"The Family of Blood" is the ninth episode of thethird series of the Britishscience fiction television seriesDoctor Who, which was first broadcast onBBC One on 2 June 2007.^[1] It is the second episode of a two-part story written byPaul Cornell adapted from hisDoctor Who novelHuman Nature (1995), co-plotted withKate Orman. The first part, "Human Nature", aired one week prior, on 26 May.

In the episode, aliens called the Family of Blood attack apublic school and its surrounding village in 1913 to seek a fob watch which contains the essence of the long-lived alientime travellerthe Doctor (David Tennant).

In aDoctor Who Magazine interview, Executive ProducerRussell T Davies characterised the "Human Nature"/"Family of Blood" two-parter as perhaps being too dark for the programme's audience.^[2] In 2008, both "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood" were nominated for theHugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.^[3]

At an English village dance in 1913, the Family of Blood holdMartha and Joan Redfern captive. While John Smith struggles to understand what is happening, Timothy Latimer briefly opens the fob watch containing theTenth Doctor'sTime Lord essence. This momentarily distracts the Family, enabling Martha to grab a gun and escape with the others back to the school. John sounds the alarm and helps to organise the school's defences while Martha and Joan search for the watch.

The Family assault the school with an army of animated scarecrows, but the schoolboys, who have military training, defend themselves against the first wave. When the Family show John that they have discovered hisTARDIS, Joan realises that John really is the Doctor, the alien he wrote about in his journal, transformed into human form. John, Joan and Martha escape to an empty house in the village. They are found by Timothy, who returns the watch to them. Discovering that the Doctor has escaped, the Family begin an aerial bombardment of the village from their hidden ship. Martha and Joan implore John to use the watch to become the Doctor and save everyone. John breaks down in tears, reluctant to give up Joan. The two share a vision, enabled by the watch, of what their lives would be like together as humans.

The Doctor makes his way to the Family's ship, tricking the Family into thinking his Time Lord essence is still in the watch. The Doctor surreptitiously initiates an overload of the ship's power source, which causes the ship to explode. The Doctor and the Family escape the explosion, but the Doctor captures them and issues each member an eternal punishment. He wraps the father in unbreakable chains, pushes the mother into theevent horizon of a collapsing galaxy, traps their daughter in every mirror in existence, and suspends their son in time before putting him to work as a scarecrow. The Doctor returns to Joan and offers her a chance to travel with him in the TARDIS, but she refuses. She asks the Doctor whether anyone would have died had he not chosen to come to 1913. Timothy bids the Doctor and Martha goodbye and the Doctor gives him the fob watch to keep. Later, during a battle inWorld War I, Timothy remembers a vision of a bombing and avoids being killed. Later, an elderly Timothy is at a Remembrance Day memorial and sees the Doctor and Martha in the distance, both wearing poppies.

John Smith's wedding and theRemembrance Day memorial scene were filmed atLlandaff Cathedral.^[4] The building used as the school is a private house, the Grade I-listedTreberfydd inBwlch a few miles south of Brecon.^[5]

Other scenes, including the cricket ball stunt and scenes at Cartwrights' cottage were filmed atSt Fagans National History Museum, Cardiff.^[6]

The Doctor, in the guise of Mr. Smith, is convinced that his parents were called Sydney and Verity, the writer's reference to the programme's original creatorsVerity Lambert andSydney Newman.^[7]

Along with "Human Nature", "The Family of Blood" was nominated for the 2008Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.^[3] David Tennant won the Constellation Award for Best Male Performance in a 2007 Science Fiction Television Episode for his performance in this two-part story.^[8]

In 2008,The Daily Telegraph named "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood" the seventh greatestDoctor Who episode.^[9] In 2009,Doctor Who Magazine readers voted it as the sixth bestDoctor Who story of all time.^[10] Matt Wales ofIGN named the two-part story the best episode of Tennant's tenure as the Doctor, describing it as "stunningly produced" and praising Tennant's performance.^[11]

During theCOVID-19 pandemic, several well-regarded episodes of the show were broadcast with live internet commentary from the writers, often paired with new content. Cornell released three interlinked short stories,The Shadow Passes,^[12]Shadow of a Doubt,^[13] andThe Shadow in the Mirror^[14] that collectively functioned as a sequel to both the novel and its television adaptation.

Wikiquote has quotations related toTenth Doctor.

• "The Family of Blood" at theBBCDoctor Who homepage
• "We are the Family of Blood": episode trailer
• "The Family of Blood" atIMDb

• Fiction set in 1913
• Fiction set in 1914
• Fiction set in 2007
• Doctor Who pseudohistorical serials
• Television episodes written by Paul Cornell
• Television shows based on British novels
• Tenth Doctor episodes
• 2007 British television episodes
• Television episodes about spirit possession
• Television episodes about telepathy
• Television episodes set in England
• Television episodes set in schools
• Television episodes set in the 1910s
• Television episodes set in the 2000s
• Television episodes set in France

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