S6E6: The Almost People

jaredofmo wrote:

Last series, I liked. It had a pretty fun story to follow. This year's ongoing story has been a great big WTF?

That's sort of the first thing that always comes into my mind when I hear Moff's name.

Spoiler:

I am so lost and confused this series. I feel like I need a doctor! No pun intended.

The Almost People is the first story of Doctor Who I've seen that has actually given me a headache.

What are you guys so confused about may i ask?

Rocco wrote:

What are you guys so confused about may i ask?

I'm thinking the same exact thing. I don't get the confusion. I feel as if the arc this series is too dumbed down compared to last year.

kcooper76 wrote:

Rocco wrote:

What are you guys so confused about may i ask?

I'm thinking the same exact thing. I don't get the confusion. I feel as if the arc this series is too dumbed down compared to last year.

Same. I haven't gotten confused of big points at all.

The whole thing was just confusing. I don't know if it was because I dozed off during scenes and then didn't know what was happening when I woke up again, or simply because it was just a load of rubbish.

That as well as the fact that there was two of each person, besides Amy and Rory, and that made it very hard to follow.


By the way, on a slightly off topic note... The Jenny Monster at the end was so poorly done. I haven't seen CGI that bad since Prisonner Zero.

Now I don't think that's fair. I mean, when you look at next week's episode, the season finale, and The Doctor's Wife, it's clear the remainder of the season doesn't have a huge effects budget to play around with.

Given the monetary limitations, I thought the Jen Monster was very well done. She certainly looked more convincing then the Slitheen CGI from World War III.

Rust wrote:

Now I don't think that's fair. I mean, when you look at next week's episode, the season finale, and The Doctor's Wife, it's clear the remainder of the season doesn't have a huge effects budget to play around with.

Given the monetary limitations, I thought the Jen Monster was very well done. She certainly looked more convincing then the Slitheen CGI from World War III.

I think the reason I'm so underwhelmed for this two parter is because of 'The Doctor's Wife.' I'm still excited about that episode so long after, and these two episodes just did not compare in my opinion. So I guess you're right really, concerning the CGI effects.

As for the storyline though, it just didn't interest me.

Really enjoyed this two-parter. Wasn't confused at all. Smith continues to be great IMO. I truly love his Doctor and hope he sticks around for a while.

Per the season-arc, yeah, it's a bit off. It's a little bit of a hodgepodge. It's surprising to me that you can write a seasonal arc and still manage to make it feel completely disjointed. I know that you have to make the standalone episodes work, but if you go into it with an overarching plot, it should all be written around each other to make sense.

Episodes 1&2 were just confusing in their skipping around, leaving bits out, etc. I hope it all comes together.

MatthewRex hits upon my biggest concern for the seasonal arc: There's too much "stuff" going on. Amy's Baby, The Time Child (May not be one in the same), the Space Suit, The Silence, Eye Patch Lady, The Doctor's Death, and last but certainly not least, the hanging plot threads from Season 5: The TARDIS from The Lodger (Though that's implied to be the same one from Day of the Moon, but we never see it leave or why the Silence have TARDIS technology in the first place), and who was really behind the Cracks in the universe.

Any two of these would constitute an engaging season of television. Taken all together and it really has the potential to be a mess. I feel Moffat's doing too much at once, especially when you consider River Song's ongoing storyline.

It makes me pine for the lazy days of RTD Season One and Two, where you got a stand alone season with the finales simply being finales. Or maybe more like Season 3 with a better finale.

Rust wrote:

There's too much "stuff" going on. Amy's Baby, The Time Child (May not be one in the same), the Space Suit, The Silence, Eye Patch Lady, The Doctor's Death, and last but certainly not least, the hanging plot threads from Season 5: The TARDIS from The Lodger (Though that's implied to be the same one from Day of the Moon, but we never see it leave or why the Silence have TARDIS technology in the first place), and who was really behind the Cracks in the universe.

I still don't understand why or how the Tardis blew up last year.... but since it's not been mentioned again I no longer really care. Like Rust said, just too much stuff to focus on. And none of it's really that exciting anyways, though I am intrigued by this Madam Kovarian (the eye-patch lady).

All these things are suppose to lead into 1 big thing which will probably end up being either the doctors death or the tardis explosion.

rdks wrote:

Rust wrote:

There's too much "stuff" going on. Amy's Baby, The Time Child (May not be one in the same), the Space Suit, The Silence, Eye Patch Lady, The Doctor's Death, and last but certainly not least, the hanging plot threads from Season 5: The TARDIS from The Lodger (Though that's implied to be the same one from Day of the Moon, but we never see it leave or why the Silence have TARDIS technology in the first place), and who was really behind the Cracks in the universe.

