Doctor Who – The Almost People

Director: Julian Simpson
Writer: Matthew Graham

So it took two episodes to explain that Gangers are sentient. Continuing on from The Rebel Flesh, The Almost People concludes war between human and Flesh. As the events come to fruition, it somewhat makes up for the shaky, uneven start, but, disregarding the twist at the end, never manages to exceed expectations.

The Flesh has decided it can take no more of it, and are rising against their original forms. Flesh!Jennifer fools Rory into assisting the worker’s downfall. Meanwhile, the Doppel-Doctor faces fear and prejudice from his nervous captors, as they await extraction via rescue chopper.

The Almost People seems like it does not know what it wants to do, and comes off as a not quite committed rip-off of The Thing. In trying to avoid numerous doppelganger tropes, it seems half-baked, failing to fully explore the themes and the concept it presents. At least if it went through the well-worn series of clichés, it might have been more fulfilling, and maybe could have even managed to do it with style or originality. It ventures out slightly in this direction with the double Flesh!Jennifer trick, but this is as far as it goes. Never does it reach the gripping height presented at the end of The Thing, with Kurt Russell staring down Keith David in the oncoming polar climate.

The two-parter suffers from a top-heavy three-act structure. The first part takes too long to set things up. It was obvious they were holding out for the Doppel-Doctor to be revealed as the cliff hanger, but instead it just dragged out the introduction leaving the complication and the climax underdeveloped. The subplot involving sentient eyes fizzles out without a climax or a real impact, managing only to waste precious time. The Almost People needed to launch into action much earlier than it did. As a result, the episode devolves into the Doctor and companions fleeing from a monster through some corridors, the climax almost identical to the Series 3 story The Lazarus Experiment. It simply took too long between Flesh!Jennifer’s flying fist and snake-like head halfway through The Rebel Flesh, and her monstrous mutations at the end of this episode. A much more dynamic and progressive, Akira mutation would have serviced the body horror much more suitably.

There are some nice moments though, such as the part where Rory didn’t die. It’s always surprising when that doesn’t happen. His venture out from behind his wife last episode redeemed him marginally, even if it ended without much emphasis.

Similarly nice is the scene when Flesh!Jimmy overcomes his jealousy after seeing his son, Adam, on his birthday, and betrays Flesh!Jennifer. This was the highlight of the doppelganger moralities being thrown about, which is a shame. The chase through the corridors at the end conveniently disposes of all the remaining duplicates, dodging the more difficult question of who inherits the roll on the outside. Could Cleaves, a woman who has poured her entire life into her job, be able to walk away from it to allow the other version to take her place? Would Jimmy and Flesh!Jimmy coexist or compete for Adam’s affections? Would Adam having two fathers in the future count as political commentary?

This had the potential to become a very interesting morality study, but its inability to choose between SF survival horror and character piece, instead doing both averagely, results in a mildly enjoyable yet run-of-the-mill Doctor Who adventure which can sit with all the other adventures of its kind. The final stunning minutes however more than make up for this. The show has often been referred to as being sexist since it’s recent turnover (although how said haters explain Mr Pond…). Moffat seems to have embraced these claims in his latest scheme, and dived headfirst into one of the biggest defining aspects of womanhood. Just what is Moffat planning for his mid-series finale?  After all these years, River Song’s identity will be finally be revealed. The anticipation is overwhelming.

3½ / 5