r/gallifrey • u/ZeroCentsMade • May 04 '26
REVIEW We Couldn't Have Found a Less Nauseating Name Than "The Flesh"? – The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People Review
This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.
Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant pages here) and here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.
Story Information
- Episode: Series 6, Episodes 5-6
- Airdate: 21st - 28th May 2011
- Doctor: 11th
- Companions: Amy, Rory
- Other Notable Characters: Madame Kovarian
- Writer: Matthew Graham
- Director: Julian Simpson
- Showrunner: Steven Moffat
Review
I have to get to that cockerel before all hell breaks loose!…I never thought I'd get to say that again. – The Doctor
On paper, the "Rebel Flesh" two parter might actually be the perfect Doctor Who story. It's a "base under siege" story in an era where the show wasn't overloaded with that particular story type (meaning, not in specifically Season 5 of the Classic Series). Its idea of human beings growing what they believe are mindless clones that they can control, only to discover that the clones, called the Flesh or Gangers (sort for doppelgängers), have an intelligence when an accident causes them to split from their operators is so rich with potential for a deep exploration of what it means to be human. And the specific setting of a dangerous factory where Gangers are regularly "decommissioned" due to workplace accidents (or as we see in the opening, the operators just horsing around because as far as they know there's no danger to anyone) leads to all kinds of ideas about worker exploitation and dehumanization. And if you were to lay out the two-parter plot point by plot point in a series of bullet points you'd have a hard time identifying any flaws with the execution here.
This is not the perfect Doctor Who story.
I do think that this two-parter is pretty badly underrated. While it doesn't live up to it's potential "The Rebel Flesh" and "The Almost People" form a solid story that does translate a lot of that potential on to the screen. But there's also a lot of missteps in this story that cause it to fall well short of what it probably should have been.
The most obvious of these are probably the special effects. The general look of the Gangers is very well done, with their literally white, slightly too smooth yet cracked skin (though I will say it kind of only works as well as it does because we have an all-white cast). They can look more human, but only with practice. But when they get more monstrous things do tend to fall apart. One character, Jennifer, has a particular tendency to just turn into the most monstrous forms. This could have worked but the end result tends more towards the comical than the horrifying. There's also a moment when the Ganger of Miranda Cleaves turns her head around 180 degrees and not only is the effects work iffy but I genuinely have no idea why she did this.
Thing is, I'm not convinced that this is as big a problem as you might assume. Sure, wonky effects have become less a part of Doctor Who's identity in the Revival but I will always maintain that, regardless of era, a good story can more than make up for bad effects. And like I said, the actual look of the Gangers is great. Plus there's a really great scene where Jennifer is trying to convince Rory that, in spite of being a Ganger she's also a real person, and she's repeating the word "me" over and over while hitting her chest and each time she hits her chest she shifts to her more human skin tone. And honestly, for me at least, that scene's brilliantly conceived and very well realized effects work kind of makes up for all of the rest of the poor visuals.
And this episode has all of these ideas swimming around about dehumanization, about workers' relationships to their bosses and the artificial divides that that first ideas creates with the second. But it's energy that can sometimes feel wasted. The divide between the Gangers and humans feels a bit contrived. While the episode does a good job of making sure you're aware of who the Gangers and who the originals are (with one notable exception), the two factions' conflict feels like it kind of comes out of nowhere. And the story gives a lot of time and importance to its worst character, Jennifer Lucas.
Once again, Jennifer works pretty well in concept. And like the two-parter itself, Jen isn't a bad character necessarily. But she does feel like a character who needed more time and care put into her actual writing. The idea is that Jennifer starts off as the quietest and kindest member of the factory crew. But gradually as the story goes her Ganger (who, like all the Gangers, starts off with the same personality as the person she was copied from) becomes more and more violent and angry towards the humans. By the end of the story she's going all genocidal and is the one who has most of those dodgy effects associated with her as she turns monstrous. A big reason why she undergoes this shift is that she's the only one who can remember the deaths her past Gangers suffered. We don't know why this is the case – originally it was mean to be because she had perfect recall but that was cut for time.
