Line #37 Recap/DoctorWhoNewAdventuresHumanNature


1	In an attempt to understand Benny's sadness following [[Recap/DoctorWhoNewAdventuresSanctuary Guy de Carnac's death]], the Doctor turns himself into a human history teacher in the year 1914 by locking away his [[BuffySpeak Time Lordyness]] in a pod. Unfortunately, there is a family of aliens who are trying to steal his Time Lordyness.
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3	''Human Nature'' was adapted for television by its author, Creator/PaulCornell, into the episodes [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E8HumanNature "Human Nature"]] and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E9TheFamilyOfBlood "The Family of Blood"]].
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6	!!Tropes:
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8	* ActualPacifist: Tim Latimer, which gets him a lot of grief from the teachers and his fellow students because it's seen as inconsistent with standing up for King and Country. He goes on to serve with distinction in the Great War -- as a medic.
9	* AdultsAreUseless: Rocastle encourages bullying, since it builds character. John Smith doesn't like it, but forces himself to repeat Rocastle's views when Tim tells him about how he is treated. He later admits that he only said those things to fit in.
10	* AlwaysNeedWhatYouGaveUp: The Doctor turns himself into a human schoolteacher, with none of his usual abilities, to experience what life is like for his companions, and is promptly embroiled in an alien plot. Justified by the revelation that the character who gave him the idea in the first place was one of the aliens, deliberately so that they could take advantage of his reduced state.
11	* AttemptedRape: Greeneye tries this on Bernice, but she escapes.
12	* BadFuture: Tim shows a possible future where the Aubertides get Time Lord biodata and conquer Gallifrey.
13	* BalancingDeathsBooks: Following on from the Doctor offering one of his lives to [[TheGrimReaper Death]] for Ace in ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoNewAdventuresLoveAndWar Love and War]]'', here Death takes John Smith.
14	* BalloonOfDoom: Aphasia, one of the Aubertides, has the form of a little girl with a balloon - a balloon which can chase and suffocate people at her command.
15	%% ZCE * BoardingSchoolOfHorrors
16	* ChasteHero: Benny says the Doctor has never seemed that interested in the trouser department.
17	* ClosetGay: Bernice's landlord, Alexander Shuttleworth, cultivates a slightly scandalous reputation as a ladies' man who women should be wary around in case he attempts to seduce them. It's all a blind, since he's actually gay and in a loving monogamous relationship with another male character. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in that it's 1914, and to be an out homosexual man would likely result in prosecution and possible imprisonment.
18	* CorporalPunishment: Is a standard method of discipline at the school. John Smith isn't a fan, and at one point when he's called on to give a student 'the slipper', he uses a fluffy slipper instead of the hard-soled variety he's supposed to use.
19	%% ZCE * CreepyChild: Aphasia.
20	* DeliberateValuesDissonance:
21	Joan is an entirely sympathetic and likeable character, but during one scene, while John Smith is humming a song by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Isley_Brothers the Isley Brothers]] Joan speculates that it was probably written by "some n*r band". Bernice later refers to Joan as "a wrinkly racist", although Joan's attitude would be the norm for Britain in 1914.
22	** Tim's friend Anand, despite being Indian royalty, is treated with contempt by most of his classmates. During the KangarooCourt he is called to appear as a witness by the name "Darkie Unpronouncable" instead of by his real name. Tim saves Anand's embarrassment but hastens his own hanging by saying that the "witness" cannot be called as "there is noone here with that name".
23	%% ZCE * DiseasedName: Aphasia.
24	%% ZCE * TheEdwardianEra
25	* EthicalSlut: Alexander claims to be this. Seeing as it's 1913, it makes him come across as a shockingly liberal person. As it turns out, he's actually in a monogamous relationship with a man, and overcompensates by pretending to be dating multiple women.
26	* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: The Aubertides seem genuinely upset when Aphasia is killed.
27	* FakinMacGuffin: A variation of the trope is used against the Aubertides at the end when they demand that John Smith hand over the pod containing the Doctor's Time Lord biodata. They'll detect a fake pod, but what they don't expect is for Smith to use the pod himself first, so that what they actually get is the Doctor handing over a real pod containing John Smith's human biodata.
