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Wonderful episode that happily put scientific accuracy on the sideline for the sake of a fun, scary and silly plot and some wonderful character moments. It's pretty much everything we want from Doctor Who, isn't it? Capaldi still proves to be one of the very best Doctors and Coleman is shaping up to be one of the best companions. This season has been one of the strongest in Who's history and it's great Moffat is taking chances with the Doctor's character a la Colin Baker. At least this time he has the cachet and clout behind him to see the gradual adjustment of the Doctor's personality come to fruition. If the rest of the series is episodes of this caliber, I know I will be one very happy viewer. Well played Moffat, well played.
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Oct 4, 2014 23:47
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Barry Foster posted:Well, no, to be honest. He hasn't been that morally ambiguous since the sixties. Yes, I know they bring up the Hitler parallel and that, but it felt disingenuous, and out of context with the general tone of the show. ...OK, seeing as you apparently missed the point I was making, he arguably made a much more damning choice not to act in Genesis of the Daleks. Sure, that serial presents it as the moral choice, but I'm not sure the people the Daleks genocide would be very thankful. They'd probably react not unlike the astronaut lady in this one. I'm not arguing that this episode was an all-time classic, but the Doctor's behaviour was absolutely in character, it's just we're seeing him from the perspective that makes people wary of him, not the perspective where he can do no wrong.
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Oct 4, 2014 23:48
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The core cast is definitely getting pummeled this season, but I was a fan of the more charged emotional ending (as well as the ridiculous premise for the episode in general). I've always been a fan of arcs where the doctor takes leave of his companion, so it will be nice to get at least one episode of space hijinks. Speaking of, the preview mentioned Space Orient Express. Didn't 11 and the Ponds do that immediately following the end of The Big Bang?
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Oct 4, 2014 23:55
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Gaz-L posted:...OK, seeing as you apparently missed the point I was making, he arguably made a much more damning choice not to act in Genesis of the Daleks. Sure, that serial presents it as the moral choice, but I'm not sure the people the Daleks genocide would be very thankful. They'd probably react not unlike the astronaut lady in this one. Yeah, fair enough, but I'm arguing that the show has, for a long time now, generally presented the behaviour of the Doctor from a positive perspective - outside the fictional universe - and that we're not getting that this season. As I said, that's potentially an interesting direction to take, but I don't feel it's being done very well at the moment. The Genesis decision was obviously bollocks, but the argument was slightly less clear cut than 'kill literal baby/don't kill literal baby and let history take its course'
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Oct 5, 2014 00:00
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Carbon dioxide posted:I thought it was very unfair that only those who happened to be on the night-side of the earth during that 1.5 hours got a light-vote whether to kill the moon or not. 
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Oct 5, 2014 00:04
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f#a# posted:Speaking of, the preview mentioned Space Orient Express. Didn't 11 and the Ponds do that immediately following the end of The Big Bang? That's where the Doctor SAID they were headed 
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Oct 5, 2014 00:16
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Jerusalem posted:That's where the Doctor SAID they were headed I hope it opens with him getting the call again, this time going "Um, Doctor? Where are you? We called ages ago... and how come you sound Scottish now?"
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Oct 5, 2014 00:23
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PrBacterio posted:Maybe that was intended as a bit of clever, if a little late, social commentary on the Scottish independence referendum. Although the people of Scotland voted the "right way" fortunately, so it didn't have to come to that  If people could stop trying to spin the referendum as a "stolen" vote that'd be grand, ta. Payndz posted:To me, it's not that he's "not being presented entirely positively". He's not being presented positively, full stop! So far, Twelve has been a colossal, petulant, arrogant, unlikeable dickhead to such an extent that he makes Six look like Five. Why would anyone want to spend time with him? Maybe Moffat and co are doing this on purpose as part of some redemptive master plan, but JNT did the same with Colin Baker, and look how well that turned out. That's not entirely true. There's been at least one scene in which he presents a softer, more human side- that scene in the restaurant in Deep Breath. I think the key is that he's vulnerable there, post-regeneration, in a way that he hasn't been in any subsequent episode- once he regains his self-assurance, he becomes blithely dismissive of everybody else's feelings and opinions. Clara's excoriating of him here might be what finally punctures that. Though I'm sure how they'd open to explore a newly conciliatory Doctor in what looks like it's going to be a fairly high-energy romp.
