaps the films The Last Unicorn and The Fifth Element. Given the Doctor's fondness for humans, his apparently (previous?) half-human nature, and his frequent inability to understand human emotions (at least in his last incarnation), it's fitting that he finally gets to experience humanity himself. It's quite a high-concept idea - light-years away from "the Doctor and Martha are trapped in a ship in the middle of the sun" - and if the new series continues exploring themes like this, I can't imagine it ending anytime soon.

Minor points:

• Starting the episode with one of Smith's dreams is a great move - a nice way to catch us partly up on the backstory, get the audience hooked, and say "whoa! something's really wrong here!"

• Hutchinson, as played by Tom Palmer, is certainly a git, although nowhere nearly as hateful as he was in the novel. But I like that Martha's response to his extraordinarily racist joke is just a sarcastic, and mildly offended, "That's very funny, sir."

• The first of many many great quotes from this episode. Honestly, I thought about just listing them in order under each character's paragraph above.

  Jenny: "Just think, though. In a few years' time, boys like that'll be running the country."
  Martha: "1913? They might not."

• Ha! I don't always take to slapstick, but this was very funny, particulary Hynes' delivery:

  Joan: "The stairs."
  Smith: "Eh, what about the stairs?"
  Joan: "They're right behind you."
  (A flurry of papers floats down through the air as Smith topples backwards down the stairs.)

• Love Tennant's unhappy little groan as Joan attends to the bump on Smith's head.

• Martha gets stroppy to make a point:

  Joan: "Excuse me, Martha. It's hardly good form to enter a master's study without knocking."
  Martha: (sarcastic) "Sorry. Right, yeah." (she returns to the door and knocks, then hurries back to Smith's side, concerned.) "But is he all right? They said you fell down the stairs, sir."

• Well, Smith is clearly not an English teacher! When I paused the video to get a good look at his diary pages, one of them repeatedly bore the words "brake through... brake through..." and I thought, what on earth does that mean? Then I realized it was the page on the Autons, and the full phrase was "brake through the glass" (and "the glass brakes"). Dear dear.

• Likewise, in his diary, Smith refers to the Autons as "plastic men" - but was plastic commonly in use in those days, or referred to as such? Wikipedia implies that the nearest thing was Bakelite, introduced in 1912, so probably not terribly common. I could accept that maybe the word came to Smith in his dreams, except that later, Joan also refers to his fob watch as a "plastic thing". Hmmm.

• Still, the drawings are very cool - love the one of Rose, and how awesome that they put in pictures of all the past Doctors as well! Hello, dear Paul McGann, how we've missed you! And how nice to see you officially recognized as the canon eighth Doctor, front and center, beside that lovely portrait of McCoy (only fair that he should get to make an appearance in this story). He also does quite a beautiful drawing of Joan later. And I have to say, I'm tickled that "Maius Intra Qua Extra" makes an appearance in this story (originally the school motto, displayed over the library doors, and a nice reference to the TARDIS).

• Why exactly does Martha strongly imply to Jenny that she'll be leaving soon for outer space? It's a surprise Jenny doesn't run away screaming "Nutcase!"

• Why does the Family's ship seem to scan Joan? It's not clear that they're gathering information, or if they are, they never seem to do anything with it. Perhaps they were trying to scan the countryside for a place to land, and she was in the way?

• If the Family can follow the Doctor to 1913, is the implication that they can travel in time as well? It's surprising, really, how many races seem to have access to time-travel technology.

• I love that Martha has started talking to the TARDIS, even if she seems to regard it as a fairly silly thing to do. Before long, she'll be having proper conversations with it!

• I love Freema's delivery here:

  Doctor: "Martha, this watch is me."
  Martha: (clearly confused) "Right, okay, gotcha." (The Doctor moves away to attend to other matters; Martha panics.) "No, hold on! Completely lost!"

• I totally missed the Doctor's mention of the Family's short lifespan until it was recapped in part 2, even after two viewings! Now I finally understand why he was just hiding for a limited period of time.

