Doctor Who S06 E05 – Almost People

Previously: The TARDIS was a woman.
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The Rebel Flesh

Marines: We start on an island monastery in the vein of Mont-Saint-Michel, which I once visited along with Sweeney so now I’m going to take a huge break to have feelings and memories. 

K: Mont-Saint-Michel looks less CGI-ed though. So.

Mari: We start inside in a long, dark, damp hallway. Someone calls for lights and we see that three people stand on one end of this hallway, wearing protective clothing. They head into a room where one man tells the others that they know the drill: acid visors down and locked. The second man (Buzzer) opens a big container in the middle of the room. The woman uses a device to get a reading of 9.7. They banter back and forth and the woman kind of playfully whacks Buzzer, but it tips him into the contain of mysterious goo. She’s like whoops my bad, and is generally way too chill about this. Buzzer asks the other guy, Jimmy, for some help, but Jimmy says he’s basically dead. Sorry. Buzzer sighs, but again, TOO CHILL. The woman (Jennifer) and Jimmy leave as Buzzer just melts into the goo. 

K: They’re not only too chill about all of this, they’re also way too chill about occupational health and safety…

Mari: Maybe don’t whack people standing near goo.

Jennifer talks about her machine giving funny readings when suddenly, Buzzer is in front of them again, decidedly unmelted. He wonders if he can get some sort of worker’s comp for melting and wants the record to show that Jennifer pushed him. Jimmy is most concerned with the expensive acid suit they lost is. Buzzer tells him to lighten up. It’s not like anyone was hurt. 

K: This is the point at which I realise that I recognise Buzzer from something and IMDB reminds me that Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes existed and I kind of want to rewatch them both but I’m not sure I can stand the misogyny in 2018 so let’s just pretend I never mentioned it okay cool…

Mari: EXPLAIN TO THE AMERICANS and DOO WEE OOH. 

TARDIS. They are playing “Supermassive Black Hole” and it’s great. Rory and Amy are also playing darts while the Doctor is still creeping on the weird pregnancy scan he did of Amy. He turns the music off and asks who wants fish and chips. Rory, the cutest forever, raises his hand. The Doctor says he’ll drop them off, no rush, while he does some things that involve other things. Amy is suspicious. Whatever he’s up to, she wants to be a part of it. The Doctor gives her a loaded look. She asks what, but before he can answer, an alarm sounds. Everyone gets tossed about as the Doctor explains that they are caught in a solar tsunami. The Doctor runs around, everyone yells, and they go hurtling towards Earth. He tells everyone to assume the position. Rory looks like maybe he slept through crash landing training. (K: So no one’s getting fish and chips then? DEVASTATING.)

They land, and the Doctor smiles. He lives for this stuff, doesn’t he? He opens the TARDIS door, and he’s happy to see a cockerel oh yeah and the 13th century monastery underneath it. Amy assumes they’ve gone medieval, but Rory points out that he can hear Dusty Springfield, so probably not so much. 

The Doctor explains a bunch of stuff about the solar tsunami and checks out an uncovered pipe with his Sonic. They are pumping something nasty off the island and to the mainland. Then it’s time to run into certain danger in the name of satisfying their rabid curiosity. 

K: Everyone’s favourite time! 

Mari: Amy asks where the Dusty-Springfield-loving-monks are. The Doctor says they are almost there, but the Ponds want to know what he’s talking about. They’ve never been here before and they came here by accident. The Doctor gives an unconvincing, “right, accident, yes,” and is saved from further explanation by Rory burning his hand on another nearby pipe. The Doctor explains that they are pumping acid off the island. 

Another alarm sounds, announcing them as intruders.

  

Rory hesitates before running into danger, but Amy grabs him, and in they go. 

Inside the monastery, the people we met in the cold open are asleep in some harnesses. But then, Jen, Jimmy and Buzzer run in and ask who the heck they are. But also they are in the harnesses? Amy asks if they are all identical twins. Before she gets an answer, two more people in acid suits walk in. The one lady seems very in charge as she tells the Doctor that this an alpha grade industrial facility, and they are all in big trouble. The Doctor brings out his psychic paper, so Boss Lady thinks he’s from the Meteorological Department, sent here because of the solar tsunami. Boss Lady snarkily asks if the Doctor is gonna hand out sunblock if there’s another solar storm. The Doctor chuckles and then seriously says that he needs to see their critical systems. 

K: I love how his response to her “which one?” is “you know which one.” She thinks he’s all worldly and the audience gets to be all “LOL HE HAS NO FUCKING CLUE AS USUAL.”

