Kill the Moon
Series 8, Episode 7
Proving everyone and everything is special in someway, The Doctor brings Clara and her pupil Courtney Woods to the Moon in 2049. Yet time is a fluid stream, where moments wash up against the banks of our minds, and sometimes those moments must be experienced without the help of The Doctor. With the whole world in the balance, what would you choose between life or death?
IMAGINE IT FROM MY POINT OF VIEW!
Perhaps one of the most polarizing stories in Doctor Who history, “Kill The Moon” presents the characters of Clara, “Un-Special” Courtney Woods, and an expressionless astronaut played by Hermione Norris, with a serious question: If life hangs in the balance on either side of a catastrophe, how do we decide? Taking it's time to set us up for the big reveal, writer Peter Harness attempts to craft a conflicted tale of what happens when The Doctor leaves our choices to us, vice stepping in and saving us from ourselves. Personally, i don't feel like it worked in the way he was hoping, but there are some very intriguing and unique moments regardless of the somewhat curious biology of the episode.
The Good Things
Don't Always Soften The Bad Things...
Time Lord:
The Doctor displays (finally?) an aspect one would expect from a man whose race master the physics and chaos of time eons ago. Capaldi's presence and demeanour while viewing the unfurling of moments is quiet and haunting. It also returned some of the mystery and majesty back into the Time Lords pocket.
Eight Legged Freaks:
Spiders are wicked scary, especially huge, black and red space spiders. I was kind of hoping for a Racnoss tie-in. It would have been a natural fit and still could have worked with the dramatic pulse of the story.
One Small Step:
The visual effects department needs to be commended on its efforts to create a realistic Lunar environment. The grey, dusty landscape added volumes to an otherwise bleak story.
...But Vice-Versa, The Bad Things
Don't Necessarily Spoil The Good Things...
So many little things:
Fair to say I did not enjoy this episode. I have mellowed on it somewhat since the first viewing, but my initial reaction was very hostile. I have a hard time getting behind the “Moon is an egg” plot. Why did the shuttle need to crash vice land? Why the need for blatant (or subtle, for that matter) racialistic stereotypes for a Mexican survey team? Why does Courtney Woods even need to be a factor in the story? Why did only half the planet get to vote? Why can't Captain Lundvik move her facial muscles?
You are impossible, Girl:
Clara has been sort of all over the place, in my opinion. Her final moments with the Doctor felt completely overdone and way to vitriolic given the outcome. One of the major issues I have had this series is how off kilter her relationship with The Doctor has become, and her reaction to his behaviour this episode made me feel like I was supposed to be mad right along side her. But I wasn't. The Doctor was right. And she should have known him better.
Which came first?:
The new egg business. I don't need to go into detail. Irksome.
...And Make Them Unimportant.
The Truth – It's out there:
The moon not really being a moon is now canon. So is every other complaint about a major plot point for the last 50 years. Unless you retcon.
Where does he get the suits?:
Soon, The Doctor will have enough spare space suits for all of humanity. His tailor must have an open-ended discount.
In Universo:
21 years later, The Second Doctor, along with Ben, Polly and Jamie, help humanity fight off a Cyberman-made epidemic in “Moonbase”. I'm assuming that it takes place on the new egg.
