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Monday, October 6, 2014

Doctor Who: Kill the Moon Review

"Kill the Moon," a Doctor Who episode that nearly left me speechless.

Wow, just wow. The writers on Doctor Who have really outdone themselves this time with "Kill the Moon." 

Since trying to discuss the episode without going into spoilers is nearly impossible, you have been warned that massive spoilers are ahead. 
The moon is a freaking egg. Wrap your head around that for a second. The moon is a BLOODY FREAKING EGG! Seriously!? Is that the best idea the writers could have come up with? Come on Moffat, why did you let Peter Harness' script happen? Why!?

Before discussing everything wrong with this episode, I will start off with the positives. 

In terms of acting, Capaldi and Coleman were superb. Clara's big meltdown at the end of the episode was the best part of the entire episode, and one of the best acted scenes of the season. After the setup last week about Danny telling her to come to him if she is ever pushed to her limits, the final scene worked brilliantly. 

The first half of the episode was a lot of fun for the most part with the space-spiders being a legitimate foil to the TARDIS crew. The spiders did not produce much suspense, but they were fine. In general, the special effects were top notch for the series without any glaringly obvious low budget effects. 

One of my favorite parts of the episode was the Doctor's line about you can't kill Hitler in the past, but there are also important moments in the future that cannot be changed either, which is something that a lot of time-travel ignore. Think about it. The future is someone else's past too. 
Another funny meta-joke is the reference to Tumblr, and the astronaut mentioning that her grandmother used to post things to Tumblr. Considering the large following that Doctor Who has on Tumblr, it is a funny reference for the fans.  

Well, that is just about everything positive that can be said about the episode, and before continuing, please join me in a collective headdesk and facepalm.
 
 
 
 
 
Aside from the insanity of the moon being an egg, the episode had to jettison all believability and logic of the situation out into the darkness of space. The moon being a giant egg is crazy for sure. However, what made it bad is the entire execution of the episode after said reveal. Doctor Who has never been the most logical series out there, but this episode makes "Moffat Space Magic" seem realistic. 

Let's start with the moon creature laying an egg after hatching. For one, the egg is roughly the size of the previous moon, just slightly smaller. However, how did the creature produce an egg larger than its size? Chicken eggs are significantly smaller than the chicken that laid said egg; that is common sense! 

Moving on to another flaw, Clara is a massive b*tch to democracy. After struggling about whether or not to nuke the creature, Clara asks the entire world to turn off their lights if they want to kill the creature, or turn them on if they want to save the creature. For one, not everyone speaks English (although a translation could have been transmitted). Second, a lot of people would be asleep, thus unable to receive the message and "vote." Third, to turn off that many lights, the cities would have to shut down all of the city lights, which is not easy to do in 45 minutes. 

And you made a terribly frustrating decision.
With those illogical points aside, Clara asked everyone to vote, yet she ignored the vote entirely! She might as well have said "Screw democracy!" because she essentially became her own autocracy (single rule) by going against the decision of the entire freaking world! And she did it in completely underhanded and childish way by pressing the button right before the boom went off. 

Another problem with the situation is that Clara and Courtney should not have a hand in deciding what happens. If this is indeed an important point in human history, neither Clara nor Courtney are from the time period, so Lundvik is the only person with the right to make the decision in the first place. However, throughout the series, the Doctor and his companions have made crucial decisions throughout history, so I can almost let that point slide. What did bother me is how easily Clara and Courtney decided that the creature should be saved. Sure Courtney is a dumb kid, but Clara should have at least struggled a little more with possibly killing every person on the planet (her future self probably included). 

Yet another problem is not with the alien eggs itself, but rather the annoying Courtney. In general, kid actors in movies and television detract more than they add, and Courtney is certainly another example of an annoying kid getting in the way. She did absolutely nothing of any importance in the story. Her disinfectant spray was the only thing that she contributed to the episode.

