Doctor Who S34E7 Kill The Moon

[DaveJB]

To be fair, the first half of the story was actually decent enough, if somewhat formulaic. It was really the perfunctory ending and the abysmal handling of the "debate" over whether or not to Kill the Moon that brought the story down, and had it just been the moon of some random Earth colony in the far-off future, most of the story's problems would disappear immediately. It'd be a story premise more suited to an episode of Star Trek Voyager than Doctor Who, but it'd be better than what they went with.

So yeah, it's the weakest Capaldi story so far, but if given the choice I'd still rather rewatch this over, say, The Rings of Akhaten or Fear Her.

[2000AD]

In terms of sheer idiocy this episode was at least on par with 'the Statue of Liberty is a weeping angel'.

[The Guid]

Well I came here to rate it 5.

Gonna back away... slowly...and RUNNNNNNNNNN

Is the science broken? Yes. I appreciate that might annoy people & yes, arguably they really should have tidied that up. It didn't bother me because I don't know the science. If that means I should rate it 4, then fine, 4 it is.

But here we had a Dr. Who episode that both took the core of Doctor Who, namely the triumph of hope over cynicism, of idealism over pragmatism, of agape over fear - and added something new. It showed this new Doctor at both his best, and his most alien. This isn't the Tennant Doctor who walks side by side with humanity, nor the Eccleston Doctor who had an interesting anger at humanity, nor the Smith Doctor who loved humanity as children, but the Capaldi Doctor who sees humanity perhaps as the successor to the Time Lords, as potentially better, but one thathe isn't among.

And Clara called him on it. She might have been wrong, or right on her rant. That was interesting for me to watch, and was actually the real dilemma in the episode.

[Havok]

I like that take, and honestly, it's why I watched it a couple more times. I didn't want my hatred of the Magical Moon Egg to make me gloss over the good in the episode, which I did and of which there actually is.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I think that's a fair argument. I suppose that, being a scientists specializing in space, I'm more likely to be overly annoyed with the terrible science than I would otherwise be.

[FaxModem1]

So what's next? Can Doctor Who have the sun be the weeping tears of a demon that just needs a hug? How about that oxygen is actually the creation of butterflies for plants to eat so we can learn about cooperation? Just how stupid are we supposed to allow Doctor Who to get so that they can have positive messages?

[Tychu]

So what's next? Can Doctor Who have the sun be the weeping tears of a demon that just needs a hug? How about that oxygen is actually the creation of butterflies for plants to eat so we can learn about cooperation? Just how stupid are we supposed to allow Doctor Who to get so that they can have positive messages?

This. People who know me personally know that I have very very short "suspenders" of disbelief. I'm sorry but I couldn't enjoy this episodes because of the science mistakes. The doctor sounded like a bumbling idiot claiming the moon was a mere 100 million years old. There's a big leap from a time lord who quickly does the calculations about how much energy it takes to pop into a pocket universe to one who believes in a 100 million year old egg.

That being said, I do believe something is amiss in this seasons story arc. Next week we have an Egyptian mummy on the Orient Express with a computer on board

[InsaneTD]

Well it is the only train with that name in space after all.

[JLTucker]

It seems you fools missed the point of the episode: Clara is unable to make big decisions on her own without the Doctor and when he shows her that, she cries like a little baby. This has been the case for most of the new series. The Doctor has to save these helpless little girls because they are too stupid to figure things out on their own. It's about time an episode addressed this unfortunate aspect of the series. I thought it was good for exactly that. My boxers weren't in a bunch because OMG THE SCIENCE IS WRONG. The show never purported to be accurate. Ever. So why apply that metric now? I hate this forum sometimes.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Normally you can forgive the science being bad if it's all speculative, like time travel. But when they start getting facts wrong about something as real as the fucking Moon (the age, saying that adding such a small amount of mass would increase the gravity six-fold, shit like that) it's particularly egregious.

In other words, it's so bad that it breaks disbelief for everything else as well.

