The Almost People

I am and always will be the optimist. The hoper of far-flung hopes and the dreamer of improbable dreams.

The Eleventh Doctor (Ganger)

Synopsis

The conflict between the miners and their gamgers escalates, whilst Amy is unsure as to whether she can trust the Doctor’s ganger. Meanwhile, Rory continues to try and help Jennifer.

Review

The Almost People feels like a missed opportunity to haul what could be an intriguing premise out of a bit of a malaise caused by a disappointing first part. It’s an interesting story looking back at the Moffat era more generally though, as it is the last conventional two-part story to air until Dark Water/Death in Heaven, and shows Series 6’s commitment to shaking up the format of the show to keep it evolving and guessing. The first mid-season two-parter was conventionally a lighter affair, which in Series 3 and 4 saw returning antagonists (the Daleks and the Sontarans), whilst the second two-parter juggled a darker tone and more serious issues from the start of the revival. The Rebel Flesh and The Almost People feels more like the second of these types of two-parter.

When telling stories about duplicates, the inevitable plot thread is to have issues of trust, leading to feelings of tension and paranoia, but that’s never something I get a massive sense of when watching The Almost People. There is a lot of aggressive speel from both sides, but it’s almost like the story never really explores anything in great detail. Part of my problem with this story is that everything gets resolved very quickly and easily by the TARDIS. We are told that Cleaves has an untreatable clot, and we have a combination of human and ganger survivors at the end of the story, with the gangers being converted to humans by some mystical power of the Doctor’s ship. This all feels a bit too neat, especially with one character, Dicken, not really developing any kind of character over the course of two episodes, and we are suddenly expected to care about what happens to him. He is possibly the most forgettable character of them all, with only Jimmy standing out, but that’s more to do with Mark Bonnar standing out from the guest cast, albeit with his arc being utterly predictable. Ultimately, the most important part of this story is that leads directly into the mid-series finale, A Good Man Goes to War, with the reveal that Amy has been a Flesh duplicate all along. If only there was a more interesting story about the Flesh behind it all.

I think the biggest problem I have with this episode and the one preceeding it is that there is very little visually interesting in the story. Due to the setting in a monastery, there is a lot of grey in the background and there is little interesting to keep your attention. Combined with a story that doesn’t really captivate, despite an intriguing premise of not really knowing who to trust, and some pretty poor CGI, it’s a relief that the story chooses to cut away from scenes like Jennifer unhinging her jaw to devour the hapless Buzzer. Stretching is really difficult to pull off convincingly, so perhaps blaming Julian Simpson and the CG team is doing them a disservice, but it really doesn’t work here.

The guest cast. Ultimately Sarah Smart’s Jennifer never feels as truly devious as this story makes out that she is. Doing things like creating a further Flesh copy so that she can trick Rory into accepting that she is the real one when she kills her feels out of character for what we’re told about Jennifer, described by Cleaves as a sweet kid. This is symptomatic of broader problems with the guest cast, who are left with little to do to make anyone truly stand out, we don’t really have any glimpses of character and time could have been taken to establish these characters better in the first part. I don’t think that any of the actors involved does a necessarily bad job with what they’re given, but the characters are so paper-thin that they cannot add flesh to the bones. Raquel Cassidy’s Cleaves has a world-weariness that doesn’t really make sense, given that she doesn’t know that she has a fatal clot and doesn’t really ever convince as someone who would ever get into a position of management and leadership. The other two characters, Buzzer and Jimmy, are given so little to do that they barely have characters.

Look, you’re fine and everything, but he’s the Doctor. No offence. But being almost the Doctor is pretty damn impressive.

Amy Pond

Matt Smith is possibly the other highlight of this story, pulling double duty as the Eleventh Doctor and his ganger duplicate. Smith does really well in this role, even if the story is not always capable of convincing that there are two Doctors in the same scene. That doesn’t stop Smith giving his all to the mystery, and managing to keep the charade up for the entirety of the story. The switch of the shoes is a simple but effective way of keeping the confusion going. The story doesn’t really do Rory any favours, with his continuing faith in Jennifer seem all the more baffling and making him seem gullible and foolish. The scene where he leads the Doctor and Amy into the acid storage room is one of the most egregious. Maybe it is supposed to establish Rory as sympathetic and willing to see the best in people, but there are serious signs about Jennifer before this moment that Rory is present for and is intelligent enough to be suspicious. I think in characterising both companions, this story goes far too far. Rory is too trusting, whilst Amy goes too far the other way, never really accepting that the Ganger Doctor is just as much the Doctor as the real thing, only highlighted when the twist that they switched places all the more effective. It also means that the Doctor is all too aware that he is due to die at Lake Silencio due to Amy inadvertently telling the real Doctor.

Verdict: There is a good idea behind The Almost People, but it feels as though this story never really lives up to them. Smith does a good job in the dual roles of the Doctor though. 4/10

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams), Mark Bonnar (Jimmy), Marshall Lancaster (Buzzer), Sarah Smart (Jennifer), Raquel Cassidy (Cleaves), Leon Vickers (Dicken), Frances Barber (Eye Patch Lady) & Edmond Moulton (Adam).

Writer: Matthew Graham

Director: Julian Simpson

Producer: Marcus Wilson

Composer: Murray Gold

Original Broadcast Date: 28th May 2011

Behind the Scenes

• The working title for this story was Gangers.
• This is the ninth time the actor playing the Doctor has played a different character in the same television story. The other actors to do so are:
  • William Hartnell in The Chase and The Massacre;
  • Patrick Troughton in The Enemy of the World;
  • Tom Baker in The Android Invasion and Meglos;
  • Peter Davison in Arc of Infinity and The Caves of Androzani; and
  • David Tennant in Journey’s End.

Cast Notes

• Mark Bonnar plays the villainous Time Lord The Eleven for Big Finish, who debuts in the audio anthology Doom Coalition.
• Sarah Smart also appeared as Laura Corbett in the Fourth Doctor Big Finish story The Crooked Man.
• Raquel Cassidy has also appeared in the Big Finish plays The Judgment of Isskar, Parodoxicide, Question Marks and Destination: Nerva.

Best Moment

I think that the best moment in this episode is the reveal that Amy is in fact a Ganger in the episode’s final moments.

Best Quote

Ahhhhhh!

What’s happening?

One day we should come back, yes one day… Ahhh! Ahhh! Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.

The Flesh is struggling to cope with our past regenerations. Hold on.

Would you like a jelly baby? Why? Why? Why?!

Why? Why what?

Hello, I’m the Doctor. No! Let it go! We’ve, we’ve moved on!

Listen, hold on, hold on. You can stabilise.

I’ve reversed the jelly baby of the neutron flow. I’m the— would you like a— Doctor… Doctor… I’m… I’m the…

The Eleventh Doctor (Ganger) and the Eleventh Doctor

Previous Eleventh Doctor review: The Rebel Flesh

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