Reception
Along with "The Family of Blood", "Human Nature" was nominated for the 2008 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. David Tennant won the Constellation Award for Best Male Performance in a 2007 Science Fiction Television Episode for the two-part story.
The episode also received a favourable review from The Stage with reviewer Mark Wright commenting that the episode "is unlike any Doctor Who story you'll ever see", and that there was "nothing duff" about the episode. Wright singles out the performances of Agyeman and Tennant for considerable praise and he concludes by describing the episode as "BAFTA worthy Drama". IGN's Travis Fickett gave "Human Nature" a rating of 9.1 out of 10, writing that it "has some of the highest caliber of writing the series has seen". He particularly praised the performances of Stevenson and Sangster and the episode's "more deliberate pace". While he noted that the Family with Baines in particular were creepy, he felt that the scarecrows "might seem a little silly" to older viewers.
In 2009, Doctor Who Magazine readers voted "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood" as the sixth best Doctor Who story of all time. Matt Wales of IGN named the two-part story the best episode of Tennant's tenure as the Doctor, describing it as "stunningly produced" and praising Tennant's performance. The Daily Telegraph named it the seventh greatest episode in 2008.
Read more about this topic: Human Nature (Doctor Who Episode)
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