Withdrawal Pains: Exploring Human Nature on "Doctor Who"

Not only am I going through withdrawal this week for FX's Damages and Bravo's Top Chef, but Sci Fi has decided to hold off on airing the second half of the Doctor Who two-parter until next Friday, making this a rather cold, barren TV-viewing week in the Televisionary household.

If you missed last Friday's episode of Doctor Who ("Human Nature"), you missed one of the third season's very best episodes. In fact, I'll go so far as to say the Paul Cornell-scripted episode is possibly one of my favorite installments, along with "Girl in the Fireplace," in the series so far.

Quick recap: the Doctor and Martha are being pursued by some alien baddies called the Family, gifted with the ability to track them anywhere in the universe (consider them the E.T. equivalent of, say, the Furies); with no other options, the Doctor hatches a brilliant--if insane--plan. They'll conceal themselves within the timestream (1913 England) and he will make himself wholly and utterly human, placing everything that made him the Doctor (his memories and Time Lord nature) within a fob watch. They arrive at the desired time, Martha poses as a housemaid, and they ingratiate themselves within the fabric of a pre-WWI boarding school.

It's classic Who: gripping, funny, and touching, while exhibiting some fantastic period flourishes and great casting. I'm speaking particularly of Jessica Stevenson's turn in "Human Nature" as Joan Redfern, the love interest for the Doctor--now calling himself John Smith, schoolmaster--a school matron with whom he quickly bonds.

If you recognize Stevenson, it may be because you've seen her now classic turn as Daisy on the much-missed British series Spaced, where she played a, well, spacey would-be journo posing as one-half of a romantic couple with Shaun of the Dead's Simon Pegg. (If you've never seen the sheer joy and wit of Spaced, you are seriously missing out, readers.)

I'm always happy to see Stevenson turn up in guest roles (Black Books, or as Yvonne in Shaun of the Dead) and wish that we saw more of her off-kilter charms as a regular on a series, but I'll take what I get. Personally, while I don't know what Joan's fate is in next week's conclusion of the "Human Nature" storyline, I do wish that the 1913 matron would have become the Doctor's companion next season, rather than Catherine Tate. (I can only take so much of Donna's wingeing.)

Meanwhile, the Doctor's escape plan is impeded by the involvement of Timothy Latimer, a student with psychic abilities, who is drawn to the fob watch despite the "perception filter" the Doctor placed on the item. He's played with an eerie panache by Thomas Sangster, from Nanny McPhee and Love Actually.

Naturally, this being a two-parter, there's a hell of a cliffhanger. The Family does find the Doctor (thanks to Timothy opening the fob watch containing the Doctor's essence) and arranges a terrifying dilemma for the Doctor when they grab both Joan and Martha and threaten to kill one of them unless the Doctor changes back into a Time Lord. "Maid or matron, your friend or your lover," snarls one of the aliens. "Your choice."

While I have no doubt that Martha and the Doctor will make it out of this adventure alive, I can't help but sit at the edge of my seat, anxious for next week's conclusion. I only wish that Sci Fi had done us the favor of airing that chapter tonight, rather than make us bite our nails until next week. Sigh.

Next week on Doctor Who ("The Family of Blood"), the Doctor must decide whether Martha and Joan live or die, while the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Will he embrace his destiny as a Time Lord? Or will the Doctor stand by while one of the women in his life pays the ultimate price?