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Oct 5, 2014 00:25
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I thought it was okay. I liked last week's episode a lot better. I don't think I'd go out of my way to watch this one again.
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Oct 5, 2014 00:33
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One thing I did really like which I didn't really think about at the time - the Doctor doesn't use the psychic paper as a cheap way out of the initial confrontation with the crew. They stomp in, demand to know who he is and threaten to kill him and he just hammers home the lunacy of that threat in what is an (angry!) appeal to their basic humanity, which ties in loosely to the resolution as well. "Yeah okay sure, kill the little girl, then kill the school teacher, then kill the old man, that's a reasonable reaction to events!  "
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Oct 5, 2014 00:33
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Autonomous Monster posted:
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Oct 5, 2014 00:38
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PrBacterio posted:Are there even any people seriously doing this at this point? Because if so, I can see how my joke might have come across as a little bit tasteless and I'm sorry. That being said, I probably still would have just gone ahead with it anyway I think the "YES BALLOTS ON THE NO TABLE" thing has mostly petered out, to be fair. I guess I'm just worried that the "THE OAPS SOLD US OUT  " sentiment is still out there, festering.Or I'm just overly sensitive and paranoid. 
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Oct 5, 2014 00:43
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Jerusalem posted:One thing I did really like which I didn't really think about at the time - the Doctor doesn't use the psychic paper as a cheap way out of the initial confrontation with the crew. They stomp in, demand to know who he is and threaten to kill him and he just hammers home the lunacy of that threat in what is an (angry!) appeal to their basic humanity, which ties in loosely to the resolution as well. Plus, "Also, you might run out of bullets before I stopped coming back to life.".
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Oct 5, 2014 00:49
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Barry Foster posted:Well, no, to be honest. He hasn't been that morally ambiguous since the sixties. Yes, I know they bring up the Hitler parallel and that, but it felt disingenuous, and out of context with the general tone of the show. In any case I don't think he's really been presented as morally bad this season. He can be rude and insensitive, but his moral decisions and actions have seemed sound outside of this episode (and maybe Into the Dalek).
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Oct 5, 2014 01:11
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Doctor Who and the Space Spiders gifs     
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Oct 5, 2014 01:14
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Oct 5, 2014 01:15
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marktheando posted:You seriously think every single episode this series has been a classic, great episode? No, but that's not what I said, they were all better than pretty good (yes after the first half of the first episode). But I'll concede this one was only 'pretty good'. PriorMarcus posted:I'm bored of this season and Capaldi already. Please gently caress off Moffat. We have one average episode and this is your reaction? Calm down, it's just a tv show.
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Oct 5, 2014 01:19
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Okay I've calmed down about physics now and the episode was pretty good. Didn't particularly like the hackneyed KILL A BABY/SAVE HUMANS??? bit though. Also I'm I can't stop giggling at the idea that everybody had to look at the giant space dragon egg-laying action that occurred off-screen for us 
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Oct 5, 2014 01:26
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BSam posted:No, but that's not what I said, they were all better than pretty good (yes after the first half of the first episode). I've mostly kept quiet this season because my negative opinions upset people, but I've found the last season and this half of one below average. There's none of the excitement and freshness of a new Doctor here for me. I'm not invested in Capaldi at all because I really don't get what they are trying to accomplish with his Doctor. He's just not interesting enough at the moment to justify the drastic shift to arsehole.
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Oct 5, 2014 01:27
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Shugojin posted:Also I'm I can't stop giggling at the idea that everybody had to look at the giant space dragon egg-laying action that occurred off-screen for us Moffat sent a request for the dragon laying an egg bigger than itself to the CGI department and they sent him back a beautiful 3d rendering of a hand giving him the fingers.