I still don't understand why or how the Tardis blew up last year.... but since it's not been mentioned again I no longer really care. Like Rust said, just too much stuff to focus on. And none of it's really that exciting anyways, though I am intrigued by this Madam Kovarian (the eye-patch lady).

Classic Who often has multiple stories going on at once, more complex ones, that often don't come together until two or three parts in, in some cases. Nobody complains about them being hard to follow for some reason. Things such as the tardis exploding may have not been mentioned, but they certainly haven't been forgotten. You guys don't know why, I don't know why....none of us know why it happened, because it hasn't been explained yet. But it will be. Same with the Silence having Time-Lord tech. We haven't seen the last of the Silence. It is not as if there are too many unrelated plot points, they are all related. They are pieces to ONE puzzle. If there were multiple puzzles to be figured out, there may be too much going on, but there isn't.

The Timelord girl, Kovarian, the flesh, the Timelord tech, the tardis takeover, the Lodger tarids.....these are all related, related to the Silence in some way. And starting this coming week, some of these will be addressed. We can even put some of the pieces together ourselves. Such as last season: don't we already know it was the silence behind most of it? And the Doctor's death, that will most likely be the result of it all, and will be addressed soon as well. Surely we don't think it won't come up again.

I believe the arc this season is too dumbed down compared to last year. Instead of smoothly incorporating the arc storyline into every episode, they kept it all at the beginning and end of this series (part 1, that is). None of it has been anything where you need to pay attention every episode. Every episode, we've gotten this scene where Amy and Rory are worried about having seen the Doctor die, and at the same time, the Doctor looking at the scanner that's trying to determine whether or not Amy is pregnant. Every episode. They awkwardly fit this scene into the episode as if we've forgotten what happened the previous week. They're spoon-feeding us the same material every week, so it's impossible not to grasp any part of the story. Everything's connected and repeated often enough so that we don't have to re-watch anything just to be able to follow the story.

Solid episode! Really looking forward to the next episode!!

Off on a tangent - but the scene towards the end on the episode where the ganger dad gave his son some red balloons was rather reminiscent of Pennywise the Clown from IT! "We all float down here"

kcooper76 wrote:

Classic Who often has multiple stories going on at once, more complex ones, that often don't come together until two or three parts in, in some cases. Nobody complains about them being hard to follow for some reason.

That's because classic Who was better written than the new series and -- perhaps more importantly -- moved at a more deliberate, focused pace. Also, classic Who wasn't actively trying to confuse the viewer, or trying way too hard to be "clever," whereas Moffat sometimes seems to be trying to do just that.

(That said, since when did classic Who "often" have multiple stories going on at once? I can only think of several arcs that went down in addition to the regular serial plots -- The Key to Time, the stuff with the Black Guardian, and the longer serials like The War Games and Trial of a Time Lord -- and I wouldn't say that those arcs were terribly complex.)

kcooper76 wrote:

I believe the arc this season is too dumbed down compared to last year. Instead of smoothly incorporating the arc storyline into every episode, they kept it all at the beginning and end of this series (part 1, that is). None of it has been anything where you need to pay attention every episode. ... Everything's connected and repeated often enough so that we don't have to re-watch anything just to be able to follow the story.

How can this year's arc be too dumbed down compared to last year's, when last year's arc still has yet to be resolved? It's still the same arc! I'd also argue that last year's "arc" was hardly "smoothly" incorporated into every episode -- and that that hasn't been the case with new Who as a whole (maybe barring the specials, if we count those as a season). But as far as not having to rewatch anything... good? With the exception of really deep viewing, I'd say that anything that has to be watched a second time in order to be followed wasn't clear enough the first time around.

Wes Crayon wrote:

kcooper76 wrote:

Classic Who often has multiple stories going on at once, more complex ones, that often don't come together until two or three parts in, in some cases. Nobody complains about them being hard to follow for some reason.

That's because classic Who was better written than the new series and -- perhaps more importantly -- moved at a more deliberate, focused pace. Also, classic Who wasn't actively trying to confuse the viewer, or trying way too hard to be "clever," whereas Moffat sometimes seems to be trying to do just that.