But Jennifer kind of doesn't work for me. For one thing, I think it was a bad move to make her quite so sadistic. It just feels like a character shift that comes out of nowhere, to signal that she's the baddie. There is some sense of progression here, but in practice it ends up feeling very abrupt. Also, the sadism just feels like the wrong move. What's supposed to be happening here is that Jen is so overwhelmed by the memories of the pain of being repeatedly killed and discarded that she can't help but lash out. But Jen actually comes off very calculating and cruel. There's a mismatch.
The idea here should be that Jennifer is lashing out at the wrong people. The Gangers' originals aren't to blame for a company that uses a technology it doesn't fully understand or a government which keeps it under wraps, probably to avoid scrutiny. The originals have been told that the Flesh is just a tool and they believed it. And how could they possibly know any better, they're factory workers, not scientists. And the idea of fighting the bigger fight does come into play at the end when the Doctor sends the two of the surviving members of our cast (one Human one Ganger) to testify to their experiences. That's honestly as much as the story needs to show on that end. But nobody makes that point to Jen. Instead the reasons that the other Gangers give for abandoning her revolution, while reasonable, don't offer her an alternative path to getting the emancipation that she wants (though it feels like she was beyond any kind of reason at that point).
But I don't want to complain too much because, as I said, I enjoyed this story. While abrupt, the Gangers vs. Humans fight did set up some very tense moments. The fact that the entire cast (save Amy and Rory) have duplicates running around creates some interesting character moments, as we actually get a lot of time to know most of these characters. Sure the story can tend towards the melodramatic. One moment in particular stands out as the Ganger version of Cleaves runs out of a room screaming in a moment that I'm sure was supposed to convey pure horror on the part of Cleaves but ends up being more comedic than anything. On the other hand the moment before that at Cleaves realizes she is a Ganger is really well done.
And honestly, I thought Cleaves was mostly really well-handled as a character. She's the classic obstructionist base commander that so many base under siege stories have. But she reminds me a lot of the earliest iterations of that character archetype. Still a problem a lot of the time, but doing the best she can under difficult circumstances. On one hand, she – or more precisely her human self – does in fact start the war when she kills the Ganger version of Buzzer with a cattle prod. On the other hand, her Ganger is just standing over in the corner providing very helpful psychoanalysis of her original: "We always have to take charge, don't we, Miranda. Even when we don't really know what the hell is going on."
It sort of helps explain Cleaves in a way that makes her feel sympathetic. She's the foreman, she's supposed to be in charge, but she's ended up in a position that's entirely beyond her. The human Cleaves did still kill the Ganger version of Buzzer, a fact which probably doesn't get the attention it deserves. But a lot of this story is this bizarre chess match between the two versions of Cleaves, each of which knows each other well enough that they can predict their moves. It's also worth pointing out that Ganger Cleaves is often a counterpoint to Jen. Both versions of Cleaves feel very cynical in their approach, but while the human Cleaves refuses to acknowledge the personhood of her duplicate, Ganger Cleaves seems the most comfortable of the Gangers identifying with her original. For this reason, she only joins Jen's revolution because it seems like the best way for her to survive, and leaves it the second a way out is provided. Also, Raquel Cassidy gives an excellent performance here, showing both strength and vulnerability very effectively in appropriate moments.
Mind you, Ganger Cleaves' ending is a bit disappointing, but I'll get to that when discussing the Doctor. As for human Cleaves, she eventually comes around on the personhood of the Gangers, though what exactly does it for her is hard to say. At a guess, just more time interacting with the Gangers. Though pretty late into the story she's still very much acting in an aggressive manner. But even when she's being aggressive there's a humanizing tendency underneath it. After the solar storm that initially causes this incident, Cleaves, who'd been fairly hostile to the Doctor's warnings puts it aside to work with the Doctor and check on her people (though this does turn out to be the Ganger, she doesn't know it yet). And she's also got this blood clot in her brain that's apparently going to be fatal. The Doctor offers her a cure at the end of the episode, but it gives her headaches…that Ganger Cleaves gets as well, another reminder that the Gangers are fundamentally more alike to their originals than different.
