Moffat has done it again. He's given us an episode title that filled me with dread, and not in a good way. Let's Kill Hitler was bad enough, though the episode turned out alright, but Kill The Moon must surely be worse and it's followed by Mummy On The Orient Express which isn't much better - just like Dinosaurs On A Spaceship, though again that one turned out reasonably well... So here it is, the pre-title sequence tells us it is 2049 and Clara is on the moon with Courtney Woods, the school girl from the previous episode, the Doctor isn't around and Clara's making a plea straight to the camera "An innocent life versus the future of all mankind" and there are only 45 minutes to decide... so the length of an episode then! Roll titles!
We're then taken back to the beginning of the story as Clara tries to convince the Doctor to reassure Courtney, who has gone off the rails since he told her she wasn't anything special and she threw up in the TARDIS. They find her back on board with cleaning materials and travel sickness bracelets, ready to go off again and prove herself to the Doctor. Clara tells her she's not going anywhere but the Doctor offers her the honour of being the first woman on the moon and away they go...
The adventure that follows is interesting, clever and stupid, pretty much evenly distributed all the way through. The TARDIS lands on a shuttle as it makes its final approach to the moon and it's not long before they are confronted by the occupant not quite pointing guns at them. The Doctor prances about with an odd bouncy, stepping motion, testing the unexpected gravity while negotiating for his life - suggesting they shoot the girl first rather than put her through the trauma of seeing her teacher shot, then leave him to last because he could be tricky to kill as he might just keep regenerating! Ultimately, he's just stalling for time and baffling their would-be captors. Then a nice old trick returns as he pulls out his yo-yo to demonstrate the unusual gravity... there is a slight problem with that though, because he flicks it down rather than just dropping it, in which case it would work normally under low gravity any way!
The explanation for the extra gravity is that the moon has been 'putting on weight' and the astronauts are there to either find out why or blow it up because it's causing havoc on Earth, pulling satellites out of orbit and producing "high-tide everywhere at once"... which doesn't quite make sense because the extra pull would produce higher high-tides at the usual rate and lower low-tides in between on the other side of the world, whereas high-tide everywhere would imply an even growth of volume even on the side away from the moon as if the water was pulsing in and out rather than being pulled around. We are also expected to believe that there has been a Mexican group on the moon mining for minerals but finding nothing... this sounds unlikely to me but it does give a reason for there being a base for everyone to breath normally and be separated from the shuttle. Equally troublesome is the fact that it seems not the astronauts know how to set the nuclear bombs they have brought with them... despite the fact that it's their main objective. We are given the explanation that they are 'third hand astronauts' on a 'second hand shuttle' (rescued from a museum) because they'd given up going to the moon and lost interest despite the Mexicans still being up there! The more the details are examined, the less well they hold together.
The main fear factor comes from giant spider-like creatures that are ultimately identified by the Doctor as "procoriatic unicellular life forms with non-chromosome DNA" (presumably meaning to say 'prokaryotic') otherwise known as germs... so of course Courtney is able to pull the disinfectant spray bottle out of her rucksack to spray at them "Kills 99% of all known germs!" she chimes. A point is made when they encounter one outside that the spray bottle won't work in a vacuum... this immediately sounded wrong to me but I was prepared to let it go because thinking about it to work it out would have distracted me from the action. A spray bottle works by creating reduced pressure in the top section when the trigger is released (a spring forces the piston out creating a partial vacuum), thus drawing liquid up from the bottle. When you pull the trigger, the liquid is forced out of the nozzle as the piston moves back in. One way valves prevent the liquid from return down the tube when the trigger is squeezed and air from being drawn in when it is released. The only problem I can see with this is how the vacuum of space might affect the valves but if anything, it should result in a constant stream as it sucks all the liquid out of the bottle as the trigger is released and the lower valve is open. The top valve may not return but that would not prevent liquid being drawn, it would actually encourage it. For me, the jury is still out on whether the spray could be used or not but logically I see little reason for it to fail completely. Details like this should distract from an episode but this one really bugged me and it wasn't the first!
When the team first encounter the creatures, they are still inside the base but run to a separate room and close the door, only Courtney gets left behind and mysteriously starts floating. The doctor throws out his yo-yo and tells her to catch it, then as soon as she grabs hold she falls to the floor. That's some mystical physics at play there! The Doctor says it's because "that 1.3 billion tonnes shifted, it moved. It's an unstable mass" but such a shift on such a scale could not have such an isolated affect and while the yo-yo might have made sense as a means of retrieving Courtney, it wouldn't have dropped her to the floor. Like the moon, in the context of the story, the plot is cracking up and falling apart! Had it been the creatures creating a gravitational pull to draw in their prey then I might not have blinked, indeed that is what I expected it to have been, but no.
