#Kill the Moon

[vampiremotif]

[notyoujamie]

Borrowing from the past: — Fourth + Twelfth

[thefiresofpompeii]

the main mistake that people who dislike s8 and put it low in their series rankings make is the belief that, like any other series (apart from s9), it’s a collection of standalone stories tied together by some vague throughline i.e. missy’s ‘heaven’. “oh, this episode’s mid, that episode’s bad” meanwhile it’s not about individual episodes at all. i firmly believe that it should be viewed as a singular long serial.

so grateful that i was extremely late to the party and binged it all in a week instead of watching every episode as they were airing, because sometimes the plots barely matter at all. do you remember what the skovox blitzer actually looks like or what it wanted with coal hill in the first place? hardly. i had to google its name. but what you do remember from the caretaker is twelve acting like an antagonistic prick towards danny, and that’s what matters. almost every villainous entity is some kind of soldier, the contempt twelve shows to everybody but clara becomes the source of their toxicity… in the forest of the night is pretty obviously rubbish scifi, but it demonstrates danny’s fundamental incompatibility with clara, as well as the scene in which clara is ready to sacrifice herself and her students for the doctor’s sake, foreshadowing their reckless, almost suicidal codependency.

point is, but it really does work best as a tightly woven tapestry. sure, some episodes succeed individually, but most of the individual plots are mildly exciting only in a ‘this is fun to watch for kids’ way… UNLESS you approach them from the overarching perspective. i.e. mummy on the orient express has wonderful style, a thrilling mystery, creative concepts and interesting side characters, but its story appeal hinges on the twelveclara failed breakup. listen is frightening enough, but its entire story appeal hinges on just how much clara affects the doctor’s values past and present, and whether or not she has a future with danny (she doesn’t).

what i’m saying is, the narrative in s8 is a non-negotiable package deal. buy one, get them all. and it has no skips. i hate the idiotic pro-life message in kill the moon as much as the next sensible person, but what the episode does well is really hammer home how much of a sanctimonious asshole twelve initially is, which is crucial to his future character evolution.

tldr; the correct way to watch series 8 is all in one go. series 8 is great. more love for series 8

[non-man049]

After finally getting around to watching Kill The Moon I was very much surprised, pleasantly in fact.

While the abortion metaphor is 100% a valid reading you can make of the story, I don't buy it being the true conflict and message of the episode. Knowing that apparently Peter Harness didn't intend this to be an abortion metaphor, I can let it pass as what is probably a writer's political views subconsciously leaking into the script.

Judging the story literally and not metaphorically. It's about choosing if it's right/worth to kill an innocent being to save the lives of many.

This is literally the trolley problem.

Then you remember that this episode works as a sort of prelude for Mummy On The Orient Express and the true intentions of this episode come to light.

This is a story about having no "good choices", about taking risks when you aren't sure what's going to happen.

Clara is put way more in a bad light than what most people say. Clara is left speechless and with no counter arguments to what Lundwik argues and concedes to letting earth decide. When she finally pushes the button it was clearly a sudden and irrational move.

Clara outright says she didn't know what was going to happen, that she wasn't planning to press the button. Clara didn't make this choice because of knowing what was for the best, she did it because she couldn't bear the weight of intentionally killing an innocent being. She gambled, she took a leap of faith and it paid off.

Beyond the choice itself. Another big aspect of the episode is why The Doctor put Clara in this situation.

The Doctor is lonely. Everybody knows that. But even when companions are close to him, he still feels alone because there's nobody in the universe like him.

He can relate to some, but there's always a thing or two getting in the way (for example Time Lords being dead). So he craves, he strongly craves for someone like him. When The Doctor is asked why he wants to rehabilitate Missy a big reason he gives is the fact she is the only person somewhat similar to him.

The Doctor desires someone he can relate to so badly it makes him want to redeem the person who destroyed 1/4 of the universe.

And now in an adventure with her he finds a situation in which they have to decide if they are willing to stop the birth of a living being to save the lives of many? That sounds familiar.

Just like Nine brought Rose to the future so she could also experience what it's like seeing your planet explode and be the last member of your species, Twelve put Clara in this situation so she could experience what it's like to be the one who makes the big choices.

The Doctor all the time makes decisions that affect the lives of many. Decisions that most of the time he isn't sure if they will work. He risks it all every day. It brings him a lot of pain but he feels forced to do it because he thinks no one else can. He always has to save humanity because he thinks none of them could do what he does.

This... Sadly brings out the uncomfortable truth. Which is that The Doctor does look down upon humans. Don't get me wrong, he adores them, he would give it all to be like them. But he is aware that he considers himself superior to humanity, which is a side of him he (usually) tries to keep in check.

