11.20: The Almost People

In which Amy is betrayed.

Broadcast: May 2011

Watched: December 2021

“Why would we have guns? We’re a factory. We mine.” This feels like a surprisingly good joke about how base under sieges *normally* go.

Okay, this works better than I thought it did. Again, Smart’s performance is a problem – the “There’s one question in those eyes – why?” bit made me say, “Oh, fuck off”, out loud, to an empty room; the monster she turns into, is a) the one from the Lazarus Experiment and b) ridiculous. Rory is an absolute idiot to fall for her lies. Also, at one point the Flesh Doctor attacks Amy, and... no. This doesn’t feel good. (When do the two Doctors switch? If it’s before this, is the attack a deliberate ploy to get himself thrown out?)

Against that, though... I’ve decided that the “not being sure which of the two stories it’s playing” (new life form rebels; there suddenly being a copy of you) isn’t a problem. It’s entirely deliberate – it’s in the title, FFS – because this is the question it’s asking, whether a copy of you with all your memories is actually you. This works really well, so long as you don’t think too much about the fact it concludes, “Hey, guys, these are people too” immediately before the Doctor splats Flesh Amy. 

There are other good bits. Flesh Jennifer’s trick of splitting herself in two and then murdering herself is terrifying if you stop to think about it. The bit where the eyes open, and the bit with the wall covered in the things, you don’t even need to think. Guilting Flesh Jimmy into trying to save himself, then accepting his human identity so his son doesn’t have to lose his father, is one of the bits that shouldn’t work, but does because Mark Bonnar is great. 

So basically I think it works except for the beginning and the end. The pre-credits has the flesh Doctor freaking out and running through past regenerations for fan pleasing purposes, but then has him immediately stabilise, and it makes no sense that everyone else is just cool hanging out with him after that. The ending is a great cliffhanger – Amy suddenly giving birth without warning is a literal nightmare – in which Smith is absolutely terrifying. (Also, Rory backing away from Amy feels like quite the betrayal.) 

It’s great. I’m just... not sure it fits with the last 40 minutes. Still, stories that aim high and have loads of good bits but don’t remotely fit together were very much the theme of 2011.

Other things:

• Rory is missing for a surprisingly long time at the start – nearly a third of the episode. It’s weird, as it doesn’t seem to be played as peril, he’s just forgotten.

• When the gangers try to reject their humanity, they all look like Odo from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

• The computer system will work for anyone so long as they’re human not ganger. Wow. Very secure.

• Noticed on iPlayer that this was last shown in 2014. Bit surprised by that, but I suppose it’s because BBC Three didn’t last much longer.

• Is the title a conscious NA reference? [One of my favourites – one of the best – of the ‘90s Who novels was The Also People, a shameless Iain M. Banks rip off by Ben Aaronovitch, who then was known mainly as one of the best writers from the last few seasons of the old show, and today is the author of the enormously successful Rivers of London books. He’s great and no writer deserves it more.]