TV Review // Doctor Who: Series 8, Episode 7: "Kill The Moon"
Warning: contains spoilers!
Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna
Coleman, Samuel Anderson, Ellis George, Hermione Norris
Written by: Peter Harness
Directed by: Peter Wilmshurst
The Story: In 2049 there is something very wrong
with the moon and it’s causing the Earth to die. Can the Doctor, Clara and
Courtney help a cobbled-together crew help to save the Earth? Oh, and there’s
spiders. On the Moon. MASSIVE EFFIN SPIDERS!
Well, the first thing we’d like to do after watching Kill The
Moon is take writer Peter Harness down the pub and buy him a well earned
tipple. Harness has given us a story that oozes menace; it asks some genuinely
disturbing questions, loses our ‘hero’ just when we need him most. And it’s got
those effin big spiders!
Kill The Moon also oozes class. Director Peter
Wilmshurst does Harness’s wonderful script justice as he turns Lanzarote into a
blasted Moonscape and he gives us those spiders (germs, if you’re being
pedantic) in a way that would pretty much instil a fear of arachnids where
there never was one. Wilmshurst does some very nifty camera work, with
some terrifying point-of-view shots that up the ante in terms of terror.
There’s some impressively frightening shots from a helmet-cam and even a
spider-cam.
Adding to the class is the acting from Peter Capaldi as the Doctor
and Jenna Coleman as companion, Clara. Here at SRCZ we’ve banged on about how
much we’ve loved the relationship between the Doctor and Clara in this series
and what we get in Kill The Moon is nothing short of spellbinding.
Capaldi’s transformation into cold, logical...dare we say cynical...alien
is complete and his unpredictability reaches new levels as he naffs off just
when you’d expect previous incarnations of the Doctor to step up and save the
day with a waft of a sonic screwdriver.
And let’s not dare miss out Jenna Coleman, who literally makes the
hairs on the back of your neck stand up with her hurt and her rage at the
Doctor’s action, or lack of it, and the terrible decision she’s forced to make.
It’s astonishing stuff.
Which leads us to the actual story of Kill The Moon. In
2049 the moon has gained weight. So much weight that it’s cracking apart. A
crew from Earth led by Lundvik (a top-notch Hermione Norris) has set out ten
years after the crew of a Mexican moon base disappeared in a last broadcast of
screams. Lundvik and her crew have also, by the way, brought along 100 nuclear
bombs to destroy the moon with.
Meanwhile in the present day, the Doctor is in trouble with Clara
for having told troublesome teen Courtney that she’s not special. The Doctor
takes the two along to the moon, so that Courtney can become the first woman on
it, which would make her pretty special indeed.
And so our two crews meet on a blasted moon that’s cracking apart
and infested with huge and terrifying spider/germ things. Wilmshurst’s work as
the spiders attack the moon base is incredible and quite rightly brings to mind
the Alien films and even the Shelob scenes from The Lord of the Rings
trilogy. And all of this on a BBC budget. The scurrying, squealing spider sound
effects add to the terror as does the impeccable score from Murray Gold.
Lundvik’s crew is seen off pretty quickly as we discover that the
moon is actually a gigantic egg that’s about to give birth to an entirely new
life form. Which leaves the big question. To allow the new life form to live,
which means certain death for the population of Earth. Or to kill a unique and
unborn creature to save the Earth. Clara insists that the Doctor must know how
it all turns out, but the Doctor is equally certain that nothing in this is
certain. That it must be allowed to unfold. Whether he really believes this is
not allowed to matter as he naffs off in the TARDIS leaving Clara, Courtney and
Lundvik to decide.
It’s one of the great ambiguities of this Doctor that we have no
idea whether his action (or lack of) is cruel, pragmatic, trusting. Or all of
the above. Or none of them.
What we do know is that he does leave the three women aboard a
dead space station to make a horrifying choice. Who to kill? Clara manages to
make a last, desperate broadcast to the people of Earth. If you want to live,
turn out your lights. The women watch as the lights go out and the Earth is in
darkness. As the timer is aborted, James Bond style, at the last minute, the
TARDIS appears and the Doctor whisks our women away in the nick of time.
What follows is some of the most impressive work we’ve seen in
this series. The moon hatches into a beautiful creature, which promptly lays a
whole new moon! We learn from the Doctor that it is this which inspires
humanity to spread itself across the stars and the Universe. This is brave and
impressive writing from our new-to-Who scribe.
Back on the TARDIS and far from any cosy “Well, that turned out
ok” backslapping, a furious Clara demands the Doctor tell her how much he knew.
Saying that he knew she’d always make the best choice, the Doctor is ill-prepared
for Clara’s rage at the position he put her in. Telling him to clear off...and
for good...Clara leaves the TARDIS for her other life filled with anger (and
with echoes of Danny’s warning to her clanging around the viewer’s head).
Danny, astute and understanding, recognises in Clara the feelings he had
when he left the army.
Where this leaves the Doctor and Clara’s relationship is entirely
unclear as the episode ends with Clara staring up at the moon.
Did you know? This isn’t the first time the Doctor
has said “The Earth isn’t my home” to a companion. The fourth Doctor (Tom
Baker) said the same to Sarah Jane Smith in Pyramids of Mars.
Questions, questions, questions? Does Courtney really become the President of the United States?
If, so, how is it that the Doctor doesn’t recognise her?
Best Line: “Why have you got nuclear bombs? No
no, easier question. Whats wrong with my yo-yo?”
Insult of the Week: Doctor: “What are
you? 35?”
Courtney: “I’m 15”
Fan-pleasing moments: The Doctor with a yo-yo, orange space suits, a Vortex manipulator
Next Week:
(Andrea McGuire)
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