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Context Recap / DoctorWhoS32E5TheRebelFlesh

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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/The_Rebel_Flesh_4945.jpg]]
2[[caption-width-right:350:The show decides to take another crack at a clone story...]]
3
4->'''Cleaves:''' Once a reading's been taken, we can manipulate its molecular structure into anything. Replicate a living organism down to the hairs on its chinny chin chin. Even clothes. And everything's identical. Eyes, voice--\
5'''The Doctor:''' Mind, soul?
6
7'''Original air date:''' May 21, 2011
8
9'''Production code:''' 2.5
10
11JustForFun/TheOneWith acid.
12
13Written by Matthew Graham.
14----
15
16A solar tsunami sends the TARDIS hurtling towards a 22[[superscript:nd]] century factory on Earth, where human Doppelgängers ("Gangers") are used to mine dangerous acid. They use white goo called "Flesh" to create avatars, which can safely mine while the people are controlling them with their thoughts.
17
18The Doctor would much rather have this adventure alone, but Amy and Rory insist on coming along. The factory is dangerous. Dangerous enough, in fact, to dissolve the ground around the TARDIS with acid and cause her to sink into the earth. It also dissolved the Doctor's shoes, so he has to borrow a pair of boots.
19
20The second wave of the solar tsunami causes the Gangers to separate from the people they're being controlled by. The clones are now separate, independent people, retaining all of their originals' memories. They are horrified by the fact that they're not "real". They can remember every second of their "original's" life up to that point and feel every emotion they've ever experienced. The white Flesh rebels against the change, and causes their faces to distort.
21
22The Gangers quickly feel threatened enough to start a rebel faction against the real humans. This escalates into an all-out battle, cut off only when it turns out that the Flesh has also made a copy of the Doctor.
23
24----
25!!Tropes:
26
27* AgonyOfTheFeet: The Doctor loses his shoes to acid.
28* AlienSky: The sky turns bright orange during the solar storm.
29* ArcSymbol: Or Arc Person -- the Eyepatch Lady is seen again.
30* BigBad: Foreman Cleaves, who is completely opposed to the idea of [[FantasticRacism the gangers being people]] and brings the Doctor's attempt at peace talks to an abrupt end by [[KickTheDog casually murdering one of them]].
31* BioPunk: The gangers are treated as technologically despite being entirely organic, and can go from looking completely humans to being [[BodyHorror unnervingly misshapen]].
32* BodyHorror:
33** Ganger!Jennifer grotesquely stretches her head and limbs when she first attacks Rory.
34** Ganger!Cleaves rotates her head through 180 degrees to face directly behind her.
35* BuffySpeak: "Yes, it's insane, and it's about to get more insanerer. Is that a word?"
36* CallBack: While wandering around the factory, Amy sees the Eyepatch Lady yet again, peeking through a wall without a hatch.
37* CaptainObvious: The Doctor determines that "something corrosive" is flowing through the pipe marked "DANGER: CORROSIVE". And again after the storm causes leaks. To be fair, he did just almost get a faceful of HollywoodAcid.
38-->'''The Doctor:''' It is ''too'' dangerous in here with acid leaks!
39* CeilingCling: Ganger!Jennifer pulls one off when stalking Jennifer.
40* {{Cliffhanger}}: The humans have barricaded themselves in the old chapel, where the Flesh is kept, and they've just met the Doctor's Ganger...
41* CloneAngst: The Gangers, upon becoming independent, are scared, angry, and desperate to confirm that their memories are real. The Doctor and Rory are the only ones who understand this.
42* ClonesArePeopleToo: The Doctor insists that the Gangers are no less valuable than their originals and plans to save both.
43* ContinuityNod:
44** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E4TheGirlInTheFireplace "The Doctor's always saying]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E9TheEmptyChild don't wander off."]]
45** As in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E4TheSontaranStratagem The Sontaran Stratagem]]"/"[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E5ThePoisonSky The Poison Sky]]", the Doctor encounters a large tank made to clone someone, and the clone has all the memories of the original person.
