Review - Kill The Moon

The Doctor reaches a pinnacle of patronising crankiness as Clara faces the truth about just how different he's become in Kill The Moon.

Season 8, Episode 8 - Kill The Moon

The cold open drops us right into the action here, building a hook to suck us straight in. Unfortunately Clara's message to Earth just struck me as a bit forced. We're then flung straight back to the real beginning of the story, where Courtney Woods is insinuating herself on The Doctor, aiming to go on further trips through Time and Space.

Here's where we run into the first thing I found odd about this episode. Despite his new crotchety demeanour, I still don't buy The Doctor telling someone they're not special. Despite his regeneration, this is still the same man who once said "You know that in nine hundred years of time and space I've never met anybody who wasn't important before." Of course The Doctor is now claiming over 2,000 years of life, so perhaps he's gotten a bit more jaded since then. Or maybe it was supposed to be another lesson.

Like "don't listen to men in polka-dot shirts."

The overall concept here was fairly sound, I suppose. The Moon being an egg was an interesting idea, but some of the details seemed a little glossed over. Lots of questions remain unanswered, or at least not suitably answered to keep me suspending my disbelief.

The Germs were suitably scary, but why did they look like spiders and spin webs if they were supposed to be single celled organisms? A bit of a redesign would have helped here, making them appear more simple. Another option could be to refer to them as parasites rather than germs. I'm not sure how (if at all) that would affect the scene where Courtney started floating or using the spray to kill them, but neither of those really made much sense either, so maybe the whole lot could just go. Whatever the solution, I can't buy a "unicellular" organism having such an advanced structure.

Even a basic knowledge of biology says this is not a germ.

Why had the creature growing in the Moon only begun to distort gravity relatively recently? The moon has been there for millions of years, presumably with the creature growing inside the whole time. Why then does the weight gain only start causing issues on Earth some time in the next 30 years? Was it dormant until recently? How exactly does the creature fit inside the moon, but have a greater density than it?

How exactly were the astronauts planning on using the nukes to destroy the Moon? They had no idea it was a living thing inside the moon that was causing the trouble, and they have no drilling equipment to get the nukes sufficiently deep in the crust. Hell, they don't even have a lander, so couldn't evenly space the bombs to get maximum effect without manually hauling them across the lunar landscape.

And the biggest question of all, how the hell did the creature manage to lay an egg? First up, how did something that just came from inside the moon manage to lay another egg the same size as the moon? Is the creature growing within the new moon simply non-sexual, or is this some kind of immaculate conception?

Biologically possible, but probably VERY uncomfortable.

Putting all this aside, the episode had good pacing and handled the morality issue reasonably well despite the flaws in the voting system (only half the world could vote and governments could rig it by cutting all power grids). It was entertaining despite the plot holes, and it had a total lack of my usual gripes, with bonus absence of a blatant Season Arc reference. Still, I think a slightly different angle could close those plot holes and make this episode a beauty. 

7/10

Can we fix it?

As I said, yes we can, and all it takes is a rethink of the egg concept. Rather than an egg, I think a better solution would be a nest.

First up though, we need to clear up the whole spider = germ thing. Rather than rebadge what they have as a parasite to make it biologically more accurate, I'd rather go with a redesign of the monster.  Instead of legs, it has flagellum. We can even give it eight of them so that in dim lighting we get the impression of a spider. Instead of a toothy maw, we have a mass of pili which, again, in poor light appear to be teeth. The webs could be explained away as some kind of excretion like a snail trail which aids mobility. All of this allows us to initially play on that all so prevalent arachnaphobia whilst retaining some semblance of biological realism.

With that sorted, we can tidy up the issues surrounding the gravity and the new moon. I reckon I can fix that all up with a couple of tweaks to the creature and how it breeds.

I see this creature as something inter-dimensional. The moon is part egg, part nest. Within the shell of the moon is the opening to a pocket dimension where the foetus grows. As it matures, it begins emerging from the pocket dimension, causing the seismic activity and a huge leakage of amniotic fluid with it's accompanying bacteria. The huge creature begins to cause gravity to increase quickly as it shifts more of itself into this dimension.

Upon emerging fully from its extra-dimensional egg-sac, the creature's first instinct is to build a new nest from the scattered remains of the old one. First it fabricates a new pocket dimension, then covers it with the pieces of the moon, tying it all together with silk-like strands. Then it flies off to find a mate, destined to return who knows when and somehow deposit it's fertilized egg safely in the pocket dimension through the moon.

Who knows how many times this cycle happened before recorded human history. It could even be tied in to the extinction of the dinosaurs.The creature that emerged then didn't manage to catch all of the pieces of the moon when making it's new nest.

Much of the first part could be explained by The Doctor upon his return from his little amniotic swim. The rest would layout to some explanation as they watch from Earth.

An interesting twist would be to have humanity's interest in space exploration kindled by a desire to protect this extremely rare breeding ground.

