9. The Doctor Pretends To Be John Smith In The Family's Spaceship
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4xm9NHNUf8 The two-part story Human Nature/The Family of Blood in Series 3 provides Tennant with myriad opportunities to shine. He plays the human John Smith so differently from the Time Lord that it's easy to accept that they are two completely separate people. Even more impressively, there's a moment when Tennant seamlessly transitions from Smith to the Doctor before the viewers' eyes, showing just how versatile he is. It happens when Smith enters the Family's spaceship to offer them the Doctor's watch, and all the secrets it contains, in exchange for the lives of those he loves. The possessed Baines takes the watch and shoves Smith into a control panel. As Smith cowers on the floor, Baines opens the watch... only to find that it is empty. And Smith is revealed to be the Doctor merely pretending to be human with a simple "olfactory misdirection". The Doctor might be an alien but he understands humans well enough to impersonate one. What happens next is chilling. It's not the part where the Family's ship explodes due to the Doctor's sabotage. It's his subsequent merciless revenge on each Family member - the unrestrained "fury of the Time Lord" - that makes viewers' blood run cold. To remind everyone just how scary the Doctor can be when there isn't a companion around to serve as a moderating influence, here's a video showing the entire sequence beginning with "Smith" entering the Family' ship.
Mike Morgan
Contributor
Mike has lived in the UK, Japan and the USA. Currently, he is based in Iowa with his wife and 2 young children. After working for many years as a writer and editor for a large corporation, he is now a freelancer. He has been fortunate enough to contribute to many books on Doctor Who over the last 20 years and is now concentrating on original sci-fi & fantasy short stories, with recent sales including Flame Tree, Uffda, and The Martian Wave. Also, look for his contribution on Blake's 7 to "You and Who Else", a charity anthology to be released later this year.
You can find him on Tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/culttvmike
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