Dr Who: Kill the moon

[Soviet Heavy]

I was still surprised when the Doctor abandoned Clara to face the impossible choice herself, and I can see why she called him out on it. Very intense episode.

I think he was trying to make a point to Clara. She kept hounding him all episode demanding that he tell her the future because he's just supposed to know these things. He needed to show her that no, the Doctor won't always be around to save the day, and sometimes humans need to solve their problems on their own. Like I said above, this nearly broke her, because she's been torn from her safety bubble where she always makes the right choice, and is suddenly thrown into a position where she cannot be sure what is the right choice.

 

[gigastar]

the moon a giant egg that hatches in 2049 that no human or alien ever mentions ever. that instantly lays another "egg" thats bigger than it is.. cough cough bullshit cough cough

I liked how the giant space monster waited until nobody was looking to lay the new egg.

Best part of the episode, really. It actually got a laugh out of me.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I was still surprised when the Doctor abandoned Clara to face the impossible choice herself, and I can see why she called him out on it. Very intense episode.

I think he was trying to make a point to Clara. She kept hounding him all episode demanding that he tell her the future because he's just supposed to know these things. He needed to show her that no, the Doctor won't always be around to save the day, and sometimes humans need to solve their problems on their own. Like I said above, this nearly broke her, because she's been torn from her safety bubble where she always makes the right choice, and is suddenly thrown into a position where she cannot be sure what is the right choice.

Yeah I can understand why he did it. After all humanity, and Clara in particular, can't be depending on him to solve all their (her) problems. However I was still surprised that he up and left her making her think that he wasn't coming back. I'm wondering if Capaldi's Doctor sees himself as a father figure to Clara and this was him trying to teach her a fatherly lesson. I mean that's the implication I get out of the whole "take the stabilizers off your bike" line.

 

[Battenberg]

There was one aspect of this episode I liked - the whole one innocent life vs risking an entire species. I could genuinely have seen a real deepness and interest in an episode almost wholly focused on this but instead they massively underplayed it. Instead we had to put up with yet another irritating child character, a two dimensional representation of humanity, and Clara once again being given far too much focus; this time literally deciding her opinion was more important than the rest of humanity combined. Also, aside from the physics stuff people have mentioned I found the whole new moon thing at the end kind of ridiculous and transparently for continuity's sake/ making the writer's lives easier.

It's a shame because Capaldi's doctor appeals to me hugely. He reminds of a slightly more family friendly Dr. House (one of my favourite characters ever) but there's so many other aspects of the show that just aren't at that same quality level and it's a bit of a letdown.

 

[Vigormortis]

I submit to the learned gentleman that Dr Who is serial offender in the bad science stakes.

And more than that, the series has also been a repeat offender of bad writing, plot holes, and flat characters. Going all the way back to the shows inception.

Yet...some people continue to levy these things against the new series, or Moffat himself, proclaiming this new series to be "the worst ever". Which would be fine criticisms in and of themselves[footnote]And in many cases, criticisms I agree with.[/footnote], but many fans don't apply the same standard to the other show runners and other series. I've also noticed that there seems to be a fairly even split between those that love the new series, those that hate the new series, and those who are unsure or indifferent to the new series.

This has been the case with just about every show runner and every Doctor I've been aware of since first watching the show in the 90's.

I guess the take away is: The Doctor can only please some of the people some of the time.

Maybe this is the key to the shows incredible longevity.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Should have blown up the moon, It would have been awesome.

Would you miss it?

 

[Tanis]

I just hope that little girl ain't some amnesia River Song.
-I watching you Moffat, I'm watching you.


More OT?
So...we had an abortion episode.
Okay, cool?

It wasn't pro or anti, it just sort of...was.

Very odd, but cool.

I did like The Doctor leaving and having the females decide what to do.
No males, only females, to decide if it's an innocent life or dangerous monster, etc?

Yeah, I'm down with that.

 

[Albino Boo]

I submit to the learned gentleman that Dr Who is serial offender in the bad science stakes.

And more than that, the series has also been a repeat offender of bad writing, plot holes, and flat characters. Going all the way back to the shows inception.

Yet...some people continue to levy these things against the new series, or Moffat himself, proclaiming this new series to be "the worst ever". Which would be fine criticisms in and of themselves[footnote]And in many cases, criticisms I agree with.[/footnote], but many fans don't apply the same standard to the other show runners and other series. I've also noticed that there seems to be a fairly even split between those that love the new series, those that hate the new series, and those who are unsure or indifferent to the new series.

This has been the case with just about every show runner and every Doctor I've been aware of since first watching the show in the 90's.

