Day 732: Human Nature

Human Nature has an interesting story about its conception. It was first written by Paul Cornell in 1995, where it was published as a Doctor Who New Adventure novel. The concept was that the Doctor, keen to empathise with humans, turns himself into a human known as John Smith, setting into motion a series of beautiful and tragic events as the Doctor experiences all that humanity has to offer. It is a very good novel, and I have a very fond memory of reading it on a train journey to Sydney whilst on break from University. Now, it wasn't just admired by me, it was admired by an awful lot of people, including Russell T Davies, who brought Cornell back to Series 3 with the intention of having him adapt Human Nature for the television series.

There are some substantial differences between the two Human Natures, ranging from the villains, the cutting of various sub-plots and, of course, the changing of Doctor from Sylvester McCoy to David Tennant (and companion from Bernice Summerfield to Martha Jones). That said, the key things still remain the same. The Doctor still becomes human. He is still hunted for his Time Lord abilities. He still falls in love. The story is still in the shadow of the oncoming Great War, which gives some excellent moments as we realise that the schoolboys, while not necessarily being trained to become soldiers, are going to end up that way anyway. But there's still one difference that I think is rather interesting between the two.

The intention of the Doctor in the original story was, as I mentioned previously, to empathise with humans. In the television version, however, the Doctor is forced into it out of necessity in order to escape from the Family of Blood. This changes the focus of the story, in my opinion. For the novel version, it is essentially a story about the Doctor trying to be human, but unfortunately having to deal with an alien menace that forces him to give up his life as John Smith. For the television version, on the other hand, the story is about the Doctor avoiding an alien menace by becoming human, making the attack by the Family of Blood more inevitable as part of how events would eventually unfurl. It also means that John Smith, in the television version, is nothing more than a by-product, a man who was created out of necessity rather than want. It makes his final scenes feel slightly more tragic, as he begs for his own life, with Martha and the implied Doctor not even having considered that John's life might come into play.

But that's all looking forward to the next episode. But I suppose it's natural to look forward, after all, it's Human Nature.