The member of the secondary cast that gets the next-most focus is Jimmy. Jimmy is probably the most sympathetic to the Gangers of the human cast…and the most sympathetic to the Humans of the Gangers. This mostly comes through references to his son, Adam. Ganger Jimmy talks about his memories of seeing Adam born, and this does seem to convince human Jimmy that this alternate Jimmy is as much Jimmy as he is. The two do still join their respective human and Ganger camps, but seemingly mostly because they're the only camps that will have them. Human Jimmy dies to acid (shockingly the only character who dies to acid in the story set in a deadly acid factory), leaving Ganger Jimmy to be Adam's father in a touching scene. There's not a ton more to Jimmy but I enjoyed his presence.
The other two factory workers, Buzzer and Dicken get a lot less attention. As mentioned, Ganger Buzzer is the first casualty of the human/Ganger conflict. As for human Buzzer he generally seems the most hostile to the Gangers of the humans, refusing to view them as anything more than tools for most of the story although he, like the rest of the cast (save Jen) does eventually come around. I liked Buzzer…but there wasn't much to him. As for Dicken…I got nothing on this one. The human Dicken sacrifices himself to slow down Jen (who at this point has gone full CGI monstrosity), but he's very much the least developed member of the cast, in both versions.
You'll notice at this point that by the end of the story there's only one version of each of these characters left (besides Jen who killed her original before being melted herself). That's the human versions of Cleaves and Buzzer, and the Gangers of Jimmy and Dicken. I think that's a shame. At the end of the story Cleaves and Dicken are going in to tell their story to the world, presumably to get reforms made around the Flesh technology. We hear throughout the story rumors of Gangers throughout the world, with the Ganger version of Dicken referencing 10 million in India alone. But why not have both versions of Cleaves and Dicken going into that room? After all, neither character's death felt particularly necessary, even in the context of the plot. That, I think would have been a much more interesting ending. Plus a reconciliation between the two Cleaves in particularly feels like it would have enhanced the episode, instead of the Ganger's pointless self-sacrifice.
But at this point it's time to address the elephant in the room – the Doctor's got a Ganger as well. The Doctor comes into this story having very intentionally arrived at this factory to learn about the Flesh, for reasons that don't become clear until the end of the story. He had actually intended to leave Rory and Amy behind, as he wanted to keep his investigations somewhat secret. Regardless, having arrived at the factory, naturally the first thing he does is scan the Flesh. Except the Flesh scans him back and the first episode ends on the reveal that it's created a Ganger Doctor. Episode 2 then is this whole long plan by the Doctor where he's trying to gauge if Amy notices any differences between the Flesh Doctor and the original…while also trying to create a peaceful resolution between Gangers and Humans. He does this by switching shoes with his Ganger.
No really, that's a crucial part of the plan.
See in the first episode, the Doctor's shoes were melted by some acid, so he borrowed someone else's. So, everyone thinks that the Ganger version of the Doctor is wearing his original shoes while the original is wearing the borrowed shoes. So by switching shoes, the original Doctor can pretend to be the Ganger and vice versa. It's kind of an interesting idea, slightly hampered by the fact that the 11th Doctor's shoes are not really a particularly focused-on part of his costume design. If this were the 10th Doctor whose tennis shoes were always being focused on, that would be one thing, but even now, having recently watched this two-parter, I couldn't actually tell you what the 11th Doctor normally wears on his feet.
It does end up recontextualizing what is already a pretty intense scene. Amy goes to talk to who she thinks the Ganger Doctor is. First of all she tells him that she saw the Doctor's death, meaning that, while he doesn't know the specifics, the Doctor does know about his death, and that he invited his friends to see it. But then the Doctor ends up being overwhelmed by the Flesh's desire to know why it's being made to suffer. The other Doctor feels it, but not as strongly. Which seems to make sense…until you learn that this is after the Doctors recently had switched their shoes, meaning that the Doctor who broke down and was fairly threatening towards Amy…that was the original. Then again, the Doctor did seem to form some sort of a psychic link with the Flesh when he scanned it, while the Ganger would fundamentally be not that different from the other Gangers, so maybe it does make sense.