Mari: Boss Lady leads them there, to a vat of bubbling goo. Boss Lady says that it’s the government’s worst kept secret: The Flesh. It’s fully programmable matter that is even learning to replicate itself at the cellular level. They can replicate any living organism down to its hair and clothing and voice. The Doctor asks about the mind and soul, but Boss Lady tells him that these replications still need to be controlled by them from those harnesses they just saw. Rory figures out that this means he’s talking to Flesh!Boss Lady and real Boss Lady is in one of those harnesses. Only Jennifer is her original self. 

Boss Lady explains that the acid they use is so dangerous, they were losing a worker every week. Now they are using the dopplegangers (“gangers”) to do the work because it doesn’t matter if these bodies get eaten up by acid. They just wake up and make a new Ganger. Boss Lady orders Jennifer into her harness.

The Doctor Sonics The Flesh, but he freaks out because it feels almost like it is also scanning him. He touches the goo and makes some wild faces. When he breaks contact, he starts rambling about how alive The Flesh is. They’ve been pouring their lives, their personalities directly into it. 

The approaching solar storm causes the building to shake. They still don’t have communications with the mainland, so Boss Lady figures they’ll just keep doing their acid thing and ignore the storm. Jennifer climbs into and hooks up to her harness while everyone else watches as her Ganger is made from The Flesh. 

The Doctor, who keeps pulling out a snow globe to measure something I’m sure, tells everyone that they need to get out before the storm hits. Buzzer says maybe they should leave, as the factory has seen better days. It might not withstand another hit. Boss Lady says they still have a job to do. If they fall behind, they have to stay on for another rotation. The Doctor grabs her forcefully (RUDE) and tells her that she’s making a terrible mistake. Boss Lady decides to keep stubbornly ignoring the danger. 

The Doctor says he needs to monitor the progress of the storm. Jennifer is hesitant to give him directions to a monitoring station, but he snaps at her (r u d e) so she relents. 

K: I just have to say, it’s really hard to watch Eleven and his rudeness now that I’m also watching the new episodes with Jodie Whittaker…

Mari: I’m also watching new episodes so amen.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory all run off to the monitoring station as the whole building keeps shaking. The Doctor yells about how when the storm hits, this whole place will go kaboom. He’s got to get up to the cockerel before all hell breaks loose. And then he gets super happy that he got to say that.

The Doctor runs to the weather vane. 

All the workers remain in their harnesses.

The Gangers just stand and watch as things go wild. 

Acid starts bursting out of the old pipes.

The TARDIS sinks into the ground outside the monastery. 

The Doctor uses a ladder to climb up to a electrical box. He starts grabbing at wires. 

We get flashes of the Gangers’ faces, and then an almost melted version of their faces, screaming.

The Doctor gets electrocuted right off the ladder as the solar storm rages around him. 

The vat of Flesh gets hit with a bunch of electricity. 

Cut to black. 

K: Well. That was dramatic. 

Mari: The Doctor comes to on the roof and watches as the storm moves out. The weather vane has been destroyed and power goes out all over the factory.

Inside, Amy and Rory also come to. 

The Doctor finds Boss Lady (Cleaves) standing outside, outside of her harness. She apologizes because the Doctor was right (of course), and she abandoned her team. She thinks they were all unconscious for a minute or two, but the Doctor thinks it was closer to an hour. And a lot can go wrong in an hour. 

Amy and Rory run into the harness room where they are all helping each other out of the harness. Rory checks on Jennifer because she’s moaning. She says it hurt so much, and he comforts her with hugs. Amy gives him a weird look. A strained smile, almost. The Doctor and Cleaves run in next. Amy asks where all the Gangers are, but Cleaves tells her not to worry. They all go to Flesh when the link shuts down. They have acid leaks all over the place, so they need to contact the mainland for rescue. 

Dusty Springfield starts playing and everyone is spooked because who is playing it? Cleaves goes on about how it’s totally impossible and totally not the Gangers. (K: Suuuuuure)

Dining Hall. The Gangers have ransacked the place. The Doctor says the storm has animated them and they were probably searching through all this stuff for confirmation that their memories are real. This lot gave the Gangers their lives. Are they really surprised they walked off with them? Buzzer tells them about how this once happened at another factory and that Ganger ended up killing their operator, so cheery stuff. The real pep talk they all need right now. 

Jennifer says she feels funny and runs off to the bathroom. Rory runs behind her, offering to come with her. Meanwhile, the Doctor keeps hammering home how the Gangers have all their memories and are probably scared and disoriented. 

In the washroom, Rory is being kind of awkward about just standing there with Jennifer.

  

K: Bless his heart. Always in nurse mode. 