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Oct 5, 2014 01:28
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Payndz posted:It's funny how Capaldi is clearly a massive Pertwee fan, but his Doctor is so far Three's polar opposite: Pertwee always played the Doctor as a heroic figure of trust and safety for the kids watching ("Who's your friend" was a Radio Times cover!), while Twelve is a massively irresponsible rear end in a top hat who directly endangers (and then abandons) a child to prove a point and doesn't give a poo poo. Post-watershed, at that! Is Pertwee a figure of trust and safety when he's being an rear end all over the place in S7, and tripping himself up because he's constitutionally incapable of getting along with anyone? It seems like Capaldi's channeling those aspects via Sylvester McCoy and "you're going to grow as a person whether you like it or not", which is a pretty bold direction to take things in. We all have a universe of our own terrors to face, indeed.
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Oct 5, 2014 01:30
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Jerusalem posted:One thing I did really like which I didn't really think about at the time - the Doctor doesn't use the psychic paper as a cheap way out of the initial confrontation with the crew. They stomp in, demand to know who he is and threaten to kill him and he just hammers home the lunacy of that threat in what is an (angry!) appeal to their basic humanity, which ties in loosely to the resolution as well. That and it turns out later that the astronauts are just bluffing about having guns.
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Oct 5, 2014 01:36
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I thought the episode was loving great, but a lot of that is just Coleman and Capaldi killing it. The Doctor wanting humanity to do its best but leaving it up to humanity didn't strike a false note to me. Reminded me of the Almost People and the Silurian two-parter from a few seasons back. No, the doctor didn't handle it exactly the same, but a lot of the same themes were there, and hey, it's a different doctor. I also find it hard to fault the logic behind the egg just crumbling or the space dragon laying another egg, when we're talking about an episode whose premise is that the moon is an egg. I mean c'mon. What are you gonna argue? "Well if the moon really was an egg that's not what would happen!!!" Also, interesting quote from ol' Dickens, given how the Doctor/companion dynamic is shaping up this season, and the history of that dynamic, and previous weeks' discussion in this thread about the "focus" on Clara: Charles loving Dickens posted:Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. DirtyRobot fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Oct 5, 2014 |
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Oct 5, 2014 01:46
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What a weird episode. I liked the broad strokes of it but hated the details. Need to make a big choice about whether thing lives or dies? Yeah sure, good idea. Because the moon is an egg? Uh... Giant thing turns out to actually be a life form and monsters are actually bacteria to it? Yeah, I'm cool with that. But those weren't bacteria or whatever, they were giant space spiders and no amount of technobabble will convince me otherwise. We let the thing live and now we have to deal with the consequences? Yeah, OK. Oh also it laid another giant moon-egg and all is fine now? Oh, come on. I actually did really like the Doctor finally picking a point to say "Nope, I'm out, this one's your decision." And I liked Clara getting really pissed off at him. The overall ideas in this story were good and I liked what they did with the Doctor and Clara, but boy the specifics of it... ugh.
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Oct 5, 2014 01:49
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I loved this episode. It was like Waters of Mars, but different in its own way, and pulled it off beautifully. Clara's scene at the end worked well, though partially we knew it's been a long time coming. Yes, I raised my eyebrows at the egg revelation at first, but by the end, it seemed to somehow fit. 10/10. The best of the season so far. My personal ranking look like this: 1) Kill the Moon 2) Listen 3) The Caretaker 4) Robot of Sherwood 5) Into the Dalek 6) Time Heist 7) Deep Breath ** ** This may because I watched it too many times when showing it to other people. Overall, it's been a pretty good season so far. Different, but good nonetheless. As was mentioned before in a previous thread, this is probably the most consistent season we've had since season 5, which makes me wonder if it's at least partially to do with the fact that there aren't any breaks this time around.