I guess the take away is: The Doctor can only please some of the people some of the time.

Maybe this is the key to the shows incredible longevity.

I've been watching since the 70s and I longer learned to take each story on its own terms. There is no point in deconstructing each episode and throwing around tropes and Mary Sues because it won't stand up and it not meant to. Its Saturday night entertainment for a broad audience and lives and dies on the fact whether or not it is entertaining. Thats not a bad thing, not everything has to be deep and meaningful. Its supposed to be an hour were the family can sit down together and watch something that everyone finds enjoyable and that is an incredibly hard task.


Personally I like have mostly liked the series because its moved closer to the era when I first watched it. I remember hiding behind the sofa during an episode of the key time arc and I can see the same effect in children in todays Dr. I admit I wasn't a fan of the RTD era because of RTD's writing. I find his work in general is more style over substance and rushes the pace of things to try and hide the lack of depth. I watched RTD's Casanova with Tennet in the title role and to be honest there wasn't much difference between the two shows. However I also recognize there is no definitive answer and at the end of the day its all subjective opinion and just simply isn't worth making so huge deal over.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

I didn't enjoy it, partly because I find it creepy that Dr Who did an abortion metaphor episode, and because I find it even more creepy that in the end it was pro life holy shit guys, and partly because the science was so goddamn bad.

Firstly, just because you scale up an animal does not mean you scale up the bacteria living on it. Elephant bacteria and mouse bacteria are still bacteria-sized, why would a giant space creature have giant bacteria?
Secondly, how could a single celled life form maintain structure at that kid of size, in earthlike gravity? It would just collapse.
Thirdly, how would the crumbling moon just 'dissipate', at best it would form a dust ring around the planet or slowly drift away into space, it wouldn't just disappear like a fart in a spacious room.
Fourthly, how can the creature have been sitting there and growing for millions of year, yet the moon only increased rapidly in mass in the last 50?
Fifthly, how the fuck does a newly hatched creature immediately lay an egg, and how the fuck does it lay an egg almost the size of itself? Holy shit again, do these people actually know the mechanics of egg-laying or childbirth? Your alien laid an egg so big that it has to have a moon sized vagina
Sixthly, how exactly was the creature taking in the energy to grow to that kind of size? Was the energy already stored up in the egg in some kind of yolk? Was the egg somehow absorbing energy from the sun, perhaps? Either one is problematic for reasons I can't be bothered to explain.

Finally, why were there so many extraneous characters in this episode? All you needed were Clara, the Doctor and an astronaut. In fact, you could even have gotten rid of the astronaut and still had the same moral dilemma, and the same trick with the lights, at the end. The kid was annoying, why do you keep doing kid episodes? Gah.

 

[Breakdown]

Maybe the giant space monster thing could generate it's own artificial gravity field, and developed this ability just before hatching? That would explain why the gravity fluctuated when the kid was locked in the room with the germ spider thing.

Also, why were the germ spider things leaving webs everywhere? Were they hoping to catch space flies?

 

[DataSnake]

God, this episode was stupid. I mean, making a Very Special Episode about the "horrors" of abortion is already a shitty idea, but then there's the leaps of logic needed to crowbar in the expected conclusion. The possibility of lunar debris wiping out life on Earth? "It's not rock, it's eggshell!" and apparently eggshells are made of magical fairy dust that doesn't cause damage when asteroids made of it smack into a planet at terminal velocity. The gravitational effects? "We can live without tides." The Doctor withholding the fact that he knew it was a magically harmless egg and letting Clara and pals agonize over it, potentially allowing them to kill an innocent and (somehow) harmless being? "Humanity had to make its own choice", and if he'd given them all the facts it wouldn't be their decision because reasons. Admittedly Clara called him on that last bit, but that rings a bit hollow when she, just minutes earlier, overrode the votes of the entire world and bet billions of human lives on her hunch that everything would magically turn out alright. The Doctor keeping his mouth shut was incredibly high-handed and dickish, but Clara is the only character in the series who's worse in that regard. You know, I've actually thought the season was pretty cool so far, but this was the worst episode since Love and Monsters a few years back.

 

[maxben]

I didn't enjoy it, partly because I find it creepy that Dr Who did an abortion metaphor episode, and because I find it even more creepy that in the end it was pro life holy shit guys, and partly because the science was so goddamn bad.

I don't think that it was pro life, the episode was strongly pro-choice. The Doctor saying that it was up to humanity to choose, and not him as an outsider. The fact that he left three women to make the decision. The fact that it was a very hard decision to make. Just because choosing life ended up being the "correct" decision does not make it pro-life. Pro-choice does not mean "have an abortion already, jeez".

