Doctor Who S34E7 Kill The Moon

[Tychu]

First, I don't think we need a poll.

Second, what the hell was that? I've been a fan of the Capaldi Doctor, this episode didn't change that. If anything this was his characters best "Doctor Who" feel. But correct me if I'm wrong but Doctor Who has been on top of science (contemporary understanding). We know the moon is covered in regolith (sp?) pulverized minerals and what have you. We also know the moon is older than 100 million years (as the good doc kept saying). So what was this? I'd like to know your opinions, call me a moron if you want too.

Also I think Clara should be vented the next chance that the Doctor has

[Burak Gazan]

Clara?

Nah nah nah
I was thinking what she SAID -- punch him in the fucking face so hard he'd need to regenerate

I dont know what the fuck the writers thought they were doing. But this steaming pile was the worst I've seen of the modern era episodes. Make me hate the Doctor? Check. Want to stop watching? Double check

What the hell were they thinking? And never mind the fucking cute little schoolgirl flipping switches in the TARDIS. Jesus Christ

[FaxModem1]

So, apparently all those moon rocks we brought back to Earth from the Apollo missions were eggshells?

Also, millions of people dying already and potentially billions dying is okay, because an egg hatching will be harmless.

So, the fate of the world is at stake, and NASA picks the three most incompetent boobs it can send to the moon?

If space travel is so dead due to lack of interest, how did freaking Mexico afford a mining expedition to the moon?

This episode just didn't make any sense whatsoever.

[FaxModem1]

Frankly, the better way to have ended this episode is having Clara make the 'nice' choice, and then have the 'eggshell' fragments ram into Earth, killing like 90 percent of the population, with the creature eating the rest as a snack, all the while the astronaut just stares as her home is destroyed. THAT would have been a much better ending.

[Bedlam]

The thing that got me most was that humanity made the decision almost unanimously apparently to kill the thing and then Clara overruled them all.

It turned out to be the best thing by incredibly contrived coincidences but what gives her the right to make that decision for them?

[DaveJB]

The thing that got me most was that humanity made the decision almost unanimously apparently to kill the thing and then Clara overruled them all.

It turned out to be the best thing by incredibly contrived coincidences but what gives her the right to make that decision for them?

If I didn't know better, I'd say it was a clever satire on reality television. The audience overwhelmingly goes for Option A, but the producers ignore them and go with Option B anyway.

In any case, what really let the episode down was the whole handling of the decision over whether or not to kill the creature. In fact, given that the Doctor made a big point of praising the student even though she had no bearing whatsoever on the decision, and she was mentioned as having a problem with authority in the episode, I can't help but wonder whether she was originally the person meant to butt in and deactivate the bombs, but Moffat changed it to have Clara do it instead.

[NecronLord]

I'm just going to leave this here, with appropriate disgust.

[The Romulan Republic]

Frankly, the better way to have ended this episode is having Clara make the 'nice' choice, and then have the 'eggshell' fragments ram into Earth, killing like 90 percent of the population, with the creature eating the rest as a snack, all the while the astronaut just stares as her home is destroyed. THAT would have been a much better ending.

Are you one of those people who thinks that if something is dark/cynical its automatically better?

God, I loath that mindset.

[Bedlam]

Frankly, the better way to have ended this episode is having Clara make the 'nice' choice, and then have the 'eggshell' fragments ram into Earth, killing like 90 percent of the population, with the creature eating the rest as a snack, all the while the astronaut just stares as her home is destroyed. THAT would have been a much better ending.

Are you one of those people who thinks that if something is dark/cynical its automatically better?

God, I loath that mindset.

I probably wouldn't go as far as to have the whole earth destroyed but I think there should have been some fall out (possibly literally) to the decision rather than everythings fine.

[mr friendly guy]

ABC iview doesn't let me watch it while I am overseas. I am going to have to watch it right to know what the hell this is about right?

