Episode Report Card Tippi Blevins: B- | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT The Gangers All Here
By Tippi Blevins | Season 6 | Episode 5 | Aired on 05.21.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Thanks to a "solar flare," the Doctor, Amy and Rory wind up in a 13th century monastery in Scotland, but it's slightly in the future. Well, for us, anyway. It's an acid-processing facility of some sort, manned by a handful of contractors. The Doctor pretends to be a meteorologist, sent to inspect the place for damage after the solar wave. The Doctor quickly notices that there are two copies of everyone. It seems the job is so dangerous that the contractors have taken to using a vat of extra creamy yogurt called the Flesh to make dopplegangers of themselves to do all the dirty work. They insist that the "gangers" are simple, unfeeling things that aren't really alive, and can't even exist without being linked to their progenitors. The Doctor, having not only scanned the yogurt but stuck his hand into it, disagrees. When another solar wave comes along and knocks everyone out, the charge also liberates the gangers from their originals. This leads to confusion for the gangers, who possess a lifetime of memories and feelings, and for the originals who can't always tell real from Memorex.
One of the gangers – a copy of a young woman named Jen - is especially confused and frightened. She and the other gangers don't have full control over their forms now that they've been freed, so they periodically look like slightly gooey Voldemorts. Rory is surprisingly brave and tender towards Jen, comforting her even as Amy is distrustful. Rory convinces Jen Copy to let the Doctor help her and the other gangers, but one of the contractors sort of ruins everything by trying to electrocute their copies. It into an "us versus them" thing, with both the copies and the originals fighting for their lives. Meanwhile, the TARDIS has sunk into an acid puddle, the Doctor has lost his shoes, Amy has another sighting of the eye-patch lady and everyone weighs in on the "what makes something alive" debate.
Oh and the yogurt pops out a copy of the Doctor at the end to give everyone a cliffhanger. Stay tuned for the full recap!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The camera zooms across a glassy lake toward a rocky island. Atop this island is an imposing stone building, like a fortress or aspiring castle. It's seen better days. Clouds roil overhead. Inside the stone building, three people wearing futuristic hazmat suits walk into a long, dark corridor. The suits are reddish brown and have segmented shields down the torsos, making the wearers appear almost insect-like, although the faces inside the helmets are human. Two of them - men - carry long spear things. One of them tells the lights to come on and they do, revealing a network of pipes lining the corridor walls. They go to a room where there's a thing that looks like a well, but one of the trio says "acid visors down and locked" so it's nothing that pleasant. A young woman takes readings of the well with a scanner and says the acid potency is down. One of the guys walks around the edge of the acid well. "Prettier than a computer, isn't she?" he asks. "Give over, Buzz!" his female colleague says and gives him a playful shove. Buzz slips into the acid well. There's a sizzle and some smoke, but nobody seems especially worried about Buzz. They're more worried about ruining the expensive suit. The other man, Jimmy, says there's no point bringing Buzz back legless and Buzz seems not at all distressed by this. As Buzz's coworkers leave the room, Buzz waves goodbye. His fingers dissolve into goop.
The two still-solid workers head back into the corridor complaining about the scanner not working properly. Buzz is waiting for them, none the worse for wear. "I think we better talk about what just happened back there," he says. For a second it seems like bad things are going to happen, but then they all tease each other about worker's comp and clumsiness and filing reports. "This body costs money," Buzz jokes. "Not as much as the acid suit," Jimmy says, not joking anymore. "It's not like anyone was hurt," Buzz says, trying to bring levity back to the conversation. Back in the acid well, another Buzz's face is dissolving. Ooh-wee-ooh!
TARDIS. Muse's "Supermassive Black Hole" as Rory and Amy play darts. Does the TARDIS have an iPod dock? Probably. Everything has an iPod dock now. Rory's not doing that well. Or, as Amy puts it: "Rubbishy, rubbishy, rubbish." While they figure out their scores, the Doctor's standing at the console, fretting over the latest scan of Amy's quantum pregnancy. I hope she gives him an earful when she inevitably finds out he's been scanning her. The Doctor flicks off the monitor and the Muse and tries to be cheerful. "Why wants fish and chips?" He offers to drop the kids off while he does other things... mysteriously sneaky things. Amy instantly knows something is up, but before the Doctor can stand there gawping at her for too long, an alarm starts blaring. They've been caught up in a "solar tsunami" that shakes the TARDIS around like a Yahtzee cup. "Assume the position!" shouts the Doctor. Amy runs to a nearby seat, puts her head between her knees and waits for the crash. Everything stills. "Textbook landing," the Doctor says with a sheepish smile.