Doctor Who: Kill The Moon

Wh...what the.....? What was....WHAT THE DID I JUST WATCH?! That was horrible! HORRIBLE! That was like, right there with Fear Her and Love and Monsters. That was SO, SO BAD, YOU GUYS.

Look, I get that Doctor Who is science fiction. I get that. I watch it every week, and I suspend belief all the time. He’s an alien with two hearts that travels time and space in a blue box, and I believe that. I allow my brain to accept that as truth when I watch Doctor Who. But this?! This is unacceptable.

First, you can’t just change science! If the moon’s mass changed even slightly, the world would be completely screwed up. Also, even if it popped out of existence for just a few seconds, like it did at the end of this episode, again, the world would be completely screwed.

Second, this episode just changed a TON of Doctor Who canon, didn't? Am I wrong? What about to UNIT’s Moonbase?! What about the travel to Mars? How can the space program have stopped in 2039 according to this episode, and was going on just fine from 2041 onward in Waters of Mars? And according to web pages seen in Waters of Mars, numerous lunar missions happened, including ten German missions and Project Pit Stop, which built a refueling station on the moon.

I AM SO CONFUSED.

Oh, and don’t even get me started on the egg thing, the OH MY GOD LOOK A NEW MOON WAS LAID BY A NEWBORN ALIEN THE EXACT SAME SIZE AS THE EGG IS JUST LAID IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LAST MOON HATCHED SO EVERYTHING IS OKAY AND COMPLETELY BACK TO NORMAL, and how mean and, yeah, I’m gonna go there, abusive and controlling the Doctor is to Clara in this episode.

**WARNING. SNARK AHEAD**

On the moon in 2049, Clara contacts earth to ask for help with a decision. The Doctor is gone, and possibly not coming back. Courtney is with her. A life hangs in the balance, and they have 45 minutes to decide what to do…

Jump backwards in time, to Coal Hill School. Clara tells the Doctor that he told Courtney she’s not special. Courtney has been acting up since, and Clara wants him to fix it. Seriously? I mean…seriously? I honestly don’t even know how to comment on how stupid that is…

Clara and the Doctor enter the TARDIS, and Courtney is already there. How? Does she have a key? He never just leaves it open….except this on time, I guess? Courtney whines about not being special, and the Doctor decides to take her to the moon.

Instead of the moon, the TARDIS lands on a shuttle filled with nuclear bombs. It crash lands on the moon. The Doctor explains to his companions and the shuttle’s crew that gravity is broken, and the moon has gained mass. ….what? Just….what? How would the moon suddenly gain mass. Like, suddenly, all of a sudden?! WAT.

So, the crew is going to explode the moon, because it’s gotten fat. That’s what the bombs are for. WHAT.

They all go explore a moon mine that’s covered in cobwebs. WHAT?!? One of the crew goes off to arm the bombs. The moon mine was abandoned ten years ago. No one knows what happened to the crew. No one could get up to the moon because they had no shuttles. Or rockets. OR FRICKING ANYTHING, ANYWHERE?! WHAT?!?!?!? So it took them ten years to get a shuttle out of a museum and go see what happened to the moon miners. Guys, we’re eleven minutes in and I feel like my head is going to explode…

The moon miners are discovered dead, and another of the crew goes off alone to get some power on. I WONDER WHO’S GONNA DIE IN THIS EPISODE?!

The power comes back on, but it’s unreliable and flashes in and out spookily. The Doctor examines the miner’s data and realizes that the moon is coming apart. ….WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?

Outside, the astronaut that went to arm the bombs is killed by something unseen.

Back in the mining compound, something is skittering around in the dark. It’s an alien spider-thing, and it attacks the astronaut that was trying to get the power on when he enters the room. Courtney gets separated from the Doctor and Clara when the door between them closes. She suddenly goes floating through the air. Gravity fails…but why is the spider not floating? WHY??

Gravity comes back, and the spider almost attacks Courtney, but she sprays and kills it with the Windex she just happens to have packed in her spacesuit backpack. WHAT?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!?

The Doctor explains that the spiders are actually huge single-celled germs. So…what about the webs? WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING?!

He also explains that Courtney floated because the mass of the moon shifted. It’s an unstable mass. I CAN’T EVEN…

Courtney asks to go home, and the Doctor and Clara argue about it. He puts Courtney into the TARDIS for safe-keeping.

Clara mentions having been in the future and remembering seeing the moon. The Doctor explains—he explains a lot this episode—that there are some things he can’t see. Grey areas when big things are decided. He can’t tell what happens to the moon because what happens hasn’t been decided yet. Which means it’s up to them to decide. …..wut?

The Doctor, Clara and the remaining astronaut find more dead miners outside, and the Doctor is attacked by a germ. He saves himself, and they see hundreds of germs hiding in a moon cave. And then he discovers amniotic fluid on the moon, and jumps into a moon crater. WHAT?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Courtney is bored and putting moon pictures on Tumblr, and Clara watches the shuttle—with the TARDIS aboard—fall into a crater during a moonquake. Courtney is fine, and uses a disc to eventually bring the TARDIS back to the Doctor.

