carmen_lj | Doctor Who: Family of Blood (Reply)

Oh, oh, I was a bit worried I wasn't going to be back in time for Who. As house ran out of Juice, and I had a craving for strawberry milk and the supermarket's a fair walk...and strawberry milk is healthy, right? What with all the calcium and, um, fruit? Drinking a pint isn't excessive, no? It's way too hot, dude, way too hot. Suspect dehydration like woah.

And, Doctor Who? Oh, just a little bit brilliant. I love Martha. A lot. An awful lot.

"Try it and we'll die together." Love you, Martha, I LOVE YOU. She is better than the Doctor because He Is Not Convincing At All When He Does This Bluff (and she might not even be bluffing.)
"God, you're rubbish as a human." Oh, Martha, you're so fine.
Yarg, the Doctor's taking on the Headmaster's role from the book, and Martha's being book!JohnSmith....so who's Benny then? Latimer?
I now agree with lizbee that the little girl with her blonde hair and pink coat is this episode's Anvil Sized Hint that the entire series is about Romana, obviously.
"All your little tin soldiers." Oh, man, "Do you think they will thank the man who taught them it was glorious?" Oh, man. I love the war themes, I love them, very much.
Those scarecrows, btw, much beloved by my six-year-old cousin. I NO LIKE THEM.
"Oh, d'you think." MARTHA, MARTHA AND HER BONE KNOWLEDGE. Did I mention I love Martha?
"The John Smith I was getting to know, he knows it's wrong, doesn't he?" Oh, joan, you give Smith yoo muc credit, methinks. But heh, he does finally seem to be coming around to sanity. Well done him.
"Oh, Latimer, you filthy coward!" "Oh, yes, sir, every time." Nice Doctor channelling!
Those children, the singing, the crying, and the guns: I think it might be the most disturbing image the New Series has managed so far. Oh, Smith didn't fire, well done Smith.
Oh, Martha, oh, the racism, and she's so, so good with the coping and the pushing and the not giving up and she is awesome and I love her.
"Why can't I be John Smith, isn't he a good man?" Well, he's not...evil, anyway. OH STOP HURTING ME DT WITH YOUR RIPPING MY WEE HEART TO SHREDS. He is quite good at acting when he no go OTT, and no, I didn't think this was OTT. I think this was panic, because Smith is not entirely awful and knew what he had to do and was panicking at having to DIE. Or, rather, kill himself.
Oh, Joan, and she is being all accepty and quite clever at getting them a hiding place and quite good at telling Smith to shut up because she has a plan and they will be following it now, yes.
*flails* The big speech about the Doctor which is terrifying then "...and he's wonderful," which is a nice addition cause otherwise he is a little TERRIFYING.
"Falling in love, that didn't even occur to him..." Oh, there be meta there, man. Metatastic meta. But y'know what my gut response is? Of course it didn't. Because Romana is dead and Jamie is several hundred years in the past and who else could he possibly ever fall in love with? (Well, Martha, obv, but that wouldn't have been a problem, just have made her job easier.)
"So you're just going to execute me?" That should have hurt more than it did. I'm afraid I got flashbacks to Tuvix, an appalling episode of ST: Voyager. Ahem.
Maybe I pretend they totally had a lifetime together in those few moments? Yes? That would be less painful. (Also watch seemed to have skipped the bit where Earth was destroyed by something or other because the Doctor didn't stop it, yah.)
I paraphrase, as I forget: "Then we discovered why this Doctor ran away and hid...this Doctor who'd fought gods and demons...he was being kind." Fecking hell, man, he picked that lovely retribution up from Rassilon, yes. And it's really...cruel. TERRANCE DICKS IS ON THE LINE. "NEVER CRUEL NOR COWARDLY." Except, yeah, he is now, ain't he? One would totally knock Ten down with the noble art of fisticuffs and give him a good talking to. And those were totally god-like punishments visited upon mortals what got above themselves. STOP READING GRECIAN MYTHS YOU GIT. Was what they did truly so awful, he could not simply let them die? That was vengence, man. At least Rassilon gave the bad dudes a totally sporting chance of getting themselves zapped before they got to his Tomb.
"Come with me." Oh, I said it somewhere, can I have a point, for she rejects him, though he wants her, though it's as the Doctor now and the way he loves people. Stop hurting me telly, stop that now, boo.
And the Doctor and Martha see Latimer as an old man and it is wonderful!
"And I never said, thanks for looking after me." And a big hug, because he does love her, just the way the Doctor loves people and I think maybe she totally gets that but, yes, she wouldn't mind the romantic thing. Oh, and they are just lovely at eahc other and I love how they ar etotoally huggy and that Martha gets hugs all the time and it makes me happy lots, yes.
So that was just a bit gorgeous and wonderful and painful and brilliant and clever and heart-breaking and hopeful and scary. (Yes, I cried. shutup.)