46** There's also considerable resemblance [[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E1SpearheadFromSpace to]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E1Rose the]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E12ThePandoricaOpens Autons]], which is clearly the cause of Rory's extreme sympathy to the Gangers, and their identity crisis.
47** Once again, the Doctor is seen [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E7TheIdiotsLantern climbing a large tower]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E5EvolutionOfTheDaleks and subsequently]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E6TheVampiresOfVenice getting electrified]]. [[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E7Logopolis He also falls off said tower.]]
48** The Doctor has encountered [[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E3TheClawsOfAxos programmable matter]] which can duplicate living beings before.
49** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E8TheHungryEarth The Doctor attempts to negotiate peace between humans and another race,]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E9ColdBlood but a human kills one of the other side, sparking a war instead.]]
50** Once again, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E8TheImpossiblePlanet the Doctor is dealing with a slave race]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E3PlanetOfTheOod rebelling against their human masters]].
51* CreatorThumbprint: [[Series/LifeOnMars2006 Matthew]] [[Series/AshesToAshes2008 Graham]] likes the image of a weathervane foreshadowing something important, characters playing darts, using '70s music in his shows, and casting Marshall Lancaster as a bumbling type of character.
52* ExorcistHead: Ganger!Cleaves rotates her head 180 degrees Exorcist-style when she hears something behind her (the original Cleaves).
53* FantasticRacism: Humans, mainly Cleaves, think of Gangers as "monsters" and "mistakes". It doesn't take long for the Gangers to think of humans as cruel and oppressive.
54* FiveSecondForeshadowing: Before he hands the microwaved plate to Cleavers to prove she's a Ganger, the Doctor is seen winching when he accidentally touches it with his barehand for a few seconds.
55* FunnyBackgroundEvent: During the scene where the humans meet up with their Gangers, behind the Doctor you can see Rory react strongly to Jennifer squeezing his hand too tight.
56* GenreThrowback: Basically, Matthew Graham set out to write a Second Doctor story: small cast, minimum amount of effects (mostly practical and make-up) and a very dark, tense tone. Among the Second Doctor tropes on display: A near-future setting, an isolated base in a remote location, an external threat and the possibility of internal treachery, lots of corridors, a trigger-happy paranoid base commander, and a junior member of staff with PhotographicMemory who gets compared favourably to a computer.
57* GlamourFailure: The Gangers aren't stable yet, so they shift back and forth between the gooey Early Flesh and the human Finished Flesh.
58* HollywoodAcid: The acid they're mining dissolves things very quickly -- to the extent that they were losing a worker every week before they had Gangers.
59* InsistentTerminology: Cleaves objects to the statement that the Flesh can "grow". All they can do is "divide their cells".
60* IronicEcho:
61** "Trust me, I'm the Doctor."
62** "It's us and them."
63* ItIsDehumanizing:
64-->'''The Doctor:''' It's interesting you refer to [the Gangers] as "it", but you call a glorified cattle prod a "she".
65* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: "A lot can go wrong in an hour."
66* LetsGetDangerous: Usually timid Rory pounces on Cleaves when she kills Ganger!Buzzer.
67* LightningCanDoAnything: Causing a power surge is hardly the silliest thing it's ever accomplished in fiction. It's also what causes the Gangers to become self-aware and independent.
68* LosingAShoeInTheStruggle: The Doctor's shoes get caught in the acid and he's forced to ditch them and leave them to melt, then acquires a pair of work shoes from the factory to replace them. Pay attention to that, as it will [[ChekhovsGun come up]] in the next episode.
69* MeaningfulName: "Ganger" comes from both "doppelgänger" (a duplicate of a person) and "ganger" (a menial labourer assigned to a large work gang, i.e. on old-fashioned railroads).
70* NeverSayDie: Gangers, being considered implements, are not killed but "decommissioned". [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in that the originals don't consider them alive to begin with. It's like driving a fork lift; you can't "kill" a forklift, now can you?
