Rate and Discuss: The Almost People

[FlyingBeastie]

Imagine that kid (whoever they turn out to be) looking up to Amy when they're older and asking, "Mommy, when I wuhz in yoh belly, were you happy and excited to meet me?"

What's she gonna respond?

"Well, I was in this weird thing that looked like a dental spitoon with a creepy eyepatch lady telling me to push and the moment I saw I was pregnant with you I screamed in sheer horror and terror... uh... want some ice cream?"

I mean, I'm making sense, right? You see where I'm coming from on this. I have a half-cousin who's about 7, and recently he was eating some seeds (I think sunflower, not sure) and he goes to his mom and goes, "Mommy, we put seeds in the ground to grow- so what happens when its in my belly? Am I gonna grow a big beanstock in my belly now?"

And just imagining him and his little face seeing that ending- it just doesn't sit right with me.

[Si Hunt]

But Amy didn't look down and scream finding she was pregnant! It was the Flesh Amy, who wasn't pregnant but "feeling" the pregnancy of the real Amy.

We haven't seen the real Amy for weeks, so for all we know she was overjoyed to discover she was pregnant after she'd had sex with Rory.

So there's no reason yet to call it rape at all.

Si.

[Jason Thompson]

Pregnancy involves some form of sexual contact,

If this was a show involving nothing but humans I'd agree with you, but this is Doctor Who.

So, Amy is pregnant. With a whole raft of alien life forms and fantastic technology and dimensional transference and all sorts of things like that, are you honestly claiming that her pregnancy MUST have included sexual contact? Why not an injection of hormones that prompted parthenogenetic development of an embryo? For that matter how do you know it's not Rory's baby?

You can even call what happened to The Doctor in "The Doctor's Daughter" rape.

Rape is non-consensual sexual intercourse, full stop. There is no other definition. Anything else is sexual assualt, not rape. What hapened to the Doctor is in no way rape. It is not even sexual assault.


Bottom line: you have decided, on the basis of a very short scene, that everything connected to Amy's pregancy is somehow inappropriate. However, you know as yet nothing about that pregnancy beyond its existence. Your entire rant of the last few posts has been based solely on your assumptions, and is therefore baseless as a genuine criticism of the series.

Why not try watching and seeing where this goes before dismissing it out of hand?

How do you know, for example, that the baby isn't Rory's and that Amy's concern (voiced in Day of the Moon) about being pregnant in a time machine having some kind of effect on the development of the child isn't actually the case, and that she has been abducted because whoever abducted her knows from the future (a common theme of Moffat stories) that the baby is something different and wants to appropriate it themselves? No rape. No non-consensual pregnancy, just a real birth that the unknown are trying to steal.

You don't. So let's just see what happens before going off on one about the whole sub-plot of the series, shall we?

[Jason Thompson]

Oh, and she didn't scream when she found out she was pregnant, she screamed because she was in labour, that much was obvious.

[Rob McCow]

I think it's a fair point that this is a potentially dodgy area for Doctor Who to explore. Having babies and having adventures doesn't mix very well for obvious reasons.

Although the scene at the end of The Almost People was strong, nastier things happened to Peri almost every week during Season 22, with the Borad, Sil and Jobel all preparing perverted fates for her.

But in Amy's case, it really depends on how they handle this next week. So far we've had a fleeting glimpse of her being pregnant, in a tube, wearing a medical gown. It's a bit nasty, but I don't think it's too visceral. Yet.

[Jason Thompson]

I think it's a fair point that this is a potentially dodgy area for Doctor Who to explore.

But since we don't actually know how this area is going to develop, surely it's a bit early to be decrying it as dodgy, inappropriate, or any of the other words so far bandied about?

Amy is giving birth. That is literally, at this point, ALL we know. From some of the comments here in this thread you'd think we'd witnessed the birth of a slimy alien thing with a malicious alien impregnator leering at Amy while it happens.

[Rob McCow]

I did say only 'potentially' dodgy! We had people melting in acid last week, a person was aged to death the week before, there was swordfighting the week before that... you can do all of those things in unbearably nasty ways, but Doctor Who doesn't do it like that.

[Jason Thompson]

That was kind of my point, though. Isn't there a wide range of potentially dodgy plotlines? Why do some flip out over something before even seeing how it's played out? It's equally potentially excellent and intriguing, or bland and uninteresting, or cliched, or pointless, or any number of things.

There just seem to be a few cases of people who only seem to be watching with a view to finding what's wrong with the show rather than appraising things openly as and when they actually happen. Mr Southall's comments on The Impossible Astronaut also spring to mind, as he tore into the questions that the episode posed as if they were a problem without waiting to see if any would be resolved the following week (as indeed some of them were by the simple expedient of a 'three months later' caption right at the start of Day of the Moon).

It's all very well to not like an episode, but to go bananas over a plot development we've barely even begun yet seems excessive.

