Episode 8: Human Nature (The Jones Review)

The Doctor is back! After a shaky start, followed by a dire double then a few good episodes, it finally looks like the new Who is back on form. The two problems I found with this episode were slight to say the least. 1) the impossible cricket ball was too convoluted and 2) I have to wait a whole week for part 2 - dammit!

Human Nature is so rife with references and Who trivia that I may have to watch it several times to get them all. From the history laden notebooks, the Doctor's parental references through to the re-appearance of Bessie, there was much to make a Who-fan's pulse race. Jessica Stevenson (now credited as Jess Hynes) is a great casting for the school nurse, as are the creepy 'cambridge-spies' types as the resident nasty toff students.

The story unfolds gradually, though not too cryptically from the action packed opening sequence onwards. The tension is not kept too long as you piece together the events that lead to the Doctor and Martha's undercover experience. The real treat is in the detail of the period, the 1913 look and feel that the BBC can seemingly recreate at will. Add to this the slow unwinding of the Doctor's current dilemma, the truly scary scarecrows (Which Mike should love as much more horrific than last weeks solarmonster) and the temperment of the times clashing with Martha's emancipated black woman of 2007.

There were no Saxon refs that I caught - unless the hymn they were singing at the start (which references serving the Master) is a deliberately oblique one. Martha pines for the Doctor again, but this time I feel they have got it bang on with Joan, Doctor and Martha forming a nice triangle. Tennant seems quite subdued and erratic, much like many absent-minded genius professors, and this is where I think he does best. Quiet, brooding, disctracted and suddenly popping into life to deliver some quality Who moments.

All too soon the episode draws to a climactic close and for once I am dying for next weeks epiosde to roll around. If a comparison must be drawn then I would say that this epiosde is on par with 'The Empty Child' from Eccleston's season, it had the same dark and foreboding feel along with a huge hook into the second part. Don't quite know how they will encompass all the detail that looks rife in next weeks episode, which seems to cover many years, but I really, REALLY need to find out soon.