Humanity is for The Doctor what animals are for humanity. We love animals, we admire what they can do and even envy them in some areas, but we still don't consider them as capable, as intelligent as us.

This side of The Doctor can be seen as far back as the first episode of the revival. Calling humans stupid apes, and describing them as a species on it's first baby steps. Because of it, he wants them to be better, he knows how amazing they can and will be and wants them to achieve their potential.

What I'm getting at is that he feels like he is the only one who has to make the big choices, he feels alone taking that burden. But at the same time, he likes it, he enjoys taking these decisions, and he would be more than pleased to have someone right by his side taking them as well.

This is about nurturing Clara into becoming something greater. In his eyes, this means stop being a little human and grow to be the tiniest little bit similar to him.

All of this makes me remember that one moment in The End Of Time Part 2.

The Doctor said humans look like giants, he never said they look bigger than him.

[masterreborn]

has this been done before

[lokittystuckinatree]

Screw you, BBC, Thoschei will outlive the moon!

No, the real moon in the sky outside, not the one in the Whoniverse, we don’t talk about that -

[amy-is-a-mess]

12 just fucking off right at the start of Kill The Moon was the right choice tbh, I wouldn't stick around for that episode either

[gallifreyanhotfive]

Step 1: Crack open the Moon egg.

Step 2: Create a massive omelette.

Step 3: Solve world hunger.

Step 4: Profit???

[clairedelune-13]

Kill the Moon is a stupid episode. That’s obvious.

But that bit at the end. Jenna’s performance was Oscar-worthy, always gives me chills.

[comicaloverachiever]

Clara...the moon, this little planetoid that's been tagging along beside you for a hundred million years, which gives you light at night and seas to sail on, is in the process of falling to bits.

Doctor Who | Kill the Moon

[khruschevshoe]

The Beast Below & Kill The Moon as Foils

The interesting thing to me about The Beast Below and Kill the Moon as episodes is that they operate on a very similar concept: there is a living (very BIG) thing that functions as the only thing that keeps large swathes of humanity safe/alive and they both end with a bit of a cop-out where that Thing stays right where it is but how the themes of those episodes are WILDLY different based on how the Doctor&Companiok interactions play out.

The Beast Below is an exploration of how the Doctor does what is necessary, what he thinks is right and kindest to the most number of people, but that sometimes he is wrong, incredibly wrong, and that it is very essential for him to listen to his companions, to give them a choice, and also that at the end of the day, the Doctor is the Star Whale, he is lonely and pained and kind, that this is the ethos of the show: the Doctor is kind but he really needs to be stopped and reminded of it sometimes (really great parallels with the end of the Runaway Bride/Fires of Pompeii, in a way).

But Kill the Moon is all about how the Doctor is right. How he will always be right. That he knows better than his companions, that he always holds all the cards, that he is cruel to teenage girls and tells them they're not special and knew all along what was going to happen but didn't tell his companion just to see what she would do, but her decision didn't matter at the end of the day, not to him, not to the problem at hand, because the Doctor knows everything and is right and God, disregarding the other major problems with this episode it just leaves a sour taste in my mouth in comparison to the Beast Below. That in this episode, the Doctor is not a god that needs to be reminded of his humanity but a god that is cruel and all-knowing and somehow right in that. I've talked about how the Beast Below embodies the ethos of Doctor Who to me; Kill the Moon, at least in how the Doctor acts, feels like the opposite.

[thematrix-theuniverseofdoctorwho]

Jenna Coleman As Clara Oswald “Doctor Who - Kill The Moon”

[thefiresofpompeii]

all the typical rtd subtlety of a planned parenthood leaflet projected across your screen. this episode should be screened somewhere as a double bill with kill the moon for a full ideological whiplash

[purplehalnw]

Okay so I just watched the Doctor Who episode "Kill the Moon" and....

Okay I knew that twelve's era had a pro-life episode but I didn't expect it to be this early. And tbh when I first heard abt it I just figured "ok I'll eventually come across it and it'll definitely suck but afterwards I can probably just laugh at it, write it off as a bad episode, and move on right?".

But then I watched the end and it turns out this episode sets up a whole fucking conflict between Clara and the Doctor regarding their manipulative behavior.... Like jesus christ. This fucking sucks bc tbh I actually kinda like this scene and the conflict they established and it's obviously going to be really important in future episodes... But unfortunately it's permanently attached to all of this pro-life bullshit.

[heyitsspaceace]

kill the moon out of context

[dougielombax]

Maybe the real moon was the friends we made along the way.

*IT WASN’T*