History Recap / DoctorWhoNSS3E9TheFamilyofBlood

[[quoteright:330:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/The_Family_Of_Blood_7597.jpg]]

-> "Who am I then? Nothing...? I'm just a story?"
--> -- '''John'''

Continued from [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS3E8HumanNature "Human Nature"]]

Mild-mannered [[TheEdwardianEra Edwardian]] schoolteacher John Smith is baffled when alien monsters turn up and demand that he turn himself into "The Doctor". But the strangeness is jogging memories deep inside him, memories of a life he's sure he never lived but only dreamed, and more and more fragments of his dreams are turning out to be real. Deny it he tries, but eventually John has to consider the possibility that Martha and the aliens are telling the truth: "the Doctor", his dream-self, is the reality, and John Smith is the fabrication.

Still frightened and confused, John quizzes Martha on the Doctor, and is horrified by her description: a tremendously lonely alien, the sole survivor of the universe's greatest holocaust, as remote and inhuman as a force of nature, who -- for all his careful planning -- never even considered that he might fall in ''love'' while hiding among humans.

Timothy asks how it's possible that he himself can learn things from John's watch and even see the future sometimes. With John now holding the watch that contains his Time Lord self, the Doctor's MotorMouth starts automatically explaining how it's just a "low-level telepathic field" (which will become [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS3E13LastOfTheTimeLords important later]]). "You were born with it, just an extra-synaptic engram causing--"

"--Is that how he ''talks?''" John asks in utter horror, realizing fully that this Doctor is ''real'', and inside him, and that he needs to make the most horrible decision of his life.

John would give anything to stay human and marry Joan. While spending his last evening with her, he even has a brief vision of that future: a long and happy life and a peaceful death, secure in the knowledge that everyone he loves is safe. But even that future is illusory, as the aliens are closing in on John and will spread destruction across the galaxy if they win. John must sacrifice himself and become the Doctor, though he doesn't even know if any fragment of his identity will survive.

With the help of Joan, John eventually makes the decision to open the watch, essentially commit suicide and become the Doctor again. He defeats the aliens without much effort, and as punishment for what they've done, traps them in different time event horizons... for all eternity. The creatures realise that the Doctor wasn't simply escaping from them -- he was being ''kind'' to them, in giving them a chance to die without ever encountering him.

The Doctor returns for Joan. She's horrified to see him, even though he tells her that John is part of him now, somewhere deep inside him. He invites her to the TARDIS, and asks her if she wants to give him a proper chance for what he really is, starting their relationship again from a blank slate. She refuses, both disgusted and heartbroken at his antics. Decades into the future, Martha and the Doctor visit Timothy, now a war veteran, and give him some closure.

[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS3E11Utopia Not much later]], the Gallifreyan technique to hide in human form will become important again...

