Doctor Who/Recap/S32/E05 The Rebel Flesh

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
< Doctor Who‎ | Recap‎ | S32


A solar tsunami sends the TARDIS hurtling towards a futuristic factory on Earth, where human Doppelgängers ("Gangers") are used to mine dangerous acid. They use the white clone goo to create avatars, which can safely mine while the actual people are controlling them with their thoughts.

The 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 Doctor's shoes with acid, so he has to borrow a pair of sneakers.

The solar tsunami, however, causes the Gangers to separate from the people they're being controlled by. The clones are now separate, independent people, retaining all of their original memories and horrified by the fact that they're not "real". They can remember every second of their "original's" life and feel every emotion they've ever experienced. The white Flesh rebels against the change, and causes their faces to distort.

The 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.


Tropes used in Doctor Who/Recap/S32/E05 The Rebel Flesh include:

Doctor: It is too dangerous in here with acid leaks!

Doctor: It's interesting you refer to [the Gangers] as "it", but you call a glorified cattle prod a "she".

  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: "A lot can go wrong in an hour."
  • Let's Get Dangerous: Usually timid Rory pounces on Cleaves when she kills Ganger!Buzzer
  • Lightning Can Do Anything: Although causing a power surge is hardly the silliest thing its ever accomplished in fiction.
  • Meaningful Name: "Ganger" comes from both "doppelganger" (a duplicate of a person) and "ganger" (a menial labourer assigned to a large work gang, i.e. on old-fashioned railroads).
  • Narm: Ganger!Cleaves reaction to finding out she's one of the Gangers is to say "We...are LIVING!" in a Narmy way and run off. The way everyone else reacts looks like they thought of it that way too.
  • Never Say "Die": Gangers, being considered implements, are not killed but "decommissioned." Justified, ish in that the originals don't consider them alive to begin with.
  • Nice Guy: Rory is seen this way by the Jennifer-Ganger, who says he has "kind eyes."
  • Nightmare Face: An incomplete Ganger.
  • Noodle Implements: The Doctor somehow uses a snowglobe to track the progress of the solar storm.
  • Noodle Incident:

Doctor: I have to get to that cockerel before all hell breaks loose. I never thought I'd get to say that again!

  • No OSHA Compliance: Partially justified in that military facilities and their contractors are usually exempt from many environmental laws.
    • Not to mention, 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 than a pair of rubber gloves getting damaged.
  • Oop North: The monastery seems to be on an island off the Yorkshire coast.
    • Were there any islands to be found there, at least.
      • There are islands off the coast a bit further north, though. Holy Island (Lindisfarne) even has a monastery on it.
  • Paranoia Fuel: So how are you going to tell the original and the copy apart? Well, you can't, unless the Ganger is incomplete and has that smooth, transparent face. Just hope you won't be seeing it in the mirror.
  • Percussive Maintenance: 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 look semi-Ganger.
  • Planar Shockwave: The solar tsunami.
  • A Rare Sentence

The Doctor: I have to get to that cockerel before all hell breaks loose!

    • He does then add, "I never thought I'd get to say that again."
  • Remote Body: What the Gangers are supposed to be. Until they wake up.
  • Rubber Man: The Gangers.
  • Security Cling: Jennifer latches onto Rory pretty tight.
  • Schizo-Tech
  • Shapeshifting Squick
  • Shout-Out
    • To Blade Runner: Humanoids, created for work, that become more human, and one of the workers "decommissions" a Ganger just as Deckard "retires" replicants.
    • To The Thing: The flesh can mimic anyone or anything, and can stretch body parts.
      • Buzzer even refers to a ganger as "you thing".
    • To Avatar: The workers control clones of themselves from harnesses, and the clones (supposedly) become inactive when not being controlled.
    • To Full Metal Jacket: One of the workers calls Jennifer "Twinkletoes" for making a mistake.
    • To Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956): the early shots of Ganger!Jennifer slowly taking on definition are rather...familiar. There's also the general idea of exact duplicates killing and replacing their originals.
    • The Ganger's Voldemort-esque appearance seems to be lampshaded when Ganger!Jenny says she'll take care of 'the spare one'.
    • Along with Voldemort, the design (and abilities) of the Gangers is likely a shout out to Odo and the other Changelings.
  • Sleep Cute: Rory and Amy wake up on the floor next to each other after the tsunami hits.
  • Space Is an Ocean: "Solar tsunami."
  • Title Drop: For next episode: Both the Doctor and Rory refer to the Gangers as "almost people".
  • Tomato in the Mirror
  • Ugly Cute: Ganger-Jennifer. Her degeneration makes her look like Voldemort's younger sister.
  • Uncanny Valley: Incomplete Gangers have pale skin, visible veins, and oddly smooth features.
  • Used Future: It is the 22nd century, and the acid mine in the monastery is very dark and battered.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: 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.
    • "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."
  • What The Hell Minor Character?: Despite the Doctor starting a peaceful dialog between the humans and gangers, Human!Cleaves kills Ganger!Buzzer, starting a war between the two factions.
  • The Woobie: All of the gangers, but Jennifer in particular gets this treatment.
  • X Meets Y: The producers described this episode as "Avatar meets The Thing."