S8. EP7 Kill The Moon

[Rassilon]

What did you think?

[ninjaconor]

Seemed a very dark choice to have an abortion allegory episode, but I liked that they were brave enough to try something controversial. I loved the whole build-up to the issue and I loved the aftermath with Clara and The Doctor but the actual resolution with having the whole population of Earth vote with their lightswitches seemed very rushed and took a bit of the punch out of the story. Overall I'd say it's somewhere near the upper end of the quality scale this series.

[Catsmate]

Interesting but underwhelming. Too much forced drama (and dramatic music). Plus I found the basic plot threads (Moon as egg and humanity abandoning space travel) rather silly and an further insult to Who continuity.
Nice to see the return of Baker's gravity indicator yo-yo, but the Doctor's shirt was terrible.

Whatever happened to the the Moonbase/Cyberman/Graviton/T-Mat bits of history?   

A number of (to me) irritating errors:

• The shadows are wrong, a good attempt but they lack the starkness of a vacuum world
• the oft mentioned "1.3 billion tonnes" is about two billionths of one percent of Lunar mass, pretty much insignificant
• Spray bottle in vacuum?? Someone should have re-watched The Moonbase
• No Z-bombs?
• The continuity glitch regarding Lundvik talking about Clara's children, how did she know Clara was from the relative past?
• The conversation with ground control lacked the light-speed time lag
• Also I'd have liked to see a US flag with more than fifty stars, it's not like it would have taken much effort...
  

Plus two plot annoyances.

• Taking off helmets in a base covered in mysterious cobwebs..... Tut, tut.
• Courtney as US President???

However the idea that "The future is no more malleable than the past" is a good one, and harks back to complaints from the Hartnell era.

[zebaroth]

it was ok

[da professor]

Oct 4, 2014 23:34:32 GMT Catsmate said:

Whatever happened to the the Moonbase/Cyberman/Graviton/T-Mat bits of history?

Erased by the Time War?

I did find it odd that a woman in her 40s in 2049, who would be about 12 today, talking about her grandmother, who would probably be over 50 today, using tumblr.

[Stormcrow]

In addition to all the complaints above...

It's getting harder to see the Doctor as a hero when he's constantly being such a jerk.

[thereviewer]

I really liked the episode...but I thought the ending was really misplaced. I really like the whole insanity of the Moon being an egg, which is obviously ludicrous, but then again, just remember that one time when The Second Doctor fought growing foam due to global warming; it didn't make sense, but it worked. That's how I felt about this episode. Even with the ending of the alien giving a new moon (or egg) before leaving. Like I said, though, I really thought the ending was out of place. Clara has already said The Doctor isn't making good decisions, and I understand that staying out of this without mentioning a plan wasn't the best idea, but surprisingly, as much as I love Clara, I'm siding with The Doctor on this one; he's already shown before that the decisions he makes aren't always good and I think he might've had something going for him with staying this one out for once even if it was intended. If anything, I think the ending with Clara should've been done for when Clara eventually leaves. I feel that she'll be back again next episode and they'll make up. Oh, well. Otherwise, good episode.

Speaking of which, I'm actually going to NYCC Next Saturday where I'll be watching the premiere of 'Mummy on the Orient Express,' which is one of my most anticipated episodes this season. I have a 4-Day past for the event, so on either Thursday or Friday, I'm going to meet the great Arthur Darvill and have him sign my copy of Summer Falls. Don't know who else from Who is going, but I understood that Karen Gillian was in NY last I checked and I hope she'll stop by also for a Pond reunion. That would make my day. Anyways, till next time.

[Catsmate]

On re-watching I now consider this the worst episode of the season so far and a contender for the worst of the new series, up there with Fear Her or The Rings of Akhaten . It's basically a series of rather stupid plot holes held together by overly dramatic acting. I know it's science fiction but is it really that difficult to inject a modicum of science? And some attention to Who continuity?

The "humans have abandoned space" is particularly stupid, given how dependent human society is on satellites for communications, weather monitoring, resource mapping and navigation. We can't relinquish space launch capability without losing everything from satellite television to GPS. And having the ability to put a multi-tone payload in GEO is the biggest step to lunar orbit.

Further if the situation on Earth was as desperate as implied by changes in the Moon's mass we have other options, such as a nuclear-pulse craft. Not exactly environmentally friendly but quite workable.

And finally, why was the reason for the Moon's mass increasing not actually addressed? Muttering about "1.3 billion tonnes" (which as I pointed out is insignificant) is right up there with the "one point twenty one jigowatts" of Back to the Future.

ETA: Phil Plait's demolition of the awful science.

[hobbitfan]

Horrible episode, absolutely horrible.
Not only is it stupid and badly written but the science so bad it's not even funny...

[Eryx]

I quite liked this one except for the whole thing in the moon and let's remake the moon. Also, we know the Doctor is a grumpy old git now but why pull off what he did? It felt out of character to me.