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[[WMG:[[center:[-''[[Series/DoctorWho Doctor Who]]'' [[Recap/DoctorWho recap index]]\\
'''Tenth Doctor Era'''\\
'''Series 3:''' [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride CS]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones 1]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E2TheShakespeareCode 2]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E3Gridlock 3]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E4DaleksInManhattan 4]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E5EvolutionOfTheDaleks 5]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E6TheLazarusExperiment 6]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E742 7]] | '''8''' | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E9TheFamilyOfBlood 9]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink 10]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E11Utopia 11]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E12TheSoundOfDrums 12]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E13LastOfTheTimeLords 13]]\\
'''[[Recap/DoctorWho2005CSTheChristmasInvasion <<< Series 2]]''' | '''[[Recap/DoctorWho2007CSVoyageOfTheDamned Series 4 >>>]]''']]-]]]
!Human Nature
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Human_Nature_2761.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Technically speaking, the Doctor ''isn't'' in this picture...]]
->Written by Creator/PaulCornell\\
Directed by Charles Palmer\\
'''Production code:''' 3.8\\
'''Air date:''' 26 May 2007\\
'''Part 1 of 2'''

->''"It's all becoming clear. The Doctor is the man you'd ''like'' to be, doing impossible things with cricket balls."''
-->-- '''Joan Redfern'''

JustForFun/{{The one w|ith}}here the Doctor hates pears ''so much'', [[DeletedScene they had to remove his rant from the episode]].

And his dark-skinned female companion is hit with the double whammy of racism ''and'' chauvinism.

"Human Nature"/"[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E9TheFamilyOfBlood The Family of Blood]]" were adapted for TV by Creator/PaulCornell from his ''Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures'' book ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoNewAdventuresHumanNature Human Nature]]''. The novel starred the Seventh Doctor and Franchise/BerniceSummerfield, and remains the only novel to be directly adapted, rather than mined for story elements.

The two-part episode was nominated for a UsefulNotes/HugoAward. In 2020, Cornell revisited it with three short stories, done [[UsefulNotes/CoronavirusDisease2019Pandemic as part of the COVID-19 lockdown watchalong]].
----

The story opens in traditional ''Doctor Who'' style — the Doctor and Martha burst into the TARDIS, being ''shot at'' while trying to escape from a family of alien hunters. The Doctor finds himself forced to use a last-ditch Gallifreyan escape method...

AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent.

It's [[TheEdwardianEra 1913]]. Mild-mannered UpperClassTwit schoolteacher John Smith teaches history at a BoardingSchool. He's having a great time keeping a beautifully illustrated dream journal and chatting with Joan, the school nurse. Lately, his dreams have been about blue boxes in space, strange men who are all the same somehow, frightful aliens and being a "Doctor". Joan tells him that she'd love to read his tales, and as they grow closer, he ends up asking her out to the village dance.

Then, one November night, some of the monsters from his nightmares turn up in reality. They're looking for "The Doctor", and they've mistaken ordinary Englishman John Smith for their prey. The monsters steal the bodies of people living in the school area, and are on the hunt...

Weirder yet, John's maid Martha ''also'' insists that he is the Doctor, and begs him to change back. Obviously, she's gone mad; she believes that his dreams are real, that she can travel among the stars, and even — with her skin colour! — that she can be a medical student. Smith dismisses her ideas as lunacy. But some of her ramblings spark memories inside him, memories of a life he's sure he never lived. And there was an odd watch in his living room, which Martha desperately wants, but which has been stolen by a young school boy by the name of [[Film/LoveActually Timothy Latimer]].

It turns out that the Doctor has changed himself into a human to escape the hunters. Completely. Because the aliens will die after three months without food — and the Doctor is food — he's decided to subject himself to the agonising process of reprogramming his own body during that time. He has one heart, one human brain and one hell of a confused look on his face when he's eventually cornered by the monsters, who demand that he turn himself into the Doctor again. But he, completely bewildered, still has no idea what they're talking about... not even when they take his friends hostage.