• I wish we got to hear more of the Doctor's list! I remember finding the original quite funny. Along those lines, why is it that Martha fast-forwards from number 4 to number 23, if she's trying to find out what she's supposed to do in the event of an alien meteor? She does the same thing again - skipping all the same bits - when looking for information on "if I fall in love". It's actually implied that she's already listened to this speech at least once, if not multiple times, in which case I just don't understand why she's bothering to listen all over again if she's already full aware that he doesn't give her specific instructions for these scenarios. Benefit of the audience, I guess, is the only possible answer.

• When Timothy gets flashes of the Doctor, I do wish he'd seen some events that occurred prior to the 2005 series. How cool would it have been to see a haemovore, or Kroll?

• It's a nice touch that Mr Clark assumes that the scarecrow waving at him must be inhabited by someone pulling a prank - he doesn't get scared until quite a bit later...

• I love the scene of the boys practicing with their guns, which evoked the novel really well for me. Nice filming, too, and overall a pretty classic moment, with the discussion of morality and Smith's acceptance of the practice of beating.

• In Tim's first flash-forward to the war, you can just about make out that he's carrying the Doctor's watch - although I certainly didn't figure it out.

• The scene with Smith saving the woman with the pram is one of the few moments that doesn't quite work for me. For one, even if she had just kept on going, the piano still would have crashed some distance ahead of her. And for another, all he really manages to do is knock the milk canisters down with a brick in an overly-convoluted fashion - wouldn't he have achieved the same effect if he'd just lobbed the cricket ball at the canisters themselves?

• Oh wow! We haven't heard this one since The Invisible Enemy!

  Joan: "Where did you learn to draw?"
  Smith: "Gallifrey."
  Joan: "Is that in Ireland?"
  Smith: (considers) "Yes, it must be, yes."

• Followed by this really lovely reference; I hope Ms Lambert was watching:

  Smith: "My father Sydney was a watchmaker from Nottingham, and my mother Verity was - um, well, she was a nurse, actually."

• Superb delivery by Lloyd:

  Family-Baines: "We go through shapes so very fast. Yours is perfectly adequate... if a little grim."

• Gosh, when Martha brings back tea to share with Jenny, it looks like there's way more than enough for two! Were they just going to split the cake in half, or save some of it for later? I'm sorry they never got to cut it, though, I was curious to know what kind it was.

• And now a superb delivery by Staton, particularly her final "now"; did she really say it that way, or was it beefed up to startling volume by the sound folks?

  Family-Jenny: "It sounds so interesting. Tell me. Tell me now."

• Funny patronizing Smith!

  Smith: "It must be so confusing for you. Martha, this is what we call a story."

• I was a little perplexed that the Doctor seemed not to realize that Martha was looking for a real watch that was ordinarily in his rooms - after all, not only had he been looking at it earlier, he'd even had dreams about it, and had written about it in his diary. But then I realized, he did say that his dreams faded away quickly (or at least, most of them, one assumes), and maybe whatever the Doctor did to the watch to keep Smith from analyzing it too closely also resulted in him forgetting the watch had even existed. It's a bit of a stretch, I think, but it works.

• When Tim has a flash of memory of Martha rushing past the Doctor and knocking into him... what's it from? Not Smith and Jones... a newly-filmed memory of recent events? But she doesn't act like she recognizes the Doctor...

• More snippy Martha, refusing to take any classist guff from the locals. Benny would be so proud!

  Doorman: "Staff entrance, I think, miss!"
  Martha: "Yeah, well, think again, mate."

• Baines, it seems, likes to shoot people in the crotch...! At least, he kills the doorman that way; fortunately, Phillips suffers a much quicker death-blow to the heart.

• I like the way that, as the Family storm the dance hall, Martha doesn't meet their eyes (possibly in the hopes that she won't attract their attention?).

• Mmmm. Can Lloyd deliver every line, please?

  Family-Baines: "Ohh, and a human brain, too! Simple, thick and dull."

• Go Martha! Woohoo!

  Martha: "Scared and holding a gun. 's a good combination. D'you wanna risk it?"

• And then Martha realizes that ordering the Doctor to do things isn't going to have much of an effect:

  Martha: "Do it! Mr Smith, I mean you!"