But pretty much from the moment that the second Doctor is introduced, Amy starts favoring the original – or later who she thinks is the original. This, unfortunately, gets laid on a bit too thick. Amy's behavior towards who she thinks is the Ganger Doctor just feels off. And sure, that's kind of the idea, but it goes to the point of feeling a bit cruel, at least before the "Ganger" Doctor does have that threatening moment towards her. That's kind of the main thing for Amy in this story. She doesn't get a ton to do in the first episode, and in the second episode she's kind of cruel to the Ganger Doctor…until she realizes that they swapped and she finally comes to accept the duplicate (who she'd thought was the original). Of course there is one other thing to talk about with Amy, but I'll get to the ending later.
But to briefly return to the Doctor, the original (pretending to be the Ganger) eventually ends up joining the Gangers. At one point it genuinely feels like he's joined Jennifer's revolution, as he even rejects the name "Doctor" in favor of "John Smith". However, of course, it's a trick (though I should point out it's sometime after this that we learn that the Doctors switched shoes). Still, Matt Smith acts the hell out of these scenes, given the chance to play an evil Doctor, or at least what seems to be an evil Doctor. He's honestly quite chilling in those scenes. Though ironically probably his most chilling line, which is him shoving Rory while saying "Ring ring" turns out to be him referencing the phone being about to ring. This turns out to be Adam calling for his father, which ends up dissolving Jen's revolution entirely. This was actually set up much earlier with the Doctor putting in the phone call to set up his plan.
Which raises the point that I'm not sure the Doctor's plan entirely makes sense. Or more to the point, I'm not sure it's possible for him to have planned out everything to the extent that the story seems to want us to think he did. This plan requires the "Ganger" Doctor to be double-crossed by Cleaves ordering Buzzer and Dicken to knock him out but not lock him up, and for the Ganger revolutionaries to find him and recruit him. That's a lot of moving parts is all I'm saying. On the other hand, that the Doctor wins this one in part by reminding the Gangers of their ties to humanity, when proving their humanity is all the Gangers really want, is quite appropriate.
Ultimately, because Jen is intractable, the Ganger Doctor stays behind to use his sonic (yeah, that seems to have duplicated along with the clothes…somehow) to melt Jen. Unfortunately he can't direct this, it melts both the Ganger Doctor and Cleaves who stayed behind because…I have no idea. I'm honestly not too sure why the Ganger Doctor did this bit when the original could have done it and not melted, but I suppose you could argue that he didn't know for sure that it would work, and there's good reasons not to leave a Time Lord corpse just lying around an acid factory that's been taken over by a psychotic Ganger. It still feels thin, but we definitely couldn't have two Doctors permanently.
Which leaves us with Rory. Rory ends up separated from most of the cast for a lot of this two parter. See pretty early on he connects with Jen (specifically the Ganger version, he barely meets the human one) and tries to help her. This sets up Rory spending most of the story trying to help Jen in one way or another, whether he thinks it's the human or the Ganger (it's always the Ganger). There's hints of a bit of chemistry between the two, though Rory, being married, isn't willing to get further than hints, Jennifer even saying "Amy's a lucky woman". It was nice to see Rory getting to do his own thing for a change. I think the story did effectively ride the line between building this chemistry between the two but not forcing some sort of unconvincing relationship drama (no, that's reserved for Amy for some reason, even though it never worked after "Amy's Choice"). Of course, as Jen gets increasingly hostile and manipulative, she ends up betraying Rory, and sadly there's not much follow up beyond that.
Though, in fairness, Rory has other concerns at the end of this one. Specifically Amy melting. Because Amy's Flesh and has been since the end of "The Impossible Astronaut".
This is why the Doctor wanted to investigate the Flesh and gauge Amy's reactions to his Flesh duplicate since she ended up coming with him, despite him not wanting her to. He'd worked out that Amy was probably Flesh and needed to figure out how to make the deactivation signal to melt her. Now why he needed to know how Amy reacted to the Ganger Doctor I'm not entirely clear, given that Amy's Flesh body was still fully being controlled by the original Amy. It's not like the Gangers in this story, who were given independence by a freak accident. Still I suppose you could argue that the Doctor was looking to see if there were any tell-tale signs of a Ganger that are just endemic to the Flesh. It feels thin is all.
