clocketpatch (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
clocketpatch) wrote2014-10-07 02:21 am
clocketpatch) wrote2014-10-07 02:21 am
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Kill the Moon
I really liked it
"An innocent life, versus the future of all mankind. We have forty-five minutes to decide."
Yes, the opening is a bit trope-y and cliche, but I think it works well, and I do love symmetry.
Initially, I thought that Courtney was going to be the innocent life, because she was standing right there looking distressed. And even though she wasn't… I wonder how much it would have changed the episode if she had been? The Earth would still (logically) have said yes, and Clara would have been far more enthusiastic about hitting the abort button. And would still have been angry at the Doctor at the end...
"She took your psychic paper, she's been using it as fake ID."
"To get into museums?"
"No, to buy White Lightning or alcopops or whatever."
And speaking of Courtney, I really enjoyed her in this episode. She's out of her depth, but that's not because she's an unworthy companion; it's because she's a terrified fifteen year old, and the Doctor is being more of a jerk than usual.
I like how this exchange with Clara shows how utterly out of touch with humanity the Doctor can be sometimes, but it also shows that, despite how he's acting, he does actually have quite a bit of respect for Courtney. Heck, he probably let her steal the psychic paper, under the assumption that she wouldn't do anything he wouldn't do.
"You really think it. I'm nothing?"
"How would you like to be the first woman on the moon? That special enough for you?"
I'm also interested with the parallels between this and Nightmare in Silver which also contained the moon (sort of) and the Doctor abducting some children to try and set things right with Clara. It also has a monster-of-the-week which can be defeated using dish soap, but that's neither here nor there.
More importantly, Nightmare in Silver had a Clara who trusted the Doctor to keep her and her charges safe. Right from the beginning of this episode, she doesn't share that trust with Twelve – and rightly so as it turns out. Because when things took a bad turn in Nightmare, Eleven was ready to sacrifice himself to save those he'd put in danger. In Kill the Moon, and indeed, throughout series 8 so far, when the water gets hot, Twelve climbs out of the pot and runs away – often using Clara as a ladder.
On the other side of things, this Clara understands her own responsibilities better. In Nightmare in Silver, Angie and Artie got a trip via blackmail, but teacher!Clara is wise to the ways of her charges and wouldn't be so easily tricked. She understands that she is in a position of authority and that it is her job to keep Courtney safe.
Having Twelve disregard that authority and then run off is a double blow.
"Why didn't you just tell her you didn't mean it?"
The Doctor made a problem. Clara offered him a solution. The Doctor disregarded it in favour of his own solution, making the problem bigger, and then spread his arms magnanimously, and said that he'd been trying to make amends. Why are you mad at me?
I actually can't tell if Twelve is that much of a manipulative arse, or… if he actually can't judge these things anymore, and the terrible behaviour is the unintentional result of him trying to follow a script he can only half remember. I think that the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. I almost feel bad for him… except, I wouldn't particularly want to be around him either until he figures out how to be a bit more pleasant. I like Six, but I wouldn't want to be Peri, if you get what I mean.
Jumping ahead a little bit, I found "We're about to crash into the moon; hang onto a nuclear bomb for safety!" to be absolutely hilarious, though I did scream at them to put their helmets back on.
"You'll have to spend a lot of time shooting me, because I'll keep on regenerating."
The regeneration joke, combined with Twelve's ridiculous windmill dance, made me giggle. "Shoot the girl," was fairly shocking, though it was certainly meant to be, and I could envision quite a few other Doctors using the same tactic.
One thing I found interesting here is Twelve confronting the fact that he doesn't know how many regenerations he has now. If it's a new set, a half-set, or if he is now, essentially, immortal. And it must be frightening to be that unsure of your own mortality. I'm thinking of Ten at the end of his run, when, I think, he had a feeling that something (the War Doctor) had happened, and, combined with the aborted regeneration in Journey's End, he miscounted a bit. That led to some rather erratic behaviour (okay, that was more the world economy going down the tubes, Tennant double-booking himself with Hamlet, and probably several other real life factors), but still –
I think there are other reasons (in the actually Whoniverse this time) at play for why Twelve is so… off.
