A Simple Sequel Until The End: "The Almost People"

The Good: Performances are good, Final moments of the episode
The Bad: Inconsistent characterization, Dull plot, Predictable reversals, Wonky special effects
The Basics: "The Almost People" belabors the process of finally revealing just what is going on with Amy Pond, even if the episodic aspects are something of a mess.


When it comes to doppelganger episodes where a main character has been duplicated, it is tough to imagine that there is a permutation in the plot that has not already been done. The negative aspect of being a genre fan is that there is, ultimately, surprisingly little left that can surprise one. "The Almost People" in Doctor Who makes a fairly good attempt at surprising viewers, even if the ultimate reversal that connects the episode to the larger season's arc only occurs within the final moments of the otherwise mundane episode.

"The Almost People" picks up where "The Rebel Flesh" (reviewed here!) left off and it is virtually impossible to discuss the second part without some references as to where the first part left off. After all, "The Rebel Flesh" climaxed with a ganger version of The Doctor appearing, as the dopplegangers prepared to go to war with their source humans.

The ganger Doctor is reacting poorly to the way he was created and struggles to maintain his form. The Doctor and his team are smoked out by the three gangers led by ganger Cleaves using acid on the monastery's stone structure. The ganger Jennifer suddenly recalls being melted down repeatedly and tries to inspire the other gangers to contact the gangers off-site who are toiling for humans in dangerous situations and inspire them to revolt. With the humans trying to escape the monastery, they call for extraction.

As Rory tracks down the two Jennifers, The Doctor leads a team to rescue him. When Jennifer turns off the thermostatic controls, the boiling acid begins to rise and undermine the monastery's superstructure. Rory and Jennifer find a pile of discarded Flesh after the ganger Cleaves reroutes the rescue shuttle by accurately figuring out the code word from her source human. The Doctor appeals to one of the gangers's core human emotions to get him to turn as the situation reaches its peak.

Cleaves almost entirely redefined for "The Almost People." In "The Rebel Flesh," Cleaves was the clear leader who was happily organizing the aggression against the humans. In "The Almost People," ganger Cleaves just wants to survive and be left alone until Jennifer talks her into being aggressive against the humans.

Matt Smith plays off himself at the outset of "The Almost People" very well. There is something charming about watching Smith act against himself and that fits The Doctor's character. After all, The Doctor frequently talks to himself, so seeing him literally talking to himself is an organic transition and Matt Smith performs it nicely with a good balance of humor and realism. When The Doctor taps into The Flesh and freaks out, Matt Smith portrays the anger and frustration he has to convincingly.

Amy Pond is characterized as surprisingly prejudiced in "The Almost People" as she expresses a subtle disdain for the ganger Doctor. It is odd to see Pond prejudiced, as opposed to actually being thrilled to have two Doctors in her life.

The special effects in "The Almost People" are mediocre. The wall of eyeballs is appropriately creepy, but it is nonsense for any sense of reality. Similarly, when Jennifer elongates her mouth, the viewer is supposed to think, what? That ganger Jennifer consumes Buzzer?!

The whole point of "The Almost People" is to lead into the next episode and finally explain what it is that Amy Pond has been seeing the prior few episodes. The result is a dull, winding episode that gels poorly with the first part that climaxes in a must-see scene.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other episodes with duplicated main characters, please check out my reviews of:
"The Poison Sky" - Doctor Who
"By Inferno's Light" - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
"I Will Face My Enemy" - Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.

3/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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"The Rebel Flesh" Is An Intriguing Mess!

The Good: Sense of ethics, Good performances, Interesting basic concept, Rory's character
The Bad: Some ridiculous special effects, Predictable reversals, Somewhat choppy flow, Erratic characterization for The Doctor
The Basics: "The Rebel Flesh" finds The Doctor and his Companions in a situation where they are in danger from acid and their own doppelgangers!


A truly wonderful aspect of serialized television is that, when it is well-constructed, elements and episodes that initially appear as mundane or unattached to the larger arcs can be used to make big reveals and tie things together. In the sixth season of Doctor Who, there were, initially, minimal serialized elements. In fact, fans were left incredibly disappointed that, after beginning the season with the Companions and allies of The Doctor witnessing his death in "The Impossible Astronaut" (reviewed here!), The Doctor's death was left unresolved and ignored for a few episodes. The only obviously serialized element of the earth sixth season were flashes Amy had of a mysterious woman with an eye patch, telling her to remain calm. Those flashes came out of nowhere and were incongruent with the main stories for the prior few episodes. "The Rebel Flesh" is the start of a story designed to explain just what is going on.

