DW 6x06 - The Almost People
This is kind of a difficult review to write because the episode itself wasn't really all that much to write home about, was it? So here are some brief thoughts before I head off into other territory, because I have a rant brewing.
NB - Spoilers for the next episode beneath the cut.
Episode thoughts.
It was all a bit confusing, I thought. My eight-year-old daughter (who is pretty sharp and on the ball) kept asking us which was the real Doctor and I'm sure I lost track pretty quickly myself! Okay, so it all turned out that it didn't really matter which of them was the "real" Doctor because they'd swapped places anyway, but it was still pretty hard to follow.
(I take it that the Doctor who scared the shit out of Amy was the "real" one because she told him that she'd seen his death and he made the comment towards the end about not having been invited to this one, or something to that effect. I suspect he's had an idea of what they weren't telling him all along, but has been trying to work out the details).
I suppose one could describe the theme of this two-parter as "what is it that makes us who we are?" - which was to an extent also explored in the "other" clone episode of nu-Who, The Doctor's Daughter. In each case, the answer is somewhere in the area of "memory, experience and emotion" rather than where - or who - we come from. One of the things I thought the episode got right was the fact that, despite knowing that the Doctors were identical, Amy still naturally gravitated towards the one she believed to be "real", which is, I think, a natural reaction and one that we'd probably all have in the same situation. (Or - hang on - was it meant to show that she had a connection with ganger!Doctor because she was one herself?) But the inconsistency in the way that the gangers were portrayed weakened the story overall, I think - one minute they're all "them and us" and the next they're embracing their new-found humanity. Also, it was established in TRF (I thought) that the gangers were exact copies - physically and mentally - so why was it that where original!Jennifer was a perfectly ordinary, nice girl, her ganger was a homicidal maniac?! There's evolution for you, I suppose.
We ended up with two of the Pinocchios becoming real boys - one of them even became an instant dad - and I suppose, with them going to the company HQ to speak out against all the bad things that were being done, we're supposed to assume that in its remorse, the company put it all right.
Pfft. Corporations don't work like that. They'd just sit there, look concerned and make appropriate noises and then carry on as before. Or perhaps I'm just being too cynical.
Anyway, I don't have much more to say about the episode itself, because what happened in the last five minutes has sort of wiped the other forty from my brain. Perhaps I'll have more to say after I've seen it again.
Ranty thoughts.
Earlier this week, I posted this wherein I posited that the Amy we've been watching so far is a clone. Quite a few of us called that one and the fact that the real Amy is preggers and the clone isn't is what accounts for the yes/no results of the Doctor's scans. Also about the fact that eye-patch woman is "bleeding through" from real Amy's consciousness into the clone's. I thought that she'd probably been kidnapped by the Silence in DotM, but from things that the Doctor said in the episode and a comment in the DWC that the Amy we've seen having adventures with the Doctor and Rory (accompanied by a clip of her getting off the bus in the desert in TIA) wasn't the "real her", it appears that she's been clone!Amy for longer.
And a couple of weeks ago, I posted here that the pregancy storyline is making me rather uneasy. I really thought that we wouldn't go there - the idea of an X-files / V / Rosemary's (alien) Baby scenario seems too much for Doctor Who and I just couldn't believe that's where we were headed. And I just... I can't help it, but I feel really strongly about it and I don't like it one little bit. Anyone who reads my thoughts on DW regularly will know that while I'm not Moffat's biggest fan, I acknowledge that he's a talented writer who knows his DW and have enjoyed the series-and-a-half we've had from him so far, even if I don't love it as much as I did under RTD. But this isn't an anti-Moffat thing. I'd hate this as a direction regardless of who'd written it.
The final images of this episode were of Amy, absolutely terrified, being held somewhere against her will and quite possibly pregnant against her will. God knows, I'm not Amy's biggest fan either, but I found that to be a highly disturbing image and it sickens me just to think about it. I don't like her as a character and will be glad when we get a new companion but honestly, I wouldn't wish what's happening to her on my worst enemy. And again, here she is - serving the demands of the plot rather than being her "own" character.
Perhaps I'm being over-sensitive. But this is supposed to be a family show and I don't think that seeing the heroine and someone that I suppose a lot of the young girls watching look up to being traumatised and terrified while about to give birth is especially suitable for the target audience. If it was on TW, I'd probably have the same reaction to the images, but that's aimed at an adult audience and is somewhat "grittier" than DW and while I might not like it, it would be more in keeping with the tenor of that show.
SPOILERS FOR EP 7.
The trailer and prequel for the next episode are up at the website and it seems this part of the plot hinges on a "child" and whose7 child it is. I suppose we're to assume it's Amy's, but what if it's not? I also suppose we're meant to assume that the child is somehow related to the Doctor (presumably the same one we saw at the end of DotM) but again, what if it's not? I can't believe it's the progeny of Amy and the Doctor because - ick. Unless it's happened the same way it did in TDD (because I think originally, both Ten AND Donna were going to have their hands stuck into the machine, so Jenny would have been theirs rather than just his).
It seems that we're finally going to find out who River is next week, or that at least, we'll be on the way to doing so. There's speculation that she turns out to be Amy's daughter... but I'm not sure about that one.
So - as I said in my cut text, I'm not sure what the hell to make of DW at the moment. I'm not against doing something because "it's never been done that way before", but I really am uneasy about the direction of this particular storyline. Moffat is going to have to work bloody hard to convince me this is still Doctor Who.
ETA: Here's a really good explanation as to why the Doctor was "okay" with melting ganger!Amy at the end of the episode, after having spent almost two hours explaining to us that they were sentient and deserved to live. I'm not sure where I stand on it because, for me, it's rather a secondary dilemma compared to the whole baby thing. But it's an interesting read.