Continued in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E9TheFamilyOfBlood The Family of Blood]]".

----
!!Tropes:

* ActionPrologue: Episode opens and ''*wham*'', the Doctor and Martha are running for their lives with people shooting at them.
* AbsentMindedProfessor: John Smith, whose absentmindedness is caused by his WistfulAmnesia.
* AmusingInjuries: Subverted; John Smith falls down some stairs while backing away from a romantic invitation to a dance ball, and is getting stitches in the next scene for his head injury.
* AnachronismStew:
** Tubular metal scaffolding (of the kind that John dislodges with a thrown cricket ball in order to save the woman and child from a falling piano) was not in widespread use in the UK until the 1930s. Before that, wooden scaffolding poles were employed, lashed together/into position with rope or something similar.
** In the opening shot of the scene where the schoolboys at machine gun practice, a large white modern articulated semi truck can be seen moving from right to left in the distance behind the targets.
* ArtisticLicenceGunSafety: When the boys are doing machine-gun practice, they're using a .303 Vickers machine gun, which had a range of 4,500 yards. An outdoor firing range would always have a slope of earth or sand behind the targets to stop dead all bullets fired down the range. Not only is there no such slope behind the boys targets, but we can see they're firing down into a valley full of buildings, well within the 4.5km (2.8mi) range of the gun, jeopardising the lives of the villagers!
* AssholeVictim: Jeremy Baines is a real piece of work, and Son of Mine's choice of host.
* BabyCarriage: John has to stop a woman pushing her pram from being hit by a falling piano.
* BigBad: Father of Mine is the patriarch of the alien Family of Blood.
* BigShutUp: When the Family crashes the village dance, Father of Mine yells "YOU! WILL! BE! SILENT!"
* BluffTheImpostor: Teatime with Martha and "Jenny". Martha is suspicious of Jenny's hostile questioning and offers her a nice bit of gravy in the teapot with ''sardines and jam''. Jenny thinks it sounds nice, which clues Martha in that she's not human anymore.
* BoardingSchoolOfHorrors: Exhibit A, bullies can request permission to beat up their [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fagging fags]] ''and it will be granted!''
* BroughtDownToNormal: What a Chameleon Arch does to a Time Lord, by rewriting their biology into whatever other HumanAlien species they need to be to blend in to a setting, morphing their internal organs to fit in a ''very'' painful fashion.
* CassandraTruth: Naturally, neither John Smith nor Joan Redfern believe Martha when she tells them that the stories in A Journal Of Impossible Things are real.
* CoconutSuperpowers: Invisible spaceships are easy on the FX budget.
* ContinuityNod:
** The Journal of Impossible Things contains several. Most notably, the Eighth Doctor (Creator/PaulMcGann) is shown as one of the past incarnations, dispelling any remaining confusion about whether or not he's part of the canon.
*** Other things in the Journal include drawings of Rose, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E1Rose an Auton]], [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E2TheEndOfTheWorld the Moxx of Balhoon]], [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E5WorldWarThree a Slitheen]], [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E9TheEmptyChild a gas-masked zombie]] and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E4TheGirlInTheFireplace a clockwork robot]].
** When Tim opens the Chameleon Arch, he sees various villains from past episodes, including Daleks, Cybermen, [[Recap/DoctorWho2005CSTheChristmasInvasion the Sycorax leader]] and [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride the Racnoss Empress]], as well as the Doctor during several of these events. He also hears a male voice reciting the coordinates of Gallifrey.
** Smith throws an apple to set off a chain reaction to save a woman's baby carriage from being crushed by a falling piano, much like [[Recap/DoctorWho2005CSTheChristmasInvasion the other time that the Doctor threw a satsuma as a weapon to kill]].
** Joan, suggesting that the Doctor is the man John secretly wants to be, notes that he has quite an eye for the ladies, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E4TheGirlInTheFireplace "a girl in every fireplace"]].
** Joan later asks John [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E10TheDoctorDances if he can dance]].
* CreepyChild: Daughter of Mine. Making a SelfMadeOrphan out of her human host helps.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance:
