OMG, Doctor Who, what are you DOING to me?!

[apple_pathways]

There was no way I was going to wait another week to see The Almost People. If you are (or have to!) then do avoid this post, as it contains SPOILERS.



HOLY CRAP AMY WAS A GANGER ALL ALONG! But when was the moment, exactly, when it happened? Was it when she was taken by the Silence? OMG, those creepy dudes just have a hand in everything, don't they?

Let me collect some random thoughts before I attempt coherence again:

• CGI Jennifer was F'ING COOL, until we got a good look at her. But when she was a strange, lope-y creature ambling through the shadows, she was super-creepy.
  
• I am not satisfied with Jennifer's fall into evil. It just...doesn't sit right.
  
• Why was Sneezing Dude the one to make it through the episode? The one with the least characterization gets to survive?
  
• I for real started crying the second Adam (the little boy) appeared on the screen. Genuine SOBS. My mother actually came upstairs to ask me what was wrong. "I'm...*sniff*...watching Doctor Who! *sniff*sniff*" I continued to cry through Amy's realization that she'd been alienating the real Doctor the entire episode. Nice touch, that: I didn't see it coming!
  
• How cute was that kid? I'm normally pretty annoyed by the Adorable Moppet gambit, but damn, he was adorable!
  
• Rory, Rory, Rory! I can't believe you fell for that... (And yet, I do love you for falling for it: too big of a soft-hearted hero to properly doubt anyone.)
  
• Poor Rory and Ganger!Amy when the Doctor had to melt her! The looks on their faces...
  
• You know, when Rory and the Doctor were trying to convince the other Gangers to save the humans, I really expected someone to bring up the fact that Ganger!Jennifer created another Flesh version of herself, only to sacrifice that version in order to trick Rory. Umm, isn't that you want to kill the humans for? Creating life only to dispose of it like a used tissue?
  
• LOVED the Double Dose of Doctor! It was so much fun watching the Doctors interact.
  
• I always find it slightly weird when people go all Snap!Evil, decide to kill everyone, and then miraculously Get Over It and become all noble and shit. I mean, yes: I did cry my eyes out at all the self-sacrifice at the end (MAJOR sucker for self-sacrifice), but still: weird.
  
• Who else TOTALLY EXPECTED an alien to shoot out of Amy's vagina at the end? Show of hands?
  
• ETA, because jacknjill270 reminded me: So, Not!Amy has Spilled the Beans and let it slip to the Doctor that she was invited to witness his death. This was supposed to be a Very Big Secret, for reasons I don't quite comprehend. What's going to be the aftermath for this? I'm guessing it's her accidental admission that's going to end up being the the beginning of the Doctor's plan to save himself in some weird, Ouroboros-y, wheel-within-a-wheel, Timey-Wimey Doctor Who plot point of delightfulness, doom, and head-scratchery. Yep.
  

An Open Letter to Stephen Moffet: That baby better be Amy and Rory's and at least 85% human, or I will find you and I will hurt you my heart is going to break in half!

(Also: I can never remember how to spell Moffat. I know I've spelled it about 5 different ways on this journal. I apologize.)

SO: If you've seen the ep, please do some speculating with me in the comments! (Just NO SPOILERS please! Only pure speculation based on the episodes! I came across what I consider to be a pretty damn big spoiler courtesy of Google news the other day, and I was Not Happy.)

Comments

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

I was pretty sure that Amy was replaced when she got snatched by the Silence, since that makes things properly interconnected, but eyepatch!lady is human, and for whatever reason that doesn't jive for me with the Silence's M.O.... so I dunno. (Also, have you seen the preview for next week? That plays into my confusion, too.)

I love, love, loved that the Doctors switched shoes (literally). I was kind of expecting it, since they kept switching sonic screwdrivers, too (I'm not even sure why they kept doing that, since there were apparently two sonics in the first place. I'm trying not to poke too hard at it, though, because I suspect it was just there to emphasize the fake hierarchy between the two). It raises all kinds of awesome questions, too, about the nature of the connection between the gangers and their... people? Originals? (Questions that, nonetheless, I suspect will not pan out into anything important, but I care anyway.) I'm going to have to go back and figure out when they switched shoes.

