Tom Salinsky

Another day, another first part of a two parter for me to be all indecisive about. Screw that. Here are some cold, hard opinions for you.

Firstly, although I did enjoy this episode, it’s not exactly original, is it? Here’s a short list of prior works which Matthew Graham could be said to be borrowing from: Frankenstein, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing, Blade Runner (and pretty much all of Philip K Dick’s output), Moon, Mirror Mirror, AI (and therefore Supertoys Last All Summer Long), Odo from Deep Space Nine, Data and especially The Doctor from Next Generation and Voyager and from within Doctor Who itself Meglos, Inferno, Terror of the Autons, Journey’s End, and very recently The Waters of Mars which has not only basically the same set-up but also the same make-up job. It’s also a base-under-siege story so add three-quarters of the Patrick Troughton stories to this list.

Despite (or just maybe because) of this, it manages to feel surprisingly fresh and lively. Little hints dropped early on that the visit by the TARDIS crew to this island at this time might not be wholly coincidental, some witty dialogue and some splendid location work from director Julian Simpson all make the mix feel both playful and sinister in a way that’s very Doctor Who.

It isn’t perfect though. The opening fall-into-the-acid scene is painfully obviously just for our benefit. With all the emphasis that’s later placed on those suits and their scarcity (presumably the Flesh can’t copy them as well as ordinary overalls and bowties?) it’s inconceivable that they’d be horsing around like that and just shrug off the cost of the suit. Then there’s the slight awkwardness introduced by the fact that the narrative demands two separate crucibles of goo, one full of acid and one full of Flesh, which the design department has done little to differentiate. And speaking of differentiation, by far the biggest weakness of the script is how bland the workers are. Compare this bunch of Fleshfodder to the vibrant human beings, all with strong relationships to each other, who populated Bowie Base One. Raquel Cassidy as the leader stands out easily enough as does Sarah Smart, but the rest – which the script insists all dress identically – blur together. This is an especial problem when being presented with your double is supposed to be such a big deal. As far as I was concerned, they were all anonymous clones of each other anyway.

But in the fan community, whether or not you liked this episode seems to depend on whether or not you saw the cliffhanger coming. Many complain that it was “obvious” but that word implies “flowing naturally from events which had gone before” as well as “boringly predictable”. I didn’t see it coming and love the way that the debate about what it means to be alive suddenly seemed so much more startlingly immediate as a result. I’m not even going to comment on the possibility that the Doctor who seemingly met his death on the beach was this FleshDoctor. Moffat’s surely better than that.

Part of the problem with the cliffhanger is that the script is basically vamping from the discovery that the Gangers are sentient following the storm to the discovery that the FleshDoctor exists. Too much time to think, not enough incident and we start writing our own faster-moving version of the story. Some of the cliffhangers in the old series were a bit arbitrary and pointless but having to put the Doctor and/or his friends in a life-or-death situation every 20-25 minutes sometimes seems like a useful discipline.

So, what does that leave? Rory is well-serviced this week, with a strong plotline of his own and a more wilful characterisation than normal. The effects work is well up to snuff with some nifty body-morphing and the TARDIS caught up in a spectacular solar tsunami.

It all promises well for part two – with any luck a neat combination of run-for-your-life scares, some rumination on what it means to be alive and (let’s hope) a faster pace and a few extra twists and turns. For now, a generous four stars.

Oh, and I’ve done another one of these, if you feel like entering.