[Batman]

I can suspend disbelief to the extent that I accept Clark works on solar power and 'I' was disgusted. Nevermind the general stupidity of the premise or the fact that from any rational point of view, Clara's decision was flat out wrong, the 'um, yeah, 1.3 billion tons just doesn't work' criticism could easily have been avoided by not mentioning that number. (Or actually working out a number that would have worked, but this is a TV show and they're on a budget-can't expect them to do expensive stuff like, I dunno, check Wikipedia).

[Eternal_Freedom]

Very true.

[Hillary]

Something I wrote elsewhere.

I don't normally worry too much about the dodgy science but this just went too far.

The moon is an egg, not a rock. This ignores the fact that we have actually visited the moon and brought back rocks. We know what the moon is made from. Stupid!

The moon surface is an egg shell so has no minerals. It's an organic structure so that's fairly inconceivable. Stupid!

The moon's mass is increasing as the embryo grows. No it doesn't. Stupid!

The animal is big, therefore the bacteria on it will be bigger. And have legs. And teeth. And are carnivorous. But don't eat the embryo. Stupid!

The only impact of the moon on the Earth is in respect of the tides. No it isn't. Stupid.

And this ignores the complete disregard for DW canon and previous shows where the Doctor has visited the moon and we know humans went to Mars a few decades after this moment (despite having no space infrastructure and a devastated planet and population from the moon/egg disaster).

Then there was the issue with the characters. A two dimensional captain and a couple of redshirts. The annoying school kid who switched between being completely terrified and cracking silly jokes from one line to the next. The Doctor abdicating responsibility - yes I know he's supposed to be more like Hartnell in that regard, but he seems to be enjoying being a horrible bastard to Clara. The last time a Doctor behaved as badly as Capaldi was when Colin Baker got the show cancelled back in the eighties. There may be some sort of redemption thing coming up, but it had better hurry up. If the Doctor is a bad man, the show dies.

And annoying Clara, who this season appears to be completely centre stage. She comes out of this the hero for making the right decision. Did she? She could have completely wiped out her own race for something completely unknown. The choice - billions of human beings or one unknown creature. The choice is obvious but she is portrayed as being virtuous for taking the wrong one. For asking the Earth for its decision, then overriding it. Cardboard captain saying thank you to her. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

This season has been patchy at best. I'm seriously not sure whether I can be bothered anymore, after 40 years of watching the show. It's been my favourite series ever since my childhood and I'm very annoyed about it.

[Broomstick]

This. People who know me personally know that I have very very short "suspenders" of disbelief. I'm sorry but I couldn't enjoy this episodes because of the science mistakes. The doctor sounded like a bumbling idiot claiming the moon was a mere 100 million years old. There's a big leap from a time lord who quickly does the calculations about how much energy it takes to pop into a pocket universe to one who believes in a 100 million year old egg.

The thing is, if the story had revealed that the Moon has always been an egg hatching every 100 million years, one Mooncritter after another (maybe only one exists at a time, like the legendary phoenix or maybe it's not unique or whatever) with one Moon replaced after another it still would have been bad science but it would have restored some internal consistency (that the Moon has been around longer than 100 million years).

You can get away with a lot if you at least have some internal consistency. Or some explanation, like in "The Big Bang" where the universe is "broken" and that's why history doesn't make sense. This episode didn't have that, and it could have with just another line or two of dialogue.

"The mass is increasing - maybe the Mooncritter is absorbing mass from a parallel universe"

"That egg is as big as the Mooncritter - how fascinating. I wonder, is there a Moonmother in a dimension we can't see?"

That would at least acknowledge that some physical law is being violated and gives some half-assed fig leaf for the naked plot hole. They couldn't be bothered to do that.

[InsaneTD]

One could argue that the rocks we picked up from the moon landing were actually just the remnants of an asteroid that had hit it, that's why there is minerals, etc. But honestly, for the shell to survive those impacts, it wouldn't dissolve when the creature hatched. Unless the creature absorbed the shell add it grew.

