Dr Who: Kill the moon

[Lilani]

I feel like this one had too many plates spinning at once. On its own, I don't mind the Doctor indulging Courtney and exploring how he interacts with kids in this regeneration. Even though he's not as friendly and cuddly, the fact that he keeps letting her IN the TARDIS is a pretty significant thing, so I like the idea of seeing what he does with her and why. On its own, I don't mind the Doctor and Clara encountering people who are at the end of humanity's rope and who are desperate to save their future no matter the cost. On its own, I don't mind creepy monsters hiding in the dark explained by shaky science.

But this one was trying to do all three of them at once and it just made all of them suffer. Courtney was sidelined so much and had so little to do with the plot she felt more like a token guest star than a character deliberately written into the episode. The other spacemen that landed in the shuttle were killed off so fast to make way for the captain/Clara dichotomy it was almost comical. They could have never existed at all and the episode literally would have been the same--just have the captain land on her own with some sophisticated auto-pilot or something. And the germ monsters got a few jump-scare moments but that was it, they never had enough presence to feel like a real threat. And I'll also say it felt a little too close to a pro-life VS pro-choice thing for my tastes. I really admire Doctor Who's proactive approach to diversity as of late and I really admire what other sci fi shows have done in the past for the sake of promoting good but controversial points of view. But abortion is one of those things that's just a little too ambiguous to have an episode about and make it feel alright. Even if it isn't intentional, it shouldn't have been much of a stretch for the writers to see what sort of themes they were dealing with.

I'm almost willing to forgive all of that because of Clara's fight with the Doctor at the end, though. They've REALLY been building this Doctor up as a jerk, to the point where you're really beginning to wonder why he even bothers trying to save people. If I'm interpreting the preview correctly it looks as though the next episode with the Space Oriental Express will lack Clara, or at least the Doctor will be on his own throughout the escapade. I have a feeling that episode is going to be about the Doctor learning something which will allow him to figure out why Clara is mad at him, and perhaps why he continues to bother. Or at least, if he knows why he bothers, it will be made clear to us the audience.

And I really like this. Tennant and Smith always did their utmost to make their charges feel safe. Even when things got bad and they didn't know things would end well, they would stick by them and tell them it's going to be okay. But Capaldi's Doctor doesn't do this--he doesn't sacrifice anything on the altar of reassurance for his charges. I think he does try just as hard to keep them safe, but he just doesn't sugar coat thing as much, which escalates some situations more and turns certain choices into bitter pills. But there is a line between letting someone make a choice on their own and not offering advice when it's needed, and clearly the Doctor has lost sight of where that line is. Clara wasn't mad that the choice had to be made, she was mad that the Doctor wasn't there to help her make the decision and that he gambled with her without her consent.

The last few Doctors have had their demons: 9 was angry and vengeful against the Daleks, 10 was eaten up by the grief for his own death, 11 ran away from his problems rather than dealing with them. And now it seems 12 is manipulative, believing his actions to be without reproach as long as he gets it all to work out in the end. As long as the job gets done, he doesn't care if he has anybody's trust or respect. And now we get to see if this trait is compatible with who the Doctor is, or if like the others this is a demon he has to conquer. And I like it--I like seeing them take away that safe reassurance we've gotten used to seeing in the Doctor and going so hard in the other direction it makes you wonder if he's still the Doctor at his core. Capaldi's Doctor seems to be epitomizing the idea of the Doctor as "a madman in a box."

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I have a theory on why the moon gained mass. Technically it didn't, but since the creature automatically gave birth after hatching, we can assume that the extra mass was actually the crust of the original moon, and that things went back to normal after the outer layer dissipated leaving only the new Moon.

 

[Netrigan]

Courtney was sidelined so much and had so little to do with the plot she felt more like a token guest star than a character deliberately written into the episode.

Her inclusion is almost certainly Moffat-mandated. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the good scenes with her were written by Moffat because he's got big plans for her later on in the series.

Although it was interesting to see a character react in a semi-realistic way to a major threat. After nearly getting killed, her reaction was "can I please go back to the nice, safe spaceship" (and because she's 15, we don't think poorly of her for doing so). And after calming down, she re-entered the story. This kind of harkens back to "Listen" where being afraid isn't considered something to be ashamed of.

