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puppetmakerThis is a chunk of New Who to Review but honestly I think it is better to look at this as a piece. The Rebel Flesh and the Almost People were a two parter but considering what happens at the end of the Almost People, it needs to be done as a block.
I got to the end of these three and thought, “Moffat, you magnificent bastard. You have my attention for the second half of the season for sure.” We have answers to things from last season that seemed to be throw aways at the time. We have a number of answers for the first part of the season. And we have yet more questions. As Peter said, this is going to be one of those seasons that you sit down one evening and marathon to see all the threads that were created.
Acting is solid all the way around. Arthur Darville is making Rory a new favorite companion in my book. Matt Smith gets to play around with some other emotions and reactions that shows he has a big range than they had originally given the Doctor (more about that in the spoiler section). Karen Gillian was given some really tough stuff to play around with this season and she did a great job.
This was good Who with all the monsters and morality you could shake a stick at.
I am grateful for the first half of this season and looking forward to the second half.
Behind the cut is going to be both my thoughts an a little speculation about the second half. I ask the comments stick to the first half of this season and only your own speculation. I don’t want/need spoilers. I accidently got one for A Good Man Goes to War and it took the punch out of something. If you haven’t seen the episodes I am talking about well here there be spoilers but I am breaking it into two pieces with a break in between because A Good Man Goes to War hasn’t been shown in the US
The Flesh is a very interesting concept and, I think, used properly to move the plot along rather than a Macguffin. It didn’t feel like a short cut but rather a story element. We again explore the topic of what is human and what is it to be human. And how inhuman humans can be. The Flesh is programmable matter that can be turned into Dopplegangers that are disposable. We find out in The Almost People that the Flesh remembers each “ganger” that has been destroyed and collectively it is not happy about it. That humans would so casually discard something is nothing new. Consider how we treat our electronics now. So who is more inhuman? The Humans or the Flesh?
Also we have the Doctor’s switch with the Ganger just to see how each would be treated. It was pretty obvious what they did from the start from a writing point of view. The fact that the Doctor knows now about the invitation to his own death was going to happen at some point during the season better in the first half than the second half.
Like the humans that were copied, the Gangers have different temperaments, wants and needs. I can see Jennifer as the one who was going to go around the bend to the dark side. Because she was not a perfect copy, she had echoes of previous copies. Remember she was the only one in the group of Gangers that knew about the last moments of a copy. She also knew about the incomplete gangers that had just been discarded but still “lived” after a fashion. All she can remember is evil and fear so she turns on those she believes to be the evil and in doing so becomes an even greater evil (possible echo of things to come?). She also manages to convince the others that what she believes is true for a little while. But once she kills the real Jennifer, she is rejected by her own kind.
Then there is a revel at the end that the Amy Pond we thought was in the TARDIS was not the Amy Pond we thought her to be. Rory trusted the Doctor enough to step back. The look on his face as he starts to sort it out for himself is priceless. The Doctor talking through Ganger Amy to Real Amy so she knows he knows what is going on and what he is going to do about it. It was a rather edge of your seat way to leave it. However there is one more episode in the first half.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
W
A
R
N
I
N
G
But first a side note. I wonder what the numbers were for BBC America for showing the last two episodes a week after the Beeb? Doctor Who fans are smart and if there is a way to keep up, they are going to do it. I wonder if the increased view numbers this season were because they showed it basically at the same time.
A Good Man Goes To War
I know there is not an episode missing in between but Moffat made me feel like I missed a lot between weeks. Overall this seemed a little crunched. Moffat was trying to get a lot in one episode. He seemed to be trying to resolve a bunch of threads and then creating a bunch more.
Who else thinks that Kovarian is the Rani? I just get such a Rani vibe off of her.
The baby being flesh was there. Peter figured it out and I missed it. River being Melody was a given the minute we learned the baby’s name. It was just how are we going to get there.
Anyone else want a spin-off series with Vastra and Jenny solving crimes in Victorian England? I’d write for it.
My new favorite Sontarian was being punished by the Doctor and made to be a nurse and heal rather than kill. A rather cruel punishment and makes you wonder how far around the bend the Doctor went after he started his search for Pond.
River does point out to the Doctor what his name has become through time and how he has become that which he despised. The Doctor we are seeing rescuing Pond is not the Doctor who dropped off the Flesh. He and Rory have been terrifying the universe in search of Amy and considering how scared everyone is of him, it must have been pretty horrific.
The Headless Monks were mentioned last year during second the Angels episode. I also loved the Fat One and the Thin One and am sorry that the Fat one got to become a monk. It was, in some ways, an in your face commentary but it also showed hope for the future in a very strange way.
So we have a dangerous Doctor, a weapon created to kill the Doctor, Amy and Rory not very happy with the situation, and the Doctor off on his own. So they get their daughter back, sort of. But we still have the opening scene from this season with the Doctor being given a Viking funeral still to be answered or changed.
We also pick up a very old thread about the Time Lords gaining the ability to travel through time because of the time they spent in the vortex. It was a throw away line from long ago (Sly I think but it could have been earlier) but it is being used now to explain why River can do the things she can do and why the TARDIS loves her so.
I did enjoy this episode and look forward to the second half of the season. I am still processing everything from AGMGTW since there was a lot there to process.
Oh and my ringtone is the Matt Smith Doctor theme now.
