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.....

Ten Statements About....DOCTOR WHO SEASON SIX, EPISODE FIVE: The Rebel Flesh (2011)

Beware our gooey, ill-formed countenances!

"There are people coming. Well, almost."

"Almost coming?"

"Almost people."

1) Nice pre-credit teaser....the demise of the co-worker being treated with such casualness is creepy, setting up the mini-reveal that leads us to understand what's going on here. The lack of dramatics truly sells it.

2) Going back to something I've said in an earlier 10S, I adore how Smith has found certain ways to do shoutbacks to other Doctors--like, in this case, using a snowglobe to check gravitational force similar to how Tom Baker used a yoyo--in a way that's a great deal more subtle than Tennant could.

3) There's a rather cool mix of high-tech equipment and low-tech setting going on here than manages to give the whole episode an extra-level of creep. I can just imagine how this would've taken place in a cookie-cutter white lab in a Nathan-Turner or Letts era episode, which would have made things not as effective. Another clue that Moffatt is very much trying to get his Philip Hinchcliffe on. Plus if gives the Frankenstein simile a lil' more punch.

Find me a corridor, and I'll be compelled to wander down it...

4) It's to Raquel Cassidy's credit that she manages to breathe some life into her Foreman Cleaves, what is essentially a rather drab, unimaginative role. Pity that, after a brief period where we think Cleaves is going to be something other than The Regulation Authority Figure Who Gets Us In Deep, she ends up being exactly that.

5) you know, the way the Doctor susses out Cleaves problem is a lot more effective than Jennifer-Snake.....

6) Sarah Smart really does a good job hitting the emotional beats of the Jennifer Ganger. You really feel for her frustration as she copes with her identity..although the biggest flaw in the episode is how there doesn't seem to be any clear rationale as to why her Ganger is different, why she becomes the main agitator toward the end of this part of the story.

7) And on a related note...that scene contains one of the strongest moments for Arthur Darvill, who is allowed to do all the acting in it with his face and still manages to let us know everything about his own feelings and his overwhelming desire to Set Things Right for this creature.

This prolly should be the standard 'uniforms' for this
present iterations of the TARDIS Crew (the black-jeans and
matching leather jacket  look really works for Amy)..

8) And, of course, just as in Frankenstein, the problem is caused not by the 'Monsters'--in fact, we see in the interactions of Mark Bonner's Jimmy and his Ganger some evidence that the two beings can exist side by side--but by the Narrow Minded Human fucking it up for herself.

9) Once the shit hits the fan, I rather like the 'martial theme' for The Gangers, which seems to incorporate certain musical cues reversed to give the whole thing a weird, off-kilter, disturbing tone.

10) Okay, eyepatch lady is officially bugging the Hell out of me. Moffat's forcing her into each episode is closer to the ham-fisted way RTD would throw references to Torchwood into season two whether they made sense or not.

In short....it's hard to make a clear decision on these first-part-of-a-two-parter things, but I have to admit to having some reservations about this one. There's a definite sense that this might turn out to be Nothing Special--especially after the cliffhanger (as longtime Who Watchers will tell you, there's never Anything Good that comes out of the kind of story hook the cliffhanger reveals...just ask Tom Baker about 'Meglos').