"The Rebel Flesh" is an initially intriguing idea that raises the same fundamental questions raised in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Measure Of A Man" (reviewed here!), albeit on Doctor Who, the concept is illustrated instead of prevented. "The Rebel Flesh" is a first part of a two-parter that introduces the idea of disposable workers who are struggling to define themselves and that is clever and relevant, especially in today's world, dominated by capitalism. Unfortunately, some of that social commentary is dulled by the way the episode works to fit into the larger Doctor Who plot for the season.

Opening on an island, where three (apparent) people enter a room and one falls into a vat of acid . . . only to have, moments later, the man who is dissolving in the acid appearing fine and talking about getting worker's compensation. Aboard the TARDIS, Rory and Amy are playing darts while The Doctor continues to scan Amy, who appears to be both pregnant and not at the same time. The TARDIS is called off course to Earth, where they arrive on the island, where a 13th Century monastery is being used as part of an acid mining endeavor. Inside the monastery, The Doctor and his Companions encounter a room full of people in stasis and their alive doppelgangers who are walking around doing dangerous work.

The work site has recently survived a solar flare and The Doctor is concerned that the solar storm affected The Flesh. The Flesh is a plastic that can be used to create duplicate life forms of people who are unconscious and connected to it using a stasis control harness. The team witnesses Jennifer creating her ganger while the rest of the workers avoid The Doctor's warning that the solar storm is coming back and going to be calamitous if the work site is not prepared for it. The storm is predictably does damage to the work site; acid is all over and the gangers are now able to exist independently of the miners now that the miners are no longer in their harnesses. While Rory tries to comfort Jennifer, she turns upon him and The Doctor recognizes many of the people he is with was their ganger versions. As the gangers become fully self-aware, they begin to assert themselves and fight for autonomy.

Jennifer Lucas is one of the most interesting and well-rounded guest characters to yet appear on Doctor Who. Lucas was instantly attracted to Rory and she and her ganger version have the same memories, so "The Rebel Flesh" actually spends some time giving her a backstory to make her easy to empathize with. Rory becomes defensive of the Jennifer Lucas ganger in a way that reminds the viewer that he was originally characterized as a nurse. Rory's commitment to saving Jennifer Lucas's life makes him very compelling.

The Doctor in "The Rebel Flesh" oscillates wildly between being goofy and clever. It is interesting to see Rory start out with a stronger ethical stance than The Doctor. The Doctor's initial goofiness makes it hard to believe that he knew what is going on with Amy from the outset. The Doctor is looking into Amy at the episode's outset and his concern for her is genuine, but he does not present it as being of critical importance in "The Rebel Flesh." Instead, The Doctor is intensely worried about Amy but then abandons his concern for the Latest Goofy Adventure. And while it is familiar for the viewer to see The Doctor act as a peacekeeper in "The Rebel Flesh," the scope of the episode is so small that it is hard to take some of his intensity - when he gets around to caring about the immediate problem - seriously.

Miranda Cleaves is a painfully generic villain. She sets up a conflict between the gangers and the source humans that is incredibly inorganic. The gangers want to live and survive; the humans, led by Cleaves, suddenly become paranoid and violent against them. There is no real period of discovery in "The Rebel Flesh." Instead, the new characters suddenly turn on their gangers out of anger without actually taking the time to process what it means that the gangers are now autonomous. One key element missing from the episode is anyone pondering if the gangers can even last indefinitely when unattached to a human mind. So, Cleaves leaping to violence and anger instantly comes across as a forced conflict designed to quickly get the episode to the inevitable "us vs. them" mentality.

Throughout "The Rebel Flesh," The Doctor admonishes Amy to breathe and that ties into the serialized element of the episode. The Doctor continues to watch Amy throughout "The Rebel Flesh" and when the truth is revealed in the climax of "The Almost People," it is enough to make viewers return to "The Rebel Flesh" to watch for all of the seeded clues as to what is going on in the serialized plot.

Ultimately, "The Rebel Flesh" is a fractured episode that is a good idea, erratically-rendered, which makes for decidedly average television.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other television episodes with doppelgangers, please visit my reviews of:
"The Adversary" - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Invasion
"The Zygon Inversion" - Doctor Who

5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Generic Pirate Episode For Doctor Who: "The Curse Of The Black Spot"

The Good: Special effects, Early humor, Acting is as good as the writing
The Bad: No real character development, Dull plot, Poor writing
The Basics: "The Curse Of The Black Spot" makes a pirate episode for Doctor Who . . . which is pretty much the same as any other episode of Doctor Who with a creature that appears at first to be supernatural.


