Doctor: David Tennant (Tenth Doctor)
Companion: Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones)
Others
Jessica Hynes – Joan Redfern
Harry Lloyd – Jeremy Baines
Thomas Sangster – Timothy Latimer
Tom Palmer – Hutchinson
Pip Torrens – Rocastle
Rebekah Staton – Jenny
Gerard Horan – Mr. Clark
Lauren Wilson – Lucy Cartwright
Matthew White – Phillips
Sophie Turner – Vicar
Production
Directed by Charles Palmer
Written by Paul Cornell
Script editor Lindsey Alford
Produced by Susie Liggat
Executive producer(s) Russell T Davies
Julie Gardner
Phil Collinson
Incidental music composer Murray Gold
Production code 3.9
Series Series 3
Length 2nd of 2-part story, 45 minutes
Originally broadcast 2 June 2007
Following the events of "Human Nature", the Family of Blood hold Martha and Joan Redfern captive at the village dance and are forcing John Smith to choose which of them to sacrifice. While John struggles to understand what is happening, Timothy Latimer briefly opens the fob watch containing the Doctor's Time Lord essence. This momentarily distracts the Family, enabling Martha to grab a gun and escape with the others back to the school. John sounds the alarm and helps to organise the school's defenses while Martha and Joan search for the watch.
The Family assault the school with an army of animated scarecrows, but the schoolboys, who have military training, defend themselves against the first wave. When the Family shows John that they have discovered his TARDIS, Joan accepts the truth that John is really the Doctor. The Family continue their assault while John, Joan and Martha escape to an empty house in the village. They are found by Timothy, who returns the watch to them. Discovering that the Doctor has escaped, the Family begin an aerial bombardment of the village from their hidden ship. Martha and Joan implore John to use the watch to become the Doctor and save everyone. John breaks down in tears, reluctant to give up Joan. The two share a vision, enabled by the fob watch, of what their lives would be like together as humans.
John makes his way to the Family's ship, and stumbles in clumsily while offering to surrender the watch in exchange for the Family stopping the bombardment. The Family open the watch and discover it is empty, meaning that John has already changed back into the Doctor. The bumbling was a ruse to quietly initiate the ship's self-destruct mechanism. The Doctor and the Family escape the explosion, but the Doctor captures them and issues each member an eternal punishment. He pushes the mother out of the TARDIS into the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy, wraps the father in unbreakable chains forged in the heart of a dwarf star, traps their daughter in every mirror everywhere in existence, and suspends their son in time before putting him to work as a scarecrow. Narrating this conclusion, the son realises that the Doctor was capable of defeating them from the start, but chose to hide instead out of mercy. The Doctor returns to Joan and offers her a chance to travel with him in the TARDIS, but she refuses. The Doctor offers to start over with her, but she rebukes him for having chosen to hide in her time period; she asks, as a way of making a point (and assigning blame), whether anyone would have died had he not done so. The Doctor leaves his journal with her and departs.
Timothy bids them goodbye and the Doctor gives him the fob watch to keep. One year later, during a battle in World War I, Timothy remembers a vision of a bombing and avoids being killed. Later, in his old age, Timothy spots the Doctor and Martha in attendance at a Remembrance Day ceremony. Timothy, the Doctor, and Martha silently acknowledge each other as Timothy still clutches the watch.
The Family of Blood