TV Series > Doctor Who - Season: 06 > The Rebel Flesh

Only five episodes in and already another two-parter and still no development in the story that was setup at the beginning of the season. Many people, like myself, dislike the episodes that portray the humans as idiots, and this episode is so full of it that it gives a bitter taste of what could be a neat episode.

I am just going to get the most hated part of this episode out of the way first. Other than The Doctor's companions, the writers always seem to villainize the humans or make them a bunch of idiots where ever they are met. Do the the writers really think that low of us that hey figure humans are always panicky, stupid animals with a huge ego and try to control everything we want? From the comments I have seen on other sites, a lot of people are getting sick of this type of episode as it doesn't seem to match what The Doctor always says about humans. How can he think that humans beautiful and incredible if everyone he meets are a bunch of sadistic morons?

Really this episode could of been made completely without The Doctor this time, or even any of the companions. The Doctor gave warnings, no one listened. The companions tried to help, no one cared. We even got to see a more companionate, non-redshirt Rory for a change, but the other characters of the episode seemed to ruin any development that we were looking for. Amy barely even existed, except to notice obvious things.

Speaking of obvious things, I have never seen an episode where The Doctor spelled out every single little detail as if no one knew what was going on. It almost seemed like most of the dialogue was just go keep the episode going so that it needed to be spread out into two parts. I have a feeling after seeing the second part, I will find they could probably of just made one episode for this story.

I don't know where they dug up the guest stars, but most of them were terrible. The acting didn't seem believable at all as the emotions were almost nonexistent. We are almost being killed, calm look on their face. Intruders are showing up, calm look on their face. One of our people are missing, they don't care at all and just continue on. I know some of this is probably due to the script, but they could at least gave some sign that they are humans with emotions and not mindless husks. It seems like they had problems adapting to having two separate rolls going at the same time, as there was almost no difference between the them.

The CG during the short scenes where there was any was actually quite good for this series. Doctor Who has never been a star in the incredible effects category, but some scenes in this episode really pushed what the budget normally allows, but overall seemed that they could of been extended to add more life to the series.

After the rest of the season, this episode has to be the worst of them all so far. I am really hoping they make things better during the second part of this story. These two part episodes don't frequently live up to the first ones greatness, and as this once was far from great, I'm not expecting much for the next half.