This is a twice a week feature (Wednesdays and Fridays) where Christa of Hooked on Books and myself will be watching and discussing all of the reboot of Doctor Who. Posts will contain spoilers for that episode and ones before it, so you may want to watch the episode before reading. I hope you’ll join us in enjoying this fantastic show, and don’t forget to check out Christa’s post (with past posts over here) as well! Allons-y!
Stay tuned for daily Doctor Who recap posts as I play catch-up. Normal posting will resume after I have caught up.
Human Nature by Paul Cornell
In order to escape the Family of Blood, the Doctor becomes a human in 1913. Only Martha knows the truth, but the Doctor didn’t prepare her for everything, like what to do if he fell in love with a human woman.
This episode is one of the reasons I love season three so much. Season three has so many solid, memorable episodes that allow us to explore the characters in moer of a variety of ways than seasons one and two. The Doctor as a human is such a fun (and heart breaking) idea, and I kind of hope that future Doctors will need to go through a similar transformation.
My absolute favourite aspect of this episode (and there are a lot of good aspects: the setting, the secondary characters, the plot, etc.) is Martha. Whenever people claim to dislike Martha, I want to point them to this episode because Martha deals with so much shit. She has to put up with more than any other companion, but so much of it happens off screen that no one notices. For TWO MONTHS Martha lived in an overtly racist time, forced to perform duties well below what she should be doing, and ignored even more than usual by the man she loves. Martha is the hero of this episode, not the Doctor. And I love it.
new irrational fears: scarecrows
Totally agree! This episode (and the next one) left me totally pro-Martha. She was a superstar
Martha is such a BAMF and it kills me when people rant about her as though her existence is only tied to the Doctor. I would legit watch a Dr. Jones-Kicks-Ass kind of show.
This so much! During her time as a companion Martha deals with so much and she always does it with such grace and integrity, it kills me when people say they don’t like her.
This episode and the next one are heartbreaking.