** Joan Redfern is racist, classist, and has internalized misogyny in a time when being openly so is not only accepted, but ''expected''. So is John Smith: he sees nothing wrong with a boy being beaten for not working fast enough during machine-gun practice, and assumes that Martha cannot understand the difference between fiction and reality. The latter earns him one hell of a slap.
** Martha and Jenny aren't even allowed in the pub just because they're women, having to drink outside in the freezing cold.
** Jenny herself has a moment of this; when Martha complains about Edwardian values, Jenny remarks (even after Martha has said she's from London) "things must be different in your country".
* DiscriminateAndSwitch: Martha saying that not everyone would be as kind as John is to someone like her, with her being a ''Londoner'' and all. [[DoubleSubversion Immediately after this, she's accosted by a student who makes a horrifically rude comment about her race.]]
* DistractedByTheSexy: Once he realizes Nurse Redfern is hitting on him, John starts stuttering and inching backward, only to fall down the stairs and hit his head.
* DramaticIrony: UsefulNotes/WorldWarI lurks just over the horizon.
** Joan reading about it in John's dream journal makes her even less keen on kids practising with machine guns. John himself, on the other hand, responds that what she read about was just a dream, so they can be thankful that it's not true. If he was ''anyone'' else, maybe...
** The doctor has hidden himself at a military academy, and the boys and teachers hope for a proper, just war.
* DreamingTheTruth: John remembers his true life and history as the Doctor in his dreams.
* EthnicMenialLabour: It's the Edwardian Era (well, the reign of [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfWindsor George V]] technically), so Martha can only get a job as a maid.
* FailedASpotCheck: John Smith, in a conversation with the attractive school nurse offering to go to the dance with him, gets increasingly nervous and flustered, as she tries to point out the very important fact that he's walking towards some stairs. He promptly trips and falls down them.
* FakeMemories: With a couple of holes.
-->'''Joan:''' Where did you learn to draw?\\
'''John:''' Gallifrey.\\
'''Joan:''' Is that in Ireland?\\
'''John:''' I guess it... must be.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: [[spoiler: The Chameleon Arch and the phrase "You are not alone" will gain renewed importance [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E11Utopia later in the season]].]]
* GadgetWatch: The Chameleon Arch, a pocket watch that Time Lords can use to store their entire personality and memories to go undercover as a member of another species.
* GetAHoldOfYourselfMan: Martha tries to jog the Doctor's memory. It doesn't help.
* HilariousOuttakes: You know that part where Martha fast-forwards through most of a message from the Doctor? [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGG0RSgJT1I That's David Tennant being told to fill time for about a solid minute.]]
-->'''The Doctor:''' And five! Very important, five: Don't let me eat ''pears''. I ''hate'' pears. John Smith is a character I made up, but I won't know that. I'll think I am him, and he might do something stupid like eat a pear! In three months, I don't want to wake up from being human and taste that. And six: [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall Now I have to talk for around about a minute without hesitation, deviation, or whatever the other thing is.]] It's like [[Radio/JustAMinute that panel game on Channel 4]] like Rory just pointed out. However, I'm going to move on and say number seven, and talk about my other favourite band, which is The Housemartins. I don't know if anyone remembers The Housemartins, but the best gig I ever went to was at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in about December. It must have been 1990, and The Housemartins were playing, and it was quite simply the best gig I've ever been to. They split up quite soon afterwards, I don't know what that tells you about that particular event. I'm sitting in the TARDIS now, and I'm gonna wind up soon, but not before I make a few strange noises with my mouth that will go somewhere along the lines of bingle bongle dingle dangle yikkety-doo yikkety-daa ping pong lippy tappy too tah. And 23...