Though this does finally explain why there's been a woman with an eyepatch opening hatches in walls that don't have hatches and staring at Amy all Series. Yeah, I haven't been mentioning it, but that's been a thing that's been happening. Amy actually tells the Doctor about it in this episode. Meanwhile the Doctor – both of him actually – is making real sure that Amy is breathing properly, because the reason the TARDIS scanner can't work out if Amy's pregnant is because she is…just not in her Flesh body. The woman looking through hatches is, presumably, some bleed-through from her real surroundings.
And then the Doctor…just melts Amy's Ganger. Yeah, this feels a bit off. After all, we've just spent a full two episodes doing a pretty good job reinforcing the point that the Gangers are, effectively, fully human, and now the Doctor just kind of kills one. Yes, it's not independent, but the Gangers prior to the solar storm incident were also not independent but we know through Jen's memories that they still felt the pain of death. Sure the Doctor says he's trying to be "humane" but is there really a humane way to murder a sapient being? The best explanation we can get is the Doctor saying that this story took place in the "early days" of the Flesh and maybe later that pesky sapience was engineered out of the Flesh, possibly due to the work of Cleaves and Dicken. That feels like a stretch, and frankly, I never want to be making excuses for poor storytelling.
And that's frustrating because otherwise that final scene is really good. It's another instance of the ongoing story arc sort of barging in on a two parter, but at least in this case it's confined to the end of the story, after the plot as been resolved. And again, it's a really good scene. The interplay between our three leads is genuinely chilling as Amy goes into labor despite not even knowing she's pregnant, Rory trying to help her but not knowing what to do, and then the Doctor telling him he needs to get away from his wife. It says something about the trust that Rory has developed in the Doctor that he does in fact do as he's told, in spite of Amy clearly being in distress.
Musically, this story is largely unremarkable, but I will say I've always quite enjoyed one of the main themes used in this story "Which One is the Flesh". Just an appropriately mysterious and paranoia inducing theme, though ironically I don't think it's ever used at a time when we don't know which version of a character is the original and which is Flesh.
On the whole, while it's kind of flawed, and arguably doesn't go far enough with its themes, I still quite enjoy this story. I do wish some of the effects work were better and that Jennifer had more care put into her character, but a strong concept, and otherwise solid guest cast do ultimately make up for it. While the ending easily stands out more than anything else – it's one hell of a cliffhanger to end on – this story deserves to be appreciated for more than just that.
Score: 7/10
Stray Observations
- Showrunner Steven Moffat's original brief for writer Matthew Graham was to set the episode in a more traditional factory. Graham suggested making the setting more unique by using a monastery, inspired by The Name of the Rose.
- Graham initially expected to write a standalone episode, but Steven Moffat, who apparently loves cliffhangers, pushed him to write a two-parter.
- Perhaps this is obvious, but it was Moffat who told Graham that the Doctor should arrive at the factory intentionally to investigate the Flesh, rather than the normal accidental arrival.
- That being said, Graham was the one who created a lot of the specific ideas about the Flesh. Moffat's original pitch was about "avatars that rebel", but he was concerned that this would be too similar to the movie Avatar.
- Inspirations for the Flesh included John Carpenter's The Thing and Frankenstein.
- At first there would have been a larger crew working at the factory. This was discarded partially for budgetary reasons, partially to better focus on a smaller crew and partially because Graham's early drafts were getting confusing with too many humans and Gangers running around.
- Location filming at Cardiff Castle (one of three castles used for filming) was cold and the costumes were not designed for those conditions. The crew were worried for the cast's health but fortunately they suffered nothing worse than discomfort.
- Karen Gillan enjoyed how Rory's friendship with Jennifer put Amy on the back foot in their relationship for a change.
- So the titles for this one bug me. Specifically, I feel like they're reversed. "The Almost People" is taken from a line of the Doctor's in the first episode, yet it's the title of the second, even though by the end of the first episode we've well and truly established that the Gangers have become fully-fledged independent people. Meanwhile "The Rebel Flesh" would work better as the title of the second episode, where the majority of that "rebellion" actually happens.
