Trivia / Doctor Who S29 E8 "Human Nature"

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• Blooper: The anachronistic white semi truck visible in the background of the first shot of the machine gun practice scene.
• Completely Different Title:
  • In French-speaking territories, "The Family of Blood" is the title of this episode and not the next one.
  • The Japanese title of this episode is "John Smith's Love".
• Dawson Casting: Lor Wilson is clearly *not* six years old like Lucy Cartwright is in the published script.
• Deleted Scene: The Doctor's list of 23 directives, which is mostly sped through in the episode, is presented at normal speed on home media. In place of the other requests, David Tennant breaks the fourth wall to talk about nonsense until the 23rd and final directive. One of his instructions, about not letting Smith eat pears, was a connection to the original novel. The pears bit ultimately became canon to the Doctor's character across incarnations, with one of Twelve's final lines in "Twice Upon a Time" being a warning to his future incarnation not to eat them.
• Development Gag:
  • David Tennant was asked to ad-lib some random footage to be fast-forwarded by Martha later in the story. He mentions hating pears and to ask Martha to keep him away from them, which while humorous, isn't mentioned again. (This part was scripted, being intercut with ironic shots of John Smith eating pears.) The Seventh Doctor mentioned hating pears in the original Human Nature novel the episode was based on. Similar Who superfan Peter Capaldi later got to make the reference stick.
  • In the original novel, the little girl's red balloon is a significant plot point. That aspect of the plot was left out of the TV version, but the balloon itself was retained as a whimsical detail.
• Orphaned Reference: The Aubertides of the novel were creatures whose entire being (including their clothes and possessions) was an extension of their form. Paul Cornell tried to make this work on screen, including giving the little girl a sentient, attacking balloon, and having Martha realise that Jenny is an alien when her friend reacts with pain after Martha spills tea on her handbag. Ultimately, however, it was decided that this notion worked better in prose than as television, and the scene was improved by Martha working out what had happened through her own intuition.
• Self-Adaptation: Paul Cornell adapted his own novel into a two-parter.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The aliens in this episode were intended to have technology that was very organically based and this carried through to the design of their guns. The guns' theoretical design was that there was a creature inside each gun and pulling the trigger resulted in a jab to the creature, who would then scream; this scream is the disintegration beam.
  • Early on, Martha’s family would have been involved, as there was an idea that she was originally from 1914.
  • The cliffhanger originally was having John Smith forced with the decision of commanding the schoolboys to open fire on the Family.
  • Nicholas Briggs was offered the role of Phillips, but he passed on it because it was too small.

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