 

[Thaluikhain]

I didn't enjoy it, partly because I find it creepy that Dr Who did an abortion metaphor episode, and because I find it even more creepy that in the end it was pro life holy shit guys, and partly because the science was so goddamn bad.

I don't think that it was pro life, the episode was strongly pro-choice. The Doctor saying that it was up to humanity to choose, and not him as an outsider. The fact that he left three women to make the decision. The fact that it was a very hard decision to make. Just because choosing life ended up being the "correct" decision does not make it pro-life. Pro-choice does not mean "have an abortion already, jeez".

Well, he did leave them to make the decision, but there was no question whatsoever what we were supposed to think the right choice was, or what they would end up doing. It was always going to be "let humanity die instead, and a miracle will fix things".

 

[someonehairy-ish]

I don't think that it was pro life, the episode was strongly pro-choice. The Doctor saying that it was up to humanity to choose, and not him as an outsider. The fact that he left three women to make the decision. The fact that it was a very hard decision to make. Just because choosing life ended up being the "correct" decision does not make it pro-life. Pro-choice does not mean "have an abortion already, jeez".

No, it means 'you aren't a bad person if you do choose to have an abortion.' Which is not how the show came across at all. The set up was either we kill an innocent thing or it kills us, which in human terms might be a mother with eclampsia deciding whether to risk her life and continue with the pregnancy or not. That's fine as a dilemma to present, even if it is a bit heavy for Dr Who...
But then when they choose the 'correct' option, as you put it, all the life-threatening consequences just magically disappear in a poof of smoke! It completely undermines any choice whatsoever, because there was only ever one right option. What kind of message does that send? There are no legitimate issues to abort; it might seem like there are but it'll all be fine in the end? Great.

The fact that the Doctor left them to make the decision without all the relevant information only makes it worse. How does helping people make an informed decision take away their ability to choose for themselves? That's a completely fucking insane idea.

 

[maxben]

I don't think that it was pro life, the episode was strongly pro-choice. The Doctor saying that it was up to humanity to choose, and not him as an outsider. The fact that he left three women to make the decision. The fact that it was a very hard decision to make. Just because choosing life ended up being the "correct" decision does not make it pro-life. Pro-choice does not mean "have an abortion already, jeez".

No, it means 'you aren't a bad person if you do choose to have an abortion.' Which is not how the show came across at all. The set up was either we kill an innocent thing or it kills us, which in human terms might be a mother with eclampsia deciding whether to risk her life and continue with the pregnancy or not. That's fine as a dilemma to present, even if it is a bit heavy for Dr Who...
But then when they choose the 'correct' option, as you put it, all the life-threatening consequences just magically disappear in a poof of smoke! It completely undermines any choice whatsoever, because there was only ever one right option. What kind of message does that send? There are no legitimate issues to abort; it might seem like there are but it'll all be fine in the end? Great.

The fact that the Doctor left them to make the decision without all the relevant information only makes it worse. How does helping people make an informed decision take away their ability to choose for themselves? That's a completely fucking insane idea.

I see what you mean, however I would like to point out that sometimes that is the case that what you were afraid of does end up being imaginary or wrong. My uncle and his wife almost chose to abort their third child because of real life reasons like a lack of money and inability to support it, but eventually they chose otherwise and it worked out perfectly fine. Everything they were worried about solved itself naturally. Similarly, its like knowing that a child might have a major defect and choosing to keep it and it ending up fine (as it is based on statistics, may well happen). It was a hard choice, but it worked out. I don't think that choosing to keep a fetus and it turning out fine is an attack on the ability to choose or those who choose otherwise. In fact, that was the third choice, let it be and maybe it'll be fine, which was actually discussed.

The question then is, is Doctor Who really the place to explore that? Maybe, maybe not, but I personally would not shy away from tough subject matter. On the other hand, on top of all these moral issues, it would also be considered a live-birth abortion since it was just hatching which is even more ridiculous to discuss on a children's show.

I honestly don't know how much the Doctor knew, I am not sure he knew what either choice truly meant until the it happened.

 

[The Event]

Worst story since The Web Planet in 1965.
We've got the horrible, horrible nonsensical science that even by the "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" standard of Doctor Who was completely bloody ridiculous.
And then we get the idea that risking the lives of 7 billion people to save 1 baby is completely fine even when you have no evidence whatsoever that saving the baby won't result in disaster but pretty good reasons to think it will. You even give those people the choice to put themselves at risk and when they overwhelming choose no thanks you say screw you and do it anyway.
The astronaut was right. You kill it. there is no other sensible choice because the only way things will turn out well if you don't is if a writer has scripted some fluffy happy ending.

