Doctor Who S34E7 Kill The Moon

[PREDATOR490]

Words cannot describe how much I loathe this episode.
I really dislike Clara but to prove how fucked up this episode was I actually LIKED her response to the Doctor's bullshit.

Clara is going to leave - About time but I sense they are going to drag this out something awful.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah I too am starting to dislike Clara, especially as so much of the recent plots have been about her, not the Doctor (who is, y'know, the title character).

I honestly think they should have had her leave either at the same time as Smith's Doctor, or soon after like so many other companions have done. Offhand the only companions that stayed around for a decent length of time after a regeneration (and were around for a while before a regeneration) where Sarah Jane Smith and Rose. Adric, Teegan, Nyssa and Peri are borderline. Everyone else either arrive with a new Doctor or left with a new Doctor and it largely worked.

Now though? It seems like Clara is the main character and the Doctor is merely her lift to wacky hijinks.

[InsaneTD]

It's going to be dragged out, she's signed on until Christmas. Bet she leaves during the Christmas special.

[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.

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.

Sure, provided the government in question is democratically elected.

[Batman]

I seriously doubt any government (democratically elected, hereditary royalty, oppressive dictatorship or otherwise) would have managed to make that decision in 45 minutes. They need to be informed (this being the night side, probably being woken up too), collect their decision-making people (even dictators usually have a staff they confer with), make the decision to say yay or nay, and hand that decision down to the people controlling the power grid. Assuming that 'somehow' Clara managed to reach all people on that side of the planet, all of them individually deciding that 'um, yea, no, I'm not dieing to save a space critter' seems more plausible.

[Tribble]

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 Doctor was even called out on his actions in "the Stolen Earth." Harriet Jones warned him that there would be a time when Earth would be attacked and he wouldn't be available, and that Earth had to be ready. Not that any amount of preparation would have mattered much against the Daleks, but one gets the sense that his decision may have been a mistake given the number of times Earth has been invaded since then.

Her sacrifice is still one of my favourite scenes in NUWho:

"Harriest Jones, former Prime Minister."
"Yes, we know who you are."
"Oh, you know nothing of any human, and that will be your downfall!"

Both funny AND epic at the same time

[PREDATOR490]

I don't really get what the hell this episode was trying to accomplish. For someone that messes around in human history for a thousand years it is beyond hypocritical to suddenly decide to dump a companion in a situation like that and fuck off. At the end he gives the rosey filler bullshit ending about humanity going to the stars which he should already have known from Waters of Mars which took place in 2059.
Apparently, history did not give a fuck about the events that took place and the damage was not that severe for anyone to really care.

Not to mention that when the Doctor was placed in a similar situation in Beast Below, he was fully going to make the 'wrong' choice by lobotomizing the Space Whale to save a ship full of people. Its kinda stupid the Doctor dodges the obvious issue that he could have solved the situation with the Tardis. What would have been the difference in telling them... Earth will be fine so don't nuke the moon rather than leave everyone hanging ?
If they had made the wrong choice was the Doctor seriously going to let them die by arriving AFTER Clara pushed the button ?

This has a bit of a logical paradox as well... If the Doctor had not arrived and brought Clara then... the astronouts would have nuked the moon, except that would not achieve the magical future the Doctor bullshits about so... if we use the same 'fixed point' logic of Waters of Mars which literally caused a Dalek to NOT exterminate. The same fixed outcome would have happened only with a slight change in details. Thus no matter WHAT happened the Moon would not have been nuked, space flea would be born and a new moon would be put in it's place.
So... the Doctor is responsible for cruel abuse to Clara for putting her in the same kind of position that caused him to go apeshit in Beast Below when the outcome can only end the way he knows otherwise this 'fixed point' excuse is an epic load of bullshit from the Doctor.

[Havok]

This has got to be the worst, mindnumbingly dumb episode of Doctor Who I have ever seen... I'm hoping they just needed to fill a week of space and said "fuck it".

For once I agree with Necronlord wholeheartedly.

Capaldi is still tits, but man...

And there should be a poll up just to see all the 0/5s and so we can berate the people that give it anything higher.

[Havok]

Ghetto edit: Maybe they just needed to start creating some animosity between Clara and the Doctor in a hurry and came up with this.

I mean, there is no way up until this point that Clara would stop traveling with him. Rose got stuck in another universe. Donna can't ever remember the Doctor. Martha needed to leave because she loved him. Amy and Rory got stuck in New York and died. But there was all set up to all those. This must be the initiation of Clara's exit.

[bilateralrope]

Both the Writer and Director for this episode had never worked on an episode of Doctor Who before. I can't comment on any of their previous work, as I haven't seen any of it.

[Iroscato]

Well that was...wacky. I er...don't really have much else to add. Oh well, onwards to next week I guess?
*Waddles off in a slight daze*

[Broomstick]

If this had been a stand-alone science fantasy thing aping the 1950's styles of B-movie it would have been fine.

