Who Review: Kill the Moon
Courtney Woods, the Coal Hill student who threw up in the TARDIS last episode, needs to feel special. Rather than comply with Clara’s demand that the Doctor tell her she’s special, the Doctor wants to make her special: the first woman on the moon. As one might expect, things don’t go exactly to plan. They arrive in a Space Shuttle about to crash land on the moon in the year 2049. The TARDIS crew survive the crash only to find they’ve inadvertently joined a suicide mission from Earth to destroy the moon. Captain Lundvik, leader of the mission, explains that the future of mankind is under threat from freak tides. Something’s wrong with the moon, and they believe the only way to solve it is to blow it up. But as they investigate, they find the problem is a lot bigger than they expected, and the decision to kill the moon might carry very grave consequences…
SPOILER ALERT!! My comments may (and likely will) contain spoilers for those that haven’t seen the episode. If you want to stay spoiler-free, please watch the story before you continue reading!
It seems Steven Moffat told episode writer Peter Harness to “Hinchcliffe the s*** out of it for the first half.” Philip Hinchcliffe produced Doctor Who from 1974-1977, a period commonly considered a golden era of the classic series, when episodes pushed the limit on how far they could scare children during Saturday tea-time. Harness certainly took Moffat’s words to heart. The first half of the story had all the creeps and suspense of those classic stories, with the added benefit of better effects and moodier lighting. And the effects were particularly impressive. From turning an already moon-like Lanzarote into a convincing lunar landscape, to the spider-germs that were a combination of CGI and rubber models. Spiders are notoriously hard to recreate, and the effects team out-did themselves with these.
I must also commend the acting on this episode. Capaldi and Coleman put in some of their best Who performances to date, and even young Ellis George who played 15-year-old Courtney did a spectacular job, holding her own among an intimidating list of co-stars. She has a very bright acting future, I’m sure.
And perhaps… perhaps perhaps perhaps the ending to this episode will draw the domestics to a close. I’ve said enough about that over the past couple of reviews, so I’ll leave it there.
The one thing I wasn’t comfortable with was actually quite a major plot point: i.e., that the moon is in fact a giant egg. In terms of the story it worked, and it provided a nice, if unexpected (which isn’t a bad thing), explanation for everything that was happening (as well as a very interesting moral dilemma). I think what caused me discomfort is the fact that Doctor Who usually doesn’t mess with conventional science. Gravity is gravity, the sun is a star, and the Earth is everything we’ve known it to be. Sure, they’ve introduced a twin planet for Earth, which the First Doctor allowed to melt trying to stop a Cyberman invasion. I guess what troubles me is that it goes against one of the show’s original concepts: use the space-time adventure to teach science and history. “The moon is really a giant egg” sort of flies in the face of that. But like Clara’s soap opera non-TARDIS life, it’s not a show-stopper, and certainly didn’t stop me enjoying the episode.
A final thought: Is Moffat messing with our heads? He seemed to be setting us up for Danny to join the TARDIS team, but now the Doctor’s taking Courtney along with Clara. Maybe that’s only for one episode… or maybe not. Susan, the Doctor’s granddaughter and first companion was also 15 when we met her. And is Clara leaving, or was she just speaking in anger (as Danny said) and we’ll be seeing her again? I wouldn’t be surprised if Moff’s doing everything he can to put out misinformation and misguide “the Internet” as much as possible. I can understand this. As many leaks and spoilers that have appeared online, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s waging war with the web. So who knows what’s really going on. I guess we’ll just have to keep watching…
What did you think? Were you behind the sofa watching this one? How do you feel about the egg moon? Was this Clara’s last TARDIS trip, or will she and Danny be joining the Doctor again soon? Or would you prefer to see the Doctor and Courtney traveling together instead? I’ve told you my thoughts, now it’s your turn…
After enjoying the previous episodes, this one was a huge disappointment to me. I can overlook the logic and science flaws, but not the heavy-handed, unnecessary abortion allegories; the way Captain Lundvik and Clara’s dialogue exchanges were mostly quizzing each other on whether they had children (and somehow their motherhood status was relevant to saving the world?); the dumbing down of Courtney to nothing more than a running joke about chickens.
It felt like the Christmas special with wooden Cybermen (which I also hated, and also for its weird sexist undertones) but somehow made more blatant and more irritating.
I still love Clara’s acting though, and Capaldi’s. Hopefully the next episode will be more my kind of thing.
I agree that the correspondence between the issue at hand in this episode and the abortion debate was very high. On the other hand, to give the benefit of the doubt, Doctor Who isn’t often *that* overtly politically/socially outspoken, especially on such a controversial issue. Even the 70s episodes that dealt with feminism, environmentalism, and unions were relatively “soft” controversies (i.e., most of the viewing audience would have been sympathetic). This could easily have been a statement about animal rights as much as abortion. And if they wanted to go with the idea of the moon being an egg, it would be very hard to create tension and drama without some kind of “right-to-life” debate.
