The crew’s dopplegangers have rebelled against their subservient nature, war has broken out between the organic and the artificial workers, and there is now a doppleganger Doctor. After last week’s ponderous episode, the Almost People moves the story up a couple of gears and throws in a mind-bending twist that hits you in the side of the face like a wayward football - shockingly and without warning.
The episode opens with the Flesh-Doctor struggling to assimilate over 900 years of experience, every incarnation the Doctor has experienced flowing through his mind, manifested in a tirade of phrases uttered by the previous Doctors (including Pertwee’s one-time line “I’ve reversed the polarity of the neutron flow” and Tom Baker’s trademark “Would you like a jelly baby?”). Matt Smith threw himself into the bizarre convulsions with great fervour, giving a remarkably credible performance on both sides despite the obvious difficulties of having one actor play two separate characters at the same time. There’s nothing quite as fun for an actor than going completely doo-lally!
The whole double-Doctor scenario played out rather well, with both celebrating the presence of another Doctor of equal brilliance. The Doctor and the Doctor made quite a good double-act! Not everyone was too keen on the doppleganger, though, as Amy harboured a ‘not-quite-the-Doctor’ prejudice towards the Ganger, something which the script cunningly toyed with by revealing towards the end that the Doctor and Flesh-Doctor had swapped shoes to prove a point. Exactly when they swapped shoes is not particularly obvious (at a guess, I’d say during the popping up and down from behind the console), so when Amy informed the Flesh-Doctor of the Doctor’s future death, did she tell the Flesh-Doctor or the real Doctor?
The only thing that really got confusing in the double-Doctor arc was the exchange of the sonic screwdriver, as evidently the Ganger (or was it, by this point, the real one?) did not possess a screwdriver, so the other threw him his. This swapping of screwdrivers occurred on a couple of occasions, but at one point they both seemed to possess one at the same time, with one Doctor in the TARDIS and the other left outside yet both inexplicably in possession of a screwdriver. Perhaps if one throws a sonic screwdriver to one’s counter-part a certain number of times it causes a rupture in space-time, causing it to duplicate itself…? I would say the TARDIS produced a second one, but I’m sure the double-screwdriver paradox had occurred prior to that. Perhaps it was merely a mistake that had been overlooked, or something that seems negligible now but will prove to be an integral plot-point in the future?
It is, however, incredibly important to note that when the Flesh-Doctor is about to meet his end and destroy the now mutated-Flesh-Jennifer, the Doctor indicates that the Flesh-Doctor may somehow survive in some form. Presumably it’s still open for the Flesh-Doctor to be the one who dies in the scene we see in the the Impossible Astronaut?
The pseudo-humanising of the guest stars made a recurrence, with an attempt to make both the humans and the Gangers seem as if they had some degree of depth and emotion. Personally, I felt this all to be a little hollow and may have worked better without it. However, perhaps it was necessary, as towards the end of the episode the surviving Gangers, with a new sense of humanity ,depart to make a press conference which is hinted at being important for the future. There’s also a notably cringe-worthy line when Rory is shown the discarded Gangers, and Flesh-Jennifer asks “Who are the real monsters?” - if the moral undertones of the Rebel Flesh and the Almost People were not obvious beforehand, it’s now been clearly spelt out!
Finally, if you have not seen the Almost People yet, do so now (click here) as what follows is possibly the biggest spoiler for this half of the series…
Amy’s not real. She’s been a Ganger all this time, and the real Amy is in some pristine and clinically white capsule with a rather conspicuous bump and Madame Kovarian/Eye Patch Lady staring down at her. That certainly explains why Eye Patch Lady kept cropping up and opening non-existent hatches, and why Amy’s pregnancy was positive and negative whenever the Doctor scanned her. Amy`s Ganger must’ve had some form of psychic link to the real Amy. Little bit curious as to why the Doctor felt the need to melt the Flesh-Amy, seeing as until that point he’d claimed that the Flesh had just as much a right to life as anyone, but still... These final few minutes completely eclipsed the 40-odd minutes that had come before it!
So when was it Amy was replaced with a Ganger? In the 3 month gap between the Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon? When she was taken by the Silence? Preceding the entire series? Seeing as she claimed to be pregnant in the first episode but had changed her mind by the second, it’s all very odd and open for speculation.
Next week, a Good Man Goes To War, and apparently (at least, so the trailer indicated) we finally learn the identity of River Song!
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