• Nice way for Joan to motivate the villages to action:

  Joan: "Don't argue, Mr Jackson. They're mad, that's all we need to know."

• Why does Tim suddenly think that Smith (or the Doctor?) is as bad as the Family? There's no apparent motivation for that line, nor does he ever refer to it again.

• Staton's best line:

  Martha: "You mean she's dead."
  Family-Jenny: "Yes. And she went with precious little dignity, all that ahhhhh! screaming!"

• Followed by one of Martha's best lines of the episode (was it lifted from Benny's mouth? I need to re-read the novel, clearly.):

  Martha: "Don't just stand there, move! God, you're rubbish as a human! Come on!"

• Cool! They give Family-Lucy the same music, as she skips off toward the school, that they gave to the Daleks' little-girl battle-computer as she skipped around outside Coal Hill School in Remembrance of the Daleks. Nice touch, whether or not it was intentional!

• Love the way Lloyd delivers these types of lines throughout the episode:

  Family-Baines: "Headmaster, sir! Good evening, sir! Come to give me a caning, sir? Would you like that, sir?"

• Joan shows her ability to accept the impossible:

  Joan: "And alien means... not 'from abroad', I take it."

• Great delivery from Freema, after she has rattled off (impressively) all the bones in the hand:

  Joan: "Well, you read that in a book."
  Martha: "Yes, to pass my exams!"

• And then it's Hynes' turn for another wonderful (sweet) delivery:

  Smith: "When I kissed you, was that a lie?"
  Joan: "No it wasn't, no."

• The first time Tim opens the watch and sets Baines on his trail, fine - he couldn't be expected to know what would happen. But thereafter, with the watch (and the Doctor?) communicating with him, shouldn't he realize that each time he opens it, it's only going to draw them closer to finding him? Maybe he realizes that aiming it at Lucy will make her flee because of the violent and horrific images it displays (and maybe that also explains why he rebuffs Smith earlier in the story), but that seems like kind of a longshot, honestly, when her other option was "attack and kill him and steal the watch".

• However, his timely use of the watch to save Latimer and the others from the Family's bloodthirsty killing spree was well justified, and I love the terrified looks on the boys' faces as they escape immediately thereafter. Nice shot.

• Smith's emotional reaction on being confronted with the TARDIS, and a side of Tennant we've never before seen:

  Smith: "I'm not... I'm John Smith! That's all I want to be, John Smith! With his life, and his job, and his love! Why can't I be John Smith? Isn't he a good man? Why can't I stay?"

• One wonders... why do the family bother trying to use the TARDIS to draw out the Doctor, when they know that all they really need is the watch that Tim has?

• Another nice quote, as Smith refuses to believe that Martha has his best interests at heart:

  Smith: "What exactly do you do for him? Why does he need you?"
  Martha: "Because he's lonely."
  Smith: "And that's what you want me to become?"

• Can't quite decide about this quote. On one hand, it's very well-written and is clearly intended to be one of those classic, definitive summations of who the Doctor is... but on the other hand, it just feels to me like an example of Cornell's heavy-handed writing.

  Joan: "You've had this watch all this time. Why didn't you return it?"
  Timothy: "Because it was waiting. And... because I was so scared. Of the Doctor."
  Joan: "Why?"
  Timothy: "Because... I've seen him. He's like fire, and ice, and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun."
  Smith: "Stop it."
  Timothy: "He's ancient and forever. He burns at the center of time, and he can see the turn of the universe."
  Smith: "Stop it! I said, stop it."
  Timothy: "And... he's wonderful."

• What a line! One of my favorites from the episode, as Baines starts to unleash the Family's barrage on the English countryside:

  Family-Baines: "Super super fun."

• So, if I understand this correctly, whatever mayfly race this Family is from just always die after a few months? Or can eating things other than a Time Lord extend their lifespans too?

• It occurs to me to wonder - partly based on Joan's confrontation with the Doctor at the end - how many people in the village die as a result of the Family's bombardment?

