Our heroes draw reminders in places they can't see without a mirror, telepathic beepers are manually operated, and River goes full-on John Woo
Mankind looks to the stars because of Clara’s disregard for democracy, but you can’t make a human space exploration omelette without cracking a few moon eggs.
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Coal Hill School’s premier disruptive influence Courtney Woods has made the Doctor her latest excuse for tearaway behaviour, so he makes a special case of her and takes her to the moon, but 35 years in the future for some reason.
They land on an exhibit borrowed back from the Smithsonian, carrying Earth’s remaining nuclear stockpile and about to make a Deep Impact into the lunar surface, because they’re crash-landing for some reason.
And just what are those bombs for? Some reason?
Armageddon to that! The unusually gravid moon is not what it seems. But just when Clara’s seeking a friend for the end of the world, our favourite prat climbs back into the TARDIS and leaves humanity to determine its own future, for some reason. Meteor what?
And, as discussed, a moon size comparison, which in hindsight actually looks like the exact same moon model, only rendered smaller:
This is a very… weird story.
The moon is a “giant baby space dragon egg”(??)
Goods:
Bads:
Overall I give this a 3.0, The story is boring but the Ideas are decent enough. 12 + clara definitely carry this well enough though.
Thank gosh there is some very good stories coming up soon!
Oh how I am divided this time.
The feel of a decent percentage of this is fun and enjoyable. Love the monologue given by the Doc as he hops around testing gravity.
The Doctor is very Doctor-like,
jumping in the lake recklessly like something out of a good Matt Smith episode, or Tennant sprint. Capaldi doesn’t always do it for me, but he’s hitting every beat quite nicely here.
BUT on the flip side there are several gaping problems with this one.
The whole thing acts too much like a pregnancy/abortion allegory for my taste. Particularly in that it reads as a triumphant tale of one woman (Clara) overriding another woman (astronaut proxy for earth lady) in bodily autonomy to save a new life, which threatens existing life. The earth was right to be concerned and then, Clara stole its decision. Not ok writers. Not ok.
Then there’s the fact that the Doctor forces Clara to call the shots alone, when she expects teamwork of him. If you have an expert friend you’ve asked for help, it’s a dick move for that friend to say, “go figure it out without me”. Note that both Clara AND astronaut proxy lady ask him for help this time. (As this happened in episode I cheered, yay a real scientist actually ready to trust the Doctor, how lovely!) It’s unlike the Doctor, who meddles constantly, to randomly decide to sit this one out.
Rating:
Fancy steak dinner paired with a glass of red mud
Likes:
Beefs:
Summary: Scary and stupid. Funny and thoughtful. I love this show.
Rating: 4.7/5 bacteria alien spiders feasting on the faces of several amateur (were they really the best Earth had to offer?) ‘astronauts’.
On the rewatch, I didn’t hate it as much as I first did, but I I will continue to refer to it as “Kill the Episode.” One of the irritating points that no one else has mentioned here, is the eye make up and earrings worn by the female astronaut. Makeup and earrings inside your space suit???!!! Now, it is common on tv for women to always be painted up even if it’s inappropriate for the part (looking at you Timeless) and in a recent episode of DW the last remaining women on earth still had time to slap on heavy eyeliner while escaping from Cybermen, so I might have forgiven it here, but earrings on an astronaut on a suicide mission, EARRINGS!! This points to a director who knows the script is shit, and just doesn’t care about the details. (Clara’s makeup gets a pass because she’s always running off impromptu.)