NB - Spoilers for the next episode beneath the cut.
Episode thoughts.
It was all a bit confusing, I thought. My eight-year-old daughter (who is pretty sharp and on the ball) kept asking us which was the real Doctor and I'm sure I lost track pretty quickly myself! Okay, so it all turned out that it didn't really matter which of them was the "real" Doctor because they'd swapped places anyway, but it was still pretty hard to follow.
(I take it that the Doctor who scared the shit out of Amy was the "real" one because she told him that she'd seen his death and he made the comment towards the end about not having been invited to this one, or something to that effect. I suspect he's had an idea of what they weren't telling him all along, but has been trying to work out the details).
I suppose one could describe the theme of this two-parter as "what is it that makes us who we are?" - which was to an extent also explored in the "other" clone episode of nu-Who, The Doctor's Daughter. In each case, the answer is somewhere in the area of "memory, experience and emotion" rather than where - or who - we come from. One of the things I thought the episode got right was the fact that, despite knowing that the Doctors were identical, Amy still naturally gravitated towards the one she believed to be "real", which is, I think, a natural reaction and one that we'd probably all have in the same situation. (Or - hang on - was it meant to show that she had a connection with ganger!Doctor because she was one herself?) But the inconsistency in the way that the gangers were portrayed weakened the story overall, I think - one minute they're all "them and us" and the next they're embracing their new-found humanity. Also, it was established in TRF (I thought) that the gangers were exact copies - physically and mentally - so why was it that where original!Jennifer was a perfectly ordinary, nice girl, her ganger was a homicidal maniac?! There's evolution for you, I suppose.
We ended up with two of the Pinocchios becoming real boys - one of them even became an instant dad - and I suppose, with them going to the company HQ to speak out against all the bad things that were being done, we're supposed to assume that in its remorse, the company put it all right.
Pfft. Corporations don't work like that. They'd just sit there, look concerned and make appropriate noises and then carry on as before. Or perhaps I'm just being too cynical.
Anyway, I don't have much more to say about the episode itself, because what happened in the last five minutes has sort of wiped the other forty from my brain. Perhaps I'll have more to say after I've seen it again.
Ranty thoughts.
Earlier this week, I posted this wherein I posited that the Amy we've been watching so far is a clone. Quite a few of us called that one and the fact that the real Amy is preggers and the clone isn't is what accounts for the yes/no results of the Doctor's scans. Also about the fact that eye-patch woman is "bleeding through" from real Amy's consciousness into the clone's. I thought that she'd probably been kidnapped by the Silence in DotM, but from things that the Doctor said in the episode and a comment in the DWC that the Amy we've seen having adventures with the Doctor and Rory (accompanied by a clip of her getting off the bus in the desert in TIA) wasn't the "real her", it appears that she's been clone!Amy for longer.
And a couple of weeks ago, I posted here that the pregancy storyline is making me rather uneasy. I really thought that we wouldn't go there - the idea of an X-files / V / Rosemary's (alien) Baby scenario seems too much for Doctor Who and I just couldn't believe that's where we were headed. And I just... I can't help it, but I feel really strongly about it and I don't like it one little bit. Anyone who reads my thoughts on DW regularly will know that while I'm not Moffat's biggest fan, I acknowledge that he's a talented writer who knows his DW and have enjoyed the series-and-a-half we've had from him so far, even if I don't love it as much as I did under RTD. But this isn't an anti-Moffat thing. I'd hate this as a direction regardless of who'd written it.
The final images of this episode were of Amy, absolutely terrified, being held somewhere against her will and quite possibly pregnant against her will. God knows, I'm not Amy's biggest fan either, but I found that to be a highly disturbing image and it sickens me just to think about it. I don't like her as a character and will be glad when we get a new companion but honestly, I wouldn't wish what's happening to her on my worst enemy. And again, here she is - serving the demands of the plot rather than being her "own" character.
Perhaps I'm being over-sensitive. But this is supposed to be a family show and I don't think that seeing the heroine and someone that I suppose a lot of the young girls watching look up to being traumatised and terrified while about to give birth is especially suitable for the target audience. If it was on TW, I'd probably have the same reaction to the images, but that's aimed at an adult audience and is somewhat "grittier" than DW and while I might not like it, it would be more in keeping with the tenor of that show.
SPOILERS FOR EP 7.
The trailer and prequel for the next episode are up at the website and it seems this part of the plot hinges on a "child" and whose7 child it is. I suppose we're to assume it's Amy's, but what if it's not? I also suppose we're meant to assume that the child is somehow related to the Doctor (presumably the same one we saw at the end of DotM) but again, what if it's not? I can't believe it's the progeny of Amy and the Doctor because - ick. Unless it's happened the same way it did in TDD (because I think originally, both Ten AND Donna were going to have their hands stuck into the machine, so Jenny would have been theirs rather than just his).
It seems that we're finally going to find out who River is next week, or that at least, we'll be on the way to doing so. There's speculation that she turns out to be Amy's daughter... but I'm not sure about that one.
So - as I said in my cut text, I'm not sure what the hell to make of DW at the moment. I'm not against doing something because "it's never been done that way before", but I really am uneasy about the direction of this particular storyline. Moffat is going to have to work bloody hard to convince me this is still Doctor Who.
ETA: Here's a really good explanation as to why the Doctor was "okay" with melting ganger!Amy at the end of the episode, after having spent almost two hours explaining to us that they were sentient and deserved to live. I'm not sure where I stand on it because, for me, it's rather a secondary dilemma compared to the whole baby thing. But it's an interesting read.