"Kill the Moon" is an infuriating episode. Even if you hate some of the outlandish plot twists and antics of the Smith era, nothing during those seasons is as daft, nonsensical, and plain silly as what just happened in "Kill the Moon." The episode certainly had a nice sentiment with the idea of creating an event that launched humanity to the stars, but the execution is horrendous. However, to my utter shock when reading various reviews, a lot of people are raving that "Kill the Moon" is the best episode of the season. I will give it to everyone that "Kill the Moon" had some great ideas and moments, but man it really jumped the shark. If you do like the episode, that is fine. 
Sorry to say it, but little to nothing in the Smith era was quite this daft.
Overall: 5.7/10- Despite my many massive problems with "Kill the Moon," it did have high enough production values, strong performances, and intriguing ideas to prevent it from being a complete mess. That being said, the episode is unbelievably dumb!

Kill the Moon review by Gypsy King

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13 comments:

  1. I liked the episode, but I would go as far to call it the best of the season(for me that would go to Listen). The main reason I liked the episode was the good plot points around the weird moon thing- Clara standing up to and getting angry at the Doctor was great to see and I think it will be important in both their development. I also liked how the Doctor said it wasn't his decision to make, which makes sense, since like a good post I saw on tumblr said he wasn't God so the decision wasn't up to him. I thought that was a nice idea and I was glad they explored that. Also, loved the tumblr reference! XD
    I was annoyed by how the idea of killing the moon-creature was viewed as BAD and everyone else was BAD for thinking that way. Considering what was going on, I would have killed it too. Also, Lundvick doing the whole 'realizing she was wrong' was kind of annoying, since I would have been pissed at Clara from stopping the bomb. I also noticed the whole "wouldn't half the world be asleep" and what about the part of earth facing the sun? You couldn't really see the lights on that side even if they were off, so that was a bit weird. And I agree, I didn't like that Clara decided to completely ignore humanity. Sure, the whole thing helped launch humanity into space, but still, it wasn't her decision to make. And while I liked the fact that we had some good diversity in this episode, I wish they'd picked a better actor for Courtney(some of her lines came out a little stiff sounding at times). Plus, there was some uncomfortable parallels in the episode to a real issue that bothered me a bit as well(several people were pointing it out).
    Overall, I liked the episode for the good bits, but the episode did have some problems.

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    1. The episode did have a few good points, and I somewhat agree about the same positive elements that you liked. And of course the Tumblr reference was so funny! XD

      I completely agree about all of the bad elements of the episode. I did not know you could not see the lights from space though. Interesting fact! Exactly, Clara had no right to decide the fate of the ENTIRE FREAKING PLANET! Agreed about Courtney's actor. She was not good at all.

      -James

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  2. I'm just saying, as outlandish as it was, this episode was /totally/ an analogy for the abortion debate. The moon is an EGG, three women are given the choice about what to do with an unborn life, the Doctor leaves because it's not his decision to make, etc. Actually, it may have been a loose allegory, I'm still trying to decide how close the correspondence is.

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    1. Interesting parallel. I did not even come close to drawing that comparison myself, but I guess I can kind of see it. I wonder if it was intentional.

      -James

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  3. I do agree with Mariah....I kind of feel the same way...The episode was totally ridiculous and crazy, but it DID really remind me of the abortion issue....which was why, of course, I'm glad that the creature lived...yet I still have mixed feelings about it. I was actually really glad that Clara let it live, because I viewed it as she was doing the right thing even though the entire world said not to...but then again, I'm not sure if that was okay, because it was *everyone's* lives that she put in jeopardy and I'm just really unsure what I think. Because as an abortion sort of allegory I think she did the right thing...but then from a different perspective, she could have killed everyone on the planet. I'm not totally sure if the abortion thing was meant...but that's the first thing that came to mind. And obviously I'm not the only one who thought so. But...yeah. I didn't hate "Kill the Moon" (It was still better, I thought, than the first two episodes this season!) but I would be far, far from saying it was this season's best episode, for believability reasons.

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    1. Like I said to Mariah, I definitely did not see the parallel, but I can somewhat see it.

      I do agree that Kill the Moon was better than the first episode of the season, although I did enjoy Into the Dalek.

      Thanks for the long comment!

      -James

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  4. THANK THE LORD, WE COMPLETELY AGREE ON THIS EPISODE.

