Doctor Who - Series 3 Vol.3 (DVD)

...the series 3 DVD’s of Doctor who contains the best stories so far, but you’ll have to wait a little longer for the best of the series DVD’s to arrive.
In Volume 3 The Doctor battles Scarecrows, finds true love, loses everything, and tries to save a house from certain death.

Human Nature

As the story begins the Doctor and Martha are under bombardment of fire from an unknown force, this force needs to hunt down ...
...a silent protector, keeping the Doctor safe for as long as she can, the secret to restoring the Doctor to himself lies in a pocket watch. But when a boy called Latimer takes the watch and opens the floodgates for the unseen force to attack the school only Martha knows the truth, but nobody will listen to her.

Now at this point Human Nature was the best story, for me of the series. Its incredibly well written plot opens a variety of ... more

So far and without a doubt Volume 3 of the series 3 DVD’s of Doctor who contains the best stories so far, but you’ll have to wait a little longer for the best of the series DVD’s to arrive.
In Volume 3 The Doctor battles Scarecrows, finds true love, loses everything, and tries to save a house from certain death.

Human Nature

As the story begins the Doctor and Martha are under bombardment of fire from an unknown force, this force needs to hunt down the Doctor in order to survive; the Doctor needs to put all his trust in Martha in order for them to survive, as he turns his back on his life as a timelord.

In a small boarding school during 1913 a new teacher John Smith spends his days teaching children, his social life boarders on the ridiculous but at night he has these most terrible dreams. In his dreams he is The Doctor, a man who travels time and space saving the galaxy.

Martha plays at being a maid in this school, but also acts as a silent protector, keeping the Doctor safe for as long as she can, the secret to restoring the Doctor to himself lies in a pocket watch. But when a boy called Latimer takes the watch and opens the floodgates for the unseen force to attack the school only Martha knows the truth, but nobody will listen to her.

Now at this point Human Nature was the best story, for me of the series. Its incredibly well written plot opens a variety of doorways for the viewer, it takes me back to the 1970’s when Sci-Fi drama’s (not necessarily Doctor Who) ruled the airwaves, this is very much a traditional family horror style tale; based in the past to make things a little more innocent and appealing to the viewer.

Martha gets to stand tall again and she ultimately is the lead role in this episode, as in The Shakespeare Code racism raises its ugly head, but this definitely gives the show a level of realism that I think is often lacking from the new series. But for the actress who plays Martha, Freema Agyeman this is an opportunity to steal the show, and steal it she does proving she is every much a viable successor to take the place of Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) in both her portrayal of the character and as an actress.

The Family Of Blood

This second part of the two part story shows The Doctor experiencing love like we have never seen anywhere in the past. And this love plays deeply on his alter ego John Smith’s heart. In his heart he is starting to realise that he is the Doctor, knowing that if he stays as John Smith he can live a normal loving life and basically save the world. In returning to be the Doctor he will lose this love, and maybe his life. What would you choose?

The Family Of Blood takes a slightly downbeat turn from the strong opening episode, but still remains consistent. The scenes depicting the Doctor in love, and a overview of his future are very touching and well executed.

The aliens that were never seen (albeit briefly at the end) in the last episode bang there way on the set, taking over everything pretty much with little force. They have an army of fully disposable Scarecrows to do their dirty work for them, and the addition of a child (whose body has been taken over by one of their own). The bad guys can basically steal the bodies of their victims and wear them like a suit if you will. This slightly cheesy family add the laughs to this story, as without them it would be all too serious for Doctor Who. The repeated chant of “Mother of mine” and variations of the same are quite funny, and themselves a hint of a life much earlier than our own.

Special Effects are kind of at a minimal in this story, with the exception of a few well planned explosions. But looking in a realistic manner this story is more psychological than anything else.

Martha gets to steal the show again, being the strongest force in the episode, while the Doctor practically cowers like a child for the most part.

Blink

The Doctor and Martha get an episode off (with just a few brief appearances) as this story finds a group of people in a haunted house. As Sally arrives in the house, she immediately knows something is wrong, this house has a secret that is caught in time, and as her and her fellow housemates (for want of a better word) are slowly wiped out by an unseen force all the Doctor can do is give them guidance, unable to physically help.

With more than a hint towards the popular movie series The Ring, the Doctor and Martha appear only on TV for most of the episode trying to help the people in the house survive. This is really the darkest territory that the new series of Doctor Who has seen; in place of the time travelling duo Carey Mulligan leads the story as her character Sally. Now this is a woman that should be travelling in the Tardis alongside the Doctor and Martha. Sally quickly rises to the occasion and becomes the alpha force, leaving seemingly strong alpha males dormant in her wake.

There are one or two genuine scare in this story that make it not for kids to watch on their own. At one point I saw my other half actually have a small jump.
You know that sort of fuzzy feeling you get when you see something that shocks or excites you? Well be prepared to feel that more than once during this episode its a real classic that I believe will become one of the more memorable stories of the series (all three so far).

You may be interested to know that the author of the story is Stephen Moffat who bought us two of the more memorable stories of the previous series. Last year he bought us The Girl In The Fireplace in which clockworks robots battle against time to kidnap Madame Du Pompadeur. And the year before he bought us the nasty Gas Masked creatures in The Empty Child.

This episode also features a nice role from Michael Obiora who plays the camp receptionist in Hotel Babylon, and Finlay Robertson who is best known as one time leading man in Hollyoaks.

This DVD hits shelves on the 27th of July priced around £12 with no special features.

For those of you that liked my taste of the future (Blink has not been shown on the TV at the time of writing) as I did last year here is a quick glimpse of the final three episodes, there are no real spoilers that you wont learn prior to the shows airing, with one minor exception:

As Doctor Who blends seamlessly with its sister show Torchwood the Doctor arrives in Cardiff to recharge the Tardis in the rift that goes through Torchwood’s underground base. The Doctor and Martha unaware that Captain Jack runs Torchwood don’t stick about for a chat, but Jack certainly knows they are there. Jack runs to catch the Tardis as is De-materialises forcing Jack to make an unusual method of time travel. While this is joked over the Doctor knows that Jack has a secret that only the Doctor himself knows, and the discovery of this secret will make your hair stand on end.

Derek Jacobi appears as a professor trying to save a dying race, but is his presence a good one or a bad one as we get an understanding of a message delivered in episode 3.

And after 3 years of waiting we finally find out about Harold Saxon, played by Life On Mars star John Simm. Saxon having recently been installed in number 10 as the Prime Minister turns his power to hideous evil (fans of the House Of Cards trilogy, a series about an evil Prime Minister; will notice echoes of that here). As he introduces an alien race the Tochlafarne (who in my mind sound like a 70’s folk group) claiming they come in peace. In Harold Saxon the Doctor faces his most evil enemy yet, who may be all too familiar to fans from the past series (pre 2005).

A chilling jaw dropping end to series 3 awaits and it’s the best finale yet.

Oh and did I mention regeneration?

;o)

Enjoy! 

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