New Who 8.7 Kill The Moon

[strange_complex]

The first half of this season of Doctor Who has been characterised by Steven Moffat either writing or co-writing all of the episodes himself, except for Robot of Sherwood, which he apparently trusted Mark Gatiss to do on his own. We now move into a second phase - a run of stories by writers who are all entirely new to the series

Comments

Bad Science

[qatsi]

I thought this was distinctly weaker than the rest of the series so far, and I'm with you on the science. What bugged me was the Moon being "100 million years old" - in fact it's thought to be far older than that, and the increasing mass of the Moon (without some external source, the mass of the Moon is a zero-sum game and the gravitational field between it and the Earth is essentially fixed). Admittedly the first of these might be handwaved away if you say that the Doctor knew what was going on and it was part of a 100-million-year cycle where the Moon would be renewed. But the set-up of the episode was very scientifically orientated yet wrong. Like you, I think the basic story could have worked in a different context.

I thought Capaldi was particularly good in this episode - perhaps just in contrast to the general weakness. To me he seems to be showing conscious echoes of some of Hartnell's mannerisms, and the brusque side of his personality seems like a working version of the character Six was meant to be.

Re: Bad Science

[strange_complex]

I think the extra mass is meant to come from the spider-things. But unless they have arrived from somewhere else in space (which was never really made clear), you're right that the mass of the Moon as a whole shouldn't change as a result of either their growth or that of the moon-creature inside it. Capaldi definitely had more than a dash of Hartnell in him, and I'm very glad of the fact.

(PS - I am so over the current LJ bug which makes default icons appear on comments, regardless of what icon you actually choose.)

Re: Bad Science

[steer]

The unexplained mass thing was really annoying... especially as the mass was shown to fluctuate and be variable (especially the weird bit where the little girl floats until she can touch the yoyo).

I enjoyed the episode as a whole but, frankly, I don't think I've ever seen any TV sci-fi with good science and read precious little so I'm used to going "ouch science". (In a way, it's actually better when the whole science book goes out of the window rather than "ooh, you were so NEARLY right").

[steer]

I just can't see the abortion thing. In abortion you stack the rights of an unborn child that will become an intelligent being against the rights of its mother (and to be clear I'm pro-choice in this).

There is no "animal abortion debate". This was about an animal that was the only representative of its species, was capable of sustaining its own life (and indeed was about to be born) with no present mother but which posed a severe danger to others.

It's quite a bad thing if abortion issues have reached the stage where showing people not killing a nearly born animal is considered contentious.

[steer]

Oh, one thing I did like from this episode was Clara berating the doctor for being so patronising and putting her and the others in that situation. It was almost as if she nipped in ahead of the fans who were about to say that.

[parrot_knight]

My thoughts on watching were that people will see this as an abortion allegory, but I don't think it's there, and Moffat has reportedly explicitly said this was not the author's intention.

[steer]

It looked to me as if the writers took about every step you could possibly take NOT to make it an abortion allegory:
1) Within moments of birth
2) Parents explicitly defined to be dead
3) Hatching from an egg not born from a womb (hence definitely outside parent's body)
4) Defined (implicitly) to not be intelligent (I recall this at least but later this seemed to be made a bit vague)

I read one person say it must be an abortion allegory because the debate was between women (which is pretty much the opposite of any abortion legislation ever passed).

[danieldwilliam]

Science and democracy.

I’m not sure what was going on here in terms of the moon.

Did the Doctor know that this was part of a 100 million year cycle and that it would be okay? If so, then what was he doing?

If not, what was he doing?

Clara has over turned a pretty clear mandate from the bits of one hemisphere with electric lights. That’s nearly as bad as First Past the Post. I don’t think you ought to ask the question if you are going to disrespect the answer.

As an aside I thought the XKCD What If section might have covered the moon’s mass increasing but this was the closest I could find.

http://what-if.xkcd.com/67/

[spacelem]

I'm no fan of FPTP, but it makes sense in what is essentially a referendum with a binary answer, and when there's no other way of getting an answer. Also most of earth's landmasses are on one hemisphere, so you could in theory get a fairish vote if you had just the right angle.

You're right though. Earth clearly chose to destroy the thing, so why did she bother to ask the question?

[danieldwilliam]

I claim vote rigging.

I have a video that clearly shows that the hemisphere facing the Moon was the Pacific Ocean and yet we're being asked to believe that we were shown Eurasisa?

Mmh, no, those sorts of conspiracy theories don't sound any better when applied to something other than IndyRef.

[danieldwilliam]

More seriously, you're right FPTP in a binary referendum with a short time scale is fine.