June 5, 20178 yr Nu Michelle Fowler is now my fave part of that episode tbh. Was a great finale but I'm quite glad to see series 2 and 4 finales finish higher.
June 7, 20178 yr Author http://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3nVqzoXAAAX3rm.jpg 8 School Reunion Series 2, Episode 3 Doctor: Tenth Companion: Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith, Sarah Jane Smith, K-9 The Doctor and Rose infiltrate a secondary school, with the help of Mickey who noticed the results being strangely high. The Doctor, posing as a physics teacher, interrogates student Milo, asking him impossibly tough questions and receiving a perfectly correct answer in no time. Rose notices strange behaviour from the dinner ladies, particularly when a barrel of oil spills and one of them has some sort of allergic reaction. In the staff room, the Doctor meets Sarah Jane Smith, his former companion. She of course doesn't recognise him, having regenerated seven times since they last met, and he opts to keep his identity secret for the time being. However, they bump into each other again when they investigate the school at night time. Sarah Jane is shocked when she sees the TARDIS and initially resents the Doctor for leaving her behind, but is eventually glad to see her old friend. Rose is less glad and becomes jealous. Together, they find bat-like creatures sleeping in the headteacher's office, and run back out. Sarah Jane introduces them all to K-9, much to the Doctor's delight, and he helps Sarah Jane get him working again in a cafe. K-9 identifies them as Krillitanes, a species that can change shape to incorporate the best features of any other species they conquer. Their oil is put in the chips and causes the kids to become more intelligent, something Rose has adopted too as she's been eating them. The Doctor interrogates Finch the next morning, while Rose and Sarah Jane find out more about the Skasis Paradigm, something the Krillitanes are hoping to crack using the children. The Doctor explains that it would give them full control over time and space. Mickey and K-9 are left outside, but when student Kenny signals for help from inside the now-locked school, Mickey smashes the car in and meets up with the others as they are pursued by the Krillitanes. K-9 fights them off by shooting them. Mickey evacuates all of the kids, and K-9 volunteers to blow up the Krillitane's own oil, which is toxic to them. This causes the school to explode. Sarah Jane is distraught about losing K-9, but after she declines an offer to travel in the TARDIS again from the Doctor and says her goodbyes, she finds the Doctor has left a brand new model of K-9 behind just for her. Mickey decides to travel in the TARDIS instead, much to Rose's annoyance. I mentioned in the first post but it's probably worth reminding here that School Reunion was my first Doctor Who episode, so it certainly has a lot of nostalgia surrounding it for me. I watched it on a whim and I absolutely loved it, despite my vivid memories of having an ear infection meaning the volume had to be super high :lol: I watched the repeat the next day too, I'd totally fallen for this new show and School Reunion is an episode I continue to revisit often. Despite Sarah Jane's return having the potential to be continuity heavy, it didn't affect my enjoyment of the show at all and it was explained clearly that she was a previous companion. The Krillitanes weren't the most exciting villains ever and Anthony Head did ham up his role a little bit but the aliens felt a bit more secondary to this plot (as much as I enjoyed it), and the focus was on Sarah Jane. It's a lovely episode, and one I look back fondly at particularly due to the much missed Elisabeth Sladen.
June 7, 20178 yr Oh that's really not a special episode at all. I didn't realise it was this high - I'd place it in the bottom half of the countdown tbh.
June 7, 20178 yr Watching this and the Season 4 ending really get to me now, Sarah Jane was not only a FAB companion, but knowing Elizabeth is gone now makes me really emotional :( This had potential to be all soppy and soap opera ish but avoided that with a good plot and the reunion was perfect. The Doctor seeing how flawless Sarah Jane is *.*
June 7, 20178 yr The fact that Sarah Jane and K9 were in School Reunion lifted that above average, the actual plot with the bizarre bat things was pretty forgettable but it actually was a lot of fun put into practice. Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways, the slightly too out thereRose as Demi God conclusion aside, was a near perfect finale. Great set up, supporting cast and the Daleks were properly scary. Doctor Who finales are so hit and miss that this one feels particularly special. I was a bit gutted at the time that Chris was gone (I hadn't known he was going at that point), it just wasn't time yet </3 Edited June 7, 20178 yr by Chez Wombat
June 7, 20178 yr The story itself wasn't fantastic but it introduced / reintroduced us to Sarah Jane and without it we wouldn't have the fantastic SJA
June 7, 20178 yr Sarah Jane Smith should have been the companion again tbh, but always found the BBC to be a bit ageist.
