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THE REBEL FLESH

2 episodes: The Rebel Flesh, The Almost People. Approx. 88 minutes.
Written by: Matthew Graham. Directed by: Julian Simpson. Produced by:
Marcus Wilson.


THE PLOT

The TARDIS materializes on an island in the distant future, the site
of a top-secret mining operation located in a medieval monastery. The
miners are pumping incredibly corrosive acid in an operation so
hazardous that the miners used to lose a person per week. But now
technology has stepped in with a solution: The Flesh. Organic, living
but not sentient, the flesh can be molded to become a "ganger," a
physical avatar for its users. An industrial accident is no longer a
hazard to a human miner. Only the flesh dies - and it's easily
replaced, to the point that it's more upsetting to lose equipment than
to lose a "man."

But the Doctor recognizes that the Flesh is life of a far more complex
nature than the miners realize. When a storm hits, the miners' Flesh
duplicates become aware individuals. Now there are two of each
individual on the island. The Doctor wants to resolve this mess
amicably, and is well on his way to doing so - until Cleaves (Raquel
Cassidy), the supervisor, decides to take the direct approach. She
kills one duplicate, and in so doing starts a war.

The Doctor barricades the humans in the monastery's most secure room -
the chapel. There, he makes the most shocking discovery of all. Not
only is there a duplicate of every member of the mining team. There is
a second Doctor, as well...


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: After his very emotional performance in The Doctor's Wife,
Smith is much more subdued here. A good choice. If he did that level
of emoting in every episode, it would get old fast. Here, he's very
much the traditional Doctor: showing up at a location, investigating
strange occurrences, and trying to save people from their own foibles.
Mostly, he's just providing a steady presence to anchor the episode,
though he does bring some fireworks to bear at the very end.

Amy: Continues to see flashes of the eyepatched woman, first glimpsed
during her walk through the nightmarish children's home in Day of the
Moon. She is very protective of both the Doctor and Rory. When the
duplicate Doctor appears, she refuses to accept him as being fully the
Doctor, referring him as "almost" the Doctor and refusing to fully
trust him.

Rory: His compassionate side gets more focus. He bonds with Jennifer
(Sarah Smart), even after learning that she is a ganger. His decency
helps her to stabilize and convinces her to try to trust the human
workers. That ends up making her the most bitter of the gangers after
Cleaves fires on them. Even then, Rory is the most appalled of the
regulars and the first to disarm Cleaves. He insists on staying behind
to find the "real" Jennifer when the Doctor leads the others to the
more defensible chapel. His pragmatic side also shows itself. Though
he wants to save both Jennifers, when one half-accidentally kills the
other, he does not waste time with recriminations. He accepts what has
happened, then focuses on protecting the one that remains.


THOUGHTS

The equivalent of the Silurian 2-parter from last season, complete
with a very traditional "Classic Who" structure and a (too-)
substantial amount of moralizing. If this were a classic series story,
it would be a Pertwee.

Still, it should be said that Matthew Graham's second Who story is a
vast improvement on Fear Her, the cheapie he churned out for Series
Two. The direction of the story is clear very early on, but it is
never less than entertaining. The monastery provides for some suitably
creepy atmosphere, and the transformation of one character from a
genuinely sweet and likable individual into a monster is surprisingly
convincing.

Most of the holes aren't with the story itself, but with the
backstory. Why are they extracting acid and pumping it to the
mainland? We don't really know, and it's not something the story's
overly concerned about. The "solar tsunami" is presented as a planet-
threatening crisis in Part One. Turns out, it's just a bad storm. They
might as well have just used a garden variety thunderstorm to provoke
the accident. But I guess that wouldn't have been "sci-fi" enough.

The guest characters are a mixed bag, with only Cleaves and Jennifer
managing to emerge as anything other than stock figures. The other
characters (yes, including the white-haired dad) are ones I'd have to
look up to even tell you their names. The story also doesn't quite
sustain its 90 minutes. There's definitely more running around between
different bits of the monastery than is truly narratively necessary
and, after a while, it just becomes wearying.

More interesting than the main story is the ending - an ending which
seems to indicate that the show is now ready to start really dealing
with some of the questions raised by the season opener. I think the
first Act of this season is now done, and look forward to seeing where
things go from here.


Rating: 6/10.

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