But they really didn't have much of anything for her to do. A handful of decent moments doesn't disguise she doesn't really have any purpose in this story.

Although if this is Clara's final series (as has already been reported), I'm kind of pulling for her (plus a decade and a re-casting) to be the new companion. Moffat hasn't been tied to modern-day Earth like Davies was, so a companion from the near future wouldn't undermine his version of Doctor Who at all.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

I have a theory on why the moon gained mass. Technically it didn't, but since the creature automatically gave birth after hatching, we can assume that the extra mass was actually the crust of the original moon, and that things went back to normal after the outer layer dissipated leaving only the new Moon.

That hurt my brain. Even if the old moon broke into bits, there'd still be just as much mass up there, it would just be in chunks and not one big object. Mass can't just disappear.

 

[Breakdown]

The chunks of moon should really have been pulled in by the gravitational pull of the giant space monster thing.

Things would have turned out differently in Clara was a fan of HP Lovecraft. Giant space monster inside the moon? Kill it!

 

[Albino Boo]

I have a theory on why the moon gained mass. Technically it didn't, but since the creature automatically gave birth after hatching, we can assume that the extra mass was actually the crust of the original moon, and that things went back to normal after the outer layer dissipated leaving only the new Moon.

That hurt my brain. Even if the old moon broke into bits, there'd still be just as much mass up there, it would just be in chunks and not one big object. Mass can't just disappear.

You are worrying about physics in show with time travel, regeneration and a box that's bigger on the inside?

 

[Netrigan]

They clearly reversed the polarity of the Moon chunks and it reformed as an egg.

Reversing the polarity is always the answer unless another is provided. Always.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

I have a theory on why the moon gained mass. Technically it didn't, but since the creature automatically gave birth after hatching, we can assume that the extra mass was actually the crust of the original moon, and that things went back to normal after the outer layer dissipated leaving only the new Moon.

That hurt my brain. Even if the old moon broke into bits, there'd still be just as much mass up there, it would just be in chunks and not one big object. Mass can't just disappear.

You are worrying about physics in show with time travel, regeneration and a box that's bigger on the inside?

Actually I'm mainly annoyed that they had 'the moon breaking apart will fuck us up royally' as one of the premises for the episode, and then just handwave it away when convenient.

...

Although the awful science annoyed me also.

Would you like me to list all the other bits of dodgy science in this episode?

Spoiler: Oh wait I already did...

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 were the 'single celled' life forms displaying bilateral symmetry with structures that usually only arise from cell differentiation? Are we supposed to believe that a creature with 8 legs, specialised mouth parts and freaking web glands is single celled? Also, 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, at worst it would all fall to Earth, potentially causing enormous damage. Even if its just a thin layer around the moon, its still a thin layer the size of the freaking MOON, so it would still add plenty of energy to the Earth's atmosphere if it fell and potentially have catastrophic effects. It wouldn't all just disappear like a fart in a spacious room.

Fourthly, how can the creature have been sitting there and growing for millions of years, yet the moon only increased rapidly in mass at some point between the present day and the year 2050ish?

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, but it's only moon sized itself. What the fuck?

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.

Seventhly(?), how do the gravity fluctuations occur, the ones that we see when the girl gets trapped with the alien thing? Gravity is a product of mass, is the creature somehow rapidly changing its mass? How?

Eighthly(?!), they say that the extra mass is causing 'high tide all over the planet at once' or something like that. If the moon increased in mass, you'd still have high tide in the same places at the same times, more or less, the tide would just come in further.

Ninthly(!!!), if the moon is rapidly increasing in mass, why is there not a massive increase in eccentricity of its orbit (ie how elliptical its orbit is)

Finally, the Doctor said that it's 'unique, the only one of its kind' (referring to the moon thing), which implies that either the rest of its kind died out, or it somehow magically bypassed the evolutionary process and just appeared as a unique animal. If it's the first option, how could he possibly know, if it's not, then what the fuck Doctor? Are you mental?

 

[Biran53]

What wha- wait. Where was there any thing purposely referring to abortion in Kill the Moon? I mean, I can SEE where you might draw that parallel, but that's a massive stretch. You have to be intentionally looking for that connection.