I got to the end of these three and thought, “Moffat, you magnificent bastard. You have my attention for the second half of the season for sure.” We have answers to things from last season that seemed to be throw aways at the time. We have a number of answers for the first part of the season. And we have yet more questions. As Peter said, this is going to be one of those seasons that you sit down one evening and marathon to see all the threads that were created.
Acting is solid all the way around. Arthur Darville is making Rory a new favorite companion in my book. Matt Smith gets to play around with some other emotions and reactions that shows he has a big range than they had originally given the Doctor (more about that in the spoiler section). Karen Gillian was given some really tough stuff to play around with this season and she did a great job.
This was good Who with all the monsters and morality you could shake a stick at.
I am grateful for the first half of this season and looking forward to the second half.
Behind the cut is going to be both my thoughts an a little speculation about the second half. I ask the comments stick to the first half of this season and only your own speculation. I don’t want/need spoilers. I accidently got one for A Good Man Goes to War and it took the punch out of something. If you haven’t seen the episodes I am talking about well here there be spoilers but I am breaking it into two pieces with a break in between because A Good Man Goes to War hasn’t been shown in the US
The Flesh is a very interesting concept and, I think, used properly to move the plot along rather than a Macguffin. It didn’t feel like a short cut but rather a story element. We again explore the topic of what is human and what is it to be human. And how inhuman humans can be. The Flesh is programmable matter that can be turned into Dopplegangers that are disposable. We find out in The Almost People that the Flesh remembers each “ganger” that has been destroyed and collectively it is not happy about it. That humans would so casually discard something is nothing new. Consider how we treat our electronics now. So who is more inhuman? The Humans or the Flesh?
Also we have the Doctor’s switch with the Ganger just to see how each would be treated. It was pretty obvious what they did from the start from a writing point of view. The fact that the Doctor knows now about the invitation to his own death was going to happen at some point during the season better in the first half than the second half.
Like the humans that were copied, the Gangers have different temperaments, wants and needs. I can see Jennifer as the one who was going to go around the bend to the dark side. Because she was not a perfect copy, she had echoes of previous copies. Remember she was the only one in the group of Gangers that knew about the last moments of a copy. She also knew about the incomplete gangers that had just been discarded but still “lived” after a fashion. All she can remember is evil and fear so she turns on those she believes to be the evil and in doing so becomes an even greater evil (possible echo of things to come?). She also manages to convince the others that what she believes is true for a little while. But once she kills the real Jennifer, she is rejected by her own kind.
Then there is a revel at the end that the Amy Pond we thought was in the TARDIS was not the Amy Pond we thought her to be. Rory trusted the Doctor enough to step back. The look on his face as he starts to sort it out for himself is priceless. The Doctor talking through Ganger Amy to Real Amy so she knows he knows what is going on and what he is going to do about it. It was a rather edge of your seat way to leave it. However there is one more episode in the first half.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
W
A
R
N
I
N
G
But first a side note. I wonder what the numbers were for BBC America for showing the last two episodes a week after the Beeb? Doctor Who fans are smart and if there is a way to keep up, they are going to do it. I wonder if the increased view numbers this season were because they showed it basically at the same time.
A Good Man Goes To War
I know there is not an episode missing in between but Moffat made me feel like I missed a lot between weeks. Overall this seemed a little crunched. Moffat was trying to get a lot in one episode. He seemed to be trying to resolve a bunch of threads and then creating a bunch more.
Who else thinks that Kovarian is the Rani? I just get such a Rani vibe off of her.
The baby being flesh was there. Peter figured it out and I missed it. River being Melody was a given the minute we learned the baby’s name. It was just how are we going to get there.
Anyone else want a spin-off series with Vastra and Jenny solving crimes in Victorian England? I’d write for it.
My new favorite Sontarian was being punished by the Doctor and made to be a nurse and heal rather than kill. A rather cruel punishment and makes you wonder how far around the bend the Doctor went after he started his search for Pond.
River does point out to the Doctor what his name has become through time and how he has become that which he despised. The Doctor we are seeing rescuing Pond is not the Doctor who dropped off the Flesh. He and Rory have been terrifying the universe in search of Amy and considering how scared everyone is of him, it must have been pretty horrific.
The Headless Monks were mentioned last year during second the Angels episode. I also loved the Fat One and the Thin One and am sorry that the Fat one got to become a monk. It was, in some ways, an in your face commentary but it also showed hope for the future in a very strange way.
So we have a dangerous Doctor, a weapon created to kill the Doctor, Amy and Rory not very happy with the situation, and the Doctor off on his own. So they get their daughter back, sort of. But we still have the opening scene from this season with the Doctor being given a Viking funeral still to be answered or changed.
We also pick up a very old thread about the Time Lords gaining the ability to travel through time because of the time they spent in the vortex. It was a throw away line from long ago (Sly I think but it could have been earlier) but it is being used now to explain why River can do the things she can do and why the TARDIS loves her so.
I did enjoy this episode and look forward to the second half of the season. I am still processing everything from AGMGTW since there was a lot there to process.
Oh and my ringtone is the Matt Smith Doctor theme now.
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no subject
Date: 2011-06-06 02:57 pm (UTC)I've seen that suggested in a couple places.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-16 08:38 am (UTC)Big "YES!" from me on this count. Over on my El-Jay I posted a nice piece of fan art (Non-Rule 34 fan art, that is) of those two that I found.
It's speaks to his writing chops how sharply Moffatt drew those two characters, so quickly, so that they're one of the main things I keep hearing people say they want more of from this episode.