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"You poured in your personalities; emotions, traits, memories, secrets, everything. You gave them your lives. Human lives are amazing. Are you surprised they walked off with them?"
Writing about the first half of a two-parter is a rather difficult thing to do; the most glorious set-up can be completely squandered by a bad denouement, while something that doesn’t seem quite right in the first part can be completely saved by an unexpected or clever conclusion. That said, there were several elements of ‘The Rebel Flesh’ that were worthy of note, and enough intrigue to pique my curiosity for next week.
‘The Rebel Flesh’ seemed to have a lot of factors working against it, not least the fact that it had to follow last week’s instant classic ‘The Doctor’s Wife’. The early series two-parter tends to be, if not a series low, then certainly not a series high; think ‘The Daleks in Manhatten’ or ‘The Rise of the Cybermen’. Then there’s the fact that the writer for this week, Matthew Graham, has written for new Who once before, back in series two, and it wasn’t exactly a fan favourite. Yes, I’m talking about ‘Fear Her’, which climaxed with the Doctor carrying the Olympic torch while Huw Edwards talked about love and things.
But, for all that, ‘The Rebel Flesh’ had a lot going for it. Matthew Graham is also a creator of Life on Mars, which easily ranks as one of the best British TV programmes of the last decade. The concept of doppelgangers may be a sci-fi staple, but then that’s for a good reason: it creates brilliant tensions and conflicts, putting all the characters on edge. The moral dimension of their casual attitude towards creating these gangers created some of the episode’s best moments, particularly between Rory and Jennifer. The various locations that made up the monastery worked seamlessly, and great credit must go to the director for pulling off the scenes involving more than one of all the team.
The other major thing this episode had going for it was the guest cast. With such a small number of characters, any bad acting is going to stand out a mile, but thankfully there was none of that here. I’ve been madly in love with Marshall Lancaster since about the second episode of Life on Mars, and he didn’t disappoint here, while Racquel Cassidy was as good as anyone else who’d seen Party Animals would expect. But the real stand-out performance came from Sarah Smart, who effortlessly proves why she’s one of the best actors working in British TV today; her ability to play both Jennifers, and especially the different notes of the ganger Jennifer, was breathtaking.
Of course, the real question is, what will happen in the next part? The cliffhanger was signposted from a mile off, but the presence of another Doctor should make for some interesting scenes next week – is his existence the get-out clause for the Doctor’s death, or is that too obvious? And surely the fact that Rory was, you know, plastic for 2000 years is going to come into play with the gangers.
This was a solid and pleasingly old-fashioned opening episode; episodes like this are the backbone of the show, and are absolutely required to make it work. Hopefully, Matthew Graham will pull it out of the bag with next week's conclusion. Based on this evidence, I don't see why he won't.
Next week is the concluding part, with TWO versions of Matt Smith's face. One is a bit odd looking, but I don't care. TWO Matt Smith faces!
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