- After the opening credits, "Rebel Flesh" starts off with a scene of Amy and Rory playing darts. While this exists mostly to show the Doctor still scanning Amy as her pregnancy continues to flit between present and absent, I liked this scene. It's rare that we see the TARDIS crew just hanging out on the TARDIS.
- Rory never appears to die in this episode, however this episode does feature the first instance of a meta-commentary about how often it seems like he might die. When Jennifer says she thought she was going to die, Rory replies with a rueful "welcome to my world".
- It tracks that the next story after "The Doctor's Wife" is the one that sees the Doctor start really talking to the TARDIS like a person. Yes the Doctor's always spoken to the TARDIS, but often much in the same way that you could imagine talking to a car. But when the Doctor sees that the ground beneath the TARDIS has begun to decay under the Acid and the TARDIS has fallen through he says "what are you doing down there?" in much the same tone of voice that you might speak to a cat whose found its way into a difficult position. Later the Doctors (original and Ganger) refer to the TARDIS as "Sexy" referring back to the nickname given to the TARDIS in her Idris form in that episode.
- Weirdly, the "Previously" segment starts by making it sound like the TARDIS crew arrived at the monastery in the 13th Century. No idea why, and we quickly get obvious signs that the story is futuristic, including the Doctor saying it's in the 22nd Century.
- The Flesh Doctor channels the Doctor's previous incarnations, and for the 4th and 10th Doctor, specifically their voices. Audio was pulled from The Robots of Death and "The Girl in the Fireplace". It's definitely odd to have a whole other person's voice come out of Matt Smith's mouth.
- The Doctor, angry with Rory calls him "Rory Pond", already not his name. Then he Latinzes it to…Roranicus Pondicus.
- No "Next Time" trailer this time just the unnecessarily dramatic "To Be Continued" with each word coming up individual and the boom sound effect. Makes sense honestly. Any "Next Time" trailer would undermine the sense of "What the fuck" that this story ends on.
Next Time: With Amy missing, Rory does the only thing to do in these sort of situations: dress up like a Roman.
19
u/Grafikpapst May 05 '26
I always thought this is a bit of an underrated story, personally.
Yeah, the plot itself is a bit paint by Numbers, classic Base Under Siege with a very small sprinkling of anti-capitalism.
But I think the acting in this one was really good, especially Matt Smith essentially playing himself twice.
And I personally quite like the body horror aspect of the flesh.
Its not one of the best episodea ever, but I think the visuals, as cheesy as they are, are effectice and that earns it some extra points in my eyes.
12
u/Cynical_Classicist May 05 '26
Yeh, that's the risk with CGI. If you overuse it then it just looks... comical and kind of fake. Mayhaps more practical effects would have been better for the Flesh. You did get items being too long with the Not-things in Wild Blue Yonder, but that was much creepier, with it being more subtle. The initial pale look for the Gangers feels like what they should have gone with.
The moral also felt a bit confused, with the Doctor killing a Ganger at the end.
Incidentally, there seems to be the wrong name for this two-parter when I checked on this page. Though we all make mistakes from time to time, and this is fairly comprehensive! (https://www.reddit.com/user/ZeroCentsMade/comments/1k1v7o7/my_doctor_who_reviews_the_revival/)
6
u/ZeroCentsMade May 05 '26
Also getting to the actual meat of your comment (sleep deprived remember) I think a big part of the reasons the Not-Things work better than the more monstrous gangers (other than the obvious distinction of 12 years of improvements in technology) is that the Not-Things looking a bit fake actually enhances that episode because they don't obey the laws of our universe.
4
10
May 05 '26
Yeah, I think Jennifer is the biggest reason this doesn't work as well as it really should. Dodgy effects never bother me, but for all that the story attempts to explain her motivations, she comes off too much like an outright villain in a story that doesn't need (and probably shouldn't have) an outright villain. However, I do think the regulars do a fantastic job with the material they're given, even if it's a bit overwrought. I like the direction and location work at Caerphilly Castle, and nobody ever went wrong by casting Raquel Cassidy. I'm not terribly fond of the cliffhanger ending, but that has more to do with how I feel about the next episode than the scene itself. So, overall, I'd agree this is an underrated story, even if I'd probably only give it 6/10.
