1)This is probably my least favorite story of the new series. The problem I have with the story is that Cornell obviously wants to have a situation where the Doctor is living as a human, but has him behaving extremely out of character in order to set up the desired situation. Seriously - the Doctor, who has faced down Sutekh, the Beast from the Pit, and umpty numbers of Daleks, runs and hides fron this familty of space thugs, like he was the Legion of Super-Heroes hiding from Mordru? It's particularly craven when you see how easily he beats them in the end. And he dumps all the responsibility for handling the situation on poor Martha? The least he could have done was settle down someplace where she wouldn't be dumped on. And supposedly he was "being kind"? Kind to all the people that were killed and/or had their stuff blown up when the Family attacked? And to top it all off at the end he hands out "ironic" punishments like some low-rent version of the Bronze Age Spectre?
2) Poor Martha - RTD himself has pointed out that Martha is the only one of the companions he created who always behaves selflessly, and she's the one who always gets dumped on. Interesting lesson there, eh?
3)Some positives:
- The actor playing Baines/Son of Mine is quite good. He does "alien-possessed" about as well as anyone I've ever seen.
- The scarecrows are quite creepy.
- I liked the little continuity and meta references: "Gallifrey." "Is that in Ireland?", and the "Sidney/Verity" bit.
- Nurse Redfern was an interesting character, too.
- I particularly liked the music when the scarecrows were on the march.
- The Remembrance Day visit to old Timmy was a nice bit, too.
4)Cliffhanger: Son of Mine threatens to kill either Martha or Joan! Resolution: With a little assist from Timmy, Martha gets Mother of Mine's gun away from her.
5)Some fun quotes:
- "God, you're rubbish as a human!"
- "I'm not an expert, but I don't think scarecrows knock."
- "Falling in love? That didn't even occur to him?"
- "He didn't just make himself human, he made himself an idiot." "Same thing, isn't it?"
Overall: In the end, I suppose that the only thing wrong with this story was that it was self-indulgent, contrived, sloppily-written, artificially sentimental fanboy drivel that makes the main character look like a thoughtless, callous, cowardly, sniveling little git, who dumps on his friend and lets people get killed because he apparently can't think things through.
[Part of list of Doctor Who episodes here.]
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The actor who plays Son of Mine also plays a wonderfully awful person in Game of Thrones. I love this episode for the Jessica Hynes parts...the montage of John Smith's possible life and the Remembrance Day scene are enough to make me gloss over the rougher bits.
"In the end, I suppose that the only thing wrong with this story was that it was self-indulgent, contrived, sloppily-written, artificially sentimental fanboy drivel that makes the main character look like a thoughtless, callous, cowardly, snivleing little git, who dumps on his friend and lets people get killed because he apparently can't think things through."
Sounds like it should have been a PETER DAVISON story!