I’ve been saving this up because I thought I’d write about the last three Dr Who episodes of this half of the series together. So in this blog entry we’re going to deal with ‘The Rebel Flesh’, ‘The Almost People’ and then move on to ‘A Good Man goes to War’. I’m going to include spoilers because they’ve all been and gone and if you haven’t caught up on the IPlayer by now you’re obviously not a real fan.
So there.
Deal with it.
So ‘The Rebel Flesh’ feels a lot more familiar compared to the Whovian love letter that was ‘The Doctor’s Wife’. The Tardis Trio arrive at an island acid mining facility set in the not too distant future where dangerous tasks are carried out by ‘gangers’, replicas of you that can be destroyed without harming you and that can only exist when you’re plugged into a machine. It’s basically all gone a bit ‘Avatar’. Then there’s a freak solar storm and Bob’s your Uncle, there are gangers running around without any need of their human counterparts. Then it all takes a turn for the worse when the gangers (who have memories and emotions just like their original templates) decide they want to live the lives that have been given to them, lives the humans won’t give up without a fight. So there’s a great deal of running around, the gangers steal some acid suits which give them the upper hand and in a cliff-hanger that had me squealing and running around the house like the girl that I am, we were left with the Doctor having his very own ganger.
‘The Almost People’ follows on exactly where the previous episode finished. The ganger Doctor learning to cope with 900 odd years of memories (there’s a lovely bit to appease the super fans where the ganger Doctor starts quoting previous regenerations of the Doctor "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" and the mention of Jelly Babies made me smile), ganger Jennifer fooling Rory into thinking she’s the real thing and Amy being a bit of a bitch to the newly created Dr Two. There are a lot of interactions between the Doctor and Amy that remind me of the episode ‘The Beast below’. He gets a bit shirty with her which I kind of enjoy because it just reminds us all that the companions are not always purest of heart and that sometimes, for all his compassion, the Doctor gets annoyed that humans aren’t always the nicest life form in the universe.
They’ve really gone for a moral message with these two episodes which I didn’t mind too much. A lot of it is about tolerance and prejudice and while I think it’s handled well most of the time, however in parts I did feel like I was being force fed the ideas behind it all.
Another little niggle was the naff CGI. There are two instances where ganger Jennifer goes all CGI, once where her head goes all Stretch Armstrong on your ass and the second where she turns into something that looks like the Gary Oldman Spider/Crab man from the film ‘Lost in Space’. Both times the CGI is shocking in comparison to the prosthetics and make up expertly applied to the gangers to make them look all melty and what not. Sort it out Moff!
I liked the fact it wasn’t a traditional monster, I suppose it could be argued that both the gangers and humans could be monsters, after all the humans are pretty awful at times. There’s a bit where Rory and (unbeknownst to him) ganger Jennifer come across a pile of bits of old gangers that have been left to rot by the employees of the plant, also human Cleaves is the first one to draw weapons when she kills one of the gangers for no reason other than she decided it was an ‘us and them’ situation.
I was very impressed by a couple of the performances. Arthur Darvill shines once more as Rory and his compassion for Jennifer is adorable. Raquel Cassidy is really good as Cleaves, ballsy to begin with but softens up towards the end and Sarah Smart plays Jennifer on the borderline of mentally unhinged. For the umpteenth time this series I’ve been seriously impressed by Matt Smith. He acts his little socks off in these two episodes.
Get ready for a big statement… He’s overtaken Tenant as my favourite Doctor.
There’s a nice little ending for the immediate story with Cleaves getting a cure for the clot in her head and realising the importance of tolerance. Two of the gangers get turned into proper humans Pinocchio style and the three of them walk off into the headquarters of their company ready to bring an end to the mistreatment of gangers (this bit reminded me a bit of the end of ‘Moon’ where Sam brings down the moon mining organisation).
So overall not groundbreaking stuff but provided enough for me to be thoroughly entertained throughout.
But that is not where out tale ends good reader.
After the ‘alls well that ends well’ ending for the gangers the Doctor, Rory and Amy head back into the Tardis and Amy starts having really bad stomach cramps. Rory, naturally, comes to the aid of his wife only to find the Doctor telling him to step away. The Doctor says and Rory are coming to get her as we find out the Amy we’re looking at is in fact a ganger and the Doctor melts her with his sonic screwdriver. The real Amy wakes up in a little white chamber to find she’s 9 months pregnant and has just started contractions.
OMFG!!!! MOFF YOU LEGEND! You mastermind! I love it!
So after all that awesomeness I couldn’t wait for the next episode.
