'The Almost-People' was the almost-episode. It was well acted and had some reasonable themes but It foundered for the following reasons:
1. It wasn't a proper allegory. The flesh wasn't a stand-in for Apartheid blacks or African slaves or Palestinians - just a made-up race of plastic people who supposedly feel pain. Who gives a f**k.
2. It was too long. By about 30%.
3. There was only one plot strand. The attempt at a subplot with Rory was half-hearted at best.
4. It was too sentimental. The guy with acid burning through his ribs, lungs and heart calmly handing over his wedding ring and intoning: 'be a dad' was especially ridiculous.
Compare this story with the Robots of Death from season 14 (Tom Baker) to see how off the mark they are. The ending is similar in that the robots attempt to storm the control room and kill the humans, but in the mean time we have the Doctor landing in a grain silo and nearly being cut in half by a sandstorm, a satisfying murder mystery as the humans are bumped off one by one, a company secret a la Alien, an imaginative riffing on Tarzan with the Robot activist Taran kapel reared by robots, some playing around with Asimov's rules of robotics and Masahiro Mori's 'uncanny valley' (robophobia) and brilliant jeopardy where the power is cut and the huge sandminer sinks down in the sand.
The writer (Chris Boucher) is still alive and compos mentis - why isn't he contributing to new Who?