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| Matt Smith is the Doctor. Almost. |
2 episodes: The Rebel Flesh, The Almost People. Approx. 88 minutes. Written by: Matthew Graham. Directed by: Julian Simpson. Produced by: Marcus Wilson.
THE PLOT
In a medieval monastery on an isolated island, a top-secret mining operation makes its base. The miners are pumping incredibly corrosive acid in an operation so hazardous that they used to lose a person per week. Now technology has stepped in with a solution: The Flesh. Organic, living but not sentient, the flesh can be molded to become a "ganger," a physical avatar for its users. An industrial accident is no longer a hazard to a human miner. Only the Flesh dies - and it's easily replaced, to the point that it's more upsetting to lose equipment than to lose a "man."
When a storm hits, the miners' Flesh duplicates become aware individuals. Now there are two of each individual on the island. The Doctor wants to resolve this mess amicably, and is well on his way to doing so - until Cleaves (Raquel Cassidy), the supervisor, decides to take the direct approach. She kills one duplicate, and in so doing starts a war.
The Doctor barricades the humans in the monastery's most secure room - the chapel. There, he makes the most shocking discovery of all. Not only is there a duplicate of every member of the mining team. There is a second Doctor, as well...
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: After his very emotional performance in The Doctor's Wife, Smith is much more subdued. A good choice. If he did that level of emoting every week, it would get old fast. Here, he's very much the traditional Doctor: showing up at a location, investigating strange occurrences, and trying to save people from their own foibles. Mostly, he's just providing a steady presence to anchor the episode, though he does bring some fireworks to bear at the very end.
Amy: Continues to see flashes of the eyepatched woman, first glimpsed during her walk through the nightmarish children's home in 1969. She is very protective of both the Doctor and Rory. When the duplicate Doctor appears, she refuses to accept him as being fully the Doctor, referring him as "almost" the Doctor and refusing to fully trust him.
Rory: His compassionate side gets more focus. He bonds with Jennifer (Sarah Smart), even after learning that she is a ganger. His decency helps her to stabilize and convinces her to try to trust the human workers. That ends up making her the most bitter of the gangers after Cleaves fires on them. Even then, Rory is the most appalled of the regulars and the first to disarm Cleaves. He insists on staying behind to find the "real" Jennifer when the Doctor leads the others to the more defensible chapel. His pragmatic side also shows itself. Though he wants to save both Jennifers, when one half-accidentally kills the other, he does not waste time with recriminations. He accepts what has happened, then focuses on protecting the one that remains.
THOUGHTS
The equivalent of the Silurian 2-parter from last season, complete with a very traditional "Classic Who" structure and a (too-) substantial amount of moralizing. If this were a classic series story, it would be a Pertwee.
Still, it should be said that Matthew Graham's second Who story is a vast improvement over Fear Her, the cheapie he churned out for Series Two. The direction of the story is clear very early on, but it is never less than entertaining. The monastery provides for some suitably creepy atmosphere, and the transformation of one character from genuinely sweet and likable to monstrous is surprisingly convincing.
Most of the problems aren't with the story itself, but with the backstory. Why are they extracting acid and pumping it to the mainland? We don't really know, and it's not something the story's overly concerned about. The "solar tsunami" is presented as a planet-threatening crisis in Part One. Turns out, it might as well have just been a regular Earth hurricane for all the change it would have wrought to the script. But I guess that wouldn't have been "sci-fi" enough.
The guest characters are a mixed bag. Only Cleaves and Jennifer manage to emerge as anything other than stock figures. The other characters (yes, including the white-haired dad) are ones I'd honestly have to look up to even tell you their names. The story also doesn't quite sustain its 90 minutes. There's definitely more running around between different bits of the monastery than is narratively necessary. After a while, all the activity just becomes wearying.
More interesting than the actual narrative is the ending - one which seems to indicate that the show is now ready to start really dealing with some of the questions raised by the season opener. I think the first Act of this season is now done, and I look forward to seeing where things go from here.
Rating: 6/10.
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