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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.

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:

Here's what we think of N111 Kill The Moon

We rate Doctor Who stories on a scale from 0.0 to 5.0. For context, very few are excellent enough to merit a 5.0 in our minds, and we'd take a 0.0 Doctor Who story over a lot of other, non-Whovian stuff out there.

Leon | @ponken

2.7

Drew | @drewbackwhen

0.9

Marie | @hammashandjelly

3.7

Jim | @jimmythewho

2.2

Here's what we think of N111 Kill The Moon

We rate Doctor Who stories on a scale from 0.0 to 5.0. For context, very few are excellent enough to merit a 5.0 in our minds, and we'd take a 0.0 Doctor Who story over a lot of other, non-Whovian stuff out there.

Leon | @ponken

2.7

Drew | @drewbackwhen

0.9

Marie | @hammashandjelly

3.7

Jim | @jimmythewho

2.2

Here's what you think 4 Responses to “N111 Kill The Moon”
  1. The Doctor Gamer | @doctorgamer789

    This is a very… weird story.
    The moon is a “giant baby space dragon egg”(??)

    Goods:

    • There is a lot of development between 12 and Clara here. 12 manipulates Clara to try to teach her something, which you would see happen a lot with the seeeventh doctor.
    • The Ideas in this story are very good, for example, bringing one of clara’s students into the Tardis for an adventure.

    Bads:

    • The side characters are 1 dimensional and useless in the story.
    • The cgi for the spiders and the ship was a bit off, maybe that’s just cause of “who back… then!”
    • The plot drags on and on until the ending which is really rushed and makes little to no sense.

    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!

  2. Tracey | @yecartniatnuof

    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

  3. Michael Ridgway | @Bad_Movie_Club

    Likes:

    • Funniest line: “Shoot the little girl first”.
    • Scary freaky alien spiders. The webbed, cocooned-corpse-ridden Mexican moon-base was reminiscent of Stephen King’s The Mist.
    • Batshit crazy bonkers twist.
    • Clara’s somewhat justified explosion at the Doctor. Ouch. Give Jenna Coleman a BAFTA. I don’t think even the Seventh Doctor would have abandoned his companions in their hour (45 minutes) of need. He would have lurked in the background and planted seeds of doubt until he got whatever outcome he wanted.

    Beefs:

    • The credibility of a referendum via house lights. Surely this disenfranchises a shitload of people who have no electricity, or houses. And what about people on the other half of the planet – you know, the side in DAYLIGHT – where you can’t see their lights! And you should only get one vote – none of this turn your light on, then off, then on again nonsense. I demand an alternative vote for the next time this happens in 5 billion years.
    • Clara, you’ve undermined democracy! You’ve stolen the votes of the hard-working normal-people Brexit-voting nuke-the-monster gammon brigade. I expect riots on the streets.
    • I wanted to see the creature dump a new moon from its bum. Robbed.

    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’.

  4. Cassandra

    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.)

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