So, when Flesh!Jen opened up her gaping scary maw at that guy, did you also think she'd maybe eaten and/or absorbed Rory? Because that was my first thought. I was also expecting some sort of Flesh!Rory.

As for speculation... I don't really know what I'm expecting next week, but I'm marginally less annoyed at the idea of it now since I'm pretty excited about the Doctor and Rory having to be all adventuresome together. Rory's had a taste of being in the center of the adventure now, he's ready! Actually, okay, here's my prediction: we'll get to see Rory have to dip into his sealed-off Roman memories in order to steel himself for making war on... whatever they'll be making war on. And he'll be all tough and steely and it'll be kind of dissonant because our cuddly Rory will be missing but at the same time it'll be awesome and... All right, yes, that's just the version in my head. But it's Moffat's fault for using the word "war" and for dropping that hint about his memories in the season opener. ^_^

[infinitejoys.livejournal.com]

I was thinking that she got swapped when the Silence grabbed her too, but she saw Eyepatch Lady for the first time before that, so that would mean she had to have been swapped before she and Canton went to the orphanage, right?

Right now I'm betting on it having happened during the 3 months between "The Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon."

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

Ok, now I've give my brain time to catch up with my typing fingers!

You're right: the first time she sees the Eyepatch Lady is in the orphanage when she finds the little girl's room, so she must have been swapped out before that.

The only theory I've come up with that I'm actually convinced might be true is that the Amy who tells the Doctor she's pregnant is the real Amy, and the one who then takes it back and says she was mistaken is the double. As to what point in between the switch is made, I'm just not sure!

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I'd forgotten about the order those came in. That really makes me wonder what motivation the Silence had for taking her, then... it's enough to make me doubt they were involved at all, which would certainly be interesting.

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

First of all: you have to write for Doctor Who, because you just described exactly the mid-series cliffhanger I want to see! The Doctor and Rory waging war? Together? (I'm officially dubbing this the War on Whatever until we learn otherwise.) The return of Roman!Rory? All steely and badass and slightly scary? Yes! Yes, please!

How much do we know about The Silence's M.O.? Besides the fact that they just kinda chill on various planets, secretly puppet-mastering civilizations from behind the scenes. Definitely, if it is them who kidnapped and replaced Amy, they're working with someone else, i.e. whoevers employing Eyepatch Lady.

(Digression: I am still massively dissatisfied with The Silence. Sure, they've been manipulating the human race for thousands of years. Got it. But why? Do they even have a culture/civilation of their own? 'Cause all I'm seeing is some ugly dudes in suits hanging out and being creepy in dank basements and abandoned orphanages. That CANNOT be what they've enslaved the human race for...)

(Also, have you seen the preview for next week? That plays into my confusion, too.)

Do you mean the one with the Blue Dude Moffat stole from Star Wars? 'Cause I'd be delighted if there were another one...

Yes! The shoe switching! I remember thinking, when the Doctor stepped in the acid and lost his shoes in the first part, "Oh, this is going to be important later" but then I totally forgot about it. (I'm kinda useless that way.) It was just so touching when Amy realized she'd been alienating her Doctor the entire time, and then she hugs the Doppel Doctor. ♥

So, when Flesh!Jen opened up her gaping scary maw at that guy, did you also think she'd maybe eaten and/or absorbed Rory? Because that was my first thought. I was also expecting some sort of Flesh!Rory.

No, neither scenario occurred to me! I was too busy being massively disappointed in the direction they took with her character and wishing she would just be gone already. :P

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

All things considered... we really don't know much about the Silence's M.O. That's part of what bothered me about the opening episodes. But as far as I could tell, no one was really openly working for them. I suppose they could've hypnotically influenced a dark cult of hoodies (yeah, the blue guy preview is the only one I know of) and one eyepatch lady to kidnap Amy and store her away to have a baby, but they seem more simple and direct. Also, why steal Amy and Doppel-Amy, only to give Doppel-Amy back later? (And now I'm wondering if maybe they didn't mean to lose in the 1969 encounter with the Doctor... if maybe it wasn't some kind of calculated loss in order to ensure something in the future. Goshdarnit, this cliffhanger next week is going to kill me.) Also, I'm kind of wishing I hadn't just thrown out my post-it with all the time-skips I marked in the opener. Because I suspect the switch happened in one of those skips (my instinct is that it was during the one in that room that mysteriously locked and unlocked itself, but I don't have anything to support it yet. The three-month skip just seems too easy, but it's far more likely).

