Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Countdown - The Family Of Blood


To celebrate the fact that 2013 is the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who, we are taking a look back at all of the episodes of the show which featured David Tennant as the Doctor. At the end of our look back we'll be asking you, the fans, to vote for what you think is the ultimate David Tennant episode of Doctor Who....

We continue with the next David Tennant episode.... The Family Of Blood
Read our previous Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Countdown posts here.

24. Family Of Blood

First Broadcast on 2nd June 2007. Running Time: 45 Minutes. Viewing Figures: 7.21million.
Written By Paul Cornell.
Directed By Charles Palmer.
Executive Producers Russell T Davies, Phill Collinson and Julie Gardner.
David-Tennant.com Rating: 10/10.



Synopsis:

It's 1913 in England and war has come a year in advance as the terrifying Family hunt for the Doctor. But, while John Smith refuses to accept his destiny as a Time Lord, the women in his life, Martha and Joan, have to take terrible measures to save the whole of history, as Russell T Davies' Doctor Who continues.

Extras:
 Promotional Photos | Videos | Articles |




Meet The Family:


Son Of Mine was a malicious and malevolent member of The Family Of Blood who saw the death and destruction they wrought as a sport. He took the body of Jeremy Baines, an unpleasant schoolboy who was a bully and a racist, and infiltrated the school, hoping to sniff out the Doctor, whose body he wanted to inhabit so he could live forever. Not realising the Doctor had made himself a human, the Family followed him to the village dance hoping to expose him.
Son Of Mine murdered the doorman and threatened to kill both Martha Jones and Joan Redfern unless the Doctor turned back in to a Time Lord.
Son Of Mine then led an attack on the school using the Scarecrows he had created using molecular fringe animation. Not realising he wasn't dealing with Baines, Rocastle, the Headmaster, challenged Son Of Mine who then murdered the bursar, Mr Phillips, to show he meant business.
After failing to get the Doctor to revert back to being a Time Lord, Son Of Mine decided to flush him out by bombing the village from the spaceship. John Smith then arrived, offering up the fob watch which contained the Doctor's life essence, but Son Of Mine discovered firstly that it was empty and just a watch again, and secondly that the Doctor had already changed back and had tricked the Family. He overloaded the ship's system and Son Of Mine led his Family out just before it blew up. The Doctor then captured him and trapped him inside one of his Scarecrows and left Son Of Mine watching over England's fields for eternity.

Daughter Of Mine took on the form of six year old Lucy Cartwright who was skipping along the lane and kidnapped by a Scarecrow. Daughter Of Mine then murdered Lucy's parents and the Headmaster of the local school. The Doctor trapped Daughter Of Mine, still in Lucy's form, within the refractive index of a mirror. She was to inhabit the dark recess of a mirror, all mirrors, for eternity, the Doctor returning to visit her once a year, every year.

Father Of Mine was the leader of The Family Of Blood who brought the Family to Earth in their invisible spaceship. He wanted to track the Doctor down so that Son Of Mine could inhabit his body. Father Of Mine took the body of Mr Clark, a slightly pompous man who ran Oakham Farm. He was responsible for tracking down the Doctor's TARDIS and for the murder of the bandleader Mr Chambers. The Doctor trapped Father Of Mine in an underground chmaber for eternity, binding him in unbreakable chains forged in a dwarf star.

Mother Of Mine was the last of the Family to find herself a body, taking on the form of Martha's friend and colleague Jenny, who had worked as a maid in the school. Posing as Jenny she continued to be friendly to Martha after realising that she had connections to the Doctor. She turned up at the village dance with the rest of The Family and caused carnage there and shortly afterwards at the school. 
The Doctor threw Mother Of Mine into the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy where she would remian for eternity.



Timothy Latimer:
Tim Latimer was a schoolboy at Farringham School For Boys, he was easily bullied and pushed round by the older boys, forced to do their prep, useless at cadet training and deliberately failing his studies so as not to look too intelligent. 
He was mildly psychic, born with a low level telepathic field, which drew him to the fob watch that his school teacher John Smith kept on his mantlepiece. The watch contained the essence of The Doctor and, when Tim tried to open it, bits of the Doctor would leak out and give Tim glimpses of the future, or warnings, with the aim of keeping the fob watch out of the hands of The Family Of Blood.
One warning was Tim's own fate, a few years in to the future, when he and his schoolboy nemesis, Hutchinson, would be caught in a bombing raid in the World War I trenches, the watch warning him to step out of a bomb's path.
Realising that John Smith needed the watch he took it to Cartwright's cottage where Smith, Martha Jones and Joan Redfern were hiding. Later having survived the war, Tim lived to a very old age and, at a Remembrance Day ceremony decades later, he saw the Doctor and Martha unchanged by the ravages of time.


Quotes:

Tim Latimer: He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun.
John Smith: Stop it.
Tim Latimer: He's ancient and forever. He burns at the centre of time and can see the turn of the universe.
John Smith: Stop it, I said stop it!
Tim Latimer: And.... he's wonderful.

The Doctor: You're this doctor's companion, can't you help? What exactly do you do for him? Why does he need you?
Martha Jones: Because he's lonely.
The Doctor: And that's what you want me to become?

Joan Redfern: Answer me this .. just one question, that's all. If the Doctor had never visited us, if he'd never chosen this place... on a whim... would anybody here have died? You can go now.



Cast:
  • David Tennant - The Doctor
  • Freema Agyeman - Martha Jones
  • Jessica Hynes - Joan Redferd
  • Harry Lloyd – Jeremy Baines
  • Thomas Sangster – Tim Latimer
  • Tom Palmer – Hutchinson
  • Pip Torrens – Rocastle
  • Rebekah Staton – Jenny
  • Gerard Horan – Mr. Clark
  • Lauren Wilson – Lucy Cartwright
  • Matthew White – Phillips
  • Sophie Turner - Vicar

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