7
u/RbakerisQueen May 05 '26
This is a story that's always stuck with me, just with how similar it is to a Classic Who story, as you point out.
For better or for worse it's got all that Classic Who charm (Base under siege, weird CGI, the Doctor trying to get the base people to trust him, threat of a problem being made worse/escaping if not dealt with now etc.
I think the Doctor is at his best here, he does a lot of smart moves that the story doesn't draw too much attention to (which plays to its strengths)
-He doesn't expect Amy and Rory to be along, but improvises with the shoe swapping so he can observe without suspicion, and leave the door open for other opportunities (which leads to him joining the Ganger party later)
-He scans the Flesh again, I think he was intending for there to be a second Doctor at this point. Although he isn't aware of the specifics of how the machine works, he knows the Flesh can understand him and it's probably the first Real connection the Flesh has had (ever?), so it helps him out.
-Everything about the Microwave scene. He's doing it in the background, it's not even the main focus at first. Then he hands it to Cleves and it's not until he tells her it's hot (he's using the tea towel to hold it) that the audience is clued in that he suspected something is up with her.
-His prepaid phonecall is a decent ploy; he doesn't know exactly what's going to go down, but he knows that both Jimmys care about their son and he can probably use it to his advantage later (which he does). It also ends up leading to my favourite exchange from the episode:
(Ganger!Jen) 'You tricked him into an act of weakness, Doctor!'
(The Doctor) 'No, I helped him into an act of humanity. Any one else like the sound of that? Act of humanity?'
It's not the tightest written thing on the planet, but there's a lot I've always found myself enjoying (agreed on the titles being swapped, definitely makes more sense!)
6
u/Baron487 May 05 '26
I don't remember many details of this story and I haven't really thought much about the themes aside from the moral questions surrounding the Flesh and the Gangers. I think this story is perfectly good but not really great. I think Rory gets a really neat subplot with Jennifer, I especially think the twist of both Jennifers being Gangers and the real one having been dead for a while is really well done and also pretty heartbreaking. I really like Rory and how he's loyal and willing to help, so for his kindness to be exploited in such a way, it sucks to watch (but you know, in a good way). I also really like what they do with Jimmy and his son, it's very heartwarming.
I think the second part is better as that's when things really ramp up and it has all the stuff I like the most about the story (the previously mentioned Jennifer twist, Jimmy's subplot and also I think the Ganger Doctor is pretty fun). While the CGI isn't really the best, it does fall into the uncanny valley for me, even if Jennifer's monstrous form is also kinda ridiculous.
I might need to rewatch this story because I can't recall much in detail so I can't say much about it. Maybe I'm affected by general opinions from other fans here but it is just a story that doesn't quite reach into the great tier. I think it also could possibly be cut down to one part. And it is a bit weird that we spend the story basically pushing the message that the Flesh are more than just tools and the Gangers' lives are to be valued but then the climax is most of them dying and then Amy's one is just offed by the Doctor. I guess you could argue that Eleven did that because of his special relationship to Amy, but it's still strange.
TRF: 6/10.
TAP: 7/10.
8
u/PurpleGuy04 May 05 '26
Honestly, they should have put more focus in Rory. His whole conflict makes more sense when you realize he too, was a faker at one point. And no matter how much he lies, he remembers everything ( "sometimes, you catch him just...staring). So he has a very good reason to not be racist
Also when does the Doctor use 4th and 10th Voices?? The only time i noticed any of that this season was when the TARDIS played a Recording of A Unearthly Child (which was pretty fun, since it was never dubbed in Brazil)
8
u/ZeroCentsMade May 05 '26
It's at the beginning of "Almost People" where Ganger!Doctor starts channeling past regenerations. Specifically the lines "would you like a Jelly Baby" and "Hello I'm the Doctor" are taken from the 4th and 10th Doctor audio respectively before he starts mixing them up.
5
u/Sighoward May 05 '26
I was recently rewatching Ashes to Ashes and was surprised to see that Marshall Lancaster had given up acting to run a building firm. I thought he was great in this
3
u/ZeroCentsMade May 05 '26
Huh. Didn't know that. I always felt that in Life on Mars they didn't know exactly what they had with Marshall Lancaster until the very end of the show where he got a one-off really great episode, because until then hwas playing a bit of a one-note comic relief character if I recall correctly. He doesn't show much of that here, but he is a really good actor regardless.