(That said, since when did classic Who "often" have multiple stories going on at once? I can only think of several arcs that went down in addition to the regular serial plots -- The Key to Time, the stuff with the Black Guardian, and the longer serials like The War Games and Trial of a Time Lord -- and I wouldn't say that those arcs were terribly complex.)

I echo this, the classic serials are never hard to follow. This series is hard to follow because of the Moff's writing ways. I mean, the RTD episodes were never hard to follow either. But even classic serials like "The War Games" never confused me. This series is confusing because the Moff is dileberately not giving us the answers. I mean if you can see the whole thing plain and clear than please share because I'd like some light to be shed onto what on Earth is going on!

Wes Crayon wrote:

kcooper76 wrote:

I believe the arc this season is too dumbed down compared to last year. Instead of smoothly incorporating the arc storyline into every episode, they kept it all at the beginning and end of this series (part 1, that is). None of it has been anything where you need to pay attention every episode. ... Everything's connected and repeated often enough so that we don't have to re-watch anything just to be able to follow the story.

How can this year's arc be too dumbed down compared to last year's, when last year's arc still has yet to be resolved? It's still the same arc! I'd also argue that last year's "arc" was hardly "smoothly" incorporated into every episode -- and that that hasn't been the case with new Who as a whole (maybe barring the specials, if we count those as a season). But as far as not having to rewatch anything... good? With the exception of really deep viewing, I'd say that anything that has to be watched a second time in order to be followed wasn't clear enough the first time around.

To be honest, I'd personally prefer it if they just ditched the arc idea and did proper Doctor Who episodes.

Scarywood wrote:

I echo this, the classic serials are never hard to follow. This series is hard to follow because of the Moff's writing ways. I mean, the RTD episodes were never hard to follow either. But even classic serials like "The War Games" never confused me. This series is confusing because the Moff is dileberately not giving us the answers. I mean if you can see the whole thing plain and clear than please share because I'd like some light to be shed onto what on Earth is going on!

[To be honest, I'd personally prefer it if they just ditched the arc idea and did proper Doctor Who episodes.

I wholeheartedly agree on both counts, Scary.

Scarywood wrote:

Wes Crayon wrote:

kcooper76 wrote:

Classic Who often has multiple stories going on at once, more complex ones, that often don't come together until two or three parts in, in some cases. Nobody complains about them being hard to follow for some reason.

That's because classic Who was better written than the new series and -- perhaps more importantly -- moved at a more deliberate, focused pace. Also, classic Who wasn't actively trying to confuse the viewer, or trying way too hard to be "clever," whereas Moffat sometimes seems to be trying to do just that.

(That said, since when did classic Who "often" have multiple stories going on at once? I can only think of several arcs that went down in addition to the regular serial plots -- The Key to Time, the stuff with the Black Guardian, and the longer serials like The War Games and Trial of a Time Lord -- and I wouldn't say that those arcs were terribly complex.)

I echo this, the classic serials are never hard to follow. This series is hard to follow because of the Moff's writing ways. I mean, the RTD episodes were never hard to follow either. But even classic serials like "The War Games" never confused me. This series is confusing because the Moff is dileberately not giving us the answers. I mean if you can see the whole thing plain and clear than please share because I'd like some light to be shed onto what on Earth is going on!

Wes Crayon wrote:

kcooper76 wrote:

I believe the arc this season is too dumbed down compared to last year. Instead of smoothly incorporating the arc storyline into every episode, they kept it all at the beginning and end of this series (part 1, that is). None of it has been anything where you need to pay attention every episode. ... Everything's connected and repeated often enough so that we don't have to re-watch anything just to be able to follow the story.

How can this year's arc be too dumbed down compared to last year's, when last year's arc still has yet to be resolved? It's still the same arc! I'd also argue that last year's "arc" was hardly "smoothly" incorporated into every episode -- and that that hasn't been the case with new Who as a whole (maybe barring the specials, if we count those as a season). But as far as not having to rewatch anything... good? With the exception of really deep viewing, I'd say that anything that has to be watched a second time in order to be followed wasn't clear enough the first time around.

To be honest, I'd personally prefer it if they just ditched the arc idea and did proper Doctor Who episodes.

I prefer the story arcs. If they ditched them, I would stop watching. Maybe last year's arc isn't completely resolved but it WAS better incorporated into the episodes. The episodes were tightly linked together. They didn't start the arc, have a brief reference to it in the episodes that followed and suddenly pick it up near the end of the series. Every episode somehow advanced the story, and the overarching storyline influences the separate stories part of the series, therefore being smoothly woven into the series.

