Who you said…? S08E07 ”Kill the moon”

Who you said…? S08E07 ”Kill the moon”

Oh my, this was a very interesting episode. The title of course do give away the plot on very many levels. It did not contain any space spiders… So sad.  

In short the story is as follows. The Doctor and Clara takes the young girl that the Doctor insulted and who threw up in the TARDIS at the end of the last episode in to space, the moon to be more precise. Now as I mentioned earlier it has been established that the Doctor does not have full… Or any control over the TARDIS, depending on how you look at it as the ghost in the machine so to speak simply puts the Doctor more or less at the time and place he needs to be at. This is important to understand how the Doctor can mess up such a simple thing as going from earth to the moon. Any way the trio ends up in a crashing shuttle on course to blow up the moon as it has caused a massive amount of natural disasters by the way of increased gravitational pull. Some people get eaten by poodle sized bacteria it turns out the moon is in act an egg for a space whale butterfly thing… So now the Doctor and Clara try to argue for saving the unborn creature rather than nuking it out of existence. The team sent to nuke the moon are afraid that either the creature itself or the remains of the egg-moon pose a threat for Earth. This goes back and forth until Clara calls the Doctor on what could potentially be a plot hole. They have seen the future, and the moon was still there so why do they not just leave. The Doctor brushes this aside by the way of him not being able to see all of time. That is has fuzzy spots that has yet to be decided. In the end he pretty much puts the fate of the creature in the hands of Clara in a very Capaldi-Doctor-ish kind of way. In the end the creature hatches and the Earth is safe but Clara kind of breaks up with the Doctor over the rather dick-ish move he pulled. Then again… By now one would think she would be used to this. Also Mr Pink is being set up again as a much more likeable character.

So with the stage set for an intense and conflict ridden tale of life versus death and who has the right to take life and under what circumstances. What stands out to me the most is that the Doctor is really becoming a down right arse, especially if one take the previous episode in to account. Well maybe that is a bit of a strong wording… Perhaps human is a better. Yes his complete lack of understanding for humanity as a race, played for humor as it is does not equal him not being human. He simply make a lot more mistakes based on emotions and illogical responses. I am curious to see where they go with that. Clara continues to be annoying, perhaps due to poor writing or a lack of direction but she is either very competent or an idiot-savant that does everything backwards but still comes out ahead. My personal hope right now lies in either Mr Pink or the young girl taking up the mantle once Clara becomes a Dalek or a deity... depending on what once has as a fancy. I´d really like Mr Pink because it would be an interesting dynamic. Then again I would like to see the Doctor having a female regeneration just to watch Moffat turning himself in to a knot trying to figure out how to write good female characters.   

But I digress.

All in all this was a good episode, apart from a few rather pointless jump scares it struck a good balance between a lighter tone and a much direr and darker one. It does of course also touch on a subject that is a lot more sensitive. The right to life and if such a right is inviolable… Is that the right word… If such a right can or should be infringed upon for any reason. And since I have way too few BA´s in philosophy to get even close to an answer I am simply going to walk away slowly from that subject before I manages to really insult of offend anyone. But I think this episode does touch a bit on the subject and could work as a good entry point in to a discussion about such questions. As for a theme of an episode it does lend a good amount of suspense and presents a very easy to understand conflict that most can understand.

There was also a distinct lack of… to borrow a term form dear Mr. Homes... That woman… I cannot say I miss the Missy sub-plot at all at this point in time. I might feel different once it has played out but right now it just rubs me the wrong way for some reason. It just feel cheap and lazy.

Next time we are going off the rails with the crazy train…