** [[BrickJoke Guess what John Smith is eating when he idly picks up the watch on the mantelpiece?]]
* HumanityEnsues: The Doctor uses the Chameleon Arch to turn himself human. Unlike most examples of the trope, while human, he doesn't remember he was ever anything else — except for the dreams.
* HumansAreBastards: The Doctor asks Martha not to let him hurt anyone. "You know what humans are like."
* HumansAreMorons: The Family sure think so when they confront John Smith at the dance.
-->'''Son of Mine:''' You took ''human form''?\\
'''John Smith:''' Of course I'm human! I was born human, as were you, Baines! And Jenny! And you, Mr. Clark! What is going on?! This is ''madness!''\\
'''Son of Mine:''' Ooh, and a human brain, too! Simple, thick, and dull!
* ImprobableAimingSkills: Even hidden as a human, John Smith is no ordinary human.
* InMediasRes: One of the foremost New Series examples, with first-time viewers guaranteed to be utterly mystified as to what's going on before the [[TheReveal Reveal]] when Martha checks on the TARDIS in the woodshed.
* {{Jerkass}}:
** Jeremy Baines is introduced telling Martha and Jenny, who are washing the floor, that they're not paid to have fun.
** Due to aforementioned values dissonance, John Smith comes across as one with Martha, especially during the scene where she comes in looking for the missing watch.
* JealousRomanticWitness: Martha and the Doctor are living a life in 1913, where the Doctor has turned into a human professor named John Smith, and she's a racially-targeted servant girl at the school, who nonetheless retains her feelings for the Doctor. Unfortunately, John spends several scenes in this episode flirting with the nurse, Joan Redfern, and does it right in front of Martha, who he disregards as nothing more than an acquaintance ''at best''.
* JerkJock: Hutchinson is a bully, and in his first scene asks Martha how she can tell if something's clean "with hands like those".
* LargeHam: Son of Mine has his moments. He doesn't need to speak to be hammy; his psychopathic facial expressions outdo even Creator/DavidTennant's as Barty Crouch Jr., even though Son of Mine's expression ''doesn't move''.
-->'''Son of Mine:''' JUST SHUT UP STOP TALKING CEASE AND DESIST '''''THERE'S A GOOD GIRL!'''''
* MeetCute: John and Joan run into one another while the later is carrying some books.
* MemoryGambit: The Doctor is trying to hide from the Family of Blood by being human; suppressing his memories is just a side effect.
* MotorMouth: For some reason, Son of Mine develops this when he possesses Jeremy; he has a tendency to have his sentences run on without stopping yes thank you if that makes sense.
* MissedHimByThatMuch: When Martha and Jenny arrive at Cooper's Field after seeing the green "meteor", they are standing just ''metres'' away from the Family's ship — which is invisible. And they arrived less than a minute after Baines entered the ship.
* MythologyGag: The Doctor’s hatred of pears in the deleted scene is straight from [[Recap/DoctorWhoNewAdventuresHumanNature the novel]] this episode is based on.
* TheNameIsBondJamesBond: How Jeremy introduces himself to the Family of Blood (he even has the same initials as the Trope Namer): "My name's Baines. Jeremy Baines." Mother of Mine responds "I'm sorry [[RepeatAfterMe Baines, Jeremy Baines]]."
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Martha talking about the Doctor helps lead the family closer to him.
* NinjaMaid: "The maid has ''spirit!''"
* NoodleIncident: The circumstances of how the Doctor and Martha first crossed paths with the Family of Blood are never shown.