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Oct 5, 2014 01:50
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Irony Be My Shield posted:I don't think that's true. I guess Smith was presented as a moral paragon most of the time, but there were plenty of points where Tennant's judgment was called into question. For instance he literally kills a bunch of babies in The Runaway Bride (which Donna later points out) and he knowingly breaks the rules by saving someone who's supposed to die in The Water of Mars. It's probably a purely subjective thing, because I hated Tennant's Doctor (because, to be fair, he was A Bad Person) and loved Smith's. I guess I just feel like the Doctor matured when he became 11, and he seems to have taken a massive whopping backstep now that he's 12. Again, it's not so much the in-universe timeline. It's just that Capaldi's Doctor has nothing I'd call Doctor-ish about him. No gimmickry (which is fine), but no twinkle, no indulgence, no perspective, no kindness.
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Oct 5, 2014 01:57
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Jerusalem posted:So it was done in a joking fashion, but they've introduced the idea now that the Doctor doesn't know if his new regeneration cycle Maybe Moffat backlash about being hounded by fans about the "rules" for Timelord regenerations. (From what I remember hearing, there was some theory that the "Don't tell me about the rules" line in the 50th was Moffat telling the fans to back off about the 12-regenerations rule.) SiKboy posted:Lets be fair; if the gravity on the moon is earth gravity then basically you are in a quarry. Which is fortunate for the producers Back to basics. adhuin posted:Yeah. This was a first bad episode for me this season. I honestly didn't think she had it in her. Never went this far before. I liked the counseling bit Danny does for her afterwards. Barry Foster posted:This, this, this. Now hold up. (Well, don't really hold up, I just wanted your attention.) I for one am happy we're getting to see this aspect of the Doctor's personality. Personally, I think that every incarnation highlights an aspect of the Doctor's personality. We've always known he wasn't perfect, but here is in-your-face proof. I think that with the previous incarnations, the previous writers/directors/actors have been playing it "safe". With Six, as you point out, maybe being the edgiest so far. (And we all know what happened to Six's reign. (Yes there was more going on in the background, but being difficult at that particular point in time, with the people involved at the BBC and Colin's personal life, didn't help.)) Everyone's a dickhead at some point, The Doctor, being larger than life, has the greater capacity to be a fill_in_the_blank. Including being a dickhead.
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Oct 5, 2014 02:05
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Kill the Moon was a messy episode that was built off an incredibly good premise. It needed some more rewrites to make things not be complete nonsense like the new moon appearing out of nowhere out of a creature smaller than it that had just been born. Seriously, the idea that it was a choice that humanity had to make for itself and the Doctor's talk about how it drove them to stars was great, but it didn't EARN that ending with how it was plotted. That said, the epilogue with Clara tearing into the Doctor was excellent. Frankly, they would have been better off just letting the moon be destroyed, letting the rubble miraculously assume orbit around Earth and leave it open to speculation as to why there's still a moon in the future. primaltrash fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Oct 5, 2014 |
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Oct 5, 2014 02:13
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I was hoping it was a baby star whale in the egg.
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Oct 5, 2014 03:16
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i really liked it! i definitely see where Sandifer is coming from on this one, and given our history that means a LOT. The physics were silly, but I'm of the very strong opinion that that criticism is a totally worthless one when it comes to Doctor Who. Giving three womwn the responsibility shown is a tremendous improvement over many of the Moffat era's previous stabs at being "feminist". Coleman's performance was absolutely spectacular, and Courtney was fine IMO. The direction could have been stronger, I feel, but on first watch that's my biggest complaint.
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Oct 5, 2014 03:19
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I would have liked it better if instead of just leaving the plan to humanity, the Doctor was loving around building up an armada of time travelers to help dismantle the bombs and shoot the debris from space and just generally be awesome in the background. I mean, come on. He's going to abandon Clara to blow herself up? Even if he did give the choice to humanity, leaving Clara behind to burn to death was loving dumb.
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Oct 5, 2014 03:22
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howe_sam posted:I was hoping it was a baby star whale in the egg. Haha, I have to admit I pondered the same thing given the notion that the hatching of the moon is what reignited humanity's desire to explore the universe - it would have made a nice callback to The Beast Below. According to Lundvik they didn't believe there were aliens out there (the hidden Zygons in the room just giggle to themselves) and that the only life was on earth.
