Doctor Who Series 6 Episode 6 - The Almost People (Part 2) - Review
Starring: Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill & Sarah Smart
Written By: Matthew Graham
Directed By: Julian Simpson
Welcome
back to my review of The Rebel Flesh and The
Almost People. You can find my review of Part 1 here:
So
let's waste no more time and crack straight on with Part 2: The
Almost People.
The
Almost People continues
straight on from the end of last week's episode, with the reveal that
a Ganger of the Doctor exists. Whilst the Ganger Doctor seems willing
to help the humans contact the mainland to request rescue, Amy
doesn't trust him. Meanwhile, in another part of the factory, the new
faction of Gangers are mobilizing their strength and resources and
preparing for war with the humans in order to stay alive. However,
not all of the Gangers are united in a common goal – could there
still be a chance for peace between them and the humans?
I
wrapped up my review of last week's The Rebel
Flesh by
describing it as a weak and heavily-flawed first part, but that The
Almost People could
still redeem some of its faults. I had really hoped that it could do
that, but sadly The Almost People ends
up doing the exact opposite, and somehow manages to take all the bad
stuff from its predecessor and make it even worse. The result, when
watching The Rebel Flesh and
The Almost People back
to back, is like watching the most tedious and dull car crash you
could ever imagine happening in slow-motion. It could have easily
been prevented, but the further it goes, the worse it gets. Let's
start off by taking a look at the main conflict this episode
presents. One of the ideas The Almost People
keeps
pushing is that Gangers could potentially be real sentient people.
Since they were the ones hit by the solar tsunami and gained their
autonomous independence from it, that's perfectly fine, but everyone
keeps going on and on about the Gangers that existed before the
tsunami arrived, and saying that they each died in pain. The problem
is that the previous Gangers were established as being nothing more
than empty vessels, and without the control of the humans in the
harness, they'd simply dissolve. That's like mourning an inanimate
object because it's been broken – it just doesn't work. The focus
should be on the Gangers that were struck by the tsunami, but instead
we're being asked to get emotionally invested in something that's
essentially little more than a tool.
So
much time is spent on this critically flawed conflict that the
character development I'd hoped to get from The
Almost People is
pretty much forgotten about. We've now spent ninety minutes with the
workers in this factory, and to put it bluntly, we know jack s***
about them. Characters like Buzzer and especially Dicken are so
unbelievably forgettable, having maybe one character trait to tell
them apart. Others such as Jimmy … well, we learn he has a son,
through a very overplayed scene where they talk via hologram … and
that's about it. Miranda meanwhile gets little that's noteworthy to
do this week, and as for Jennifer … I'm a bit lost about what to
make of her. It seems as though her character changes from scene to
scene. Gone is the sympathetic Jennifer we saw last week, and this
week she does a full 180°
for no apparent reason, becoming a full-on warmonger and spending
half her time trying to kill everyone.
The
time Rory spends with Jennifer also takes a steep downward turn for
the worst this week. While last week it did Rory some good to take
the initative and spend some time in the spotlight, this week as the
result of some incredibly awkward-sounding dialogue, it paints him as
a bit of an idiot. Because of Jennifer's sudden and unconvincing
change of character, her true intention of wiping out the humans
becomes incredibly obvious, and while its painfully obvious for the
audience, Rory just can't see it. A lot of the dialogue, particularly
for Jennifer, feels stilted, clunky and just doesn't flow naturally,
and this is the most obvious indicator of how messy a script this is.
But credit where it's due, I can tell that Sarah Smart is still
trying her best with what she's given, but it seems that some of the
other supporting cast are as tired and out of patience with this
script as I am. From her other work, I know Raquel Cassidy, who plays
Miranda, is a good actress, but her performance here does feel phoned
in, bored and tired, and understandably so given what she has to work
with.
Not
even the production values show any sign of improvement this week,
and like everything else here, it just goes on a depressing downward
slope. There are a lot of examples I can point to, but for instance
take a look at the scene where the two Jennifers are fighting, and
one of them melts after being pushed into some acid. It should be an
emotional, dramatic moment, but the CGI used on the melting flesh and
the ridiculous facial expressions it pulls just sucks the drama out
of it. The rotting pile of old flesh that Rory and Jennifer stumble
across looks incredibly fake and two-dimensional, and when the Ganger
Jennifer attacks Buzzer with her massive stretched mouth ... I've
already seen people parodying it with that “I'm Firing My Laser”
meme. However, the worst offender by far is the Jennifer monster that
attacks everyone in the last five minutes of the episode. A lot of
people have complained about how poor an effect this was, and with
good reason. It looks incredibly stupid, comes out of nowhere and the
story really didn't have to come to an end in such a shoddy fashion.
(Skip
ahead to the next paragraph now to avoid spoilers!) Honestly,
the
most entertaining part of The
Almost People
does come along with that twist ending. It can't do anything to
redeem this two-part car crash, mostly because it ties in a lot more
with the series arc than it does this story in particular. However,
it is still a really great and shocking twist, haunting and about the
scariest thing you'll find here. My interest in finding out more
about Amy's pregnancy, where she's really been over the past few
episodes, how long she's been there, and the identity of the
mysterious 'Eye Patch Lady' is at peak levels, and I'm now really
looking forward to next week's A
Good Man Goes To War.
It doesn't redeem this episode in any way at all, and I think it's
almost a certainty that these last few minutes were penned by Steven
Moffat rather than Matthew Graham, but taken on its own, it's a
fantastic standalone twist.
Overall,
I can declare that The Rebel Flesh and The Almost
People is one of those VERY rare Doctor Who stories
that's honestly just a chore to sit through. With a show that's been
running as long as Doctor Who, it's only natural it has a few
bad serials, but even then there can be a mild enjoyment factor in
how bad they are. But with this two-parter, I end up going out of my
way to avoid it, as there's barely anything here I can enjoy. With
acid, doppelgängers, radiation and duplicates, it reminds me of a
very poor Terry Nation script, but this manages to be even worse than
the likes of The Android Invasion. It's ugly,
unpleasant, and easily the worst story I've sat through since Love
& Monsters. People tend to like this two-parter much more
than Matthew Graham's previous attempt, Fear Her, but
as far as I'm concerned, this is far more inferior, and enough to
convince me that he just isn't suited to Doctor Who.
Final Score for The Rebel Flesh and The Almost People
3/10