Posted in: Movies, Recent Updates | Tagged: bleeding cool, doctor who, Rich Johnston

Ten Thoughts About Doctor Who: The Almost People

Published Sun, 29 May 2011 03:18:59 -0500

1. "One Day We Will Get Back. Yes, One Day"

What a curious combination of the more common "Get back!" and one of the lines from the very original episode of Doctor Who. And more to come. But was there a little metatextualness in;

Tenth Doctor Voice: Hello! I'm The Doctor!

Eleventh Doctor: No let it go, we've moved on!

That's all you fans still mooning after Tennant told off then.

2. The Two Doctors.

Walking in sync with a dip. Beautiful.

And yes that shoes closeup, something that looks like a complete whack over the head to make things obvious, that gets a beautiful twist later. Awfully good. And in doing so stop one of the two plate spinning over the information about the Doctor's death as well. That's going to have consequences.

And why the The-Doctor-who-we-think-is-Smith gets more of a reaction from the Flesh memories, well he is a bit of a telepath and Smith-who-we-think-is-the-Doctor has less painful reaction to external stimuli, remember…

3. Follow The Sonics.

So Smith-who-we-think-is-the-Doctor gives The-Doctor-who-we-think-is-Smith the Sonic Screwdriver but then seems to have one later. Did the Doctor start with two sonics and did he give them both to Smith when they swapped shoes too? Considering how much of this is preplanned, I wouldn;t put it past him.

4. Big Gangers Have Little Gangers Upon Their Back To Bite 'Em.

"Human source recognised" That was pretty much the giveaway there. Just think, someone so incensed about ganger rights they will create and sacrifice another ganger "for the greater good". Someone who believes in the cause they will act against its principles to secure it. That was never really going to end well.

5. Eyes.

Uurrgh.

Bodies.

Uuuurgh.

30th Century Business Meeting Rooms.

Uuuuurgh.

7. The Real Monsters, As Ever, Are Us!

For all the Doctor goes on about celebrating how great humanity is, with these kind of shows, we're usually shown how horrible, turncoat, and fucked up we all are, never a second away from betraying a human, usually over some bigoted fury. Midnight probably did it best, but this is quite close. Especially because of all the acid. And then, of course the remaining humans are forced to become nice again. Sometimes.

8. Except For When They're Not.

Turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so.

9. Door Theory.

Hand on, couldn't the real Doctor have used the sonic to get rid of Jennifer earlier, and not collapsing the other gangers around him, or the Doctor ganger? Hell one person seems to able to deal with holding the door on its own for a good long period of time when one of them is getting hugged… and from what we've learned, why not give the sonic to Amy?

10. Okay Blimey I Didn't See That Coming.

And that's the other plate unspun. And dropped on the ground. And smashed with tiny hammers. The Doctor has been well ahead of us (good) and seems to be doing the only Seventh Doctor trick of not telling anyone anything, working ahead and only revealing stuff when it suits him (also good).

But when did Amy change? The first time we saw eye patch woman was in Day Of The Moon and that was before Amy got taken by the Silence. So it's not then… was there a snatch when she was on the run? A moment between being pregnant and then thinking she wasn't? And what happened to ganger rights in Amy's case? "Given what I've learned I'll be as humane as I can"… didn't look that humane.