[Darren]

Amy screamed as she looked down to see she's pregnant

She probably screamed because she was giving birth. Apparantly, it stings a bit.

She could have been kidnapped *because* she was pregnant, not to impregnate her.

And I just felt that- given the direction Moffat was going with the whole fairytale and childhood thing, turning that whole theme into the one I just aforementioned- it just doesn't sit right.

The best fairy tales are dark and scary.

Reason why its meh? Cos I'm sick of these supernatural pregnancies.

It's only worked once for me and that was on Xena with the whole Hope arc, cos at least there were loads of symbolisim and reflections regarding the relationship of the surrounding characters.


Moffat, you're not a genius- we all know River is their kid. Give it up. You're not clever. Writing one-offs you're good at, but commendering an entire show and being responsible for creative decisions you are not

Shouldn't an episode of Doctor Who be judged on it's own merits and not compared with an ( I assume) completely different pregnancy plot in a 15 year old US show?

Is River their kid? News to me.

[Awesome Wells]

Some excellent points made by Jason; however, my primary objection was not to Flying Beastie's outlandish theories about pregnancy and rape - I don't agree with them, but they are presented as opinion and interpretation - but to the positive statement that River Song is Amy's baby, which is apparently evidence that Steven Moffat is a poor showrunner.

We don't all "know" that River is the regenerating child because there has been absolutely no evidence of this presented on screen. It's not impossible, based on what has been shown so far, but it has not been positively stated; Ms Beastie presents it as if it's something we all secretly or overtly know to be true when it isn't.

Any argument where one presents speculation/opinion as fact is a flawed argument; that was my objection. My personal feelings on the rape/pregnancy theory have been stated perfectly by Jason. I can only add that I agree with everything he said in his last few posts.

[Perry Vale]

Why do some flip out over something before even seeing how it's played out?

I think some here in the UK might call it 'Daily Mail Syndrome'...

There has so far been absolutely no inference that Amy was raped. The only suggestion put forward onscreen about her pregnancy is that travelling onboard the Tardis while pregnant could affect the development of the baby.

[Terry Leptil]

2 out of 10

That is largely for the cliffhanger.
The rest of the episode followed on from last week. It felt quite disjointed, the moments after the previous cliffhanger were handled very badlly, it felt as if they'd cut something out. The "would you like a jelly baby" bit was silly, maybe better with Smith's own voice instead of Tom's.

The biggest problem was characterisation. There wasn't any. I honestly watched not caring who lived or died feeling no tension or suspense. The scene with the bloke who had a son (see, I can't even remember their names, did they have any?) cradling, er, himself was emotionless. And psychologically, what would watching yourself die from a melted heart do to someone? And at the end, why was the boy on a beach by himself?

Maybe the boy was with other members of his family who told him not to wander too far off on the beach?

I thought the scene where the real Jimmy died and ask his Ganger to become a father to his son, Adam was quite sad, a bit like when Tony elected to remain with the Silurians at the end of Cold Blood last year.

The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People was a bit of an odd story really.

[Jason Thompson]

She could have been kidnapped *because* she was pregnant, not to impregnate her.

Exactly! We don't yet know when she was kidnapped or how she got pregnant.

The best fairy tales are dark and scary.

Damn right they are.

Before Disney sanitised them for precious little children, stories like Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty or The Little Mermaid were not only scary they were downright nasty. The Little Mermaid doesn't live happily ever after: she fails and dissolves into the sea. Cinderella's ugly sisters mutilated their feet to try and fit into the slipper so the Prince would marry them, then were punished by dancing themselves to death. Sleeping Beauty (perhaps most relevantly for this thread) became a mother to a number of children before the Prince woke her up.

But even so, we still have, unadulterated, the story of two children lured into a dark scary forest by a witch who wanted to eat them; a little old lady eaten by a wolf, who is then brutally murdered by a woodsman; and so on.

Is River their kid? News to me.

News to everyone.

[Si Hunt]

News of the world.

Si.

[Rob McCow]

Whoever made that link from the real Amy to the Flesh Amy must have a seriously strong transmitter. Considering that not only does she regularly travel through space and time, but that she also LEFT THE UNIVERSE without dissolving, I randomly estimate that they'd need a dish the size of a galaxy to maintain a clear contact.

Villain 1: "We've lost the signal to Amy!"
Villain 2: "Where is she?"
Villain 1: "Well, I'll tell you where she's not."
Villain 2: "Where?"
Villain 1: "The UNIVERSE!"

[Perry Vale]

Of course you're assuming she's not being kept in that other Universe...

But the obvious explanation is that 'Curse' was intended for the ep.9 slot, so the Amy we see there wasn't (originally) meant to be 'flesh' Amy.

[egdcltd]

Which of the first two episodes was the one where Amy was captured by the Silents? Was that before she said she was pregnant, or after, and did she say it was a false alarm after she was "rescued" and did she see the eyepatch lady for the first time after her rescue or before? Can't remember the actual sequence of events, and it could be quite important.

