Sunday, November 18, 2012

Doctor Who-The Rebel Flesh
                                                  Swept passed near disaster by what the Doctor calls a solar tsunami,the TARDIS lands on Earth in the 22'nd century near a 13'th century monastery where they follow an underground pipeline,apparently pumping acidic liquid fuel back and forth from the mainland,to it's source. It's a power supply factory run by a team who've discovered an amazing new method of sustaining their workforce in their dangerous work: a viscous,mimetic substance called The Flesh. The few workers at this factory have developed devices by which they can create new precise physical and mental duplicates of themselves in order to reduce work related fatalities. Upon touching The Flesh,the doctor senses a living consciousness within them. Though he warns the workers of the impending solar tsunami activity,they along with their clones they refer to as the gangers elect to stay in their factory while the Doctor tries to disable their power system. He succeeds and is briefly knocked out along with Amy,Rory and many of the workers.

                                           Upon awakening the it's discovered that the Gangers have gone missing in the apparently one hour they'd been unconscious. This after Cleaves,one of the workers believes it's been 12 minutes. They find in another part of the factory an area containing paraphernalia indicting the gangers not only are still there but now are convinced they are the people they originated from. Experiencing unusual symptoms another of the workers named Jennifer discovers she is actually a ganger. It isn't long before the Doctor realizes the same is true of Cleaves. While Rory sympathetically  sticks with the ganger version of Jennifer,the Doctor prepares to locate the other gangers who have gotten to the pressure suits in order to survive in order to iron out some negotiations between the creators and their twin creations. This fails when Cleaves attempts to destroy the clones,including her own and both join into divided camps against the other. Before the Doctor can take further actions,he is confronted with a ganger version of himself.

                                            This Doctor Who story brings up some very fascinating and important human ethical questions that have been bandied about as we in real life have begun to edge towards the possible genetic engineering phenomenon cloning. Is it the life of the originator of the genetic material or the outcome of that which will be held of a greater or lesser value? Although in this story being able to see each other for the equals the other is,the arrogant self righteousness of characters such as Cleaves is what creates the conundrum about what one values about life itself. Rory,as a nurse with medical training,recognizes that value in the ganger Jennifer completely when-during the most touching scene of the episode she brings Rory nearly to tears as she struggles with her budding human identity.  The Doctor for his part shares this opinion,and is acting very much as the diplomat in helping people who are literally taking to fighting themselves. This is complicated,of course when he finds himself in the very same position.

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