!!Tropes
* AndIMustScream: "We wanted to live forever… so the Doctor made sure that we did."
* ArmourPiercingQuestion: By Joan at the end, calling the Doctor out on his recklessness.
--> '''Joan''': If the Doctor had never [[HarbingerOfImpendingDoom visited us]], never chosen this place -— on a whim -— [[DestructiveSaviour would anyone here have died?]]\\
''(The Doctor does not answer, the grim look on his face saying it all)''\\
'''Joan''': [[GetOut You may go now]].
* BadassBoast: Oddly, made about the Doctor by someone else:
--> '''Tim Latimer''': He's like fire, and ice, and rage. He's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever. He burns at the centre of time and he can see the turn of the universe. And… he's ''wonderful''.
* BBCQuarry: The World War I Battlefield, according to the commentary.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: You want to live forever so badly? The Doctor can arrange that.
* BewareTheNiceOnes:
-->'''Son of Mine:''' And so we found out the reason this man, who had fought with gods and demons, had run away from us and hidden -- he was being ''kind''.
* BlatantLies: Martha at the end, regarding her LoveConfession;
--> '''Martha:''' I would have said anything to get you to change.
** The Doctor's claim that he could still be everything that John Smith was. Joan rejects the notion entirely, pointing out that John Smith was a far ''better'' man than the Doctor, who's [[ProtagonistCentredMorality alien morality]] would treat people's lives like a game and then pat himself on the back for saving people that ''he'' had put in danger to begin with.
* BoardingSchool
* BrokenMasquerade: John Smith suffers this when he starts to realise the truth about who he really is.
** Then this happens when Timothy asks him why he can hear the watch.
--> '''As The Doctor''': Oh, it's just a low-level telepathy field, you were born with it, just an extra-synaptic engram causing—
--> '''As John Smith''': (''gasps in utter horror'') Is that how he ''talks''?
* BreakTheCutie: Poor, ''poor'' John Smith.
* CantStayNormal
* ChekhovsGun: [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS3E11Utopia The watch]]
* ChildSoldiers: The children at the school are armed with an array of machine guns and facing a very powerful enemy. When they realise they only shot down scarecrows, even the nastiest bully is relieved. Then it hits you, it's only one year later that those school kids are crawling through barbed wire and bullets.
* CoconutSuperpowers: Invisible spaceships are easy on the FX budget.
* CreepyChild: Daughter of Mine. Making a SelfMadeOrphan out of her human host helps.
* CruelMercy
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Martha can't catch a break with all these Edwardians treating her like a second-class person, ''including'' John Smith.
* DisapprovingLook: The Doctor's permanent emotion during the climax, sometimes edging into DeathGlare. Doesn't help that he looks right at the camera more than once.
** Joan's similar adopts this look when the Doctor returns, cheerfully offering to let her travel with him, whilst completely overlooking all the mayhem and death he's left in his wake.
* DisintegratorRay: The Family's hand weapon.
* DissonantSerenity: Son Of Mine still wears his [[SmugSmiler shit-eating]] [[SlasherSmile grin]] after being frozen in time, and recounts his and his family's FateWorseThanDeath rather stoically.
* DreamingTheTruth
* TheEdwardianEra
* EthnicMenialLabor
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Despite being a PsychopathicManchild devoid of any mercy to others, Son of Mine still expresses the hope that the Doctor's yearly visits to Sister of Mine, means he might eventually decide to release her from her mirror prison.
* FakeMemories: As Joan notes, John's fake memories are strictly factual, with no emotional content.
* FateWorseThanDeath: The fates of the Family, as meted out by the Doctor. It's revealed that the Doctor wasn't running from the Family because he was scared of them… but because he was scared of ''what he could do to them.''
* FlashForward: John and Joan's aborted future together.
** Also Latimer's vision of his experience in UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne. It saves his life when he lives it for real.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: In-universe, with the Family's meteor-bombs falling on the school and the flashforward to what appears to be Tim's death by artillery strike. It makes the actual WWI scenes all the more horrible.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E17E18TheEndOfTime This wouldn't be the last time the Doctor equated a personality change with dying.]]
** The premise itself: [[Recap/DoctorWho50thPrequelTheNightOfTheDoctor the Doctor, forced into a corner, must turn into somebody else, someone shown to be willing to kill.]]
* FutureMeScaresMe
* HeroicSacrifice: John, offscreen.
* HumansAreMorons: The Family think turning into a human has made the Doctor an idiot.
--> '''Son''': Same thing.
* IdiotBall: Somehow the Family completely fails to notice the fact that Smith / the Doctor seems to be going out of his way to trip over himself and press certain buttons. It's not all that well concealed.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: "The Time Lord has such adventures… but he could never have a life like that."
* LargeHam: Son of Mine. "[[VerbalTic DON'T YOU LIKE IT, SIR?]]"
* LossOfIdentity
* MoreDakka: The Vickers machine gun is used to cut down an army of scarecrows.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: When Smith enters the Family's spaceship. He's not Smith any more. He's the Doctor.
* OhCrap: The looks on the faces of the Family when their ship is blown up and the Doctor is standing over them glaring down at them.
* OutOfCharacterAlert: Just as some of John Smith's actions (so different from what the Doctor would do) shock the audience earlier in the story, him suddenly speaking in the Doctor's voice horrifies him and Joan at the sudden understanding that there truly is an alien inside him.
* PsychicPowers: Tim Latimer.
* PsychopathicManchild: Son of Mine. "Super, super fun!"
-->''We'll blast them into dust, then fuse them into glass, then SHATTER THEM ALL OVER AGAIN!''
* PsychoticSmirk: Son of Mine. '''''[[http://www.danielkanolik.co.uk/Images/harrylloyd.jpg SON OF MINE.]]'''''
* {{Puppet Master}}s: The Family.
* RefusalOfTheCall: Joan. See WhatTheHellHero below.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: A ''[[TranquilFury calm]]'' example.
* RuleOfScary: There's no logical reason for the doctor to hand out such CoolAndUnusualPunishment in the end. He could have just killed them (that would have been the practical thing to do). Or he could have used the same punishment on all of them. But as it is now, this allows the writers to scare us with common everyday things, as they like to do: ''When you're standing in front of a mirror and see something move, that's Daughter-Of-Mine trapped in there forever. And Son-of-Mine gets stuck suspended in time as a Scarecrow on a lonely hill.''
* SealedGoodInACan: The Doctor. Most of the episode is devoted to unlocking the can; once he's out, it's all over for the bad guys.
* ShutUpHannibal: The Headmaster delivers one to Son of Mine (which doubles as the writer criticising the way public attitudes to UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne have often been portrayed in British media):
--> '''Son of Mine:''' [[WarIsHell 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?
--> '''Headmaster:''' Don't you forget, boy, I've been a soldier. I was in [[UsefulNotes/SecondBoerWar South Africa]], I used my dead mates as sandbags, I fought with the butt of my rifle when the bullets ran out, and I would go back there tomorrow ''[[PatrioticFervor for King and country!]]''
--> '''Son of Mine:''' ''Etcetera, etcetera!''
* SicklyGreenGlow: Inside the Family's space ship. And the Family members themselves when they use telepathy.
* SoulJar: Sort of. More like mind-jar.
* TomatoInTheMirror: John Smith. Accompanied by a brief HeroicBlueScreenOfDeath.
* TranquilFury: The episode's climax.
-->"He never raised his voice; that was the worst thing. The ''fury'' of the Time Lord. And then we discovered why. Why this Doctor, who had fought with gods and demons, why he'd run away from us and hidden. He was being kind."
** Joan's speech in the end counts, as well.
* UnderestimatingBadassery: the Family of Blood realises too late that they seriously underestimated the Doctor. As soon as he gets his memory back, he defeats them easily in a matter of seconds. It's then revealed he wasn't afraid of them; he was just trying to avoid what he could do to them.
* VisibleInvisibility: When Baines strikes the ship's invisibility field, it briefly becomes visible.
* WarIsHell: Even though they're only fighting scarecrows, the boys, as well as John Smith, are extremely horrified at what they've done as they massacre the Family's army.
* WhatTheHellHero: Joan delivers a devastating TheReasonYouSuckSpeech in the episode's denouement. Too bad the Doctor doesn't seem to have listened.
-->''He was braver than you, in the end -— that ordinary man. You chose to change. He chose to die… If the Doctor had never visited us, never chosen this place -— ''on a whim'' -— would anyone here have died?''
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: ''The entire episode'' falls into this trope. Although a descendant of Joan Redfern has written a book about John Smith and his ''Journal of Impossible Things'' in ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E17E18TheEndOfTime The End of Time]]'', the Family's attack on the village, from the disappearances to an ''aerial bombardment'', seem to have been completely missed by English history.
** Series 5 offers the suggestion that the [[NegativeSpaceWedgie cracks in the universe]] may have been responsible for these events and others like them (such as "The Next Doctor" and "Journey's End"), being erased from history or forgotten by the public at large.
* WhoWantsToLiveForever: The Family certainly don't by the end.
* UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne
* TheXOfY