One of the interesting aspects of Doctor Who is that, as an episodic work that can go anywhere in time and space, the show has license to go anywhere it wants and it can do so fairly organically. So, if the show wants to do a circus episode, it can; if it wants to go to an underwater city next week, there it goes. Given the infinite potential range of Doctor Who, it is almost a surprise that it took the show so long to get to a pirate episode since it returned to television in 2005. The pirate episode is "The Curse Of The Black Spot" and while it might initially appear to be a divergence from Doctor Who, it does not take long before it falls into the very standard Doctor Who formula.

In other words, and there are no spoilers here, while there is initially something that appears supernatural, it turns out to be something alien. Anyone who has watched any five episodes of Doctor Who that have a creepy artifact or an apparent supernatural creature like a ghost, will recognize this as the formula. "The Curse Of The Black Spot" follows that formula very closely.

Opening with a rowboat full of pirates returning to their ship, the returning pirate is alarmed to learn that one of his crew was wounded. The wounded pirate has a black mark on his hand and almost immediately after the captain sees the mark, the song of the siren begins and the wounded pirate suddenly disappears. The Doctor, Amy and Rory appear in the ship and Captain Avery decides they must be stowaways. While The Doctor and Rory are threatened with walking the plank, Amy gets a sword and holds the five pirates at bay. When Amy cuts one of the pirates very minorly, a black spot appears on his hand and Rory is similarly wounded and marked. When The Siren begins singing, Rory gets wacky . . . and then the Siren appears to drag the two wounded men away. Amy manages to save Rory, but the other pirate dies.

After another pirate is killed, the survivors move to the armory because The Doctor realizes that the Siren can transport out of any water source and the magazine is the driest place on the ship. Inside the armory, Captain Avery discovers his own son has stown away. With his son so marked, Captain Avery and The Doctor set out to retrieve the TARDIS. While they are in the TARDIS, the other pirates mutiny against Avery to try to save themselves. But after the TARDIS disappears on its own, The Doctor realizes that the Siren can burst out of any reflective surface to kill. With only their wits, The Doctor and his friends must try to survive.

"The Curse Of The Black Spot" has The Doctor playing ridiculous right away and the humor starts very organically and cutely. But as the situation turns increasingly horrific, The Doctor's humor becomes terribly forced. What is far more irksome is the fact that The Doctor shows no care when Rory is marked for death. His jokes about death fall particularly flat when Rory is in mortal peril and he continues to act casual about it.

Karen Gillan is given a poor part to play in "The Curse Of The Black Spot." Amy seems more upset that the brainwashed Rory found the Siren attractive than she does by his imminent death. The problem is in the writing, but Gillan is unable to make the jokes land or the concern about something so trivial seem at all reasonable.

Hugh Bonneville makes Captain Avery into a credible captain and a reasonably well-rounded pirate. When Avery has to dump all his loot overboard, there is a moment when Bonneville uses his eyes to emote the moral dilemma going on in his character's mind where he weighs the crown vs. his son's life. It's a compelling moment and an exception to the rule of the episode.

Lily Cole plays the Siren and her job is basically to look as good as she does in the episode. She succeeds. The disappearing TARDIS feels very contrived in "The Curse Of The Black Spot" and the serialized element in the episode - Amy seeing the mysterious woman with the eye patch, who tries to reassure Amy, but ends up alarming her - stands out appropriately.

"The Curse Of The Black Spot" is more contrived and formulaic than it is ever engaging or impressive.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Lily Cole, please visit my reviews of:
The Zero Theorem
Snow White And The Huntsman
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus

3/10

See how this episode stacks up against other episodes and seasons of Doctor Who by visiting my Doctor Who Review Index Page where the reviews are organized from best to worst!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Proper Introduction To The Silence Comes On The "Day Of The Moon!"

The Good: Good performances, Engaging plot progression, Special effects, Concept of the episode's resolution
The Bad: Insular plot with limited character development, Final scene
The Basics: "Day Of The Moon" resolves the Earth's occupation by The Silence in 1969 while leaving a lot for Amy Pond to do!


Doctor Who mysteries are some of the most erratic on television. The executive producers of Doctor Who have tried season-long arcs, but inevitably they have bottle episodes that are only semi-serialized. As a result, most Doctor Who mysteries are contained within an episode or two, with threads that connect to other episodes in a season. "Day Of The Moon" is a second part of a Doctor Who mystery and the irony of it is that it completely resolves one plotline - that of an alien invasion in 1969 - while completely leaving the mystery of the little girl from the prior episode unresolved.