Closing those couple of plot holes would elevate this episode from an entertaining episode that makes me cringe at the poor science, to a near perfect story.

Review - The Caretaker

Clara's two worlds combine as The Doctor does a bit of moonlighting at the Coal Hill School in The Caretaker.

Season 8, Episode 6 - The Caretaker

This episode begins with a montage showing Clara struggling to live two lives at once, her "normal" life as a teacher with Danny Pink, and her life adventuring in time and space as The Doctor's Companion. This whole montage draws the parallel of a woman cheating on her partner, and in that it succeeds reasonably well. We get the distinct impression that something's going to give pretty soon.

After The Doctor leaves Clara behind to go "Undercover" She appears to have time to focus on Danny, but naturally The Doctor is going undercover at Coal Hill School as John Smith, the temporary replacement Caretaker. Hilarity ensues.

I love a comedy dust-coat

The Threat of the Skovox Blitzer is fairly minor, which is fine, because The Doctor straight up tells us he can handle it easily. There is no discovery of the threat, as The Doctor already knows about it. There is no investigation, as The Doctor already has a plan, and even when that goes wrong he seems to figure out a fall-back plan with minimal fuss. Sadly, if the majority of screen time doesn't even involve the monster of the week in any way, the focus of this episode becomes Danny's discovery of Clara's life with The Doctor.

Pictured: minor sub-plot

This all puts the episode squarely in the category of The Companion Show Featuring The Doctor. In retrospect this has been a bit of a trend throughout the season, particularly in Listen, but so far it's not taken up the majority of an episode. I thought (or hoped) we'd gotten past this issue once Clara stopped being The Most Important Person In The Universe™. Once the mystery of her origin was solved, she could become just another travelling companion for The Doctor. Hopefully the resolution of the Danny situation will reduce the focus on Clara and allow The Doctor more time in the limelight.

The scene with The Doctor mistaking Adrian for Clara's boyfriend was strange and has left me feeling a bit annoyed. There's two ways to take this. One, general arrogance from The Doctor that Clara would want someone who looked like he did, because that means she still wants him; or two, a fairly obscure kind of paternal feeling where The Doctor would only approve of someone who was somehow like him. I'd like to think it was meant to be option two, but something tells me that's not really what they were going for here.

The Doctor's irrational hatred of soldiers outlined in Into The Dalek was clearly designed to work with this episode, but despite this not fitting with established canon (The Doctor has been friends with several soldiers), Danny's response to The Doctor was actually pretty awesome.

Yet again we are treated to a scene in the Nethersphere, but this time Missy seems to have her cranky pants on and is reportedly "too busy" to deal with the poor dead policeman. For the first time since the Promised Land arc began, I am actually intrigued. I still don't really care who Missy is, but my interest is piqued as to why she would be annoyed.

Maybe ask for that raise another time

Overall, this is a pretty nothing episode. It does well enough considering it's entire point is to get The Doctor and Danny introduced to each other, it's just I like my light science fiction show about aliens and time travel to focus a bit less on a single character's love life and more on, you know, the aliens and time travel.

6/10

Can we fix it?

I wouldn't go so far as to say it was impossible to fix this one, but it would take a lot. The threat of the Skovox Blitzer would need to be somewhat enhanced to start with. More needs to be made of The Doctor discovering it and deciding to get the job at Coal Hill. It would also be good to find a way of pushing the Clara / Danny thing to the background a bit.

First up, The Doctor would not refuse Clara's help. She would refuse to help him. The Doctor discovers the Skovox is around, and comes to Clara asking for help. Before he is able to explain the threat or how she is needed, Clara refuses on the grounds she needs to concentrate more on Danny, telling The Doctor she's sure he can handle this one alone.

What we don't learn immediately is that The Doctor wanted Clara's help to place the devices around Coal Hill, which he has determined is the best place to displace the time vortex because of a weakness in the space / time etc. When Clara refuses to even listen, he is forced to assume the position of Caretaker in order to follow through with his plan.

When Clara berates him and he reveals what the threat is, The Doctor can then throw Clara's own words back at her, telling her he can handle it himself. This would also add another dimension to the negativity towards Danny. The Doctor is jealous, but not in a romantic way, just that Clara's attention is elsewhere. Why is spending time with him more important that fighting alien robots? The Doctor could even specifically ask her that, only to be answered with Clara's revelation that she loves Danny. There's really not much you can come back with at that point.

So in true Doctor fashion, he just throws a tantrum at Danny and blames him for the failure of Plan A. The rest would probably have to play out in a similar manner, except have Parent Teacher Night held in the same hall the Time Vortex is set to appear in, increasing the threat to innocent bystanders. They think things will be okay, but when the Vortex begins to appear earlier than The Doctor calculated, they resort to pulling a fire alarm or something to get everyone out.

It wouldn't be great, and would still suffer from being focussed too much on Clara's relationships, but it would have a more solid set-up and make slightly better use of a deadly alien robot.