I appreciate the Doctor Who team keeping the best ’til last. The season offered a lot from the get-go, but the quality seems to have got better and better over time. Following on from ‘Human Nature‘, ‘The Family of Blood‘ offered a satisfying conclusion to a complex tale, with action, excitement, explosions and poignancy aplenty.

The Family continued to offer some top grade evil, though the Doctor almost out-eviled them at the end with his diabolical punishment for each member. The whole plotline with the nurse got quite heart-rending in the end, with the fob watch offering a glimpse of a happy (if foreshortened) future for the Doctor as a mere mortal.

The assault on the school mirrored the tragic violence yet to come in the Great War, where soldiers instead of scarecrows would fall like ragdolls under the withering fire of machine guns. John Smith realised the terrible wrong inherent in exposing such young men to the horrors of war… In the following year, soldiers would go to war expecting to spend only weeks or months on the front, treating the whole affair like some minor skirmish or a game of war. By 1918, the effects of the Great War would scar the consciousness of Great Britain forever.

The Doctor’s sneaky activities in the Family’s ship reminded me of the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) in his earlier days, the butterfingered clown knocking into and falling over things with minimal provocation.

Stirring stuff and a very welcome distraction indeed!

Driving to work this morning, I realised just how little Who remains before the end of the season – just four episodes.

In the midst of this mournful epiphany I did, however, glean a glimmer of hope… in less than two weeks Jack will be back! I thought about this for a moment, wondering why this might make a difference… and I’m not really sure. I love Captain Jack. Simple as that. Not in a sexual way or anything. I just find Jack… well, fun. Barrowman seems fun too, so it might just be the whole person that works for me.

When Captain Jack joined the TARDIS crew in Season One, I had a whale of a time watching. It might help that Jack arrived in one of the shows finest stories so far and departed in the equally impressive Dalek two-parter at season close. Torchwood gave Jack a new bittersweet spin, which sort of worked and kind of didn’t… but, whatever happened Captain Harkness remained entertaining, though thick and thin. I hope to see the old Jack back in Utopia, tempered by his recent experiences and desertion by the Ninth Doctor.

Hee-hee… Jack’s back!

The BBC Doctor Who site rested the Human Nature e-book running up to the TV version of the story, but now it’s back. As well as the whole New Adventures novel, with pictures and notes by Paul Cornell, you now also get your hands on a new article about how he adapted the novel for television. Enjoy it!