71* NiceGuy: Rory is seen this way by Ganger!Jennifer, who says he has "kind eyes".
72* NightmareFace: An incomplete Ganger is goeey and has strange eyes.
73* NoodleIncident:
74-->'''The Doctor:''' I have to get to that cockerel before all hell breaks loose. I never thought I'd get to say that [[ARareSentence again]]!
75* NoOSHACompliance: {{Justified|Trope}} in that military facilities and their contractors are usually exempt from many environmental laws. Not to mention that using the Gangers is a safety procedure. They are considered mere tools by the humans, so if one is destroyed it's no different to them from a pair of rubber gloves getting damaged.
76* OopNorth: The monastery is an island off the Yorkshire coast. The Doctor even tries to use Oop North humour.
77* PercussiveMaintenance: A weird example. Ganger!Jennifer at one point emphatically beats her fist against her chest; with each hit she instantly shifts between looking normal and looking semi-Ganger.
78* PlanarShockwave: The solar tsunami.
79* ARareSentence:
80-->'''The Doctor:''' I have to get to that cockerel before all hell breaks loose! I never thought I'd get to say that [[NoodleIncident again]]!
81* RemoteBody: The Gangers are supposed to be empty vehicles for the humans to operate in dangerous circumstances.
82* RubberMan: The Gangers can stretch their limbs. Rory gets a nasty stretchy punch.
83%%* SchizoTech
84* SecurityCling: Jennifer latches onto Rory pretty tight.
85%%* ShapeshiftingSquick
86* ShoutOut:
87** To ''Film/BladeRunner'': Humanoids, created for work, which become more human, and one of the workers "decommissions" a Ganger just as Deckard "retires" replicants.
88** To ''Film/TheThing1982'': The Flesh can mimic anyone or anything, and can stretch body parts. Buzzer even refers to a ganger as "you thing".
89** To ''Film/{{Avatar}}'': The workers control clones of themselves from harnesses, and the clones (supposedly) become inactive when not being controlled.
90** To ''Film/FullMetalJacket'': One of the workers calls Jennifer "Twinkletoes" for making a mistake.
91** To ''Film/InvasionOfTheBodySnatchers'' (1956): the early shots of Ganger!Jennifer slowly taking on definition are rather... familiar. There's also the general idea of exact duplicates [[KillAndReplace killing and replacing]] their originals.
92** The Gangers' [[Literature/HarryPotter Voldemort-esque]] appearance seems to be lampshaded when Ganger!Jennifer says she'll take care of "the spare one".
93** Along with Voldemort, the design (and abilities) of the Gangers is likely a shout out to [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Odo]] and the other Changelings.
94* SkintoneSclerae: Inverted -- the Gangers' skin resembles the white of a human eye.
95* SleepCute: Rory and Amy wake up on the floor next to each other after the tsunami hits.
96* SpaceIsAnOcean: Solar tsunami. [[RealityIsUnrealistic It's an alternate name for a Moreton coronal shockwave.]]
97* SteamVentObstacle: The lower levels of the factory suffer from this. For bonus points, it's [[HollywoodAcid Hollywood acidic steam]] to boot.
98* TitleDrop: For the next episode: Both the Doctor and Rory refer to the Gangers as [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E6TheAlmostPeople "almost people"]].
99* TomatoInTheMirror: Gangers may not realize they are Gangers until they experience something non-human, like stretchy limbs and touching hot surfaces without flinching.
100* UsedFuture: It is the 22[[superscript:nd]] century, and the acid mine in the monastery is very dark and battered.
101* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: The Gangers are designed to be expendable -- their purpose is to mine the acid, a horribly dangerous job, without putting humans at risk. Naturally, they aren't happy about this.
102-->'''The Doctor:''' We're not talking about an accident that needs to be mopped up. We're talking about sacred life. Is everyone clear on that? Everyone clear? Good.

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