28	%% ZCE * TheFamilyThatSlaysTogether: The Aubertides.
29	* FunWithAcronyms: It's revealed to the audience at the end (but not to the Doctor and Benny) that one of the people in 1914 was an agent of the Time Lords' Celestial Intervention Agency, who set the whole thing up so the Doctor would deal with the Aubertides before they threatened Gallifrey. The pseudonym of his human cover identity has the initials C.I.A.
30	* HeroicSacrifice:
31	** John Smith, when August accidentally becomes him, does this for Joan.
32	** Subverted with Rocastle's death. Hutchinson wants to see it as this, but Bernice shuts him up and tells him there were alternatives.
33	* HurtComfortFic: Parts of the story, to the point that the fifth chapter is actually titled "Hurt/Comfort".
34	* InterSpeciesRomance: Greeneye is attracted to other species. However in a darker turn on this, he doesn't care about their consent.
35	%% ZCE * ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime
36	* KangarooCourt: Hutchinson holds one for Tim, and sentences him to be hung.
37	* KidsAreCruel: The bullying in Farrar house takes this to new levels.
38	* KillAndReplace: Greeneye uses this strategy to pose as a friend of Benny's. When Benny finds out, she asks if she ever actually met the original of the person he impersonated. She did, but only once, the first time they meet.
39	%% ZCE * KindheartedCatLover: Joan and the Doctor.
40	* NoEqualOpportunityTimeTravel: Bernice is supposed to be keeping a low profile during an extended sojourn in the 1910s. She ditches her skirts about twenty minutes into the adventure in favour of her regular trousers. This gets her into a ''lot'' of trouble.
41	* NoHuggingNoKissing: Lampshaded and averted. The Doctor's celibacy becomes a major plot point when he's NotHimself and becomes attracted to a woman.
42	* OminousOwl: Subverted. Joan is able to save John from an Aubertide due to an owl.
43	* OrphanedEtymology: In-universe. John Smith uses the expression "shot himself in the foot". Since this is before the First World War, no-one's heard it before.
44	* RuleNumberOne: The Doctor leaves Benny with a numbered list of rules to keep him on the straight and narrow while he's not himself. They range from the serious (the actual rule #1 is "Don't let me commit suicide, if for some reason I want to") to the ... less so (rule #4 is "Don't let me eat pears"). Another way this can be interpreted: the rules are to keep John from doing things the Doctor wouldn't do. Hence, some are redundant (there's no reason John would want to commit suicide, hurt someone or abandon Benny, who's posing as his niece), while the others, like the one about pears, Benny ignores, since John is his own person and why not let him eat pears if he wants to? Especially that she's a little bit angry with the Doctor for putting her in the situation in the first place.
45	* ShoutOut: Included among John Smith's false memories are memories of a girlfriend named [[Creator/VerityLambert Verity]].
46	* TheSlowPath: Tim Dean lives to a local ceremony in 1995 while the Doctor and Benny just travel there.
47	* {{Tuckerization}}:
48	** The school's bursar is "a young Scotsman with curly hair and permanently perplexed eyes" named [[Creator/StevenMoffat Moffat]].
49	** Jill and Jenny, the perpetually bickering neighbours, are named after two regulars on rec.arts.drwho who seemed to be locked in a permanent FlameWar.
50	* TwoOfYourEarthMinutes: Lampshaded. August uses it in his ultimatum to the humans, and then tells the other Aubertides that he [[IAlwaysWantedToSayThat always wanted to say that]].
51	* WouldHurtAChild: The Aubertides kill a lot of children while attacking the school.
52	* YouAreWhoYouEat: Greeneye is a [[VoluntaryShapeshifting shape-shifter]] who can imitate any animal he's eaten part of, including humans. If he does it while they're alive, he can also gain their memories.
53	* YourHeadAsplode: One of the children who are defending the school from the Aubertides turns to say something to John Smith and gets hit in the back of the head with a dart from one of the aliens' weapons. A moment passes then this trope splatters blood and brain matter all over the room, leading to a HeroicBSOD from John Smith.

Context Recap / DoctorWhoNewAdventuresHumanNature