I'm trying not to think too hard about the wonky characterization that went into Jen. But the way they edited the "special bond" scene and the gaping maw scene together, with Rory suddenly off-screen goodness knows where (I'm guessing there was a third Jen or something?), it made it seem at least somewhat likely that Rory had been killed yet again.

There's something very interesting in Amy's attachment to the Doppeldoctor, I think. Her affection for him seems so much more emphatic than it has been most of this season, and I'm wondering if that doesn't have something to do with them both being Flesh. Then again, I keep forgetting that Flesh!Amy is actually a proper ganger, in that she's still hooked straight up to the original and has the original's thoughts piped directly into her brain, rather than just mirroring them, so it's not a very solid theory just yet.

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm now firmly of your thinking that it doesn't make sense that the Silence were the ones that doubled Amy. But if they aren't: then what the hell did they want with Not!Amy? After all, she's the one they kidnapped...

Have you watched the Confidential for this episode? Because they say something about the timeline, and I don't know if you'd consider it a 'spoiler' or not. (I myself have reasons to doubt the veracity of the statement, but that's me.)

But the way they edited the "special bond" scene and the gaping maw scene together, with Rory suddenly off-screen goodness knows where (I'm guessing there was a third Jen or something?), it made it seem at least somewhat likely that Rory had been killed yet again.

See, I'm just a huge sap and incredibly naive: after she made the "special bond" comment, I thought, "Oh, good: this is the point where Jen remembers her humanity, realizes that the humans might just be scared, too, and things start to turn." So when Rory disappeared, I had assumed that she sent him off somewhere safe, or something like that.

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

They might not have known that it was Not!Amy at the time. Maybe they figured it out, though, and that's why they were easier than they should've been to vanquish(ish).

What's bothering me now is that the Doctor said he came to see the Flesh in its early days, and to gauge Amy's reaction to it--which means he already suspected what was going on. But in the continuity of the episodes this season, I don't think we've had any proper foreshadowing for the Flesh, have we? Where did that suspicion come from? Are we dealing with a more future Doctor than we think here, since he's already seen the Flesh in its later days?

I haven't seen the confidential... I almost never watch them, unless someone specifically tells me to. Now you've got me curious about this timeline thing, though.

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

I don't know what put the Doctor onto Not!Amy's trail to begin with...and now I'm curious about it! I certainly don't remember any foreshadowing.

Ok, I think it was the writer for this two-parter who said it, but it could have been someone else. What he said was that Amy had been Not!Amy "since episode 1", and then they showed a clip of Amy and Rory getting off the schoolbus when they first came to the Utah desert.

Now, he doesn't say if Amy is Not!Amy for the entire episode, or if she becomes Not!Amy during "The Impossible Astronaut". I also have no idea if Confidential knew what they were doing when they chose that particular clip to run after the comment. If it wasn't just chosen at random, that means Amy was Not!Amy before she and Rory met up with the Doctor again. (I just hate the idea of cute couple Amy & Rory hanging out in their house watching Marx Brothers movies, all the while Amy being a ganger.)

Also, I don't know if this guy knew what he was talking about. Again, it comes down to an argument of canon: can we consider statements made on Confidential to be canon? (Often not, I've found.)

Anyway, I really need to watch it again and find out exactly who it was that said it.

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

Aaaand now I'm filled with irrational terror that by "episode 1" he means The Eleventh Hour. But then Fake!Amy would have had to have reimagined the universe, so that's probably safe to rule out. At least that means I only have to rewatch everything from the beginning of this season to see if there are any clues.

I'm with you on hoping all the cute wasn't with Fake!Amy. Especially because that'd mean the baby is almost certainly not Rory's and that... I'm not cool with that.

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

Ok, I have re-watched: it's actually producer Beth Willis who says it. Here's what she says:

"The flesh Amy has been going through episodes 1 to 6 hanging out and having these adventures with the Doctor and Rory while the real Amy has been trapped in this birthing chamber..."

SO: she is definitely swapped sometime before or during The Impossible Astronaut. I still don't know what to make of the clip they cut to of Amy and Rory getting off the bus: whether it's significant, or one they just chose at random. I suspect the latter.

