Doctor Who - 6.6: "The Almost People" Review

The Doctor continues in his attempt to get the workers off the island, as well as interacting with his own ganger and revealing the real reason why he was on the island.

 The Doctor's (Matt Smith) ganger screams in agony, prompting the real Doctor to tell him the Flesh has to cope with their past regenerations.   Ganger Doctor asks if he wants a Jelly Baby.   The Doctor wants more proof that he's really him and they talk with each other.   Rory (Arthur Darvill) and Amy (Karen Gillan) may not trust them, but the two Doctors are on the same wavelength, "great minds" and all that.   His plan is to save them all and ganger Doctor was thinking that too.   "It's just so inspiring to hear me say it."  Amy notices the different shoes one of them's wearing but can't tell them apart.   Both the Doctors have "established a protocol." They both tell Amy to "breathe."  Obviously for when she's having the baby.   Doctor: "I'm starting to get a sense of just how impressive it is to hang out with me...Yowza." He finds an escape route from the chapel.

Jennifer (Sarah Smart) wants it all to stop, is she  the real Jennifer?  Rory follows her.   Cleaves (Raquel Cassidy) says if they can get power then they can scan for Rory.   Amy comments the Doctor asked her breathe a while back, but she can't.   That's cos the acid's interacting with the stone to give off gas.   Thus they need to head for the Evac tower.   Cleaves gets headaches.   Amy's pulled a muscle from breathing too hard, but we know differently.   As Amy could see the Eye-Patch (Frances Barber) woman, as she wasn't really with them.   Read on.

Ganger Jennifer says the eyes are the last to melt and they always ask 'why?'  Why should they suffer for humans?  Ganger Cleaves just wants to live in peace.   Ganger Jennifer wants to destroy the humans and gets Ganger Jimmy (Mark Bonner) and ganger Dicken (Leon Vickers) on side.   Amy wants the Doctors to stop finishing each other's sentences.   They talk about the TARDIS again calling her " a tough, old, sexy thing."  She's "tough, old, dependable, sexy." They both have 900 years of experiences and memories and wear bow ties.  "Bow ties are cool."  The Doctor tells Amy he had a little accident and needed new shoes, which was a clue, as I said before.   Amy doesn't like being called Pond and she has more affection for the real Doctor than his ganger.   She refers to ganger Doctor as "almost impressive." Which he doesn't like.  They can't scan Rory and Cleaves manages to send a rescue message to the mainland, she also wants the gangers killed.

Ganger Jennifer can't override the thermostat as she's not human.   The Doctor makes a phonecall on delay because he's an optimist.   Amy watches ganger Doctor and sees the Eye-Patch woman again.   Finally telling the Doctor about her.   He refers to it as a "time memory, like a mirage."  (See Amy's been having the other Amy's memories and visions.)  Here's where we realize that the Doctor knows everything and that it's been happening for a while.   Ganger Doctor: "It's in my head." Oh he has his dark moments doesn't he.   Great.   Amy apologizes to ganger Doctor for calling him "almost the Doctor." and asks if he can die.   Amy: "You can be killed and I have seen that happen...because you invited us to see it - your death."  He asks "Why?" It's the shoes I say, always watch out for the shoes!

Ganger Doctor: "It's all the eyes say, why?"  Hey this could have been a subtle allusion to Eye-Patch woman.  They shouldn't throw their gangers away and they can feel death and only say why.   He briefly sensed it, but not as strong as ganger Doctor.   (Did he mean he sensed the Flesh in Amy.)  The Flesh wants revenge.   Amy says he can never be the Doctor.   Well he played them with the old switcheroo ploy to the end - very clever; and says the Sonic needs to tell the difference between humans and gangers.   Amy is certain he's the Doctor and she can tell.

The 'real' Jennifer shows Rory her burn mark and she fights with her ganger.   The ganger gets burnt in the acid and melts.  The Doctor asks, "Sure you're not prejudiced."  Rory wants them all to live like the Doctor.   The others finally see Rory and Jennifer heading for the thermostatic room.   The Doctor lets his ganger go with Buzzer (Marshall Lancaster) to rescue them, the Doctor wants them to go and "I'm rather adamant."  He tells Amy she has to trust him.   Jennifer gets Rory to scan his hand over the panel so she can access the controls.   The computer speaks; "Human source recognized."  Oh Rory it didn't click he was the human, not her.  She overrides the thermostat.   The island will blow.   The Doctor scanned Cleaves.   She has a blood clot, inoperable on earth.   The radio is dead so they can't radio the rescue helicopter, but ganger Cleaves knows the password to the shuttle: "Bad Boy."  Ganger Cleaves exhibits a change of heart when she remarks, "we're the same person."  She called them persons and didn't differentiate between "us and them" like ganger Jennifer.

