Doctor Who 6x06, "The Almost People"...

[fajrdrako]

Watched Doctor Who 6x06, "The Almost People", and once again I think Steven Moffat's goal in life is to confuse me.

He confuses me on numerous levels, both the metaphorical and the literal.

1. Were we supposed to believe that the Flesh were 'real people', with the right to independent life that implies, or that they were not? The story seemed to be saying one thing - then switched around and seemed to be saying another. If the two Doctors were equal, why was it all right for one of them to die? If the two Doctors weren't equal, why did they act as if they were? I was ready to join some sort of "right to life" brigade for the Flesh.
   
   I would have thought the moral of the story should be: when you create life, you must preserce it. Instead the message seemed to be: if you create life, it's okay to kill it.
   
   The old Frankenstein conundrum. But Mary Shelley was pretty clear on what she thought the answer to the moral puzzle was.
   
   
2. Why did the Doctor call it a 'happy ending' when we'd just seen several murders and a dual suicide? I thought it was only a happy ending for the Flesh man who got to be father to his kid.
   
   
3. The only bit I found creepy was the woman with the eye-patch. That, I loved, in a horror-story creepiness kind of way. I don't like horror stories, but I thought she was... interesting.
   
   
4. That being said, I hate seeing Amy victimized/captured and once again in need of rescue.
   
   
5. And the birth thing strikes me as kind of squicky.
   
   
6. There was something else I found creepy, or maybe beyond creepy: the half-destroyed flesh that still had consciousness. That would have given me nightmare for weeks when I was a kid. Maybe still will. No, not really, because the terribleness of it was in the abstract, not the emotive. Nonetheless.
   
   
7. I love Rory more than ever.
   
   
8. I loved the references to Doctor Who history. That's something Steven Moffat does well.
   
   
9. I thought the whole monastery was turning into a sentient Flesh thing.
   
   
10. Moffat does like people running (or cautiously proceeding) through dark corridors and tunnels.
    
    
11. When I saw the trailers two weeks ago, I thought the special effects here were scary. In the actual episode, most of them seemed ludicrous to me and I'm afraid I laughed out loud at a couple of them. (Like the eyes in the walls.) The Jennifer-creature at the end reminded me of the monster in "The Lazarus Experiment", possibly my least favourite Doctor Who monster ever.
    
    
12. We had a discussion about who Steven Moffat is aiming at as his audience. Children or adults? One of my problems with Moffat's writing is that he is, to my eyes, aiming at a much younger audience than Russell T Davies went for. But some of the subject matter (childbirth, for example) is of more concern to adults than children.
    
    
13. I liked it that Amy couldn't tell which Doctor was which.
    
    
14. It seems inevitable that episode 7 will end on a cliffhanger, but I hope it resolves a few issues that have been left hanging.