I thought it was a pretty great episode, and that we are in the midst of the most consistent run that Doctor Who has had for a while. Capaldi is almost single handedly breathing life back into the show. It also helps that Clara has been massively improved from last series.

 

[Albino Boo]

I have a theory on why the moon gained mass. Technically it didn't, but since the creature automatically gave birth after hatching, we can assume that the extra mass was actually the crust of the original moon, and that things went back to normal after the outer layer dissipated leaving only the new Moon.

That hurt my brain. Even if the old moon broke into bits, there'd still be just as much mass up there, it would just be in chunks and not one big object. Mass can't just disappear.

You are worrying about physics in show with time travel, regeneration and a box that's bigger on the inside?

Actually I'm mainly annoyed that they had 'the moon breaking apart will fuck us up royally' as one of the premises for the episode, and then just handwave it away when convenient.

...

Although the awful science annoyed me also.

Would you like me to list all the other bits of dodgy science in this episode?

Spoiler: Oh wait I already did...

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 were the 'single celled' life forms displaying bilateral symmetry with structures that usually only arise from cell differentiation? Are we supposed to believe that a creature with 8 legs, specialised mouth parts and freaking web glands is single celled? Also, 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, at worst it would all fall to Earth, potentially causing enormous damage. Even if its just a thin layer around the moon, its still a thin layer the size of the freaking MOON, so it would still add plenty of energy to the Earth's atmosphere if it fell and potentially have catastrophic effects. It wouldn't all just disappear like a fart in a spacious room.

Fourthly, how can the creature have been sitting there and growing for millions of years, yet the moon only increased rapidly in mass at some point between the present day and the year 2050ish?

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, but it's only moon sized itself. What the fuck?

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.

Seventhly(?), how do the gravity fluctuations occur, the ones that we see when the girl gets trapped with the alien thing? Gravity is a product of mass, is the creature somehow rapidly changing its mass? How?

Eighthly(?!), they say that the extra mass is causing 'high tide all over the planet at once' or something like that. If the moon increased in mass, you'd still have high tide in the same places at the same times, more or less, the tide would just come in further.

Ninthly(!!!), if the moon is rapidly increasing in mass, why is there not a massive increase in eccentricity of its orbit (ie how elliptical its orbit is)

Finally, the Doctor said that it's 'unique, the only one of its kind' (referring to the moon thing), which implies that either the rest of its kind died out, or it somehow magically bypassed the evolutionary process and just appeared as a unique animal. If it's the first option, how could he possibly know, if it's not, then what the fuck Doctor? Are you mental?

I refer you to this selection of clips from Dr Who spanning 40 years.


If you want science you are watching the wrong show.

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

Wait a minute! Some things are starting to come together!

The moon started increasing it's gravity? That means it was gaining mass! But how could a physical object just suddenly start gaining mass from seemingly nowhere? It must lie partially outside the dimensions of space as we know it! JUST LIKE THE OLD ONES!

The giant space bug laid an egg larger that it was? But what sort of being could do that? Unless it was a manifestation of Shub-Niggurath!

The Doctor flies through space and time without restriction? He wears many different faces and appears to various beings as whatever he needs to in order to infiltrate their societies to do his work? He teaches subtle lessons that lead those who follow him towards madness and a different state of being?

Holy crap! THE DOCTOR IS NYARLATHOTEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Stillgard]

I have to keep reminding myself that this is a Doctor that survived Trenzalor. As we recall just prior to Season 8 The Doctor had all but lost his Companions and had become a paranoid shut in. Sigh Matt Smith really was a brilliant actor for the Doctor. But the fact of the matter is this. The Doctor always had River Song as a Beacon through time and space. Though like most things that have an opposite the rules of relativity always apply. I think the result of him not having that opposite direction of Anti-Timey wimey particles we called River Song is the current mess of a Doctor we have now. Remember it was the first Doctor that said. The far future versions of him we're versions where he got younger and younger looking. And no Souffle girl doesn't count as his companion. Even though she was sent through the heart of the Tardis particle by particle to save him. River was apart of the Tardis as much as Donna was.

 

[Furbyz]

Hmmmm....Dothraki handmaidens, what do you have to say on the subject?


It is known.