‘A Good Man goes to War’ starts with Rory threatening a fleet of Cybermen meanwhile on Demons Run (a secret military space base) Amy is talking to the newly christened Melody about her Dad. It’s another one of those ‘Amy sounding like she’s talking about the Doctor and then you realise she’s actually talking about Rory’ type things that I still like because I love how much Rory loves Amy and vice versa but I think they need to stop it now. We know its Rory that Amy loves so let’s just leave it at that. This is when we meet Lorna Bucket. Lorna is a Cleric from the Gamma Forests who claims to have met the Doctor before. She gives Amy a prayer leaf with the name of her child written in the language of the
Back with the Doctor and Rory, they secure the location of Demons Run by destroying the Cybermen task force and then set about amassing several people that are indebted to the Doctor. So the Doctor, Rory and their band of comrades rock up to Demons Run and send all the Clerics running scared. There’s a cute little scene with Rory, Amy and Melody where we discover the Doctor speaks baby. Then there’s a Basil exposition scene where it’s revealed that Melody has a bit of Timelord DNA due to the fact she was conceived on the Tardis. Lorna Bucket, on over hearing Madame Kovarian explaining the trap she’d left for the Doctor, runs in telling everyone they’re in danger when the headless monks show up and kill her, Dorium and Commander Strax (the Sontaran).
We then find out that Madame Kovarian has done a bit of a switcharoo with poor little baby Melody and Amy has in fact been carrying around a ganger version of her baby. When it seems that all hope has gone River Song shows her face and pretty much tells the Doctor he’s getting too powerful and is losing himself to anger and his own wrath. Then the pay off we’ve all been waiting for. The Doctor demands to know who she is and the Doctor and River have one of those conversations where very little actually gets said then he tells Amy and Rory not to worry and speeds off in the Tardis across the Universe to bring back Melody. Amy, rightly so, gets annoyed and demands to know what’s going on. River then lets us all in on the secret, she is Melody Pond; she is Rory and Amy’s daughter.
They must have ransacked the wardrobe department to get all the costumes for this. This episode features Judoon, Sontaran, Silurian, Dorium Maldovar, the Clerics, Captain Avery and Toby, Headless Monks and the Cybermen. If that sounds like a lot it’s because it is a lot. There’s an awful lot happening in this episode and the sheer number of characters involved just adds to the confusion. That said, it all looks very glossy and slick, especially when you compare it to the shoddy CGI in the last couple of episodes.
I didn’t just find the number of characters confusing the sheer speed of the episode left my head spinning. Dr Who is supposed to be fast paced, I know that, but this was insane. I had to give it my complete, devoted attention and even then I watched the episode a second time just to try and straighten it all out in my head. Also Lorna Bucket. Why? The way she was introduced made me think she’d be an important character but it was all a bit anti-climactic, the Doctor didn’t even remember her. Maybe it’ll be a pay off for the next half of the series, maybe the Doctor didn’t know her because he hasn’t met her yet? It seems the way with this series that even when we have an episode that explains something it throws up something else and we end up asking another 5 questions.
I found this episode notably darker. I know this whole series has been a bit dark (with the exception of ‘The Curse of the Black Spot’) but in this episode the Doctor seems uncharacteristically malicious. I suppose he’s meant to be so River can come in at the end and berate him for being so vengeful. It seems like it’s building him up for a fall. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an episode on it’s way like the ‘The Waters of Mars’ where the 10th Doctor thinks he can change the future because he’s the last time lord and goes too far.
I’d just like to say that before I saw this episode my family and I took bets on who River Song was and I got it right. As soon as the words ‘Melody Pond’ leapt from the Doctor’s mouth it didn’t take a word association genius to make the connection. Although we discovered the origins of the mysterious Doctor Song her relationship to the Doctor is still not fully resolved. The audience is just left to assume that she’ll ultimately become the Doctor’s wife.
I must confess I did feel slightly let down by this episode. It didn’t leave us on a big a cliff-hanger as I’d have liked and although I was entertained the pace and amount of characters made my head spin. Ultimately it was fine, not great, just fine.
We shall see our favourite Timelord in September in ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’ (I know, what a title!!!).
I’m going to forgo my usual ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ because this week Ryan Dunn, star of Jackass, sadly passed away. I love the films and the TV show and the Jackass franchise has provided entertainment to millions, due in no small part to Dunn. His likeability endeared him to audiences and his loss will be felt by his friends, family and all his fans. My thoughts are with his loved ones at this difficult time.
Goodbye till next time :-)
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