Mari: She tells him she needs a minute, so he turns his back but assures her that he’s got her back. Jennifer’s face flashes so we see a melted Ganger. She then pukes up Flesh. She freaks and runs into one of the bathroom stalls. Rory asks what’s going on and suddenly gets punched IN THE FACE by a super stretchy arm. Then, Flesh!Jennifer extends her neck and growls at Rory to just let them live. Rory runs away.

K: LEGIT. Also, I really started to miss the Adipose right about the time she puked…)

Mari: Wow.

Dining Hall. The Doctor is heating up a meal while Jimmy says that they need to protect themselves. The Doctor asks if he’s a violent man. Jimmy says no. Then, the Doctor asks, why would the other Jimmy be? Cleaves asks how the Doctor can eat at a time like this. He reminds her that she mentioned being out for a couple of minutes instead of an hour. She apologizes, and he says it’s fine. It’s clear he’s piecing everything together. Next, he asks Amy who was in harness when she got there. Jimmy and Dicken were helping Buzzer out. Jennifer was standing on her own. 

The Doctor takes out the food and hands it to Cleaves who just looks at it and him. “It’s hot,” he tells her, and she drops it. Flesh!Cleaves’s nerve endings are not quite fused properly. She yells at the Doctor for playing games, but he gently tells her to trust him. He’s the Doctor. She turns back around suddenly, her face is all melty and fleshy. Buzzer grabs a knife, but Jimmy holds him back. Amy asks what’s going on. The Doctor explains that she can’t stabilize. She’s going between half-formed and fully formed. It’s early technology yet. Flesh!Cleaves growls that they are living and then goes running from the room. 

Amy, now knowing what they are up against, realizes Rory is still gone. 

Rory is running through the outer walls of the monastery. The Doctor, Amy and Jimmy are presumably looking for him, but their way is blocked by acid spills. They head back another way. Rory keeps wandering around, but also keeps coming up against acid spills. He hears Flesh!Jennifer calling out for him and hides. 

The Doctor, Amy and Jimmy make it to the wash room and see the destruction Flesh!Jennifer caused. Amy reminds the Doctor that he said they wouldn’t be violent. Jimmy remembers that he also said they were early technology, meaning the Doctor must know something about the Flesh. He doesn’t admit to it. He just says that he can fix this. 

Jennifer is wandering down halls, too. She didn’t have a fleshy face so I don’t know which Jennifer. 

K: File under “sentences you thought you’d never write.”

Mari: The Snark Squad story.

The Doctor thinks it’s too dangerous to be out here because acid is spewing out everywhere. He orders Amy and Jimmy back to the dining hall. He’s going to go to the TARDIS. 

Jimmy spots signal flares and grabs them. They really need their acid suits. Amy decides that she’s going to keep looking for her husband. Jimmy says he wouldn’t… “Nor would I,” she cuts him off. “What can you do, eh?” 

Buzzer and Dicken are carefully making their way along, trying to retrieve the acid suits. 

Rory finds Flesh!Jennifer and sneaks behind her. She knows he’s there, though. She’s holding a picture of a child!Jennifer and recounting the memory, except it’s all muddled in her head. She looks at herself in the mirror and then at a picture of Jennifer. She says that she noticed Rory’s eyes as soon as he arrived. Kind eyes. Rory gently asks where the real Jennifer is and Flesh!Jen says she is Jennifer. She remembers everything and feels everything Jennifer does. She beats her chest, saying “me! me! me!” and she flashes between being half-formed and fully formed until she stabilizes. Flesh!Jen cries as she asks why they did this to them. She asks for Rory’s help, and he hugs her again.

    

Vat room. The Doctor Sonics the Flesh again and runs out. After he’s gone, a mouth comes out of the Flesh and growls “trust me.” 

K: It’s the stuff nightmares are made of.

Mari: Outside, the Doctor finds the TARDIS almost completely in the ground. He wonder what it’s doing down there, and then realizes that his shoes are being dissolved by the acid dirt. He abandons his shoes and runs back inside. He’s doing the pavement on a hot day or sand on a beach dance. 

Inside, Buzzer and Dicken make it to the acid suits– or at least where they are supposed to be. They are all gone. Dicken says that he doesn’t know what the Gangers are now, but they aren’t the same. He sneezes again. Have I mentioned that he’s been sneezing a lot? It’s happened enough that I think it may be important. (K: Fair, given that people rarely sneeze in TV shows unless there’s a purpose for it.)

Flesh!Cleaves finds all her Flesh mates and tells them that the acid suits give them the advantage now. They can move freely and strike at will. 

Rory walks with Flesh!Jennifer and asks if she’s feeling better. He’s all set on super-elastic punches and would like 0 more of those. Flesh!Jennifer says she’s different now. Stronger. Rory says that the Doctor won’t hurt her. He wants to help. Rory calls her Jennifer, and she’s super grateful. She gives him a kiss on the cheek and says that Amy is a lucky girl. There’s a bit of an awkward moment before Rory tells her they should go.