I see your point, Emma, and I too raised an eyebrow when they started arguing over the baby’s life vs. the billions of lives on earth. I think Moffat would be ambiguous over any subtext, and would possibly claim the question at hand was not so much about abortion as it was over the killing of one life to save millions, which is not a new moral dilemma to the series. Of course, he may say that just to deflect the obvious comparisons, which, again, I agree are very much present in the episode. Still, somehow I can’t imagine Moff intentionally offending the “pro-choice” fans with what appears to be a “pro-life” message. That’s what makes me wonder how much that debate actually played into the storyline.
Thanks Colin, all very good points. If it was framed as an animal rights debate I would have been completely onboard, but the way they kept referring to who had children/who didn’t in the dialogue seemed like a clear attempt to link human birth to the egg. And then there was the Doctor explicitly saying he wanted to leave “women” to take care of it, and it was their issue to solve.
You’re spot on that the righto-life debate was important. I think I would have been able to enjoy the story if that was the sole conflict, and they hadn’t tried to force in other layers — it would have been a really exciting episode that way.
Did he explicitly say “women”? I may have missed that. My Mum’s family is Scots-Irish, but sometimes even I miss stuff Capaldi says. 😉 If so, then that really does force the issue a bit more. I thought the Doctor’s angle was more “This is your world, your moon, you decide.” And that was certainly expressed. But if he deliberately, intentionally left it up to three *women* to decide, and explicitly said so, then… mmm… that does push the agenda a bit more. Which is sad. Not that I don’t have strong opinions on the abortion issue, but I prefer my Doctor Who to leave these kinds of topics alone, or at least deal with them in a way that’s thought-provoking without pronouncing. Let the audience think and decide.
Good example. RTD is an atheist, and I’m sure he was tempted to infuse the show with his worldview. In The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, he had the opportunity to “debunk” religion. But he didn’t. Even when Rose asks him point-blank if there’s a hell, if Satan is real, the Doctor responds with a genuine “I don’t know.” If he had’ve gone there, I probably would have turned off and never returned. And I think RTD knew that (not about me, specifically, but he knew how offensive that would be to a lot of people), which is why he didn’t go there. And it still made an excellent story.
I’d have to say this one didn’t enthrall me as much as a few previous episodes. I enjoyed and I absolutely LOVE Capaldi as the Doctor. I enjoyed Courtney in this episode too. She was very realistic with being scared and wanting out, then seeing something important and wanting to come back and do everything to help. The moon as an egg was definitely interesting. Was a bit hard to swallow.
As for Clara, I’ve seen the episode description say she’s with the Doctor, but when you look at the trailers and images, she’s absent. I guess we will see next week. Either way, I want more Capaldi!!!
When they said Capaldi would be a “darker” Doctor, they weren’t wrong. In fact, I’d say they underestimated. And that’s good. It’s good that he unsettles us a bit, and we can’t always be sure he’ll do what we think he ought to do. I’m definitely with you there, Patricia–Capaldi’s superb.
It’s inevitable not every episode will strike a chord with viewers. But there’s something about Who that seems to bring out great performances, so even the less-than-stellar stories are worth watching.
Perhaps a Clara-lite story next time? It sounds like she needs a week to cool off… 🙂
The egg was… interesting, haha. Doctor Who can get a little silly at times so I’ll let it pass. But if this ends up being true and the world really does collapse from it, I’ll be having some words with Moffat. Again, I did sort of cringe at the pro-life debate going on but for me, Doctor Who is fun and something I look forward to so again, I let it pass. I try not to get involved in debates.
The character development was the strongest aspect too. We know it’s been hard on Clara to deal with this new Doctor and we finally got to see her snap. I like how she gave the Doctor a piece of her mind without being OTT like Catherine Tate was.
What I would like to know is what is happening with Danny Pink? I expected a new companion but he doesn’t really get on with the Doctor so I can’t see him travelling. If anything I think I’m actually getting suspicious about him. What are they setting him up for? We’re over half way through the season now and he still hasn’t gone travelling.
I have to say, I’ve been suspicious about Danny Pink from the beginning. Prove me wrong, Mr. Moffat, but I think there’s an evil plan going on there. I can’t help feeling that he’s trying to drive a wedge between the Doctor and Clara, and it’s not simply a jealous boyfriend thing. I guess we’ll see, but if I was the Doctor, I’d keep a careful eye on him. Maybe the Doctor’s wise to him already, and maybe that’s why he lets him travel with them–keep your friends close and your enemies closer…
And the best angry remark to the Doctor goes to Clara in that scene: “I’ll slap you so hard you’ll regenerate!” Classic. 🙂
It’s making me pretty suspicious too. Since we haven’t had much from him I’m expecting something to occur towards the finale with him. I can actually see why some people think he might be The Master. Something’s not right.
I’m really feeling the uneasiness this season. I’ll save my thoughts next week for yesterday’s episode but there was a character last night who I couldn’t help think was really up to no good.
I also know some people who will be a bit upset if it turns out Danny is the Master–he’s a likeable character. But something’s not right about him. I can’t shake the feeling he’s passive-aggressively trying to drive a wedge between Clara and the Doctor.
More when I post the next review… 🙂