Doctor Who Season 3 Episode 8 Human Nature

Doctor Who Human Nature 8/13

The story is told partly in flashback to scenes in which the TARDIS is being pursued, under attack using some kind of energy beam weapon. The Doctor tells Martha that those who are pursuing him could trace him across the universe, and he must undergo a transformation to turn him into a human. His pursuers are dying, the Doctor says. His plan is to transform into a human for three months, by which time those beings should all be dead. His Time Lord configuration is stored in a fob watch and Martha is charged with guarding it.

As a human, John Smith, the Doctor becomes a schoolteacher in Farringham School in England before the Great War. The story picks up two months into his human life. Smith is unaware of his previous life as a Time Lord, and his character is quiet, a little timid and introspective. He has dreams of being a Time Lord and sometimes sketches them in a notebook, his "Journal of Impossible Things". Martha (who is aware of what is happening and remembers everything) is his maid.

His pursuers, who refer to themselves as the Family, show up on Earth in an invisible spaceship and take over the body of a school prefect who stumbles upon their ship while digging up a hidden cache of beer. They have scarecrow-like creatures as their henchmen, who round up more victims, a young girl holding a balloon and a farmer, to use as vessels.

Smith is cajoled by the school nurse, Joan Redfern, to attend a dance. Martha is distraught as she realises that he has fallen in love with a human, particularly someone other than Martha herself. The Doctor left recorded instructions telling her what to do in nearly any eventuality. One of these was "Don't let me abandon you". But his instructions did not foresee that he might fall in love.

Meanwhile, one of Smith's pupils, Timothy Latimer, who has previously demonstrated extrasensory perception in an encounter with other students, finds and takes the fob watch, having heard the Doctor's thoughts despite the perception filter the Doctor had placed on it.

When he briefly opens the watch, the Family sense that the Time Lord they are hunting is located somewhere within the school. Capturing and possessing a friend that Martha has made whilst working as a maid, one of the Family attempts to question Martha, but she escapes. Martha realises she must bring the Doctor back, but the watch is gone, without which she cannot restore him. Shocked by Martha's bizarre claims (and a slap to the face), Smith fires her.

The climax comes at the dance. Martha retrieves the sonic screwdriver and rushes to find Smith there, hoping the familiar object from his other life will help convince him. Meanwhile the Family arrive, one of them having overheard Martha trying to convince Smith he is the Doctor. They kill two people and then take Martha and Joan hostage, demanding that Smith "change back" into a Time Lord. Still believing he was born human, Smith does not understand the Family's words. In a cliffhanger ending, he is further horrified when they tell him to choose whom they should kill: "Maid or matron, your friend or your lover. Your choice."