Maybe she hasn't really been rescued yet, and the flesh Amy was a changeling they rescued in place.

[Rob McCow]

She said she was pregnant at the end of episode 1 - but she was 'captured' in the creepy house during episode 2. I think. As far as I can remember, Ms Eyepatch didn't turn up until she was in the creepy house.

[Jason Thompson]

Amy was captured by the Silence in Day of the Moon, but Eyepatch Lady first appeared shortly before that, so presumably that was the Flesh Amy already by that point. However, three months elapse between The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon during which time all four travellers are separated, so it could be any time in that period that she was switched. Or even before then.

[FlyingBeastie]

So, Amy is pregnant. With a whole raft of alien life forms and fantastic technology and dimensional transference and all sorts of things like that, are you honestly claiming that her pregnancy MUST have included sexual contact? Why not an injection of hormones that prompted parthenogenetic development of an embryo? For that matter how do you know it's not Rory's baby?

Then I'll get into legalese then:

Assault is any form of touching that is not consensual- this includes putting anything in someone's drink or food without their knowledge.

Since Amy is pregnant, and pregnancy involves the sexual organs we're getting into the sexual assault area here.

Considering this whole time she thought she was traveling with The Doctor and Rory means it was unbeknownst to her she was pregnant.

When you put all those things together, not only is it ultra shady but it can also be interpreted as rape.

It's all fine and dandy to think that if Amy was living a normal life with Rory and found out she was pregnant she would go on with the pregnancy- but would she really? If the pregnancy is between her and Rory, it still doesn't excuse the fact she was never given a moment to decide whether she wanted to keep it or not.

It doesn't sit right with me we have a character who's essentially forced into having a kid because never was there a moment where she had any choice in the matter (save the puns on Amy's Choice, people)

Like I said- any way you slice it, no matter how many sci-fi terms you wanna throw into the conversation, you're still exchanging everyday words that would otherwise point to: "forced", "non-consensual", "sexual contact", which all point to "rape".

Also, that line: are you honestly claiming that her pregnancy MUST have included sexual contact?

It sounds to me like someone needs to retake their Biology 101 class...

[SiHart]

Considering this whole time she thought she was traveling with The Doctor and Rory means it was unbeknownst to her she was pregnant.

Sorry, but how do you know that. It's not obviously portrayed on screen. It depends very much on when she was taken, which obviously was after she told the Doctor she was pregnant, as the Ganger Amy didn't ever mention the pregnancy again. Therefore, she DID know she was pregnant.

Also, that line: are you honestly claiming that her pregnancy MUST have included sexual contact?

It sounds to me like someone needs to retake their Biology 101 class...

And since Jason provided a whole lot of ways Amy could have got pregnant without sexual contact, perhaps you need to read peoples posts a little more clearly?

[Perry Vale]

Since Amy is pregnant, and pregnancy involves the sexual organs we're getting into the sexual assault area here.

No, "we're" not. You are, and no-one else I've seen discussing the subject. Anywhere.

Please keep your "legalese" and other patronising comments, and go and watch 'A Christmas Carol'. If you haven't seen it before, look out for the bit about Amy & Rory being in the honeymoon suite...

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Yes, all of that is still speculation- but given the fact Amy screamed as she looked down to see she's pregnant and, she thought she was traveling with the Doctor this whole time, alludes to the fact she didn't know she was pregnant- ergo, her pregnancy wasn't consensual- ergo, rape. Pregnancy involves some form of sexual contact, so when a character doesn't know they're being impregnated or is forced into it- that's rape.

You can even call what happened to The Doctor in "The Doctor's Daughter" rape.

No you can't. And anyway, at one point Amy was talking to the Doctor about how she thought she was maybe pregnant (all that Time-head stuff) and she didn't seem to be particularly acting like she'd been raped, if anything it was played like it was Rory's child and she was pretty okay with it. But even so, if you then spend months thinking you're NOT pregnant and travelling with the Doctor and your husband, then you suddenly find yourself in a white tube massively pregnant and about to give birth... well you'd bloody scream too. If it was always assumed that every woman caught screaming whilst about to give birth must have been raped, well there wouldn't be a man in the land safe.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

It doesn't sit right with me we have a character who's essentially forced into having a kid because never was there a moment where she had any choice in the matter (save the puns on Amy's Choice, people)

But it sits okay with you that week in week out, people are forced into being killed, have their brains ripped out and placed into a cyber-body, are turned into a face on a paving slab etc all against their will? But because it's rape it's suddenly beyond the pale (assuming for a second that it even is rape, which is still one hell of an assumption). This should have all gone in the Ken Clarke thread.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

We don't all "know" that River is the regenerating child because there has been absolutely no evidence of this presented on screen.

As far as I know we don't even really know that the regenerating child is Amy's baby either do we?