I wouldn't say that this year's story is that interesting to begin with, it's not, so I won't defend it. They suddenly began relying on shocks rather than a worthwhile story. However, I don't see how it is in any way hard to follow. It isn't. Like I said up there, feeding us the same info over and over, I don't see how anyone would still be unsure as to what's going on. Is there a specific thing that is difficult to follow or is it the whole series? If it's the not getting answers: that's the whole point of having the format this way. We're not supposed to get them all at once, and it doesn't mean we can't enjoy them without the answers either.

I suppose all of this discussion is due to the format. Some of us like this format, some of us prefer no overarching storyline...... Guess that can't be changed, there'll always be the two different sides. So, everyone's definition of "proper" is different. To me, this ongoing story is proper...

kcooper76 wrote:

I prefer the story arcs. If they ditched them, I would stop watching. Maybe last year's arc isn't completely resolved but it WAS better incorporated into the episodes. The episodes were tightly linked together. They didn't start the arc, have a brief reference to it in the episodes that followed and suddenly pick it up near the end of the series. Every episode somehow advanced the story, and the overarching storyline influences the separate stories part of the series, therefore being smoothly woven into the series.

Interesting -- because I would emphatically argue that last year's arc (and this year's arc, and the arc of every series of new Who) have not been smoothly incorporated into the episodes. I certainly wouldn't agree that every episode advanced the story in a meaningful way. Yes, this year's arc (or the continuation of last year's arc) "began" more dramatically with the Doctor's death, but otherwise the pregnancy scan and eyepatch lady are on the same wavelength as cracks in the universe and throwaway mentions of silence falling.

In general, I do prefer story arcs -- I just think that new Who does them spectacularly poorly. In fact, I've never seen a show that's implemented them in a worse way (which isn't to say that there isn't such a show, just that I've never seen it or can't recall it presently). Granted, that could be because most US shows that attempt to thread a season arc through otherwise standalone episodes have 20+ episodes in which to do it, and because the shows with shorter seasons generally focus on the arc with limited distractions. (And when you do have the odd show with a short season and mostly standalone episodes, the arc is never very complex -- it usually just involves the rise/reveal of the Big Bad in the finale.)

But yeah, not a fan of how this show does arcs -- so if they have to be done like this, I'd probably rather see them dropped.

I would love to see something more Key to Time like, with an over all theme to a series. I haven't been confused about anything so far, but I do wish for some resolution to some more of the arcs from last year, as we still don't know who blew up the Tardis. I actually think that is the only item left now, isn't it, from last year? The Silence were revealed as was the abandoned ship from the Lodger being one of theirs.

Scarywood wrote:

I echo this, the classic serials are never hard to follow. This series is hard to follow because of the Moff's writing ways. I mean, the RTD episodes were never hard to follow either. But even classic serials like "The War Games" never confused me. This series is confusing because the Moff is dileberately not giving us the answers. I mean if you can see the whole thing plain and clear than please share because I'd like some light to be shed onto what on Earth is going on!

Exactly. It's hard to tell what is supposed to be a mystery and what is to be worked out the the viewer themselves. This becomes very distracting after a point. Seems like a strange way to tell stories from a production team who seems to suddenly think that after more than 30 seasons of broadcast adventures, viewers need a pre-credit intro as to what the series is about.

I really liked that the two Doctors got along great instead of being antagonistic.
The resolution with the Gangers was troublesome. Now that the human originals aren't around, it takes away from them being recognized as equals. If there aren't multiples of the same person walking around then it's no problem for society to accept the duplicates in place of the originals. The Doctor just telling the Gangers to yell at the company won't solve the problem either, especially if it's found that Gangers don't have rights because they're company property.
I still don't understand why they were mining acid instead of just making it the old fashioned way. Why is acid so important in the future that there's a major industrial mining operation for it?
The explanation for Schrodinger's Zygote and the eyepatch lady actually makes sense, but i don't understand why the Doctor just killed the Amy Ganger in cold blood after being pro-Ganger's rights. If they can't rescue the real Amy, isn't it better for Rory to have an Amy? Plus Amy was quite keen on having another of herself in Time & Space.

Evil Monkey Pope wrote:

i don't understand why the Doctor just killed the Amy Ganger in cold blood after being pro-Ganger's rights. If they can't rescue the real Amy, isn't it better for Rory to have an Amy?

I think the whole reason was to block the signal from the flesh to her, stop the connection between flesh her and real her. Not positive about it though.

Granger Amy could have been considered a 'spy' also.