The Family of Blood

My word. How do you follow up a mid-season lull? This will do nicely! It makes you wonder why they never did another book adaptation after such a barn storming success like this. Obviously we don’t know which bits were Paul Cornell and which bits were Russell T Davies, but it also seems a shame that this is Cornell’s final outing - given the obvious quality on display here.

It feels like a mixture of classic and modern Doctor Who. There is a patient, talkative, literary quality peppered with moments of high adrenaline, edge of your seat drama, romance and fantasy. The old fashioned educational setting and the invisible spaceship remind me of Shada - but done right. It just *feels* very deliberately Doctor Who-ish.

I remember being so excited by seeing John Smith’s diary onscreen back in 2007 - the first time we saw that level of continuity in the new series.

The Doctor enters a self-contained dream world which unintentionally catfishes poor Joan. A touching tale. The doomed romance makes this a story which lingers in the mind long after it has finished. Jessica Hynes perfectly plays the poorly treated Joan with dreams of a life with John Smith. It’s a stellar cast all round - but she stands out. The emotional stakes are more than matched by David Tennant playing John Smith in his human form. This is David’s best performance in Doctor Who. Joan’s final question to The Doctor, asking whether anyone would have died if he had not chosen her home place and time as a hiding place, is a brutal blow.