Well that was a really weird one wasn’t it? An ending to confuse and excite everyone, preceded by an episode designed to challenge our views on humanity, life and personality. To bad it was shit.
I’m gonna try and keep this brief, this episode falls into two categories, depending on which way you view it. It could have been something that needed to be handled better or it’s a catch-22. Those viewing it as the latter, will agree that the episode was bad, but that it needed to exist in order to introduce the key factor in explaining Amy’s weird pregnancy. Those viewing it from the former will look on it as the black spot on the mid-season break that could have been so much better.
To look at some good stuff in the episode, aside from the ending, the chemistry between Smith and himself is really good and double screen effect used to put both versions of him in the same frame is quite well done. The conversations between the two Doctors are genuinely funny and it’s nice to see that they didn’t try and do that get-the-lead-to-contradict-what-he-said-in-the-last-episode thing by having the Doctor react hostility towards his other self. This isn’t like the Tenth Doctor, where is another version of himself does something useful like kill all the Daleks, he ends up marooned in a parallel universe, given the Doctor’s obvious narcissism and need for there to be only one of him.
Also, at the point at which the supposed Ganger Doctor suggests that he should be referred to as “Smith” I couldn’t figure out if it was meant to be a reference to the Doctor using that alias for over twenty years of continuity, or an in joke directed at Matt Smith. Either way, it made me laugh.
Some questions are at least answered; for example how the Doctor knew he was going to his death at the beginning of the series, was answered in this episode, by Amy accidently telling him, while she thought he was the ganger-Doctor.
Now onto the bad bits; this episode is loaded with missed opportunity. For example the idea of placing the evil on the humans is painfully unexplored (jn fact a better exploration of human nature was done in the episode called “Midnight” by T Davies, in series 4).
Rory remains completely out of character, at one point locking, amongst everyone else, Amy into a room where a large vat of acid is about blow up. Now I know that he was tricked into it, but why the hell didn’t that over-protective, clingy switch he seems to have, flip over when twenty-minutes ago girl suggested locking everyone in ACID room. May I just I just take a moment to reiterate, who the fuck is this guy?
This episode also seems to be home to some massive leaps in story, with a distinct lack of a connection between scenes. The writer (Matthew something) seems to rely mainly on the novelty of there being two Doctors to make up for the gaps in the story and the common sense of the episode. Also the switch that occurs between the two Doctors was a little bit obvious and as Amy was the central figure of it, it didn’t really work. I got the impression that it could have worked had it been the tenth Doctor and Rose, or Martha, or Donna, but since this is Amy Pond we’re talking about here, we have to take into account her massive annoyingness, which paints the switch not as he struggling with the concept of two Doctors, but her being knowitall, obnoxious, and slightly racist.
There’s also a catfight in this episode that’s just laughable and that bit at the end with the now crazy Jen turning into a giant spider thing just didn’t really make any sense, in terms of both her character and the fact that none of the other gangers can do it. Both the half arsed explanation for this ability and the ganger-Doctor’s way of killing her are torn straight from the Russell T Davies book of crap solutions.
This wasn’t a good episode at all, in fact, I’d recommend reading about what the flesh is on Wikipedia, then just watching the end of this one.
Hopefully next week will be good, River’s back and one-eyed lady may finally turn out to be the Rani, or something even more awesome.
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