    There were so many things wrong; once again, the lack of The Doctor really bothered me. I understand he was exiting himself from the discussion, but we as the audience should have followed him and not stayed with Clara. The show is called "Doctor Who" not "Clara Oswald" after all. They completely painted Clara a fricking saint in this episode and the Doctor a villain "because he hurt Clara, ohmygosh!" when really the episode should have dropped Clara and Co off and continued with The Doctor; we should have gone with him into the egg, or something, and actually find out with him whether it was a harmful creature or not!!!!!!!!!!

    I'm really annoyed at how centric Clara has become. I was just beginning to really enjoy her character but she was awful this past episode. She was a hypocrite by being willing to place millions of lives on earth into the hands of death without any evidence that the creature she was trying to save was harmless. I did not find the egg an analogy to abortion and it's unfair to compare the two as we all know what's inside a pregnant woman. A child. But neither the audience or Clara and Co knew what was inside the egg. It felt like a stupid moral judgment moment--like, "Haven't had one of these in the show in a while, let's do it now!" And yeah, I was mad she took the answer away from the people after she asked for their decision. (Also the opening was kinda cheap as they made it sound like The Doctor was in trouble and then I believe they changed the dialogue within the episode?)

    AND WHY DID COURTNEY GET TO TIME TRAVEL INSTEAD OF DANNY? THEY'VE BEEN DEVELOPING DANNY FOR THE PAST SEVERAL EPISODES WAY MORE THAN COURTNEY. IT MAKES NO SENSE THAT SHE SHOULD GET TO GO TIME TRAVELING. ALSO, ONCE AGAIN, THE SHOW IS PAINTING THE DOCTOR BADLY BECAUSE HE SAID SOME SNIDE COMMENT TO COURTNEY. ELEVEN SAID SIMILAR THINGS TO A TON OF CHARACTERS DURING HIS RUNNING TIME AND IT WAS COOL. WHAT HAS CHANGED HERE?

    Sorry I rambled; just glad to have an ear who's going to completely get where I'm coming from. I have more I could say but we can save it for skype. :)

    ~Jamie

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    1. While I do not mind the series being more about Clara, if she is portrayed as well as she was in previous episodes, I agree about most everything else you said.

      Thanks for the long comment! We will have to discuss this more on Skype. :)

      -James

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  5. James, I know you and I have had our differences on DW and are frankly more forgiving than I am, but the general consensus from fans (like you and I) differs wildly from what 'professional' critics say about Kill the Egg.

    It's been pointed out to me how KTE contradicts even NuWho, with stories like Smith & Jones or Waters of Mars where they were on the Moon after the events of KTE took place. Not having seen those episodes I'm in no position to say yes or no. However, while I've felt DW jumped the shark (or jumped over the moon if you like) years ago, I think KTE might be, horror of horrors, better than what's coming: a train in outer space!

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    1. I do not believe I am necessarily more forgiving, but rather I personally enjoy "NuWho" more and for different reasons. Anyway, I noticed discrepancy between fans and those "professional critics" as well. I was honestly shocked to see the headlines of most reviews saying that it was Peter's best episode!

      I do not remember The Waters of Mars or the other episode enough to say if it does contradicts, but I would not doubt it.

      -James

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  6. I hadn't even thought about the creature having to lay an egg the exact same size as the one it just came out of! That must have bloody hurt!! It'll be walking John Wayne style for years!! Alas, the Moffat era has thrown any pretence of logic out of the window and will do so until he goes. The row at the end, however, was gold!

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    1. Indeed it would have! To me, really dumb logical errors like in this episode are worse than the gaps in time-travel logic of previous episodes. It is so easy to do this episode right, but it fell flat on its face.

      -James

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  7. All real science in this episode was just ruined. The Shuttle crashing on the moon like a airplane just made me sad for the whole Dr. Who show. Shuttle dont go that far, theres no atmosphere on the moon. were did a kid size space suit come from? the moon or (creature inside the moon) somehow just gains mass... a big middle finger to science everywhere. To bad the show cant teach something to kids watching it with crap science like this.

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