, Life, Doctor Who & Combom: Doctor Who 606 The Almost People Observations

Saturday, 28 May 2011

Doctor Who 606 The Almost People Observations


The same time for broadcast as last week, 6.45. Will it help the ratings, I wonder? I've written this like the 20 Things, only lots of them here. These are interesting lines, plot points, and whatnot that we found interesting.

First the "Don't Scare the Hare"/"Doctor Who" animated link, then trailers for BBC drama, featuring Torchwood: Miracle Day. The episode begins . . .
  • The Doctor gets a human face, talks about Jelly Babies and the Neutron flow, then a Ganger face, then human again.
  • "Time to get cracking, Doctor."
  • Acid gas.
  • "They will melt you."
  • "It's us or them."
  • "I have a plan, and it will destroy them all."
  • "Call me John Smith."
  • There can be only one.
  • Eye Patch Lady appears, but the Doctor doesn't see her.
  • Ganger Doctor is connected to the Flesh.
  • Rory still looking for Jennifer and finds both of them.
  • Ganger Jennifer melts.
  • A Million gallons of boiling acid below.
  • Dis-guarded flesh.
  • Eyes on the wall, the "eyes" have it.
  • I should have been a postman.
  • Call me Smith, John Smith.
  • Rory tricked into trapping the humans.
  • "I'll take you to a planet where everyone is all ears."
  • The stuff of nightmares.
  • Phone call for Daddy.
  • Here she comes.
  • "We swapped shoes."
  • Breathe, Pond, in labour.
  • Shenanigans. It is a good word
  • Well, dear, you're ready to pop.

And my thoughts on the episode — better then last week, faster, but still not great. They had a good one-part story here, NOT a two-parter. UK people can watch 606 on iPlayer here, and it's here internationally.

Episode 7, "A Good Man Goes To War", is on next Saturday at 6:40; and we'll have all the usuals.

Remember, we will have all the usuals online shortly, so watch this blog. We are well past 20,000 hits for today already! Thanks, everyone, especially the people who got excited about Arthur Darvill's departure.

17 Comments:

MrGrumpy said...

Cant agree on the the timing. Again, I guess.
There was a teeny bit too much fluff topad it to two episodes, but I wouldnt have cut a lot.
This one was edgy and kept me happy all the way through.
Not sure how many sonics were floating about though: Im sure it showed up in the wrong pocket at one point.
I didnt see ganger Amy coming, although at one point I was expecting a ganger Rory.

etalia said...

Well, I thought it was tense and riveting. I was horribly uncomfortable (in a fun way, I guess) at how Ganger doctor (or was he) was treating Amy in that one scene. And the twist that they switched shoes, very clever.

And that twist makes sense after the twist at the end! OMG! I think everyone and their dog figured that Amy is pregnant. But I don't think a person on the planet figured that Amy was a Ganger!

So, at what point do people thing she was kidnapped? She first say the eyepatch woman in episode 2, right? But she told the doctor that she thought she was pregnant in episode 1. So, in that three months between, perhaps that's when she was taken. Then again, the Silence instructing her to tell the doctor something . . . maybe she was kidnapped before the very start of the season.

Snake said...

One question though, why ? Why did the Doctor "kill" the Amy gangers. He could have kept her. I think that kind of breaks the moral of the episode

TheMarkJoe said...

So they really had a bit of Jon Pertwee as well what with reversing the polarity.

TheMarkJoe said...

Oh and Hartnell as well

Blink said...

According to Dr Who Confidential, Beth Willis says near the start that Amy has been a Ganger throughout the whole series, so before the Silence.

MrGrumpy said...

The Doctor said that the TARDIS had stabilised all of the gangers into being 'real' humans.
Obviously didn't work on Amy then.

etalia said...

I think that the Ganger Amy was being "run" by Amy herself - not independent as the other Gangers at the factory had become. The Doctor needed to separate that link between Ganger Amy and the real Amy, probably to save her during birth. Clearly, Ganger Amy was sensing some physical distress, but wouldn't handle the process of a proper birth since Ganger Amy wasn't pregnant.

I thought it was pretty startling to watch Rory's response to the Doctor's command to step aside. Pretty strong showing of trust.

barnert said...

I agree with MrGrumpy. There's was enough for 2 episodes. I like that the pace was able to really settle down for a bit before jumping back to full throttle; that makes it more effective. And, of course, more classic-Who.

So, how many Amy deaths and Doctor deaths do we have now? They're not just picking on Rory. Some days, nobody dies. Some seasons, everybody dies, again and again.

I'm sure we'll understand later why the Doctor had to kill ganger-Amy, but what puzzles me most about it is why Rory accepted it.

Reverse the jelly baby of the neutron flow, I'm, would you like a Doctor? "One day we will get back, yes, one day. Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow. Would you like a jelly baby? Why? Why? Why? Hello, I'm the Doctor. No, let it go, we've moved on!" OK, so that's 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, and... ? And where was Matt Smith's favorite Doctor, 2? Couldn't he at least have wrung his hands and said "Oh my" or something?

D0ct0r11 said...

I really liked this episode, so much more than I did The Rebel Flesh. Yes, there was a LOT of padding, but the episode didn't slow down because of it, something the previous episode did do. It was perfectly creepy and had a good mix of talky-talky scenes and action.

David Burns Smith said...

Was The Doctor mumbling something about cybermats at one point?

D0ct0r11 said...

Yes, he was. He asked the Ganger Doctor about the Cybermats to see if he really was the Doctor. He wanted to know if the Ganger Doctor actually had his knowledge, to be sure that they were one and the same.

Lucille7777 said...

After Rory saw his friend (I forgot her name already) be killed as he thought she was the ganger but it was actually the other one, that's why he trusted the Doctor when he told him to step aside from Amy; Rory had been fooled once already and besides Rory trusts the Doctor.

Poor Amy, I thought I'd never say that. To find she's been kidnapped probably the entire series and pregnant and alone in that crazy woman's clutches, that's the only part of the episode that actually scared me as I’m frighten for Amy.

I can't wait to see what happens next.

Yet I have a concern that the series is starting to look like one of those old Mission Impossible episodes. The series has been easy to follow so far but I hope the rest of it doesn't get more convoluted than this.

MrGrumpy said...

How come the Doctor spends so much emotional effort on telling people that Gangers have as much right to live as anyone, then blows up Amy without even giving her the chance to help find her actual body?

Sean said...

@MrGrumpy:
He had to kill off the ganger Amy so that the real one could give birth. It's one Amy in two bodies, she was controlling the one that wasn't pregnant, which is seemingly very dangerous when the real one is in labour. Hope that makes sense.

KORSAIR1 said...

Yep I'm with you on that one Sean.

GORdon said...

This ep was much better than the last, and better than everything else this series save for the Moffat eps.

I wonder how they'll explain the way Amy could "control" her ganger across multiple times and dimensions. It breaks my suspension of disbelief when a show breaks its own internal rules.