* OutOfCharacterAlert: Forget about the monsters and the scarecrows. The scariest part of this episode is watching the blasé way in which John Smith waltzes around trampling all over the Doctor's morals. Sure, go ahead and beat the kid. Of ''course'' I'll [[DoesntLikeGuns supervise machine gun class]]. Hide behind a bunch of terrified teenagers to save my own skin? Sounds like a plan! It ''really isn't him''. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Also, he eats a pear.]]
* PainfulTransformation: The Doctor's transformation seems to consist of him getting electric shocks and screaming in agony. Given the transformation is hiding his second heart, and probably a few other things, small wonder.
* PerceptionFilter: The Chameleon Arch has one to prevent John Smith from getting curious about it. Unfortunately, the Doctor didn't count on running into a psychic human.
* PianoDrop: Fortunately doesn't hit anyone, due to a well-aimed cricket ball.
* PsychicPowers: Tim Latimer can talk to the watch, and sometimes knows "little things" without knowing how he's doing it.
* PunctuatedForEmphasis: Father of Mine, when crashing the dance: "YOU! WILL! BE! SILENT!"
* RomancingTheWidow: John starts a romance with Matron Redfern, whose husband died in the Second Boer War..
* RubeGoldbergDevice: John Smith saves a baby using only a cricket ball and the power of physics to drop scaffolding.
* RunningGag: Gallifrey being a place in [[{{Oireland}} Ireland]], as said in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E2TheHandOfFear The Hand of Fear]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E2TheInvisibleEnemy The Invisible Enemy]]".
* SadisticChoice: The {{cliffhanger}}. "Maid or matron? Your friend, or your lover? Your choice."
* ScaryScarecrows: The Family of Blood's {{Mooks}} are scarecrows and they are creepy.
* SherlockScan: John Smith sees half a dozen things about to go wrong which would quickly result in a child being hit by a falling piano.
* ShoutOut:
** John Smith's parents are called Sydney and Verity, after Creator/SydneyNewman and Creator/VerityLambert, the names of the two people most often considered to be the "creators" of ''Doctor Who'' (they weren't — the show was created essentially by committee — but they are the next closest thing; Newman offered the most input of anyone there and Lambert was the show's first producer).
** Daughter of Mine's red balloon is said to be one to [[Series/ThePrisoner1967 Rover]]. Though it can come across as a reference to ''Literature/{{It}}''.
** The green meteor in the sky and the searchlight sweeping across the common are references to ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'', which is set in roughly the same time period.
* SicklyGreenGlow: Inside the Family's spaceship.
* ASimplePlan: The Family of Blood will die in a few months due to their short lifespan, so the Doctor decides to use the Chameleon Arch to turn himself human until their lifespans run their course, but...
* SlasherSmile: Baines has one that nearly goes around the back of his ''head''.
* SmashCut: From the ActionPrologue with the Doctor and Martha being chased by hostile aliens to John Smith waking up from a dream.
* SpannerInTheWorks: Latimer stealing the Doctor's watch and opening it alerts the Family of Blood to the Doctor's presence, while at the same time scattering and confusing the scent.
* StaircaseTumble: John Smith falls down the stairs after getting flustered talking to Joan Redfern and backing away in precisely the wrong direction.
* VisibleInvisibility: When Baines strikes the ship's invisibility field, it briefly becomes visible.
* WhamShot: Well, not a shot so much, but the scene where Joan checks John's heartbeat after his fall down the stairs really hammers home to the viewer that ''whatever'' is going on is more than a standard case of LaserGuidedAmnesia. He has only one heart.
* WistfulAmnesia: Joan interprets John's [[DreamingTheTruth dreams]] as "the man [he] ''want[s]'' to be", and his [[AbsentmindedProfessor absentmindedness]] is said to be as if he knows there's something he should be doing and wants to go back to, but he can't quite remember what it is.
* WouldHurtAChild: Daughter of Mine's choice of host is a little girl.
* YouAreNotAlone: The Doctor's voice tells Tim this when he opens the watch the second time.
----
->''"Which one of them do you want us to kill? Maid or matron? Your friend or your lover? [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E9TheFamilyOfBlood Your choice.]]"''