To Error is Human...
There’s rare good TV around.
And the Doctor Who series should be roundly applauded for making a brave attempt at adapting one of the previous Doctor Who novels from the 1990s. The original book is entitled Human Nature by Paul Cornell.
The title tells a lot. The core of the story: it’s reflecting being human at its greatest and weakest. Looking into the mirror of a person’s soul and finding out there’s a lot of flaws. But that’s what’s being human is about.
The novel has been considered by many, most of all myself, has one of the exemplar titles ever put into literary fiction. This particular novel is not just a fan boy’s wet dream book. It’s more than that. It rises above the stark raving fandom to produce a literary piece that studies and picks apart the human essence. William Faulkner would have been proud.
What’s more? I consider the piece to be one of the great reads ever. Period. The range of emotions produced in the original Doctor Who novel has broad strokes, a painting of words catching the mystery and awe of being human. Finding a simple life. The kind of life that the heroic Doctor would never have.
He’s got too much of the time-traveller mojo in him. That sets him apart from the rest of humanity. But to make the Doctor a regular man leading a normal life. That takes a twist and turn. The plot surrounds the eve of World War one where a man simply named John Smith, a.k.a. the Doctor, hides himself as a human being. He’s a teacher at a military school. He feels. There’s warmth in his body. He loves. Dearly. And wonderfully.
After the longest time, in many eons, he falls in love. With a woman living in 1913. And all this time, a Family of cutthroat aliens is searching for the Doctor to tap into immortality. That way, they would be able to live forever to conquer all of time and space. Their ambition is to ruin the lives of others.
And the person who is John Smith isn’t who he seems. But he wants to build his own life. Marriage, children, life. Those are the things every man wants for himself.
The author of Human Nature, takes everything a step further when he adapts the widely-received novel into television format. It could’ve been easily been a mess. But he takes the familiar territory of human nature and puts it into the television spotlight. He does a nice job of keeping the essence of the story.
But it is also masterful television drama. Another rarity and triumph in the Doctor Who mythos.
We see the ordinariness of John Smith. A simple English schoolteacher. He has feelings like anyone else. And David Tennant should be commended for his acting abilities to make John Smith fall into a crying, wounded man. Showing us, as viewers, what the Doctor would be like if he were a human being. He gets angry. He throws tantrums. But he also has strengths such as courage. Even if it means walking into a wall of death.
There are some stunning sights in the television two-parter Human Nature and Family of Blood. The falling stars of destruction towards the end remains a physical beauty of special effects. But the look and feel of the 1913 period is brilliantly captured. The moment when John Smith takes a cricket ball and throwing it into a domino effect of law-defying physics to save a woman’s baby is straight out of the original novel. The only way to beat the aliens is for the Doctor to come back. And with a vengeance he does. His anger is like fire in a few, brief moments.
There’s also a lovely scene with a surviving World War one veteran at a memorial service who sees the Doctor once again unchanged by time. There’s an emotional impact in the scene.
Perhaps being human isn’t so bad. Doctor Who has rarely been this good in drama. And it builds a television moment that contributes to the boldness of humanity’s best. It becomes an epic journey into the unknown for Doctor Who. It shows how one of television’s greatest heroes can be at his most vulnerable. And that what makes a good story.
And the Doctor Who series should be roundly applauded for making a brave attempt at adapting one of the previous Doctor Who novels from the 1990s. The original book is entitled Human Nature by Paul Cornell.
The title tells a lot. The core of the story: it’s reflecting being human at its greatest and weakest. Looking into the mirror of a person’s soul and finding out there’s a lot of flaws. But that’s what’s being human is about.
The novel has been considered by many, most of all myself, has one of the exemplar titles ever put into literary fiction. This particular novel is not just a fan boy’s wet dream book. It’s more than that. It rises above the stark raving fandom to produce a literary piece that studies and picks apart the human essence. William Faulkner would have been proud.
What’s more? I consider the piece to be one of the great reads ever. Period. The range of emotions produced in the original Doctor Who novel has broad strokes, a painting of words catching the mystery and awe of being human. Finding a simple life. The kind of life that the heroic Doctor would never have.
He’s got too much of the time-traveller mojo in him. That sets him apart from the rest of humanity. But to make the Doctor a regular man leading a normal life. That takes a twist and turn. The plot surrounds the eve of World War one where a man simply named John Smith, a.k.a. the Doctor, hides himself as a human being. He’s a teacher at a military school. He feels. There’s warmth in his body. He loves. Dearly. And wonderfully.
After the longest time, in many eons, he falls in love. With a woman living in 1913. And all this time, a Family of cutthroat aliens is searching for the Doctor to tap into immortality. That way, they would be able to live forever to conquer all of time and space. Their ambition is to ruin the lives of others.
And the person who is John Smith isn’t who he seems. But he wants to build his own life. Marriage, children, life. Those are the things every man wants for himself.
The author of Human Nature, takes everything a step further when he adapts the widely-received novel into television format. It could’ve been easily been a mess. But he takes the familiar territory of human nature and puts it into the television spotlight. He does a nice job of keeping the essence of the story.
But it is also masterful television drama. Another rarity and triumph in the Doctor Who mythos.
We see the ordinariness of John Smith. A simple English schoolteacher. He has feelings like anyone else. And David Tennant should be commended for his acting abilities to make John Smith fall into a crying, wounded man. Showing us, as viewers, what the Doctor would be like if he were a human being. He gets angry. He throws tantrums. But he also has strengths such as courage. Even if it means walking into a wall of death.
There are some stunning sights in the television two-parter Human Nature and Family of Blood. The falling stars of destruction towards the end remains a physical beauty of special effects. But the look and feel of the 1913 period is brilliantly captured. The moment when John Smith takes a cricket ball and throwing it into a domino effect of law-defying physics to save a woman’s baby is straight out of the original novel. The only way to beat the aliens is for the Doctor to come back. And with a vengeance he does. His anger is like fire in a few, brief moments.
There’s also a lovely scene with a surviving World War one veteran at a memorial service who sees the Doctor once again unchanged by time. There’s an emotional impact in the scene.
Perhaps being human isn’t so bad. Doctor Who has rarely been this good in drama. And it builds a television moment that contributes to the boldness of humanity’s best. It becomes an epic journey into the unknown for Doctor Who. It shows how one of television’s greatest heroes can be at his most vulnerable. And that what makes a good story.
posted by K.M. Paters at 10:30 AM
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