• I love love love that both Smith and Joan get a glimpse of their life together if he decides to stay with her. Not really helping here, magic watch! But it's a great scene, and very touching, and lovely for Joan to at least know how great things could have been. (Hopefully that doesn't hurt more than never knowing at all.)

• One of the classic scenes from the novel was the moment in which the school gets turned to glass, and I wasn't surprised that they decided not to do that here (talk about pricey!), but it's nice that we do at least get a reference to things being fused into glass.

• I suppose the Doctor's "olfactory diversion" must either not last very long, or be limited only to close range, or else I don't understand why he didn't just change his body chemistry to smell human and not bother with all the hiding-out-in-an-English-boys'-school thing.

• Love Tennant's little gasp when he reveals that the energy is feeding back into the heat converters. Ha!

• The voiceovers at the end are a really cool way to wrap up the plot. I like that the Doctor's actually gives us a bit of history on World War One, too, very nice. Overall, I have to say that the entire dénouement is great; it doesn't feel rushed at all, instead we get a number of very emotionally rewarding scenes.

• At first I wondered how the Doctor could be so cruel to the Family as to keep them alive and imprisoned for all eternity (although it looked like Mother and Father were instead killed in rather gruesome ways). But now I get it - and I love the idea that by hiding, he was actually trying to be merciful to them. "We wanted to live forever, so the Doctor made sure that we did." That is still kind of cruel, though - the Doctor understands the pain of immortality better than most, and the Family weren't really any worse than any other villain who's tried to kill him, although I suppose aspirations of immortality do need to be nipped in the bud. Maybe he learned that trick from Rassilon. I don't get, though, how wrapping the father in unbreakable chains and chucking him down a pit equals "living forever", nor do I quite understand how Baines was turned into a scarecrow for all eternity (at the very least, you'd think someone would want to take it down eventually - say, to raze the land for a shopping centre), even though it does have a feeling of poetic justice about it.

• The Doctor's final meeting with Joan is, I think, much better than its counterpart in the novel. I thought the scene in the book just felt sad and hopeless, because the seventh Doctor knew he could never love Joan the way Smith had, so it was doomed to tragedy. Here, though, the tenth Doctor, whose emotions are more accessible, actually offers Joan the chance to join the TARDIS crew and see if there's any chance that they can make their relationship work. I love it. Here, instead of being essentially dumped, Joan gets to take control, and rebuff the Doctor because she recognizes that the way he lives his life leads to the death of innocents. Fantastic. Although I'm sad that there was no Wolsey around in this version.

• Great line for Joan:

  Joan: "He was braver than you, in the end. That ordinary man. You chose to change. He chose to die."

• When last we saw the TARDIS, the Family had dragged it onto the courtyard of the school. So, why (and how) did someone move it into the middle of some random field? I mean, it makes for a great shot, so I'm not complaining, buuuuuut...

• I like Martha's "hello, you seem to be overlooking the most important detail here" expression:

  Martha: "How was she?"
  Doctor: "Time we moved on."
  Martha: "If you want, I could go and -"
  Doctor: "Time we moved on."

• Great dialogue:

  Martha: "You don't have to fight."
  Timothy: "I think we do."
  Martha: "But you could get hurt."
  Timothy: "Well, so could you, travelling round with him, but it's not gonna stop you."

• Does Tennant really have a freckle in the middle of his left palm, or was that a hand double?

• I love watching the shot of the TARDIS dematerialize. It just reminds me of the days during the wilderness years, when people would make mockups of the TARDIS having landed in some interesting location or beautiful landscape - many of which, as TARDIScams, are now available on the early Doctor Who DVDs - and how we never thought that a few years later, we'd be watching shots like this, the TARDIS arriving and departing in exactly the sorts of landscapes people had been wistfully dreaming of.

• Until the end of the story, I had forgotten all about the Armistice Day remembrance ceremony - what a great way to close out the story. I got a little teared up watching the joyful expression on the older Tim's face when he spots the Doctor and Martha, unchanged, watching from a distance. Charming and sweet.

• And over the Doctor and Martha, this great quote from the vicar:

  Vicar: "They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them."

Utterly classic - great storyline, great dialogue, great cast... just great everything. This one's going down in Doctor Who history.