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Human Nature was the fourth serial of Season 35 of Doctor Who. It was written by Paul Cornell, directed by Richard Stroud and starred Hugh Bonneville as the Ninth Doctor & Beverley Cressman as Abigail Norwood.

Synopsis[]

April, 1914. The inhabitants of the little Norfolk town of Farringham are enjoying an early summer, unaware that war is on the way. Amongst them is Dr John Smith, a tall, young history teacher from Aberdeen. He's having a hard time with his new post as house master at Hulton College, a school dedicated to producing military officers.

Abigail Norwood is enjoying her holiday in the town, getting over the terrible events that befell her in France. But then she meets a future Doctor, and things start to get dangerous very quickly. With the Doctor she knows gone, and only a suffragette and an elderly rake for company, can Abigail fight off a vicious alien attack? And will Dr Smith be able to save the day?

Plot[]

To be added.

Cast[]

  • The Doctor / John Smith - Hugh Bonneville
  • Abigail Norwood - Beverley Cressman
  • Joan Redfern - To be added.
  • Alexander Shuttleworth - To be added.
  • August - To be added.
  • Greeneye - To be added.
  • Laylock - To be added.
  • Serif - To be added.
  • Aphasia - To be added.
  • Hoff - To be added.
  • Jac - To be added.
  • Sarah - To be added.
  • Lucy - To be added.
  • Timothy Dean - To be added.
  • Anand - To be added.
  • Andrew Abbott - To be added.
  • Clive Alton - To be added.
  • Hadleigh-Scott - To be added.
  • Hutchinson - To be added.
  • Captain Merryweather - To be added.
  • Phipps - To be added.
  • Jill and Jenny - To be added.
  • Mrs Windrush - To be added.
  • Mr Hodges - To be added.
  • Constance Harding - To be added.
  • Mr Sangster - To be added.
  • Alec - To be added.
  • Sergeant Abeland - To be added.
  • Constable Bickerston - To be added.
  • Nathan Bottomley - To be added.
  • Horace - To be added.
  • Richard Hadleman - To be added.
  • George Rocastle - To be added.
  • Mrs Denman - To be added.
  • Mr Challpner - To be added.
  • Mr Moffat - To be added.
  • Miss Robertson - To be added.
  • Major Wrightson - To be added.
  • Stanley - To be added.
  • Torrence - To be added.

Crew[]

To be added.

Worldbuilding[]

Astronomical objects[]

  • The Aubertides state that Earth is in the arm of Mutter's Spiral in the Stellarian Galaxy, whilst Gallifrey is at the core.

Biology[]

  • Timothy Dean becomes infected with the Doctor's Time Lord DNA and gains a second heart and a respiratory bypass system. He is hanged by his classmates, but is saved by his respiratory bypass system.

Foods and beverages[]

  • The Doctor hates pears.
  • Abigail refers to Mr Kipling pies. Bottomley thinks she is referring to Rudyard Kipling.

Individuals[]

  • Herbert Asquith is the prime minister.
  • Abigail pretends to be Smith's niece.
  • John Smith claims to be thirty-five years old.
  • John's faked credentials claim he is from the Flavian Academy of Aberdeen.
  • John plays cricket.
  • Joan compares John to Walt Whitman.
  • Joan's husband, Arthur, died in a war.
  • Alexander Shuttleworth is Benny's landlord. His uncle fought in the Second Boer War.
  • Greeneye pretends to be the tenth incarnation of the Doctor.
  • Richard enlisted in the army in 1914 and earned the rank of Captain. He fought in the Battle of the Somme in July 1916.
  • Timothy Dean worked in the Red Cross during World War I and died in 1995 with many children and grandchildren.
  • Clive Alton is a Time Lord, undercover as a student to ensure the situation remains under control.
  • John and Joan often play whist.

Influences[]

  • Paul Cornell was heavily inspired by Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces, in particular the stage known as the “apotheosis”, in which a hero gave up everything in order to gain enlightenment.

Languages[]

  • Cruk is a profanity which Greeneye and Benny often use.

Literature[]

  • A boy reads the magazine Boy's Own.
  • Bernice finds copies of Le Morte D'Arthur and A Study in Scarlet in a bookshop.
  • When speaking to Timothy about the morality of war, John quotes from Henry V.
  • John writes children's stories, including The Old Man and the Police Box, about a lonely elderly man who invented a police box that was bigger on the inside. The man travelled to the planet Gallifrey and there encountered a primitive tribe and showed them many secrets of the universe.

Occupations[]

  • John Smith and Joan Redfern work at Hulton College.
  • John Smith is a history teacher.
  • Joan Redfern is a science teacher. She doesn't like teaching at the school.

Organisations[]

  • Constance is a suffragette and a member of the WSPU. She is modelling herself on Emily Davison.
  • Richard Hadleman attends the local Labour group. He intends to become a local MP.
  • Greeneye refers to Interventionists, members of the Celestial Intervention Agency.
  • The Doctor takes the pod to the Monks of Felsecar.

Personifications of concepts[]

  • Death collects Smith as a life owed by the Doctor.

Species[]

  • The Aubertides are from the planet Aubris. They are shape-shifters, and reproduce asexually via buds on their backs.
  • The Doctor has created a clay model of a Zygon.

Time Lords[]

  • The Doctor claims that Time Lords dream of what it is to be able to fly, be a different sex or to have a child.

Titles[]

  • Bernice describes herself as the current occupier of the Proxima University Chair Of Archaeology and holder of the Martian Gallantry Medal.

Notes[]

  • Abigail claims John's brother Jonathan has returned to Gallifrey in Ireland. (TV: The Hand of Fear)
  • John recalls knowing a Barbara in Rome. (TV: The Romans)
  • John recalls a man with a beard who always upset his experiments. (TV: Terror of the Autons et al.)
  • In the story The Old Man and the Police Box, John writes of how the people of Gallifrey can no longer have children. (TV: Lungbarrow)
  • The Doctor claims that Time Lords dream of what it would be like to become the opposite sex. The Tenth Doctor would later temporarily swap bodies with Jean Robinson (TV: Wrong Lives) & the Twelfth Doctor would later meet a female incantation of The Master, indicating they could change sex during regeneration. (TV: The Resurrected) This was later confirmed when The Thirteenth Doctor would later state he knew the Corsair in both male and female incarnations. (TV: The House of Nothing) The Doctor himself eventually regenerated into a female body. (TV: The Last Life)
  • John says that he is Merlin. (TV: Battlefield, Battleground et al.)
  • John mentions living seaweed to Joan, much to her amusement. (TV: Fury from the Deep)
  • When drawing on the Doctor's personality, John says "there's another way" (TV: Warriors of the Deep) and "throw away your gun". (TV: The Happiness Patrol)

Continuity[]

To be added.

Home video releases[]

VHS[]

  • This story was first released on VHS.

DVD[]

  • This story along with the other stories in Season 35 were released as Doctor Who: The Complete Thirty-Fifth Season in 2003.

Blu-ray[]

  • This story along with the other stories in Season 35 were upscaled in 1080i50 high definition and were released as Doctor Who: The Collection - Season 35 in the UK.
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