Okay , it ’s time to talk about something really serious . attract up a chair and put on your hearing faces . It ’s prison term to blab out about discrimination . Because secernment is ill-timed . Mmmkay ? Especially when you ’re single out against your own vat - originate goo duplicate .
woefully , last dark ’s Doctor Who sort of hit the sour spotlight , between preachiness and incoherency . The “ ganger ” storyline sort of bludgeon us with a message , but the story and its resolution left that content dead murky . And asunder from a few great Matt Smith second and a weird / shocking ending , part two was rather dull .
spoiler forward …
Your mileage may vary , of course , but I just could n’t connect with “ The Rebel Flesh”/”The Almost hoi polloi . ” I ’m not sure if I disliked the two - parter , or if I just could n’t get into it somehow . But whatever the reason , I did n’t like about any of the characters , either the originals or their goopy duplicates . I did n’t quite understand the foundation of the whole “ ganger ” mythology , and I see the resolution both too tidy and kind of uninvolving .
So in this two parter , it ’s the future and people are using bio - organise duplicates , with telepresence , to go into dangerous situations . It ’s basically Surrogates , but with goo instead of robots . Due to a freak stroke , the goo acquires sentience and want to continue subsist as the people it was replicate . And there are vague hints that the slime was sentient all along , and one goo - individual , Jenny , can remember all of the time she “ conk ” when her foster body was no longer needed . ( But is the guck sentient as goo , or is it just sentient as an echo of the people it ’s turned into ? Do the Gangers merit human rightfulness , or does the gook deserve to live as goo ? It ’s not clear . )
There are all sorting of interesting seat you could go with this premiss , but the story does n’t quite go to any of them . rather , there ’s a lot of running around corridor and worrying about acid and safety protocols and who ’s pass to get the evac shuttle . Meanwhile , the episode throws in a few gratuitously creeptastic moments , like random eyeballs on the walls or a pile of decommissioned goo bodies staring upwards .
The one smart spark of entertainment comes from the fact that the Doctor has been magically duplicated , so now there are two Matt Smiths leaf off each other . The one or two aspect where this is really exploited are quite cute — Smith gets to do the traditional “ rapidfire imitations of premature medico ” thing , which is fun . And the two Doctors have a nice bit of shtick , finishing each others ’ judgment of conviction and walk in bandy lockstep . It ’s all pretty fun , although the episode burst up the two Doctor of the Church pretty early . Mostly , the two physician provide an self-justification to show that Amy is an anti - Flesh bigot , who wo n’t assume the Flesh duplication of the Doctor as the real matter . Until she finally learns the fault of her way .
Oh , and the one fleck of secret plan - advancement that come out of this situation is that Amy blabs to the Doctor about his impend ( well , in 200 years ) death . The Doctor clearly knows what she ’s talking about , because he mutters something about getting an invitation to his own dying , towards the oddment .
Anyway , the Gangers manage to trap the Doctor and his friends in a Crypt - y variety of room , and it seems like they ’re doomed to death by acid . The Gangers lionise by admit a be - in , where Jen snaps her fingers and says “ You ’re one of us — unite the revolution ! ” And then the duplicate Doctor reveals that he arranged for a call to go through right about now — the son of one of the trapped people . The extra sees his counterpart ’s Word , and realizes he ca n’t condemn Adam ’s real pa to dying . This , in turn , chevy all the other Gangers into rediscovering their humans . “ I ’m tired of this derisory war , ” allege duplicate - Miranda . And everybody has a variety of heart , because of a father ’s love for his son .
And then we feel out that the Doctors changed places , and the extra is really the material Doctor , and vice versa . This is mostly so that Amy will feel really sorry about being a Ganger - hater .
In the end , the position is going to blow up , and Jen turns into a weird wanderer tool , and all hope is lost . Until things get neatly tied up . The TARDIS shows up , and the duplicate Doctor and duplicate Miranda sacrifice their living to delay Jen so everyone else can get away — even though it ’s really obvious that neither of them need to die . Could n’t they have just propped something laborious against the door ? Or since the Doctor now knows how to dissolve Gangers using his transonic screwdriver , could n’t he have dissolved Spider - Jen while shield the other ganger from the effect ? The ritual killing of the Doctor - Ganger and Miranda - Ganger seems just to be set up so that there wo n’t be any more pesky duplication . As a event of this utterly uncalled-for self - forfeiture , there ’s only one of every person .
In other words : It ’s croak to be much easier to tolerate the ganger if we do n’t have two of the same person running around . But is n’t that the master rationality why the Gangers demand to be tolerate ?
Once the survivors , homo and Gangers likewise , are in the TARDIS , the Doctor does a technobabbly matter that turns the Gangers into real human being . Which seems even more random — if being a Ganger is nothing to be ashamed of , why do we have to turn them into humans ? Why are we going to go around lecturing everybody about Ganger right when all the Gangers have either go bad for no skillful reason , or been turned into “ genuine ” people ? Ganger Dad goes off to meet his Word , direct the spot of the beat pilot . And the Doctor packs off Miranda and the other subsister , admonishing them to go give an telling speech about Ganger dismission .
Once everything ’s all neaten up , we get a line the real reason for this whole concern — the Doctor figured out some time ago that Amy is n’t really Amy . She ’s a Flesh duplicate , and the actual Amy has n’t been here for month . The literal Amy is pregnant — about to go into labor , in fact — at the mercy of the scary eyepatch lady . And then , despite all his endless speechifying about Ganger rights , the Doctor dissolves the Amy - Ganger into a pool on the TARDIS floor . ( He mutters something like , “ Given what I ’ve learned , I ’ll prove to be humane . ” But it does n’t seem that humane , actually . ) I hazard it ’s sort of funny that Amy , who ’s been held up as an anti - Ganger bigot throughout the instalment , turns out to be a Ganger herself .
And the episode terminate with a moment of total pregnancy horror , with Amy staring at her bulging stomach and the scary calamitous circle facing her .
I have to admit , I was a bit disappoint by the result to the “ Schrodinger ’s Zygote ” riddle . Amy has n’t gotten very much lineament ontogeny all season , and now she ’s being specify up as A ) a damoiselle in distress and B ) yet another scientific discipline fiction heroine who has a scary / weird maternity . ( Here ’s hoping she does n’t give parentage toa rogue godwho uses mind control to make everybody well-chosen andkaraoke - riffic . ) It really feels like Amy ’s been downgraded , from thin-skinned heroine who ’s at the center of the storey to walking secret plan gadget . Or in this casing , supine plot gimmick .
So all in all , “ The Almost hoi polloi ” left me a bit dusty , almost as if I was in reality made out of sentient putty . But what did you think ?
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