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Oct 5, 2014 03:24
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In retrospect it would've been nice if the Doctor said he knew Clara wouldn't push the button (well push the button in this case, but you know what I mean) because she kept him from doing exactly that.
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Oct 5, 2014 03:26
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The_Doctor posted:Also, the Mexican moonbase had ponchos and cacti in the background. This is the first episode of the season I haven't loved since Deep Breath's first half. I liked the character stuff just fine, but the moon being an egg really rubbed me the wrong way, and the whole "lol new egg moon" thing undermined the entire premise. Plus, many of us will live to the date of this episode (I won't), and the show will probably still be running. I'm not a fan of when they pick a near-future date and have Earth(moon)-shattering events take place. That's a stupid knit-pick that nobody should care about, but it still irks me. Unlike Jerusalem, I liked Apollo 18 okay, but I've seen spiders on the moon before, so at least the episode hinged on more than that, and I did like that three women got to decide whether to abort moon baby. Though one criticism levied against Twelve is that he's entirely unlikable, and with that I can't disagree, but I'm actually enjoying the contrast between him and Eleven, who could do no wrong ever. Now don't misunderstand me. My favorite thing about Eleven was that he was that guy. He could do everything. He never gave up, and he lived in optimism. But I got two of those in a row between Ten and Eleven, so change is good to see provided they don't live there beyond this season. I very much want this to be a part of an arc where The Doctor realizes his faults and grows, and I'm becoming less convinced that this is the case, but we'll see. At the very least, I believe we are meant to think he's wrong. It's why the narrative has shifted to Clara. And we're supposed to root for him to improve, which I am. And what gives me hope is how genuinely hurt he was that Clara didn't believe him when he said he was being honest. But whether or not this aspect of the story is personally appealing to viewers is entirely up to them, and I understand and respect both sides. I'm only excited by it because I very much want Twelve to have his I Am The Doctor moment. Smith got one every episode. The music played, and he triumphed. Like, all the time. To my current favorite theme song ever. This season feels like we get to see him be wrong over and over, then finally have his triumphant, awe-inspiring moment.
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Oct 5, 2014 03:46
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I'm officially reserving judgement about Capaldi's portrayal of the Doctor until the end of the season. Like, right now, I think he's doing a fantastic job of portraying a character I don't like very much, but I have some faith that they're building to something more profound than THE DOCTOR IS AN rear end in a top hat NOW, DEAL WITH IT NERDS. I liked this episode, scientific absurdity and all. Clara was fantastic, of course, and that blow-up at the end was a long time in coming. As I've opined before, the first half of Deep Breath was fundamentally important specifically because the first thing anyone tells Clara about this regeneration is that she needs to unreservedly accept the Doctor, however he's changed, and that was bad and wrong advice, and I think that one of the themes of this season is about how bad and wrong that advice actually was. This episode was the other shoe dropping. The Doctor's having an identity crisis, and, again, having a doting companion who indulges it would be the worst thing possible for him. And it would absolutely be the worst thing possible for Clara. Even more than the thing where three women are left to decide the fate of the Earth, this episode (and I think this season) are explicitly about Clara not being the Doctor's pet or his child or his girlfriend, but his equal. In this episode she represented the Doctor's traditional morality (as expressed most recently in Day of the Doctor) of "no I'm not going to accept that this is an impossible situation and the only way out of it is deeply unpleasant, I'm going to make something better happen, don't ask me how, but I'm going to." (And the Doctor represented the traditional 'don't interfere with the kids' morality of the Time Lords that he so strongly rejected once upon a time. I refuse to believe that wasn't deliberate.) For that matter, it's about how, after two thousand years, give or take, around humans, the Doctor isn't really allowed to get away with playing the OH I AM AN ALIEN WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND YOU STRANGE HUMANS card any more. Maybe he recognizes that too, and is recoiling from it. This post started out with me not being sure if I liked the episode or not. But yeah, I liked it. Not the best of the season, I think that's probably Listen, but potentially one of the most important. LividLiquid posted:But whether or not this aspect of the story is personally appealing to viewers is entirely up to them, and I understand and respect both sides. I'm only excited by it because I very much want Twelve to have his I Am The Doctor moment. Smith got one every episode. The music played, and he triumphed. Like, all the time. To my current favorite theme song ever. This season feels like we get to see him be wrong over and over, then finally have his triumphant, awe-inspiring moment. Yes, this, exactly. I think that's what we're building toward. I hope that's what we're building toward.