5
u/Ribos1 May 05 '26
I'm generally a fan of two parters in the revived era, but this is where the case against them really becomes clear to me. What might have been a pretty weak but not too objectionable single episode feels very dull to me stretched over ninety minutes.
My issue with it is that there are lots of ideas here, but none of them feel meaningfully developed. The basic premise that something goes wrong and the Gangers become independent is solid enough, but feels hampered by them banging on about the pain the Flesh feels and why we should care about the non-independent Gangers. It doesn't help that the mouthpiece for the Flesh, Jenny, is so unsympathetic, descending into raving villainy by the end of the story, which kind of feels like the story realising it's nearly over and not being sure of what to do so fuck it, let's have a big flesh monster. Ditto the Gangers of the Doctor and Cleaves deciding to be melted at the end so we don't get left with any two versions of the same character, because that would threaten to be interesting.
The Ganger Doctor is the best bit of the story, but ends up feeling weirdly incidental to the proceedings, probably due to not showing up till the second episode. Having him and the Doctor essentially be on the same side feels like the story pulling its punches. The supporting characters mostly feel pretty weak - I like the idea that Ganger Cleaves almost feels relieved not to be the real one, but it feels underdeveloped. The rest of the characters fall flat, and Mark Bonnar feels criminally wasted. I would compare it to the supporting cast of The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit to show what a modern base-under-siege two-parter can do with its characters, only it would almost seem harsh. Amy gets some mildly intriguing arc stuff, while Rory honestly seems like a bit of an idiot most of the time.
I'll be honest, it feels like a first draft, or at least one that needs a lot of polish. It reminds me quite a bit of The Zygon Invasion/Inversion, weirdly enough. Another mid-series two parter about duplicates I don't like, which aimlessly lurches from idea to idea but never coheres into anything.
4
3
u/Personal-Listen-4941 Jun 04 '26
I never liked this story & your review helped remind me why. It’s a typical ‘humans are bastards’ style sci-fi morality tale, except the humans we meet have no idea they are doing anything wrong. It’s not even like they have managed to justify it to themselves, they don’t treat the gangers as equals, in the same way that you don’t treat a roomba as an equal. As far as they were concerned, these were just tools.
It’s not even clear through the episodes themselves whether the ganger sentience is a new evolutionary change, or whether they have always been like this but some scientists hid it.
Then after spending 80 minutes telling us that the gangers are just as valuable as humans, they have the same sentience, consciousness, can feel pain, etc. The doctor kills one in cold blood. Which not only goes against everything that has happened in the story, but feels like it would gave been easier to do before this story started.
2
u/JimyJJimothy May 07 '26
I remember the cat nurses in New Earth calling their lab humans "the flesh". I'm sure it isn't intended to be that but in my headcanon it's the same process.
2
u/lkmk Jun 08 '26
A detail which has always stuck out to me is Amy, confused by the Doctors’ use of “Wowza!”, murmuring the word to herself. I guess it was nice to get a look into her thought process?
-1
u/PaperSkin-1 May 05 '26
This is a good story, and one I think is underrated by the fandom.
If this came out in the Ncuti era it would be called a masterpiece. But as it was in the Matt Smith era where the quality bar hadn't dropped through the floor it's seen as solid good DW.
It was a shame this was the last 2 parter for a long while, it never made sense to me that they moved away from them, as to me the show should of changed to be doing more 2 parters not less
22
u/Zagreus_time May 05 '26 edited May 05 '26
An interesting central conflict and revolution I should care about and yet I don't. I think you correctly identify Jennifer as a weak link particularly as she is our starting point for the Flesh members pov. But tbh I also don't find much of the rest of the cast that good (which hurts to say when one of my favourite timelords Mark Bonnar is there) and characters mostly come across as annoying than likeable. The episode is probably better than I give it credit for but it bores me too much to engage properly.
Aside from that
ironically starting a fairly long period of no two parters until the series 8 finale albeit Name of the Doctor does have a cliffhanger ending.