[HMS Sophia]

I watched it up until they found the mining settlement and stopped watching in disgust.
I've got a... bit of a thing for space and rocketry and so on. The first ten minutes of this episode hurt both due to Dr Who based stupidity and science stupidity.
I'll watch it on Iplayer eventually but... *shrug* I was irritable.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Also, isn't 2049 not far from when Bowie Base One was established on Mars as stated by "Waters of Mars?"

So either this is retconning that, or somehow Earth goes from having to scrounge up a museum exhibit to save the world to landing bases on Mars in about ten or so years. Yeah, right.

And also,sorry, but 1. something billion tonnes is not going to increase the Moon's gravity six fold. No sir.

Also this episode sends a fairly terrible message about democracy. Clara and the other two can't agree, so they ask the Earth to decide. The Earth almost unanimously says "blow the fucking thing up before more of us die" and Clara just ignores it. The vote was her own fucking idea. Remember kids, if the vote doesn't go your way, pretend it never happened and do what you want to anyway!

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't think Earth had much time to organize a proper vote. My guess is whoever was controlling the power grid made the decision. Democracy my ass.

And there are times when ignoring a vote would be justified. If the majority voted to reenslave black people in America, for example, I would feel obligated to refuse to help enforce the decision.

[B5B7]

The Doctor: "It's not a chicken."
No, it isn't; it's a turkey. So, you're right Doctor.
Say, has anyone seen the movie, The Giant Claw?

[DaveJB]

Thinking about it more, I think I know what was bothering me about this episode; it felt far more like it was being written for children than most NuWho stories. Most of the things shown about the moon being a life-form were deadeningly literal - hell, the schoolkid using disinfectant to kill the germ-spider reminded me of David Tennant using salt to kill Ricky Gervais-in-a-slug-costume in Extras - and it ended with a clumsy, heavy-handed moral about how all life is precious.

As for the space program having fallen into disrepair, that's something I could actually see happening. In Waters of Mars they said humanity was going through Peak Oil, a Super-Duper-Great Depression and constant wars, and I could imagine how a skilled politician might be able to paint the space program as being a useless distraction in the middle of mankind's greater problems. But again, not given enough development in the episode itself.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I don't think Earth had much time to organize a proper vote. My guess is whoever was controlling the power grid made the decision. Democracy my ass.

And there are times when ignoring a vote would be justified. If the majority voted to reenslave black people in America, for example, I would feel obligated to refuse to help enforce the decision.

SHe tells them in the message that they have 45 minutes. They don't seem to reach the decision until about 5 minutes are left, or less.

Even still it strikes me as a terrible message. What do you all think? Ok fuck what you guys think.

[B5B7]

Humanity Decides. Clara - nope, wrong decision. So, unless Clara is actually secretly a gestalt of all humanity, then the decision was hers, not Humanity's. Also, unless the entire earth was wrapped in darkness (vaguely possible), then could only see lights from the nightside half.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Humanity Decides. Clara - nope, wrong decision. So, unless Clara is actually secretly a gestalt of all humanity, then the decision was hers, not Humanity's. Also, unless the entire earth was wrapped in darkness (vaguely possible), then could only see lights from the nightside half.

For that matter, it was lucky for them that the moon was in the right place to actually see the EArth's night side.

[xerex]

How long does it take the moon to orbit the Earth ? A month right ? and its take a day for the earth to rotate.

How did they start started orbiting above Europe and an hour later were above North America ?

I dont think Asia got a chance to vote.

Also ....the newborn creature laid an egg ? An egg as big as the one it hatched out of ? How is that possible ?

[FaxModem1]

Frankly, the better way to have ended this episode is having Clara make the 'nice' choice, and then have the 'eggshell' fragments ram into Earth, killing like 90 percent of the population, with the creature eating the rest as a snack, all the while the astronaut just stares as her home is destroyed. THAT would have been a much better ending.

Are you one of those people who thinks that if something is dark/cynical its automatically better?

God, I loath that mindset.