It is impossible to discuss "Day Of The Moon" without some references as to where "The Impossible Astronaut" (reviewed here!) left off. After all, the entire mission in "Day Of The Moon" occurs after The Doctor has been killed and his Companions are reunited wth an earlier version of him. Just after revealing to The Doctor that she is pregnant, Amy Pond shot at the astronaut who appeared to be a little girl. "Day Of The Moon" involves tracking down the origins of the little girl and has The Doctor's team trying to learn about The Silence.

Three months after Amy shot at the Impossible Astronaut, Amy is running through Utah, away from Canton Delaware and his g-men. After Canton shoots her, he returns to Area 51 where The Doctor is being held prisoner. Delaware then hunts down River Song in New York City and then Rory at the Hoover Dam. The Doctor is being blocked into a prison that will keep out The Silence and once it is completed, Delaware reveals that he has saved The Doctor's companions, The TARDIS and they have all learned what they can about the occupying force of The Silence on the Earth.

After implanting a device in each of their hands, The Doctor tasks his Companions and Delaware with finding the little girl who was abducted to become the astronaut. Amy and Delaware visit a children's home where the manager believes it is not yet 1967 and he has no children in his charge. Amy finds a whole hive of the creatures that erase memory. After Amy is abducted, The Doctor, River and Rory begin to learn about The Silence and figure out what the purpose is of the space suit the little girl was in. Delaware gets a video of one of The Silence declaring that all humans should shoot them on sight, which inspires The Doctor to alter history and deputize humanity to turn humanity against the occupying force on Earth. After locating Amy Pond, The Doctor brings the TARDIS to rescue Amy from The Silence.

"Day Of The Moon" marks the first experience Amy Pond has with the apparent hallucination that comes up through the entire season. There is a woman with an eye patch who Amy briefly sees and hears and her appearance is instantly evocative of Rose's flashes throughout the fourth season of Doctor Who (reviewed here!). Moffat starts playing a season-long arc that Davies had done only two years prior on Doctor Who in "Day Of The Moon." The season-long arc for the sixth season of Doctor Who involves a disparity between Amy Pond being pregnant or not and the clues given in "Day Of The Moon" play off information that comes up later in the season.

River Song's arc in "Day Of The Moon" is intriguing. River continues to exhibit absolute trust in The Doctor and she works with Rory quite well. While some of that might simply be that Alex Kingston was not yet aware of the backstory connections between Rory and River, "Day Of The Moon" allows Rory to reach out to River and for her to actually lean upon him. The assignment The Doctor has River and the Companions on comes as Song is reeling in shock from The Doctor's death. River becomes a leader in "Day Of The Moon" and Kingston makes her into both a credible scientist and leader.

Amy Pond is a pretty classic "damsel in distress" in "Day Of The Moon" and Karen Gillan does the whole "see something terrifying and scream" thing fine. "Day Of The Moon" finally begins to add depth to the relationship between Rory and The Doctor in scenes after Amy is captured. Rory has been a supporting character who was so distant from The Doctor's attention that he initially seemed like a cheap re-casting of Micky and The Doctor knows virtually nothing about him. While Rory has been a champion for Amy, he and The Doctor have not actually bonded . . . until now.

The technological device that The Doctor suddenly produces in "Day Of The Moon" is cool and easy for viewers to invest in. What is far less believable is the technology being used in Area 51 to seal in The Doctor. "Day Of The Moon" did a poor job of illustrating how technologically advanced The Silence members were to make it credible that they would have the materials that Delaware could find to seal in The Doctor and his Companions. That said, the special effects and the make-up effects used the characterize The Silence are pretty incredible.

"Day Of The Moon" spends a lot of time examining the nature of The Silence and the mechanisms by which they controlled the mysterious little girl. Unfortunately, the episode comes to an abrupt end before the nature, identity and character of the little girl can be truly explored. The reason that is worth mentioning is that there is an incredibly unsatisfying resolution to "Day Of The Moon" from the fact that The Doctor explicitly mentions they can actually look into the little girl and why the Silence wanted her or they can just go off on some random adventures . . . and the little girl is shown six months later completely alone, so viewers know that The Doctor, Rory and Amy are headed off to do random things as opposed to follow up on the major loose end connecting the alien occupation of Earth to The Doctor's death.

But, a tremendously bad end does not stop "Day Of The Moon" from being unworth watching. "Day Of The Moon" effectively delivers on the promise of setting up a season-long mystery; it is not the episode's fault that it is abandoned in a ridiculous way at the end.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with President Richard Nixon in alternate realities, be sure to visit my reviews of:
X-Men: Days Of Future Past
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
Watchmen
Forrest Gump

8/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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