Yay, Martha!! Organize and save the folks when the Doctor is still all confused and dithery human. She is very brave! And Nurse / Matron is pretty together as well. Of course, Mr. Smith doesn't want to listen to/know about this stuff 'cuz he doesn't like what it might mean to him. And Nurse / Matron is more . . . practical that that, I'm thinking.
(Side note - the family folk are very very very creepy. Have I mentioned that they're creepy? Especially the two "kids". But mum is also creepy and mean and creepy - "And she went with precious little dignity. All that *makes screamy noises*."
)
Hmmmm. Scarecrows are not the brightest minion bulbs on the tree, are they?
Getting the gun by letting Martha go. I mean, yay Martha, but duh!
Hmmmm. The smart school kid is all "you're as bad as them" to Mr. Smith!Doctor. Because of what he's seen of the Doctor in comparison? Because he can see the future?
Take arms - enemy at the door. Oh, that doesn't sound good.
And the Family is gonna find the TARDIS, I just know.
Yes, smart kid is listening to the Doctor in the watch to know what to do. Clever lad!
OK, I just have to keep on mentioning the creepy family stuff, because they really did an excellent job with it. The whole scene where the former-school-kid-now-icky-alien talks to the headmaster? Eeeeeep!
"You speak with someone else's voice." (The actor playing the headmaster was excellent. He got me to sort of admire the character even though I disagreed with him quite a bit.) "Mr. Smith said there had been deaths."
"Yes, sir. And they were good, sir." (**shivers every time he says "sir".)
"What do you know of history? What do you know of next year?" Eeeeeee!
Creepy creepy creepy.
Whoa. A mini-war at the school . . . foreshadowing the big war that these (not much older) kids will be fighting soon.
The floppiness of the scarecrow army is scary and funny at the same time.
Mr. Smith helps the kids get ready.
"War comes to England."
Yep. Nurse / Matron is dealing with the truth - better than Mr. Smith. "And alien means, not from abroad, I take it." Hee!
Interesting conversation with Martha. A woman can't be a doctor, and certainly not one of your color. Martha proves it and she still wants to push it away. These matter of fact things from our time are just as hard for her to believe as the stuff about aliens from other worlds. She's having all her beliefs shaken, isn't she?
Ah, now she starts pushing Mr. Smith to talk about his actual childhood and memories. All his descriptions are like an encyclopedia. This life has just been downloaded into him as facts, not as the feeling of a real life. Interesting. Very different than, say, Dawn and the monks. 'Course, that also goes back to the old argument about whether or not the monks just changed everyones memories or actually changed the time line.
The John Smith she was getting to know wouldn't want the kids to be sent to fight, never mind the Doctor. Yeah, I think she's got a point there.
Ooooh. Smart kid tells the other one "You and I survive this" - 'cuz he's seen them later, in the war. He runs off to do what needs to be done to safeguard the Doctor's substance.
Heee! "You filthy coward!" "Oh yes, sir. Every time!" ;D
Eeeep! Now they know! "Find the boy, and the watch."
All those little boy faces, scared and firing the guns. John S sees and knows it's wrong.
Straw. "Then no one's dead. We killed no one." So relieved . . .
Is anyone else creeped out by balloon-holding (what a great dramatic burst of color that is, nice visual!) skipping little Blood Family girl? Not just me? Oh, good!
Headmaster wants the little girl taken off "the field of battle", which is logical, but . . .
"Now who's gonna shoot? Any of you
really?" Eeeep!
Run away, run away, run away! Um. I mean, retreat! In an orderly fashion!
Oooh. Smart kid keeps opening the watch and then running. So he can distract them and save the kids they were going to kill and so on. He really is smart. Well, and paying attention to the Doctor in the watch, too, I bet.
Ah. Martha starts making Mr. Smith face up to some reality.
She doesn't want to hurt him, but, dude! Look at what's happening!
"I'm sorry, John."
"I'm John Smith. That's all I want to be."
"We need the Doctor!"
"I'm just a story . . ."
Heh! Matron tells him to hide "just listen to me for once"! ;D Good one.
She took them to the little girl's family house, because she knew . . . knew they'd be gone/dead.
Oh, we're gonna get lots of angst, aren't we?
Why does the Doctor need companions? Because he's lonely. "And that's what yo want me to become?"
Watch told kid to hide the Doctor from Mr Smith until now . . . clever! Wait until it was necessary or until there was a chance.
Family is exploding the village . . . means that, of course, ultimately Mr. Smith will choose to become the Doctor again, yes? He won't be able to let all those people die.
So, he hears that Martha loves the Doctor. Hears that Matron loves Mr. Smith, but still knows he needs to become the Doctor, even if that ruins their future. "He won't love you." "If he's not you, I don't want him." His decision . . . Hmmm. But this isn't exactly like "Ben would die and all there would be is Glory". It's not even like "this timeline's Giles disappears and never was, while the other timeline's Giles goes on, and this Giles has hope that the other is better". This is like . . . like this other you that you don't know and don't like the sound of takes over. And you have no idea of how much of "you" will still be there.
Huh. So, Mr. Smith is just gonna give up? Don't believe it. Hmmmm. Fumbling around in the ship or . . .
Aha! Yes! Yay Doctor! "You shouldn't have let me push all those buttons." ;D
Ooooh, scary Doctor! "He never raised his voice. That was the worst thing." Doctor had hidden to be kind. Ah, because he knew they'd never stop and he'd have to destroy them. Tried to avoid that, let them die off naturally, like mayflies.
This is classic Doctor. He'll give the other species every opportunity to not do the bad thing. Try to avoid violence toward them. But if they don't turn aside? Ruthless. More ruthless than they could have imagined.
"We wanted to live forever, so he made sure that we did." **shivers**
Doctor asks Matron to come along and see how it goes. Doesn't pretend he's still John Smith or that it would be the same or guarantee anything. Just, do you want to try or not.
"John Smith is dead and you look like him." Well, this is different than when he regenerates. John Smith was a tiny part of the Doctor. Regeneration means all of him as he was before (once the change is all integrated) and new stuff as well.
"If the Doctor hadn't chosen this place, on a whim . . . Would anybody have died?" Ah. Really that says it all about why she can't go with. And he knows it. Because the answer is yes. But the Doctor lives with these decisions and consequences.
Martha back in her now!time duds.
Oooh, future-seeing kid! Gives him the watch for "good luck". Ah! Saves him when he'd have been killed by bomb in WWI.
Nice. We see just a year or so into the future and then many years, when he's an old man at the remembrance ceremony. And Martha and the Doctor are there. Full circle, as it were.
By the by, did I mention the bad guys in this were very successfully creepy? Just wanted to make sure I didn't forget to make that point. ;D
**shivers one last time**
)
Getting the gun by letting Martha go. I mean, yay Martha, but duh!
And the Family is gonna find the TARDIS, I just know. 