[lance]

Could it be that they were inprecise when they said no minerals? I might say I have no money, when I still have spare change around or a couple hundred in my savings that is going towards a bill or taxes at a later date

[Gandalf]

I liked most of it. I love that the Doctor is now so wonderfully unlikeable. He's got a god complex that's no longer hidden behind Tennant/Smith's exterior.

Also, a few weeks ago we had the Robin Hood story reenacted with robots, and a castle space ship powered by gold. I don't care if they had the moon made from discarded chip packets.

[DaveJB]

The thing is, if the story had revealed that the Moon has always been an egg hatching every 100 million years, one Mooncritter after another (maybe only one exists at a time, like the legendary phoenix or maybe it's not unique or whatever) with one Moon replaced after another it still would have been bad science but it would have restored some internal consistency (that the Moon has been around longer than 100 million years).

To be fair, that was the impression I came away with. I guess they didn't mention it in the episode itself because, well, it would have ended the debate over whether or not to kill the creature in about 30 seconds, once the trio realized that the Earth obviously didn't get smashed to a pulp 100 million years ago, nor 100 million years before that.

[Hillary]

I liked most of it. I love that the Doctor is now so wonderfully unlikeable. He's got a god complex that's no longer hidden behind Tennant/Smith's exterior.

He clearly hasn't because he fucked off and let them get on with it, instead of sorting it himself

Also, a few weeks ago we had the Robin Hood story reenacted with robots, and a castle space ship powered by gold.

Yes, that was incredibly shit as well.

[jwl]

On the moon being 100 million years old: canonically the moon-egg would have appeared when the Silurians were around, which I believe was on the order of 100 million years ago, hence why the Silurians went into hibernation in the first place.

[Tychu]

I was curious on when the silurians were kicking around. But as for the moon, wouldn't Clara notice that the moon looked different. She said in the episode that "I've seen the moon in the future, it wasn't destroyed"! Why would an egg-moon have the same shaped "seas of…" . All robin eggs have the same type of spots but they look different

[jwl]

Because the future changed in this episode? Clara actually said she would notice if the moon didn't exist at all, and the doctor implied that could have happened.

In terms of when the Silurians were around, I think doctor suggested the Eocene period. Dates they say in the series and the fact they go around with dinosaurs suggest Metazoic period and the name suggests the Silurian period (although the third doctor said this was wrong when he said they came from the Eocene). It is inconsistent, but this is all in the order(ish) of 100 million years.

[jwl]

Oh, and the Silurian era was suggested by the doctor in-series as well.

This video might be useful:

[Havok]

For the record, the Doctor did not claim the moon was 100 million years old, but that the whatever it was, had been there for 100 million years. Or I guess, more accurately THIS moon had been there for 100 million years.

[Havok]

It seems you fools missed the point of the episode: Clara is unable to make big decisions on her own without the Doctor and when he shows her that, she cries like a little baby. This has been the case for most of the new series. The Doctor has to save these helpless little girls because they are too stupid to figure things out on their own. It's about time an episode addressed this unfortunate aspect of the series. I thought it was good for exactly that. My boxers weren't in a bunch because OMG THE SCIENCE IS WRONG. The show never purported to be accurate. Ever. So why apply that metric now? I hate this forum sometimes.

I was inclined to agree with this take and yell my usual FattyNerdsTM to the high heavens, but it wasn't just that it was bad, which I can and usually do forgive, it was that it was SOOOO bad.

30 seconds of extra dialogue saying the creature left into another dimension and a new, almost identical egg/moon has replaced it or any other fantastical explanation would have fixed everything.

Stark was laughing at me because this episode made me mad, but I was OK with the Daleks moving planets and making a machine out of them. My response was that I can buy that because it IS SO fantastical on an appropriate Doctor Who level, but what this episode did was try to make the mundane fantastical... or I guess more appropriately they just didn't aim their fantastical arrow high enough. It's that they are mucking with science that we know and are being horribly inaccurate with it, if that makes sense.