Rory chances upon the discarded Flesh, led there by Jennifer.   Obviously she's not human especially when she asks "Who are the real monsters?"  Which Rory missed again.   Ganger Doctor finds the real Jennifer, dead and Buzzer hits him from behind.   The others led by the Doctor, find eyes on the wall, "the eyes have it."  They were rather large.   Rory tells them about a secret tunnel under the crypt.   Jennifer locks them up and Rory realizes Jennifer is a ganger.   There was no other Jennifer, just always her ganger.   The Doctor calls Rory "Roranicus Pondicus" (perhaps an allusion to the next episode.)  Rory doesn't want them left  there to die.   The Doctor waits for his delayed call, from Adam, Jimmy's son, on his birthday.   This call convinces ganger Jimmy to let the others out, as the real Jimmy is splashed with acid and asks his ganger to look after Adam (Edmond Moulton) and be a dad.

As they try to escape from Jennifer, who has now transformed into a four legged monster, Dicken attempts to lock the other door shut and is killed.   Cue old Sexy TARDIS.   Ganger Cleaves tells them all to leave.   The Doctor says he can stop Jennifer, as he's been with him more.   The Doctor swapped his shoes back from his ganger, so ganger Doctor was the real Doctor all along.   See the shoes.   It was imperative that the two Doctors learn they were the same and "we could never do that through your eyes."  He tells Amy.   Amy hugs ganger Doctor, "you're twice the man I thought you were."  He tells her to "push but only when she tells you to." The Doctor tells ganger Doctor his molecular memory could survive this.   Ganger Doctor replies he'll know if he turns up and nicks all his biscuits.   (What the Jammie Dodgers.) The sonic will dissolve Jennifer and them too.   He yells "Geronimo!"

Amy was so convincing, had us fooled at any rate.   The Doctor says the energy from the TARDIS will stabilize the gangers - as people now.   He gives Cleaves a cure which tastes of onions.   She has to make them stop what they're doing to the Flesh.   Dicken says he's human now.   So two gangers and one human returned from the island.

Inside the TARDIS the Doctor tells Amy, "I said breathe Pond, remember - breathe."  She's having contractions.   The Doctor needed to see the Flesh in its early days, "that's why I scanned it.   That's why I was there in the first place."  But things happened, "shenanigans, beautiful word."  He needed information to block the signal to the Flesh - the signal being sent to Amy.   He melts her, he'll be humane but he has to do this.   He promises they'll find Amy who hasn't been here for "a long, long time."  Eye-Patch opens the hatch.   She's ready for the baby and tells her to "push."

So no evil Doctor, kind of a shame, could've been fun and no deadly bugs either, no they all became 'proper little humans' aside from Jennifer, at least the ones not killed off, Dicken and Jimmy.   Humanity portrayed at its ugliest with blatant disregard for the gangers after they served their purpose and humanity at its best, spurred on by the Doctor, who else; when he tells Cleaves to make it right.   She being the only one of the humans who survived.   Good to see her change too: both her human form and her ganger, when she saves them at the end and stays behind with Doctor ganger, aka John Smith; leaving Cleaves the human, to expose the company at the press conference.

That was a huge clue when the Doctor said Amy wasn't watching out for the shoes.  She told him about his future death and they were invited.   Everyone said Amy would blab (even if it wasn't really Amy.)  So that's why it looked so obvious from the last episode that the Doctor intended to be on this island from the outset.  Amy never being here at all and not being with them long enough to carry a baby to term, at least not ganger Amy.   Apparently she must have been missing since the season opener.   Perhaps the Doctor found out when the TARDIS couldn't scan her either way.   Maybe he knew before that.   Thought there must have been something going on when the Silence had her tied up in the chair earlier in Day of the Moon.

About the Doctor's death, did he already know about this which is why he invited them, or does he know about it only when Amy told him now.   She thought she was talking to his ganger, but she told the real Doctor.   He always sensed she was keeping something from him.   Yet he had to have known about his dying, if he sent the invites.   What if ganger Doctor survived as he mentioned the molecular structure and it was him who was killed in the future...highly unlikely he would've melted when they burned him, but with this episode, it's another case of if you think too much about it, there's no logic to it, but only confusion.

Also when he asks Amy if she's sure she's not prejudiced as she likes the human Doctor more, when she can tell he's the real Doctor, she was actually talking to his ganger and not the real one, therefore also being flesh, Amy was prejudiced towards the ganger Doctor, whom she thought was the real Doctor.   Poor Rory, being without his beloved Amy again.   Love that look Matt Smith gives when he stares into space, that lost look into emptiness, either portraying sadness or darkness.  

Ganger Doctor whilst trying to adjust to the Flesh, talks in the voice of the fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) and the tenth Doctor (David Tennant) who had a penchant for Jelly Babies.  The phrase, "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" was uttered by the thrid Doctor (Jon Pertwee.)

Anyway, it's all happening next episode, with the baby, the Cybermen, Silurians, Sontaran, our River (Alex Kingston) and lots more...