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

I'm going to cling to the word "adventures" because that means aforementioned cute scenes (clearly not adventures as such) are omitted.

That clip sounds chosen at random... just because I don't think they'd make it that easy. I'm picturing someone either A) editing whatever the heck he/she wanted in order to make the transition or B) a Moffat standing behind said editor giggling and directing which scene would be the biggest red herring to clip from immediately after. But that's because I don't trust things outside of canon. (-;

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

I just don't like any of the implications that come with Amy being swapped out before the start of The Impossible Astronaut! (Especially that the baby she's having isn't Rory's. DNWx10,000!!!)

As for the scenes of them being all cute together:

I know we learned from these episodes that the gangers are the same people as the originals; especially in Amy's case, where it's her consciousness plugged directly into her ganger. And yet I'm still bothered by the idea of Rory cuddling up with a duplicate. I don't know if that's borne out of my own discomfort with the idea, or out of sympathy for how I'd imagine Rory would feel. (If he were, ya know: real and whatnot. :P)

As an atheist, I can totally get behind (what I perceive to be) the underlying message of the gangers: that we are, essentially, flesh and all of the wiring we've connected during the course of our lives. Make an exact copy of my body and my brain (with all its neural pathways and connections) and you have duplicated me. There is no intangible element--no 'soul' or 'essence' or whatever you would call it--that would differentiate the copy from the original.

And yet, I tend to feel the way Amy did: that the copy isn't the same as the original. Kind of fascinating, really, and probably best chalked up to the difference between a logical/intellectual response and an emotional one.

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

The whole "what makes a real person" question is one of my favorite parts of this arc. At this point, no one out of the main three hasn't spent some time being "fake." And yet they've all maintained the core of what is essentially themselves. Going back to Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, I think I see signs of where Moffat stands on the matter (that people are the sum of their thoughts, not what they're made out of or who/what they're made by/for, and that a good enough copy is the same as the original), but it really deserves a lot more thought than I've given it so far.

I'd come down on Amy's side as well, though. There's something unnerving and just not the same on a basic level about someone who has sprung forth from nothing into something fully-formed and identical to someone you know, and I think my instinct would be to sort the two. It would be scary if people were that easy to replace.

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

At this point, no one out of the main three hasn't spent some time being "fake."

That's true! And Amy does manage to accept Plastic!Rory rather quickly, considering how suspicious she was of the Doppeldoctor. Do you think that's because there was only one of him at that point? Is that the key to this: there can only be one of everybody, that we have to be unique, or it doesn't feel right? I did notice that, conveniently, at least one half of each of the ganger/human pairs didn't make it through the end of the episode, so no one had to sort out the rather complicated issue of who gets to be the "Real" version, slipping back into their old life, while the other had to strike out and build a new identity on their own.

Because as much as the copies were the original people they were meant to duplicate, there's just no room for two people to lead the same life. They might have been the same person from the beginning, but they're necessarily different people now, and I wonder how they'd deal with that?

It would be scary if people were that easy to replace.

Most definitely!

[jacknjill270.livejournal.com]

I watched The Impossible Astronaut again, and I'm thinking maybe Amy was switched in the scene where she's in the bathroom at the White House and Joy dies? It's before she sees Eye Patch Lady, it's one of the few times she's not with someone else from Team TARDIS, and she's with a Silent. Just my five cents worth (lol inflation).

[ravelled-ribbon.livejournal.com]

I assumed the flesh was a precurser to the autons (what Rory was) and that's how he knew about it.

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

Oh, also: I found another trailer for next week's episode! It's here, and it's much more spoiler-y than the other one. (Although I don't know that you could actually call them spoilers, since it is an official BBC trailer.)

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha, it has Roman!Rory in it. I feel vindicated. (-; (I don't count anything in previews as spoilers... I trust them not to reveal anything major.)

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha, it has Roman!Rory in it.

I know! And he's wearing the outfit and everything! (Which, let's face it: I find sort of confusing. Is he like Batman and the costume serves an actual purpose, or is he just really, really attached to that breastplate?

Oh, what the hell am I complaining about? I'm really, really attached that breastplate!)

I don't count anything in previews as spoilers... I trust them not to reveal anything major.

