The Rebel Flesh

"You gave them your lives. Human lives are amazing. Are you surprised they walked off with them?"

Writer: Matthew Graham

Format: TV

Broadcast: 21st May 2011

Series: 6.05

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor, Amy, Rory

Synopsis 

The Doctor, Amy and Rory visit an acid-mining factory. A solar storm hits and turns the workers' Gangers into self-aware individuals, and now the Doctor must mediate between the original workers and the rebellious Gangers. 

Verdict 

The Rebel Flesh is a very intriguing episode to form the first half of the story that will be completed in The Almost People (see tomorrow's blog entry). Right from the get go an atmosphere of mystery is present and many elements of the story are enigmatic which gives it a strange and eery feel - one I most definitely am in favour of. I really liked some of the directing at the start with the camera rushing through the tunnel with the lights to close in on three people who'd have big roles in the episode. The guest cast as a whole really were fantastic. I loved the relationship between the Doctor and Miranda Cleaves because they had such differing ideas on what was best to cope with the solar storm. Cleaves, with it being her factory, obviously thought that she knew best. We knew that was not the case and quite a situation soon embroiled. Jimmy and Buzzer were great characters and I loved the complete lack of reaction to Buzzer's accidental death in the opening scenes. Jennifer had a lovely relationship here with Rory and for once he didn't seem so useless! If it wasn't for the series arc of Amy being pregnant (or is she?) and her seeing the Eye-Patch Lady then I don't think I'd have anything to mention about the stunning redhead other than her wanting to stay with the Doctor while he wanted them gone to carry out some business of his own. Things don't go well when the Doctor loses Amy and Rory for a while as we saw in just the previous episode The Doctor's Wife! The Flesh concept was quite incomprehensible but the possibilities it brought were endless. Fully programmable matter linked to the real person. Controlled even. If your doppelgänger, or Ganger as it was conveniently and nicely shortened to, was killed then the link would just be cut off. The design of the Flesh was intriguing as it was just white glump. The process didn't look anything new to us as we'd seen Martha cloned in similar fashion before in The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky. However, the solar tsunami that the TARDIS had difficulty escaping was now taking its tole on the atmosphere above the monastery. The crew had barely survived the pre-shock, would they manage against the after-shock? The Doctor had serious doubts. Matt Smith just proved once again why he is my favourite Doctor. He just screams excellence when it comes to playing the Time Lord, and that adjective is nowhere near good enough for the amazing actor! He really made the role his own and everything about him just made the Eleventh Doctor absolutely incredible. His anger towards Cleaves when she was just going to keep on pumping was sublime. I don't think any other Doctor can switch from humour and comedy to anger and seriousness in an instant quite like Smith manages it. Tom Baker and David Tennant come somewhere close but they don't hold a candle to Smith in my opinion. The storm activating the Gangers was a great explanation of how they survived the link being broken and war soon ensued despite the Doctor's best efforts. When the Doctor tries to stop fighting and war he never seems to succeed does he? Just look at his encounters with the Silurians for more than one example. The look on his face when both factions, humans and Gangers, declared it was "us and them" was fantastic. He knew he had something awful on his hands. A species who believed they had the right to live, and the Doctor agreed, against the race he has saved countless times who believed the Gangers were monsters and had no right to live. They were horrified that they believed they were the real humans. Ganger Jimmy talking about his son, well it wasn't technically his, was really emotional! Rory had ran off to find Jennifer but if things couldn't get any worse for the factions or more so the Doctor, after his fiddling with the Flesh a Ganger Doctor appeared in a superb cliffhanger! Just what will happen in the second episode between two Doctors is an exciting thought! Overall, a decent and very good episode to form the first half of the penultimate adventure of this half-run during series six. The rating will of course arrive once the story completes in the second part!