jason stives reviews episode No. 5: “The Rebel Flesh” …
“I’ve seen entire worlds destroyed in an hour. Anything can happen in an hour.”
— The Doctor
I assume when writing for Steven Moffat, Doctor Who writers are sent in with a small list of things the executive producer would like to see in each episode. This week’s episode, the first part of the ‘Rebel Flesh/Almost People” two-parter probably went something like: “I’m thinking monastery, living flesh, solar flare/tsunami, doppelgangers, and John Carpenter’s The Thing.
Needless to say, “The Rebel Flesh” delivered all these things, and while a good episode, didn’t necessarily reveal too much as most two-parters do at the start. This is probably a bit discouraging since we are only two weeks away from our mid-season cliffhanger. Still, the episode acted more like a traditional Doctor Who story and a creepy one at best.
While some fans and critics have already gawked at the notion of “The Rebel Flesh” being Troughton-esque (referring to the story format of the Second Doctor Patrick Troughton) it is no doubt more representative of the traditional style of a Who episode than anything else lately. Taking on the base-under-siege notion, here we have Earth in the not too distant future, under the guise of something simple as a monetary converted into a factory where something just doesn’t seem right. Oh, and did I mention they are in the middle of a solar flare of tsunami like proportions? Yeah, that too.
What doesn’t seem right is the factory workers mining acid from the earth are not actually real; they are living flesh, programmed with the basic memories, feelings, and identity of their real counterparts, the actual workers in the Monastery. This programmable matter is full proof according to the workers, led by Foreman Miranda Cleaves (played by Raquel Cassidy), but like all things in science fiction, what is fool-proof never truly is. The incoming tsunami knocks the power out of the Monastery leaving the programmable flesh, known as Gangers, to roam freely from their points of reference. What follows is an enemy within like set up of John Carpenter-like proportions. A small group of people trapped amongst an oncoming threat, sounds like Doctor Who to me.
I believe we have found the 21st century equivalent of the Autons in these Gangers. It’s hard to tell based on one episode, but the living flesh concept has a lot of potential for a reoccurring villain. They know doubt can reproduce themselves and their hatred of the human race can make for a good race of clones to work against, especially since you can’t tell who is real and who is fake. The make-up work itself is phenomenal and the scenes where they take form in their fleshy vat as nothing more than a mouth are disturbing at best and even more creepy when our valiant hero gets his own ganger, bow tie and all by episode’s end.
Because of their pension for being able to look exactly like their counterparts, actors are playing double time in this episode so character development is very sparse, especially when you can’t tell who is who. However, in setting up the second part, “The Almost People,” we aren’t necessarily goaded into needing to know too much about characters that by next will probably be dead. It’s here that most fans probably tuned out because they weren’t getting the whole shebang in their 45 minutes of TV watching.
The thing that I think pains a lot of fans of Doctor Who, especially in its current format, is that two-parters are given more time for build up as many single episodes have to flow quickly and to the point. Two-parters allow time to sow the seeds that will eventually lead to their (hopefully) logical conclusion. There is also the high stakes nature of this season, the effectiveness of continuity and the overall story arc that makes going into this two-parter difficult when we basically only have two weeks left before the autumn break to tie together something spectacular for the viewers to go out on. Still, Doctor Who should never escape its episodic importance and theatrical like tendencies, even if there is a lot to be expected.
What we got is nothing impressive or revealing but still a set up with personal questions being asked from the fan’s point of view more than actually being given questions by the episodes. “The Rebel Flesh” is a breezy first part with some great elements from the show’s past structure, but it doesn’t leave us with anything to chew over from the screen. What it does do more importantly is line us up for the next two weeks of thrills that we as an audience will be given before we nestle up to the next season of Torchwood before Matt Smtih and company return to the screens in September.
Rating: 7 out of 10
SIDE NOTE: Normally I don’t do this, but there are always humorous or unique elements to look at when watching a Doctor Who episode, so here are some random observations from this week’s viewing:
1. Muse’s “Supermassive Black Hole” seems to be good cover-up music to scanning your companion’s potential labor pains
2. A monastery converted into an alien slop factory? How protestant and British
3. Foreman Cleaves doesn’t take too kindly to gangers and humans potentially sitting around singing camp fire tunes. Well at least if it’s going to be in this monastery at least they can muse over the already awesome collection of records, possibly Dusty In Memphis will get a full spin on the turntable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dzl_hV4cyCc
4. While he was given a decent amount of work and adventure here, Rory seems to be due for another Kenny like death before this mid season cliffhanger. Maybe Rory gets his own ganger … ah, there’s the rub …
5. Judging by a preview clip for “The Almost People” next week, the Doc’s ganger is going to get creepy fast. Think Tennant’s Doc during “42” in series three, that kind of creepy …
6. Lifting from Keith Phillip’s excellent review over at avclub.com — “My mom’s a massive fan of Dusty Springfield.” “Who isn’t?” Truer words.
All Photos Credit: BBC America
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