Kill the Moon

TV Oct 27, 2014

This was different. There’s a lot of differences between this year’s Who and last year’s Who, but I don’t feel it’s ever been as stark as in ‘Kill the Moon’. Perhaps not since 'Midnight’ have we had a story that is so simple and focussed.

I appreciate it: it may not be quite as polished as Midnight was, but it’s still pretty good, and I’ll forgive it a lot of its fairy-tale physics for the simple fact that it seems spectacularly uninterested in it. Once again, it feels like the script has something to say, and that to me is worth a hundred vaguely scientifically plausible explanations. My rules for Doctor Who are these: stories must be internally consistent; things affecting the main cast must be consistent with other stories with the same main cast; telling me that the Doctor can’t visit Amy and Rory because they’re in the thirties is just fucking stupid.

I feel like I have a lot of unresolved issues with series seven.

I’m impressed at how well the kerfuffle follows on from Clara and Danny’s talk in the previous story. While it’s perhaps a shame that the moment he warned of happened in the very next story, I still applaud the threads being used to tie this season together: as a regular viewer, I’ve found them really rewarding, but I don’t think any of them are the sort of thing that would alienate a casual viewer.1

Some people have pointed out that you could read this story as a pro-life treatise; this seems a bit of a stretch given the massive emphasis on the importance of making the decision. As you can read it in both ways (and many others), I reckon that saves it from being a much lesser story.

I felt sorry for the pointless old astronauts. One assumes they had red shirts on underneath their suits. The one from Cold Feet was excellent, though.


  1. I’ve never been a casual viewer of anything, though, so I’m not well-placed to say this for sure. 

Tags

Great! You've successfully subscribed.
Great! Next, complete checkout for full access.
Welcome back! You've successfully signed in.
Success! Your account is fully activated, you now have access to all content.
Tom Charman Mastodon Mastodon