The more human aspects of the drama fair better. Courtney is scared and wants to go home so they return to the TARDIS and Clara agrees that it's become very dangerous. Clara is confused when the Doctor shuts her in on her own because she doesn't see a need for them to stay. She has seen the moon in the future, it's still there, it doesn't blow up or fall apart, but the Doctor points out that it could be a "hologram, or a painting, a special effect. Maybe it's a completely different moon" which puzzles Clara even more because if anyone should know, he should (especially since he was there so much as the Second Doctor!) but he has to explain that there are some points in time that he just can't see. As the Tenth Doctor would have said, there are moments in flux, here he describes them as "little eye blinks" that are fuzzy and this one is down to them to decide. It certainly stands to reason that it may be their actions that prevent the moon from breaking up.
The Doctor is excited when he discovers that the moon is in fact a giant egg that's been slowly growing for 100 million years or so and now, (possibly due to the Mexican drilling?) it is ready to hatch. Where the Doctor gets the figures from isn't mentioned but it is generally accepted that the moon is in fact 4.5 billion years old, but then that isn't based on it being an egg! But then he disowns the moral dilemma because he can't be responsible for killing the creature about to hatch. As he says, it's not his moon, the Earth's not his home but that's a statement that will come back to bite him where it hurts... But in the mean time he can justify walking away because mankind has a solution in the nuclear bombs that they have already got into place, they don't need his help, they just need to make up their mind whether to proceed or not.
That's all well and good. It's dramatic, it's moral and it's pushing Clara to think and act responsibly without him but it's an impossible decision that can't be made in the 45 minutes they have before the egg hatches. Clara has the brilliant idea to involve the people of Earth in the decision making when they quite randomly receive a communication link from 'ground control' at the vital moment. They broadcast a message telling everyone to turn off their lights if they want the creature destroyed or leave them on if they want it left alone... supposedly asking the whole of humanity, only Earth is shown to have Europe coming into daylight and the shadow of night creeping over the Atlantic ocean and 45 minutes is not long enough for any kind of consensus to be gathered from enough people - also, most people would naturally turn their lights off when they go to bed so unless they see/hear Clara's message it's going to look like they vote to save. It's a completely flawed voting system but apparently, against the odds a majority of lights on is observed so the lead astronaut starts to activate the bomb... only to be stopped by Clara! Ultimately, Clara made the choice on her own despite asking the people of Earth, perhaps because she knew that she would be blown up with it, perhaps because she knew the Doctor wouldn't let want her to kill herself, perhaps because he didn't want the creature killed. Either way, moments after Clara aborts the countdown, the Doctor returns and takes them all to Earth in time to witness the hatching, still unaware of whether it is going to kill them, help them or leave them alone. When asked what will happen now, the Doctor seems to snap into a trance-like state to have a look and reveals that it is this moment that draws mankind back towards the idea of venturing out into the universe. And what about the moon? Well, as Courtney points out, the creature has laid another egg! It's hard to tell, but it looks like it is half the size of the old moon/egg which seems far too large given the size of the creature that just laid it!
The episode finishes with a long discussion of conflict between Clara and the Doctor. She is angry with him for just about everything and ultimately storms out of the TARDIS and essentially telling him to get lost. Major, major drama and outrage played brilliantly by Jenna and Peter and shocking to the core. The astronaut (whom I should probably identify as Cpt. Lundvik played by Hermione Norris) calls the Doctor a "Bloody irresponsible idiot" as they return to Earth to which he sternly parries "Mind your language, there are children present" but when Clara is having a go at him later she gets very 'real' and 'adult', completely out of Doctor Who style uttering "Oh my God... that was you making me feel like a bloody idiot" and points out that, contrary to his earlier statement, the Doctor has chosen to spend a lot of time on Earth and made us his friends so it is his moon as well and he can "damn well help us when we need it", concluding with "Get back in your lonely bloody TARDIS and don't come back!" Three bloodies, a damn and a hint of blasphemy are surely as shock as the infamous kiss in the TV Movie if not more so. A brave move to show such anger and displeasure between the companion and the Doctor and more than a suggestion that she is about to leave... The very final scene sees Clara meeting Danny, still fuming, and telling him she's done with the Doctor. He simply gives her the advice to not make the decision while she is angry and tell the Doctor again when she is calm, then tell him [Danny], and he's apparently speaking from experience.
There are some really good moments in Kill The Moon but far too many questionable plot points. It looks great, having been filmed on location in Lanzarote (like Planet Of Fire 30 years ago) with a bit of grading to get the colour and lighting right for the lunar surface. Each of the three astronauts has a slightly different coloured space suit while the Doctor, Clara and Courtney have the familiar red/orange TARDIS space suits which Courtney accessorises with her school back of course. The shot of the shuttle crash landing looks a little suspect, but I couldn't say why, however it does craftily touch down slightly hidden behind a rock so the actual impact isn't seen, just the 'bounce' and dust flying up (but not it taking off).
The important thing to remember as you leave this episode is that Clara is angry with the Doctor and wants to leave. Forget all the silliness and nonsense and remember that Clara has had enough (Spoiler alert: it's kind of relevant in the next episode)
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