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Oct 5, 2014 03:52
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Yeah, I've noticed trends in the last few episodes. The Doctor thinks he knows something, but events prove that he's not the biggest know-it-all in time and space (a Dalek going "good", Robin Hood being fictional, perfect hiding monsters existing). Meanwhile, Clara has been giving moments that elevate her, make her a stronger character, and advance the plot (confronting clockwork people, making Rusty remember, "interrogating" the Sheriff). Like docbeard said, Clara is being built up as the Doctor's equal, and things have come to a head in this episode. Good on her for saying what needed to be said. It felt deserved. It felt earned, in a way. I quite liked this episode, even if some of the things did not make sense (if they're space bacteria and not space spiders, then why are there cobwebs? How did the space dragon lay an egg bigger than itself?). That's fine. I don't need my Doctor Who to make sense 100% of the time, so long as it has good character interaction. Which this one did. LividLiquid posted:But whether or not this aspect of the story is personally appealing to viewers is entirely up to them, and I understand and respect both sides. I'm only excited by it because I very much want Twelve to have his I Am The Doctor moment. Smith got one every episode. The music played, and he triumphed. Like, all the time. To my current favorite theme song ever. This is nice because I went back and checked; the music playing during the Kill The Moon trailer? I Am The Doctor. FreezingInferno fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Oct 5, 2014 |
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Oct 5, 2014 04:03
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docbeard posted:For that matter, it's about how, after two thousand years, give or take, around humans, the Doctor isn't really allowed to get away with playing the OH I AM AN ALIEN WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND YOU STRANGE HUMANS card any more. Maybe he recognizes that too, and is recoiling from it. I think it was great that I both appreciated and even applauded both arguments. When the Doctor told Clara he was leaving it up to her (and the other humans) and that it was time for the stabilizing wheels to come off, I was really pleased that he was acknowledging she is NOT a child. But then when she angrily lays out just why that analogy was wrong and, more importantly, utterly condescending I had a similar,"That's loving right!" moment. Having her point out that he can't pretend like he doesn't have a vested personal stake AND responsibility for Earth was also excellent, because while it's true that he is an alien it's been made clear for a very long time that earth is as much his home as any planet other than Gallifrey can be. I still think this episode "failed" where it was important, in terms of drawing me in and connecting with me - but the themes it explored had a ton of potential and the part where it best realized this was in that final angry confrontation between Clara and the Doctor.
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Oct 5, 2014 04:07
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LividLiquid posted:Plus, many of us will live to the date of this episode (I won't), and the show will probably still be running. I'm not a fan of when they pick a near-future date and have Earth(moon)-shattering events take place. That's a stupid knit-pick that nobody should care about, but it still irks me. There was a "modern day" episode that is now in the past (2006 or 2007?) where the Earth was pulled to another place in the galaxy full of other planets. I'm okay with the moon not hatching in real life in 35 years. Just like I fully don't expect warp drive to be invented in 2061 like Star Trek said it would. Though I really hope to live to see the day that we give up our infighting and seriously give spreading out in space a shot.
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Oct 5, 2014 04:21
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Are you people seriously upset with the physics in Doctor loving Who? Jesus Christ.
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Oct 5, 2014 04:24
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How do we know that the Cybermen didn't bring Earth's sister planet close by to leech it's energy back during the 80s? #askquestions #whathappenedtozeusiv
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Oct 5, 2014 04:25
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