(776) The Almost People

The first bit with the Ganger Doctor is quite funny causes there are several incarnations that are being mixed up. The two Doctors together is fun and fun isn’t a word that I would have used over the course of these two episodes. This episode is stronger than the opening one largely because I know what’s going on and the tension that is built from it is something that instantly makes the story better than the first part.

There is a ‘us vs them’ mentality from the very beginning which for some reason didn’t work in the previous episode yet her does. The performances are also better in this episode. Smith seems to be having fun playing the two versions of himself and its clear that he has confidence in himself to be able to pull this off. Gillan is better and does well with the trying to decide which is the real Doctor and which is the Ganger. Darvill has a better episode as he gets used well for the first time in several episodes.

When Jenny turns into the big bug thing towards the end that was the point that I thought it had got as best as it could. To be honest there was no way I thought that the story could pick up despite wanting it to. It’s almost like Graham was waiting until this episode to let the good stuff appear on screen. The direction is something that has hasn’t been mentioned until now or the setting and both worked well especially the setting. I thought that the story had a base under siege vibe to it and normally that would be enough for me to rate the story highly but on this occasion the setting couldn’t save the story 100%.

There is a nice bit through this episode where Amy thinks that one of the Doctors is her Doctor and the other is a ganger but towards the end  it turns out that the one she had preferred was in fact the ganger. This showed her that you should never judge a book by it cover. It hink that more of this could have been put into the story but sadly it was reduced to a side plot which I felt was a wasted opportunity.

At the end of the episode Amy goes into labour and we learn the shocking fact that she isn’t the real Amy and she turns into the plastic seen in this story and she wakes up in a pod with the scary eye patch lady looking at her. This sets up the mid-season finale up quite well (more about that tomorrow). This episode is much better than the first but I still think that it’s a disappointing two parter.