That's my view, as well! But the person who linked to it on someone else's journal was all "Caution! Spoilers!", so I thought I should warn you just in case. :P

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

I think the costume is all about getting himself into the right state of mind. What better way to get yourself back into warrior mode than by putting the uniform back on? (I bet he also thinks of himself like Batman in it, even though I doubt the breastplate is useful against, say, laser swords. Or anything, really. Unless it's a special TARDIS-made breastplate, in which case... awesome. Best superhero ever.)

[ravelled-ribbon.livejournal.com]

There needs to be a comic.

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

I really wish I had the artistic ability for something like that, because I would so do it.

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

Actually, you know what... completely different issue at mind now. If all the Doctor had to do was melt the Jenbeast with his sonic, why didn't the one who wouldn't melt do it? (I kind of suspect that this is an actual plot oversight, but until I'm proven wrong, I'm going to assume that they were both Doppeldoctors. Which explains how they switched shoes even though there was almost no time for shoe switching. And speaking of... so, the Flesh reproduces clothing, right? Which means the Doctor's new boots are technically made of the Flesh. Weird!))

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

That is a good point: the non-meltable Doctor could have sonicked the Jenbeast and then herded everyone into the TARDIS. I suppose this means the Doppeldoctor Had To Die?

He does say to ganger!Miranda "There might be a way out of this" (in re: to their untimely demise) before he opens the door, so who knows: maybe it was Part Of The Plan All Along! :P

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

There was a lot of "there's a chance you'll survive this!" going on beforehand, but I don't know if that's just the Doctor being all "I'll be okay, I'm saying it'll be okay, but I'm lying" or if it actually did mean "You might be able to spring back from whatever a 'molecular memory' is."

But yeah... from a plot standpoint, having a Doppeldoctor around would just be way too easy, so he had to die. (-;

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

I don't know if that's just the Doctor being all "I'll be okay, I'm saying it'll be okay, but I'm lying" or if it actually did mean "You might be able to spring back from whatever a 'molecular memory' is."

I'm gonna go with the latter. 'Cause when he tells Not!Miranda "there might be a way out of this", the others have already left, and so it wouldn't have said it to reassure them. He oculd have just been trying to comfort not!Miranda in the moments before her demise, but she seemed pretty damn resigned to the whole thing, and not really in need of a comfortable lie.

Gonna have to find and listen to that 'molecular memory' line again! After all: Amy was able to reboot the entire universe from just a few atoms of the old one! Surely they can rebuild the Doppeldoctor?

But yeah... from a plot standpoint, having a Doppeldoctor around would just be way too easy, so he had to die. (-;

Or at least we have to think he's gone forever so we're surprised anew when me makes his triumphant return!!!

Oh, dear God: this show has turned me into a conspiracy theorist! (My dad would be proud...I should go tell him I have my doubts about Climate Change now...)

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be surprised if Doppeldoctor turns out to be a plot point, but I've more or less ruled out that he's the one that dies, since I don't think the Flesh could pull off regenerative energy. Did I mention that I thought he might've invited Doppeldoctor to his death, and not himself? We have so many separate threads going at once I'm not sure anymore. I'm starting to pick at his greeting to Rory as a kind of foreshadowing to their war. Or everything is a lie and what the Doctor did was throw a Wake of Fakes (excellent band name?), summoning Plastic!Rory from the past to hang out with Fake!Amy and Mystery!River and Doppeldoctor.

Conspiracy theories are the best! But only when Moffat and his ilk are the shadowy secret government putting the lies in the internet. ^_^

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say I've ruled it out completely that it's the Doppeldoctor who's zapped by the astronaut, but I would be mildly surprised if that were the case. Moffat is very good at keeping me guessing, and the way he called attention to the Doctor's death scene in relation to the Doppeldoctor (when Amy brought it up with who she thought was the Doppeldoctor) makes me think that it's just not going to play out that way.

A Wake of Fakes is an excellent band name. Should you ever find yourself in a position where you need a tambourine girl with a slightly-less-than stellar sense of rhythm, know that I'm in like Flynn. :D

It's also an intriguing theory. Now that you've drawn my attention to it, I'm convinced that it can't be coincidence that there's all this doubling/duplicating of the main cast going on.