Ten Statements--No Wait, Eleven!--About....DOCTOR WHO SEASON SIX, EPISODE SIX: The Almost People (2011)

Look at me!  No, don't look at me!

"It's the eyes. The eyes are the last to go."

"What are you talking about?"

"When they destroy us, the eyes are the last things to melt, and there's one question in those eyes: Why?"

1) Okay...seeing Matt Smith do every single doctor in between primal screams was cool. And having him essentially playing straight man for himself instead of dull old 'Good Doctor/Evil Doctor works out quite nicely.

2) It's interesting how in this script we see not just the humans Fuck It Up For Themselves--Jenny, with her vision of revolution and revolt in India mucks things up for the Gangers in this episode just as badly as Cleaves gets the human in shit with her regulations and bylaws in the previous episode.

3) I wonder if the little exchange between Amy and the Doctors where she addresses the differences between them is another case of Moffat looking askance at Russell T. Davies, this time for the way he handled Rose's final fate.

4) After this episode, I'm even more impressed with Raquel Cassidy's Cleaves. Much like Smith, she chooses to take the challenge of portraying both the human and Ganger versions of her character and make something more nuanced and complex than most actors would.

5) God, I hope the eyepatch lady plot thread is resolved next episode. I don't think I could stand seeing this carry over into part two of the season.

6) Another interesting thing--even though Rory has been weaponized in the past, becoming an Auton last season, he seems to be the one companion since the new series began who believes what the Doctor claims he believes--i.e. that people, whether human or non-human, are geniunely good. It's that fact that he refuses to become another tool of violence that may be his most intriguing feature.

7) The eye wall is a cute effect...but is it really necessary? All I could think as I saw it was 'how did the Gangers get all the time to place living eyes in all those holes?'

Thankfully Ganger-Jenny is not the crux of this two-parter...
because, quite frankly, she's a crap villian.

8) How did Ganger-Jenny get these special stretchy-girl abilities? None of the other Gangers display them, and it actually detracts from her menace....

9) The way The Doctor gets the Gangers to turn on Ganger-Jenn is much more typical of how I'd expect him to resolve things than the whole kill order from 'The Day of The Moon.' It makes me wonder if this iteration of The Doctor is beginning to come to grips with the boiling rage he's been struggle to contain since last season.

Okay, maybe I shouldn't have gotten so
attached to Pond...

10) Is it just me, or has the Doctor's, ummmm, relationship with the TARDIS changed a bit since 'The Doctor's Wife.' I mean, he's always anthropomorphised her, but still.....

11) Wait a minute, the episode isn't--OH MY LORD!!!!

In short.....much stronger than the first part, this episode raises a lot of questions, gives us new insights...and slams us with an ending no one expected because, you know, we thought we already ruled that possibility out.....