On reflection, it's not the worst since The Web Planet. The Web Planet just had a mediocre story let down by poor visuals. This one was worse than the Web Planet.

 

[Wolf In A Bear Suit]

I quite liked a lot about this one actually. I thought the moon being an egg while silly was actually a really cool idea and a nice unexpected twist. Onto things that I didn't like...... Everything Clara did. The whole constantly referring to a giant unknown alien lifeform as a little cute baby was cringeworthy and the fact that with no other evidence they considered the lil babba to be more worhy of life than 6 billion people. "What about the babies on earth?" asks the reasonable woman who's opinion was shared by 6 billion people. "I won't kill the babba" responds the egomaniac idiot and her schoolchild friend who stated the obvious. I think we were supposd to by disgusted by the cynicism of the astronaught lady, but nah.
I mean I know as it's Doctor Who, it all worked out with ridiculous smoothness, but come on lady!

 

[Terminal Blue]

The moon gaining mass?

Yeah.. that one got me.

Also, let's presume this isn't violating the law of conservation of mass. Increasing the moon's gravity would also increase its gravitational attraction to the earth, so presumably the moon has also been accelerating in order to maintain its orbit..

Also, the doctors yoyo would still go up and down on the moon because the moon has gravity. It just has less than the earth. Conversely, there should have been no gravity as the shuttle was descending (i.e. when they arrived) because unless they were using engines to slow it down it would have been in freefall.

Speaking of which, how did the shuttle survive landing? On earth, the shuttle can land because it uses its wings to generate lift. The moon has no atmosphere so the wings don't work. There is nothing to slow the descent except engines, and the shuttle as we see it is descending nose-first (as if it were landing on earth).

On the plus side, I don't actually see why the destruction of the moon would necessarily result in the destruction of the earth. While some debris would presumably be decelerated during the disintegration of the moon, you'd have to deccelerate it quite a bit to get it onto a suborbital trajectory to the earth. While I certainly wouldn't want to take a gamble on it, it seems to me the result would most likely be that Earth got some pretty rings.

Wonky-ass physics aside. I thought it was a pretty good episode, and I don't actually think it was intentionally pro-life. It read more like a standard doctor who xeno-tolerance "fear of the unknown" episode. Also, I kind of like that humanity as a whole made the "wrong" choice,.

There's also a pleasant ammount of people dying lately, which hasn't happened in Doctor Who for a while. I have a sad feeling in my heart that somehow this is merely so that they can all be saved from the nethersphere later on which kind of dulls the impact, but it's still nice. I mean, a lot of non-horrible people used to die in Doctor Who and it was actually really tense, so any step closer to that is a win for me.

 

[Vigormortis]

I've been watching since the 70s and I longer learned to take each story on its own terms. There is no point in deconstructing each episode and throwing around tropes and Mary Sues because it won't stand up and it not meant to. Its Saturday night entertainment for a broad audience and lives and dies on the fact whether or not it is entertaining. Thats not a bad thing, not everything has to be deep and meaningful. Its supposed to be an hour were the family can sit down together and watch something that everyone finds enjoyable and that is an incredibly hard task.


Personally I like have mostly liked the series because its moved closer to the era when I first watched it. I remember hiding behind the sofa during an episode of the key time arc and I can see the same effect in children in todays Dr. I admit I wasn't a fan of the RTD era because of RTD's writing. I find his work in general is more style over substance and rushes the pace of things to try and hide the lack of depth. I watched RTD's Casanova with Tennet in the title role and to be honest there wasn't much difference between the two shows. However I also recognize there is no definitive answer and at the end of the day its all subjective opinion and just simply isn't worth making so huge deal over.

Precisely.

I just wish more people would be intellectually honest with themselves and admit that the primary reasons they aren't fans of a particular Doctor or show-runner is because of a change in tone, a change in narrative, or a change in cast.

But then, as I think we both agree, it doesn't really matter. The show's been running for so long, with enough variety in the creative talents of those behind the series, that it has, at one point or another, had something to appeal to just about any fan.

And, of course, people are welcome to their opinions.

I look forward to seeing what comes of Capaldi's run.

 

[Evil Smurf]

It's been the best episode of the season, mind you it was not fantastic, merely good, and enjoyable.
Clara was not so Mary Sue, we almost had a space abortion, and it leaves area for expansion, what will the giant space bug do now? Will we see it again?