Someone is hiding in the shadows around the corner from there. It kind of looks like Cleaves, but not the fleshy one. 

Amy is still looking for Rory. She opens a door and when she looks into the room, the woman with the eye patch is looking at her through a hatch in the far wall. Amy freaks out and slams the door shut again. (K: Legit.) Rory finds Amy just as Buzzer and Dicken find them. Rory yells at them all to listen. No one is going to touch Flesh!Jen. 

Acid Room. The Doctor finds the Gangers and the acid suits. He asks them to forgo the destroying each other route and try the working together thing. We cut to all the Gangers following the Doctor as he asks them to try and hold their human form so the others will be less scared of them. Cleaves is watching them go. Flesh!Cleaves turns her head Exorcist style to see who is following behind them. 

Dining Hall. Buzzer asks Flesh!Jen where Jen is. She swears she doesn’t know, but also she is Jen. Amy tells Rory that they don’t know anything about the Gangers, but he knows that they are afraid. They need help. Flesh!Jen keeps insisting that she’s real, but Buzzer keeps insisting that she’s not. Amy suggests not doing anything until the Doctor arrives, and he arrives just in time to finish her sentence. All the reals are shook by the sight of the Gangers. The Doctor asks for a pair of shoes to borrow. 

Cleaves grabs a bunch of equipment from her locker and is salty about the Doctor teaming up with the Gangars.

The Doctor explains that the Gangers aren’t merely copies. The storm hardwired them, and they are becoming people. The TARDIS is stuck in an acid pool, but if they can get it out, the Doctor can get people and Gangers off the island. Jimmy wonders if they’ll make it in time for his son’s birthday. And then things get messy again because Flesh!Jimmy misses his son and his home, too. The Doctor admits that this is a right old mess, but the first thing is definitely getting off the island. They need Cleaves and Jennifer first. Jimmy volunteers to look for them. Flesh!Jimmy volunteers to join him and cover more ground. 

Cleaves arrives with some sort of makeshift taser, saying that the monsters have to be destroyed. Flesh!Buzzer tries to rush her, but she electrocutes him. The Doctor yells about how he had a heart, a real human heart, and Cleaves stopped it. Flesh!Jen says that if they trust the humans, they are all gonna end up dead. Now Rory rushes at Cleaves and manages to pull apart her weapon. The Gangers all run away. The Doctor yells at Cleaves some more, but she is unrepentant. This is war. Us against them. Dicken and Jimmy seem to buy into her spiel. 

Meanwhile, in the acid room, Flesh!Jen is giving a similar speech, saying it’s us vs. them. They all grab their acid suits. Flesh!Jen says she’s going to go take care of the “spare” running around out there. 

Jennifer is in the vat room. Someone is in there and it growls, “trust me.” Jennifer runs out. (K: SAME, GIRL.)

Dining Hall. Amy and Rory are arguing in the background. The Doctor is thinking. He asks Cleaves what the most fortified and defendable room in a monastery is. The chapel. He tells her that now that she’s killed one of them, they are going to come back. In a big way. 

The Gangers are marching along in their acid suits.

Out in the corridor, Jennifer hears Rory calling for her and limps in that direction. Above her, Flesh!Jen is watching.

Everyone is running toward the chapel, but they hear Jennifer screaming. Rory can’t just leave her out there, even though Amy is telling him to get in the room. The Gangers arrive, but Rory runs off anyway. The Doctor pulls Amy into the chapel and tells her that the Gangers won’t go after Rory. They are coming after them. They hear groaning coming from within the chapel. The Doctor yells for the person to show themselves. 

Rory searches for Jennifer. 

The gang all barricade themselves into the chapel while Amy keeps worrying about Rory. Jimmy laughs at how insane it is to be fighting against themselves. The Doctor thinks things are about to get “insanerer.” Amy says the TARDIS is trapped and they can’t get out of the island and from the shadows we hear the Doctor’s voice. It’s Flesh!Doctor, assuring Amy that they can work this out. “Trust me,” he says. “I’m the Doctor.” 

Not a bad episode, but I will admit to being a sucker for any sort of robot uprising story, and this is that. Sort of. Mostly. It’s half a story of that, which is of course always the challenge of recapping a two-parter– one I don’t even entirely remember. I will say my favorite part was how creepy Flesh!Doctor saying TRUST ME was because… yes.

K: Look, all I’m going to say is that Matt Smith has a weird enough face already and doing that to it was ENTIRELY UNNECESSARY.

 

Next time on Doctor Who: Part two in S06 E06 – The Almost People.