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.

Day 775: The Rebel Flesh

After a sudden realisation of a looming deadline, I have spent the past 36 hours writing about 3 of my favourite Doctor Who stories, one for this blog (The Doctor's Wife) and the other two for something else that I'll link to later. So when the time came for me to have a look at The Rebel Flesh, it honestly came as a bit of an afterthought after a fairly packed weekend.

And I think that's what this two-part story will be forever thought of as: an afterthought. Watching it again tonight, I was struck by two things. One was that it was actually a little bit better than I thought it was going to be, and the other was that it slowly dawned on me the complete fuzziness of my memory of this episode. I think it's because of the setting: the greyness of the monastery-cum-acid factory where the story takes place. Whilst it's atmospheric and adds to the overall tone of the story, it also makes the story feel just a little bit dull; a little bit lacking in colour. And it's that visual tone that makes me kind overlook this story as something that's just grey and a bit boring.

But, as I said, it was better than I thought it was going to be. I liked the fact that it openly states that the Gangers aren't the monsters, and that this is going to be a story all about trying to reconcile the Gangers with their human counterparts. I also like the development of the Ganger Jennifer, who is overwhelmed with what has happened to her and seeks the compassion of Rory in order to keep her safe. It's a poignant moment to see her sitting alone, looking at her unformed face in the mirror, then putting an old photo of herself in the frame to replace it, to pretend that she is that person. The only problem is, as I recall, the story doesn't quite continue in that fashion with Jennifer, and we'll see how that pans out in The Almost People. But, to be honest, my memories a little bit fuzzy with respect to that episode as well, so maybe I've been completely wrong about the whole thing. I suppose I'll find out tomorrow.

Day 721: Fear Her

Fear Her is relentlessly disliked. In a recent survey in Doctor Who magazine, ranking all Doctor Who episodes from worst to best up until The Time of the Doctor, Fear Her was ranked 240th out of 241. The only story that it was better than was The Twin Dilemma, which is arguably a story that helped to speed along the cancellation of Doctor Who. So that should give you some idea of how much this story is hated. But why is there so much vitriol for this story? It's a question that I've asked myself time and time again, because I honestly can't see it.

Granted, this story isn't particularly good. It's a cheap episode, and it clearly shows, given that the episode goes out of its way to avoid showing effects shots, at one point substitution the monster with a red light. Similarly, while the episode does have an interesting hook to it: being that a child can draw pictures that kidnap people, it doesn't quite work on screen because it never really follows up on the premise by looking at the people affected by it. Compare Fear Her with The Idiot's Lantern, for instance. The Idiot's Lantern quite clearly shows people distressed by the threat of people being taken away in vans to some undisclosed location, and that shows itself in some emotionally charged scenes peppered throughout the episode. For Fear Her, we get a few scenes of people looking worried, and that's that. It's a failure both in terms of the story, because it should have clearly thought about the emotional impact of what is happening and the acting, which never truly is able to convey the emotion of having children abducted on a regular basis from that street.

But the story does succeed in some areas. It does have an interesting undercurrent dealing with an abusive father, which is a very different area for the series to go into, and I feel that if this sub-plot were part of a better written story, then it would be more well regarded. Also, the 'love conquers all' ending, whilst relentlessly cheesy, is still rather fun, and whilst I may have been laughing at certain moments (the line "We did see a flash of lightning earlier that seemed to strike him" never fails to make me laugh by how understated it is) rather than laughing with certain moments, at least I'm enjoying the story. Overall, it's not as bad as its reputation suggests, and certainly not the second worst episode of Doctor Who ever (<cough> Warrriors of the Deep <cough>). It's just a bit of light relief as the calm before the storm...