It's not, though. It's Doctor Who with 50 years of history and at least some continuity, even if a battered one. A continuity, I might add, that's been referenced more in the past 8 years than in the proceeding decades.

Some serious, serious problems. The best parts were Capaldi (who I fear is getting the Colin Baker treatment - actor's fine, writing sucks but actor gets the blame) and Clara's "You Suck" speech to the Doctor.

I'll forgive them a bad episode now and again but the show needs to do better or it won't survive.

[Tychu]

What's the likelihood of the BBC putting a little message saying "We apologize for last weeks episode. It will be struck from DW cannon and will not be on the DVDs".

Or if it was an integral part of the season arc: "Please bear with us, this episode will make sense at a later date".

[Crazedwraith]

About 0.0.

And unless the ratings and merchandise sales really crash, I don't think Doctor Who is likely to go away either.

[DaveJB]

Looking around on Outpost Gallifrey and even general TV sites, it seems many are hailing this as one of, if not the best episodes of the season so far; it's average rating on OG for instance is the second-highest of the season, behind "Hide." I mean, I don't hate the episode as much as most of the other people posting here (I'd probably have given it a 2/5 if there was a poll), but still, I find that pretty hard to believe.

As for the series' future, it's still posting very solid reasons even though the BBC have for some reason decided to start showing it opposite The X-Factor. Strictly Come Dancing may have taken over the slot as the BBC's prized possession, but ratings aren't even low enough for them to consider firing Moffat, much less cancel the show.

[Captain Seafort]

Looking around on Outpost Gallifrey and even general TV sites, it seems many are hailing this as one of, if not the best episodes of the season so far; it's average rating on OG for instance is the second-highest of the season, behind "Hide." I mean, I don't hate the episode as much as most of the other people posting here (I'd probably have given it a 2/5 if there was a poll), but still, I find that pretty hard to believe.

Why? I'd give it 4/5, and definitely call it the best of the series. It certainly isn't one of the all time great episodes, and there are some holes in it, but it certainly wasn't the dreck that some people seem to think, and the Doctor's little speech about taking the stablisers off is the best of Twelve (or Fourteen, or One Mk2, or whatever the hell he is) so far.

[Hillary]

What. The. Fucking. Hell. Was. That??????

[Havok]

Looking around on Outpost Gallifrey and even general TV sites, it seems many are hailing this as one of, if not the best episodes of the season so far; it's average rating on OG for instance is the second-highest of the season, behind "Hide." I mean, I don't hate the episode as much as most of the other people posting here (I'd probably have given it a 2/5 if there was a poll), but still, I find that pretty hard to believe.

Why? I'd give it 4/5, and definitely call it the best of the series. It certainly isn't one of the all time great episodes, and there are some holes in it, but it certainly wasn't the dreck that some people seem to think, and the Doctor's little speech about taking the stablisers off is the best of Twelve (or Fourteen, or One Mk2, or whatever the hell he is) so far.

DUDE... The moon was a fucking EGG that magically reappeared after it hatched.

I don't know, maybe I just can't get past that... Like I said, Capaldi was tits, but come the fuck on. Sometimes stupidity can't be overshadowed or compensated for by good acting.

I mean the Doctor just happened to NOT know about this? Come. The. Fuck. On.
This was a galaxy changing event according to him. So he knows about Mt Vesuvius, an event that has little to no bearing even on Earth's history, but not the event that sends humanity out into the universe?

The stupidity in this episode is astounding. Yes, there were a couple good and well acted scenes, but they in NO WAY make up for the absolute idiocy of the episode.

[Broomstick]

The stupidity in this episode is astounding. Yes, there were a couple good and well acted scenes, but they in NO WAY make up for the absolute idiocy of the episode.

^ I have to say this sums up my view on the episode.

[Batman]

To repeat what I said on Facebook-stupidest nuWho episode, well, I'm inclined to say 'ever', but 'Andromeda' taught me never to underestimate the lows a SciFi TV series could sink to further down the line, so I'll leave it at 'so far'.

[TimothyC]

If the moon put on 1.3 billion tons in mass that would increase it by...about two billionths of a percent?

It's about a third of a cubic kilometer of extra material, so yes, somewhere around 1.75*10^-11 increase. That change is on the order of the change in the average earth-moon distance on a per year basis, only because the the distance is a squared term, the change in mass is negligible. It's on the order of the dust that impacts the moon over a 100k year period.

[Havok]

So you're saying the science is even worse in this episode than just on the cursory glance?

[SpottedKitty]

So you're saying the science is even worse in this episode than just on the cursory glance?

That pretty much sums it up. If you don't mind losing a few hours, check out what TVTropes has to say on the subject.

[TimothyC]

So you're saying the science is even worse in this episode than just on the cursory glance?

It's even worse than that. The distance between the earth and the moon changes by about 10% over any given month. This is basic high school level astronomy (literally).

[Havok]

I was being facetious and rhetorical guys.

And I watched it a couple more times... I like it better. Not much better, but better.