----

''[The Doctor does not answer, the grim look on his face saying it all]''\\

--> '''As John Smith''': [''gasps in utter horror''] Is that how he ''talks''?

With the help of Timothy, John eventually makes the decision to open the watch, essentially commit suicide and become the Doctor again. He defeats the aliens without much effort, and as punishment for what they've done, traps them in different time event horizons... for all eternity. The creatures realise that the Doctor wasn't simply escaping from them -- he was being ''kind'' to them, in giving them a chance to die without ever encountering him.

-->Son: "Same thing."

* RuleOfScary: There's no logic reason for the doctor to hand out such CoolAndUnusualPunishment in the end. He could have just killed them (that would have been the practical thing to do). Or he could have used the same punishment on all of them. But as it is now, this allows the writers to scare us with common everyday things, as they like to do: ''When you're standing in front of a mirror and see something move, that's Daughter-Of-Mine trapped in there forever. And every single scarecrow is Son-of-Mine suspended in time.''

** Also Latimer's vision of his experience in WorldWarOne. It saves his life when he lives it for real.

* ShutUpHannibal: The Headmaster delivers one to Son of Mine (which doubles as the writer criticising the way public attitudes to WorldWarOne have often been portrayed in British media):

--> '''Headmaster:''' Don't you forget, boy, I've been a soldier. I was in [[SecondBoerWar South Africa]], I used my dead mates as sandbags, I fought with the butt of my rifle when the bullets ran out, and I would go back there tomorrow ''[[PatrioticFervor for King and country!]]''

* WorldWarOne

* {{Foreshadowing}}: In universe, with the Family's meteor-bombs falling on the school. It makes the actual WWI scenes all the more horrible.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E17E18TheEndOfTime This wouldn't be the last time the Doctor equated a personality change with dying.]]
** The premise itself: [[Recap/DoctorWho50thPrequelTheNightOfTheDoctor the Doctor, forced into a corner, must turn into somebody else, someone shown to be willing to kill.]]

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Martha can't catch a break with all these Edwardians treating her like a second-class human.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: ''The entire episode'' falls into this trope. Although a descendant of Joan Redfern has written a book about John Smith and his Journal of Impossible Things]] in ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E17E18TheEndOfTime The End of Time]]'', the Family's attack on the village, from the disappearances to an ''aerial bombardment'', seem to have completely vanished from English history, as the show never mentions it again.
** A valid explanation is put forward in Series 5.

* BlatantLies:
--> '''Martha:''' (Of her LoveConfession) "I would have said anything to get you to change."

The Doctor returns for Joan. She's horrified to see him, even though he tells her that John is part of him now, somewhere deep inside him. He invites her to the TARDIS, and asks her if she wants to give him a proper chance for what he really is, starting their relationship again from a blank slate. She refuses. Decades into the future, Martha and the Doctor visit Timothy, now a war veteran, and give him some closure.

** Though the end of the episode shows that at least two people ''survived'' because of him, thanks to Latimer's knowledge of the future.
** And his other options were: pick somewhere different where some ''other'' people might have died (Joan apparently doesn't care as long as it wasn't [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality anyone she knew personally]]?), or just killed the Family outright (same thing, really).

* SicklyGreenGlow: Inside the Family's space ship.

* TheXOfY

Continued from Recap/DoctorWhoNSS3E8HumanNature.