June 7, 20178 yr It is incredible that, only in the 3rd episode of the second series, the show reintroduced a character not seen for 30 years. The success showed the effectiveness in the way that it did it, it could have completely allientated its new audience (majority wouldn't know/remember Sarah Jane) but it handled it so beautifully in a way that you didn't even need to know that there were previous series to the 2005 one. It was a way of saying Rose isn't the first and she won't be the last. It really was so brave but beautifully handled. The actual plot isn't the pinnacle of Doctor Who but there are some nice elements there, particularly for a school child watching at the time. So thankful for the episode that it gave a new lease of life for Sarah Jane though, allowing the excellance of Elisabeth Sladen to carry her own series. Taken away from us wasaay to soon, it would have been beautiful for her to see the 50th anniversary celebrations :heart:
June 8, 20178 yr Author http://i.imgur.com/RzouOE6.png 7 Human Nature / The Family of Blood Series 3, Episodes 8 and 9 Doctor: Tenth Companion: Martha Jones The Doctor and Martha are on the run from something or someone. In the TARDIS, the Doctor brings out a fob watch, and begins to explain what it is..... before the dream ends and John Smith wakes up! He's a teacher on Earth in an all boys school in 1913. Martha is one of the maids at the school. Smith begins to fall in love with the school nurse, Matron Joan Redfern. This alarms Martha, as she knows Smith is in fact the Doctor in human form, with his alien identity stored inside the fob watch. He left her a set of instructions to follow if she needs help but typical for the Doctor, he didn't think about falling in love. Meanwhile, one of the students, Jeremy Baines, heads out to find a secret stash of beer, and finds an invisible spaceship. He returns without the beer, instead possessed by something. Another three people get possessed with the help of scarecrows brought to life - farmer Mr. Clark, young girl Lucy Cartwright, and Martha's maid friend Jenny. Together, they form the Family of Blood, on the lookout for the alien Doctor to prolong their very short lifespans. Martha finds out that Jenny is possessed and makes a run for it, hoping to bring the Doctor back with the fob watch, but instead, it has vanished. Martha doesn't realise that young student Timothy Latimer has taken it, after he heard voices from it. At the village dance that night, the Family arrive and speak to Smith, who adamantly refuses that he's an alien, despite having had vivid dreams about the Doctor's real life adventures. They try and force a confession out of him, by making him decide who to kill - Joan or Martha. When Tim briefly opens the fob watch, causing the Family to get distracted, Martha manages to acquire one of the guns and tells Smith and Joan to escape. They head back to the school, and the students begin preparing for a war. The headteacher tries to negotiate with Son of Mine (Baines) but is killed in cold blood. The students fight off the scarecrows at first but struggle as more keep coming, and after Daughter of Mine sees Tim with the fob watch, the Family sift their way through the boys to find him. Smith, Joan and Martha escaped to Lucy Cartwright's family home to discuss what to do. Joan realises that Smith is in fact the Doctor, and with the help of Tim's arrival with the fob watch, she reluctantly encourages him to become the Doctor, giving up the life they would've had together, and save everyone. Smith bumbles his way into the Family's spaceship, knocking loads of buttons accidentally, giving up the fob watch on the basis that he can stay human. When they open the watch, it's totally empty and they realise Smith is in fact the Doctor and he's tricked them. Furthermore, the buttons he knocked will cause the ship to explode. They run to escape, and whilst they manage that, the Doctor then imprisons them all in a way that they can indeed live forever - Father of Mine is wrapped in unbreakable chains in a dwarf star, Mother of Mine is tricked into the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy, Daughter of Mine is trapped inside every mirror, and Son of Mine becomes a scarecrow himself, being suspended in time. The Doctor could've defeated them much sooner, but chose to hide out of mercy. The Doctor then gives Tim the Fob Watch - something that, alongside his psychic abilities, saves him during World War I just a year later. The Doctor and Martha visit an elderly Tim at a World War I memorial service. It's interesting that even a story that barely features the main character can be absolutely thrilling to watch. The Doctor himself is barely seen throughout the episode despite David Tennant's portrayal of John Smith, a man who has no idea that he's actually a Time Lord from another planet. It's a beautiful story and shows just how alien the Doctor is - not considering the different human aspects such as falling in love, and the fact that his human self will forge a life that he enjoys living. David, Freema and Jessica Hynes all give stellar performances in the emotional character moments of the episode too. The Family are an excellent creation, very inventive and a genuine threat, and the resolution to the storyline was handled excellently, particularly as they all received eternal life, just not in the way they expected. It's hard to pick a fault in this emotional two-parter but once again, it's proof that taking a risk in Doctor Who can most certainly pay off.
June 8, 20178 yr Are you joking!! :lol: Any episode with Martha Jones is basically crap with 2 exceptions. That is not one of them. Radical Martha Jones TROLL!!!!
June 8, 20178 yr good to see Human Nature/The Family Of Blood in the top ten here, that's my season 3 favourite. Seems to get overlooked in many 'best DW episodes' lists too.
June 8, 20178 yr I wasn't too keen on "Family of Blood" when I first saw it, but looking back it is a really flawless piece of storytelling. The villains are genuinely threatening, especially given that The Doctor is in a weak state, there's a real moral decision, where John Smith has to decide between happiness as a human or life as The Doctor (effectively "killing" himself in the process), and the twist, that the Doctor hid not out of fear, but out of mercy, was one of the strongest denouements to an episode of Doctor Who. Might have to revisit it.
June 8, 20178 yr Omg that isn't the one where she walks the earth for him LMAO and he turns into Dobby in more cases of Doc Who tryna be Harry Potter? ATROCIOUS
June 8, 20178 yr Author Omg that isn't the one where she walks the earth for him LMAO and he turns into Dobby in more cases of Doc Who tryna be Harry Potter? ATROCIOUS That's Last of the Time Lords!
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