The Doctor returns from his trip into the crater, and explains that the moon isn’t breaking apart. The moon is hatching. The moon is an egg. And that was when I literally said out loud in my empty living room, “Oh for f**cking sh** this is ridiculous.” I almost turned it off, you guys. That’s NEVER happened before. Not for the scribble monster, not for the stupid oral sex with pavement that has a face joke…but this? This was almost it for me. It’s only because you guys are relying on me that I continued. THIS IS MY SACRIFICE FOR YOU, DEAR READERS!

So for a hundred billion years, the moon has been an egg, growing and preparing to hatch. The spiders are bacteria on a living organism. Got it? Okay.

The astronaut wants to know how to kill it…and here’s where the anti-abortion debate begins. The Doctor, Clara and Courtney argue for the life, and the astronaut argues for the lives of billions on earth, which is pointless, because in both situations, EVERYONE IS GOING TO DIE ANYWAY! Human beings can’t freaking survive without the moon! ARGH. And, no. That’s all I’m going to say about the apparent anti-abortion message in this episode.

Clara asks the Doctor to help them decide what to do, and he refuses. “It’s not my earth, not my moon.” Because, y’know, he’s never, ever before made a decision to save the earth. Never, ever, ever. WHAT?!?!?!?!??!?!????!?!!!!??!!??!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

And then he leaves in the TARDIS. He leaves them to make the decision on their own. He LEAVES IN THE TARDIS AND ABANDONS HIS BEST FRIEND ON A MOON THAT’S INCREDIBLY UNSTABLE AND ABOUT TO BREAK APART. HE LEAVES HIS BEST. FRIEND. That’s it. My mind has exploded. I literally cannot even comprehend this anymore. IS THIS EVEN DOCTOR WHO ANYMORE?! WAT IS THIS SHOW?!

The two women fight about what to do; Clara wants to let the egg hatch, the astronaut wants to destroy it. The astronaut arms the bombs, and gives them an hour to make a final decision. Clara broadcasts to earth and asks them to help make the decision. She tells them that if they want to destroy the egg, they should turn their lights off. If they want to let it live, they should leave their lights on. All of the lights on earth go off. I’m not going to bring up how unlikely that is. Nope, not even gonna.

Clara almost listens to the people on earth…almost. But she presses the abort button on the bombs just in time. Just as she does, the TARDIS returns and the Doctor orders them all inside.

He takes them to a beach, where they watch the moon hatch. A huge dragon-thing flies away. The Doctor looks into the timelines—and this is pretty much the only cool part in the whole episode—and tells them what happens to humankind in the future, and then he tells Courtney she’s special, but in his own words.

AND THEN THE NEWBORN DRAGON-THING LAYS AN EGG EXACTLY THE SAME SIZE, SHAPE AND MASS AS THE OLD EGG, AND BIGGER THAN IT’S OWN FREAKING BODY WAS, AND TOTALLY MAKES THIS WHOLE FREAKING EPISODE COMPLETELY SILLY AND POINTLESS WHAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?

The Doctor drops everyone off, but Clara stays. She’s angry. Much more angry that we’ve ever seen her. She threatens to smack him so hard he’ll regenerate. I’m not okay with that line at all. That’s not an okay line. Why is that an okay line? That’s a disturbing line, especially because of the way it’s delivered.

The Doctor explains that he had faith in Clara making the right choice and that Courtney will now become president of the US, which is impossible, because she’s English, but I guess the writers don’t care about the US Constitution.

Clara, now crying angry tears, is done. She’s just done with him, and his patronizing, disrespectful ways. And, for once, I’m on Clara’s side here. He was borderline abusive in this episode, and I’m not at all impressed with this. There’s being dark, which is what I was looking forward to with Capaldi’s Doctor, and then there’s being an abusive, controlling, patronizing asshole. The writers crossed that line with this episode, and they need to fix it, fast.

Clara tells the Doctor to leave, and to never come back. She’s done. The Doctor leaves.

Danny enters Clara’s classroom, and he can see that it’s happened. The Doctor has pushed Clara too far. Clara explains  everything. Danny is really brilliant in this particular scene, and I’m pretty sure I fell in love with him here, you guys. Danny mentions that he’s had a bad day, and Clara goes home to look at the moon…

You know my opinion about this episode, but I’d love to hear yours. Am I being too harsh?

Thoughts and Theories:

-What was Danny’s bad day? I’m of two minds on that. 1) It’s the anniversary of the day he killed the civilian—and I think it was a female civilian, by the way. Or 2) He’s just returned from a future trip with the Doctor where something bad happened, and was brought back to this timeline to comfort Clara for some reason.

-No mention of Missy or the Promise Land.

-Is Clara done? No sign of her in the next time trailer. No way is she done. That’s just some nice editing by the trailer creators.

-Will she then forgive the Doctor, or is her presence in the next episodes forced somehow?

-I’m not even going to bring up the moonegg, the moonegg creature, or anything else about this stupid episode.

Best Lines:

She took your psychic paper. She’s been using it as fake ID.

Shoot the little girl first.

Oh she can’t post that; she can’t put pictures of me online!

Okay, now watch the next time trailer, and meet me back here next week!