Day 776: The Almost People

I can't remember whether it was an interview with Russell T Davies or Steven Moffat (I'm slightly inclined towards thinking that it might have been Moffat talking about the work of Davies), but one of the writers was talking about the structure of two part episodes in the news series. The method that they have both come around to using is kind of interesting: to remove any decay in having a two part story drag for so long by making the second episode feel completely different to the first. You can see this in a variety of two part stories throughout the revived series: a story like Army of Ghosts/Doomsday has a quiet opening half where the focus is on learning about the situation with the second half is more focussed on action and character development for the main cast. This approach of having two distinct halves can also be found in The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People. The only problem is that they're almost too distinct.

The first half leads to a fairly interesting concept: having duplicates of yourself (Gangers) that aren't evil clones, but are instead exactly like you in every way, shape and form, and it promises to look at the fallout from dealing with this development in the plot. Our point of focus character is Jennifer's Ganger, who is trying to come to terms with her life and advocates for acceptance within society. The only problem is that, after one of the Gangers is killed in the heat of the moment, Jennifer suddenly gains a new found blood-lust and turns into a psychopathic leader with no redeemable traits. In the second half, we see her take advantage of Rory, lead her fellow Gangers into situations that they begin to feel a bit uncomfortable in, and in a moment of hypocrisy, kill a Ganger of herself in order to prove a point. And to be honest, I actually wouldn't mind about this characterisation, it's just that it's so at odds with what we saw in the first half that I can't honestly believe that they are the same character. It makes what could otherwise be an interesting story into something that just leaves the viewer feeling a little bit uneasy about the rapid change in tone.

And, as I say, there are plenty of things that I can like about this episode. I honestly love the fact that the Doctor's Ganger duplicate is never even once thought of as an evil twin, and instead is just used to expose the audience's hypocrisy about whether to trust the Gangers or not. I also like the fact that the director makes the clear decision to tend to shoot the Doctor whilst hiding his lower half, hiding whether he's a Ganger or not and further showing to the audience that it really doesn't make a difference which is which. And, aside from the characterisation of Jennifer, I feel that the rest of the story is still similar enough to The Rebel Flesh that they could conceivably be continuations of each other. It's just that it doesn't end up quite working as a full two part story for me, which is a bit of a shame.