Heavens no. I'm very much against the mindset of the whole 'cynical and bitter is the way to make things better' grimdark style. However, since we've seen that taking the 'nice' option has ALWAYS paid off for the Doctor, and not doing the reasonable thing and saving billions of people from being hit by the moon, I think it would have been a nice pay off to see Clara disgusted by making the wrong choice because of being with the Doctor, and that sometimes, it's us or them, and this thing has already killed millions, so it's gonna be us.

[NecronLord]

I don't think Earth had much time to organize a proper vote. My guess is whoever was controlling the power grid made the decision. Democracy my ass.

The point of representative democracy is to elect trusted people to make short term decisions on your behalf, y'know. In no way is an elected government representative making a 45 minute decision, and presumably they were, undemocratic.

[Starglider]

Even if you ignore continuity (as the writers clearly did), this was idiocy heaped upon stupidity fried in ignorance. Horrible annoying characterisation, glaring mistakes that prevented any suspension of disbelief, repeated use of deus ex machina to torture the characters and jerk the audience around. And then just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, the creature 'laid a new egg' that looked exactly like the old moon.

I never thought I'd say this, but RTD did the 'does humanity have the right to kill aliens' thing far better in The Christmas Invasion. The aliens mind-control everyone, Tennant saves the day with technobabble and deus ex machina, then PM Harriet Jones blows the alien ship away with a superlaser, because (a) they might screw over other planets and (b) earth has to look strong in the face of thousands of other enemies waiting to invade. Difficult but correct moral choice, which she takes full responsibility for, Tenth Doctor of course acts like a naive brat about it. Far better ending for the episode than 'doctor manipulates Clara into stopping humanity from making a decision that they couldn't possibly know was wrong'. Even Day of the Doctor did the ticking nuke timer thing far better by having the Doctor change up the situation and make a third way possible, but still leaving it to the humans & Zygons to talk out the solution.

The single good thing about this episode was the promise that Clara would leave, and even that is going to be pointlessly dragged out. I would say this season is a write off at this point.

[SpottedKitty]

I never thought I'd say this, but RTD did the 'does humanity have the right to kill aliens' thing far better in The Christmas Invasion.

I see what you mean, but I think there's a better call back to "The Waters Of Mars". I don't think the Doctor actually says it, but IMHO he definitely meant that place and time was another Fixed Point, just like the destruction of the Mars base.

I'm really not sure how much — or even whether — I like this episode. Some good one-liners, but something about it just rubs me the wrong way.

[bilateralrope]

Capaldi's doctor has asked if he is a 'good man'. Last episode I started wondering that myself when the Doctor said that he got the previous caretaker out of the way by hypnotizing him into thinking he had a flu and extra wives. Compared to when Tennant wanted to infiltrate a school and got the teacher out of the way with a winning lotto ticket.

With this episode I'm convinced that the answer is no. When Clara points out that they know the moon will survive, the Doctor doesn't point out all the times when history has stayed on course because he stayed there to help, instead talks about moments he can't see. As if him being in a position to observe those events is more important than the lives of his companions.

But when it comes down to actually making the important decision, he doesn't stay to help. He buggers off until the decision has been made. Given all the problems he has shown understanding humans, the only way I can see him timing that down to the second is if he popped into the future to find out the exact time, then came back.

No effort to show it was intelligent. No effort to say that its hatching wouldn't harm humanity. Just the Doctor pretending to be better at manipulating people than he really is.

[Batman]

Let's do something I usually avoid when considering nuWho-use real-world physics. If the moon put on 1.3 billion tons in mass that would increase it by...about two billionths of a percent? I'm...not seeing that increasing the gravity of the Moon by much or affecting tides on Earth all that dramatically.
Then there's the little fact that usually eggs don't put on weight, the hatched youngling does afterwards, by feeding, which brings us to the question of where did those 1.3 billion tons come from? Am I supposed to believe those 4 mexican astronauts weighed in at 300+ million tons apiece?

Also, Earth apparently developed 'bigger on the inside' technology-there's no way 100 nukes that size would have fitted into the shuttle (in fact the outside shots looked smaller than the real one).