I've seen it being postulated, and am starting to agree with the theory, that Twelve's regeneration has been tampered with. Whether that tampering was done by the Time Lords, by the Mysterious Missy, or by some other, so-far unknown force, I don't know. But I do hope that this situation is resolved by the series' end.
"No, no, no. Easier question: what's wrong with my yo-yo?"
"Doctor, it goes up and down."
"Bingo."
The yo-yo also made me smile (and again with the questions! He is a very scientific Doctor, Twelve, coming up with hypothesises all the time. And scribbling on his blackboard… I really can't wait to find out what that's all about!)
But, for a scientific Doctor… wow, he stumbles into some interestingly researched episodes. The moon increasing in gravity makes zero sense. Eggs don't work like that. Though, I suppose that the Doctor's original hypothesis of there being a lot of spider germs could possibly be correct (1.3 billion ton of spider germ? Eek.). I am, however, willing to dismiss this incredibly dodgy science for one reason and one reason only:
It is a hilariously clever plot device for explaining why the characters aren't bouncing around like fluffy little clouds in harnesses a la the Cybermen in The Moonbase. Budget-saving hand waves, especially when they're this obvious, always make me lol.
It doesn't explain what was going on with floating Courtney right after the spider germs showed up. I wonder if there was some dialogue cut for timing reasons which explained that. Obviously, the scene itself wouldn't have been cut, because it looked somewhat expensive to film. Kind of shaking my head at it a bit though.
"Must be causing chaos on Earth. The Tides will be so high, that they will drown whole cities."
One thing that this episode did very well, I think, is that it made the Earth's decision understandable. While Clara's choice at the end was shown to be the best one, for the weird moon baby, and for the future of humanity; the way things played, humanity's choice – given the information provided to them, and given the large scale death and destruction wrecked by the moon baby's birth – was not wrong either.
I expected them to bomb the moon baby in this episode, and I would've been sad about it, but not disapproving.
"That's what you do with aliens isn't it? You blow them up?"
When Twelve looks at Lundvik here, and acknowledges her, I see him acknowledging Herriot Jones, The Brigadier, Ambrose Northover, and all those other humans he has met over the years who choose destruction as defence.
And I am… conflicted about this.
For one, it is good that the Doctor acknowledges that sometimes there is no better way, and that choosing the less good choice doesn't necessarily make a person evil (especially given all the times he's mae those choices himself. Having the Doctor acknowledge his own hyprocrisy is always refreshing), but he also seems to have lost his ability to see the better choices, to strive for a better way, even when it's impossible.
And that is such a key point of his characterisation throughout all of his incarnations. Something that cannot, must not be lost.
On a lighter note, Courtney and her smart phone cracks me up.
"So then you came up to rescue them with your bombs?"
"Not quite."
"They disappeared ten years ago."
"Nobody came?"
"There was no shuttle."
"You had one."
"It was in a museum. They cut the back off it so kids could ride in it. We'd stopped going into space. Nobody cared, not until…"
Obviously a few people cared, because, by this time line, there was a privately funded moon mission in 2039, and they did a very good job of it for their base to still be habitable after a decade without maintenance.
That said, I think this episode is a very interesting commentary on the modern world. There are a lot of privately funded space programs going on right now, Mars One and the such. Whether or not they'll succeed depends as much on technology and funding as on whether or not they manage to capture people's imaginations.
Certain aspects of space exploration are alive and well at the moment. Putting satellites up into orbit for GPS, and internet, and weather monitoring, etc. is big business. Manned space travel has kind of fallen by the wayside of, "Well, that's nice, but it's not really practical, and what purpose does it serve?" disregarding the many technologies we now use and rely on which owe their existence to astronauts trying to jury-rig a place to live in the most inhospitable conditions imaginable.
But it is amazing how a little wonder can get people looking up at the stars again.
I have more thoughts on this, but they are better placed later in the episode.
"I'm fine."
"Hey, look at me. Look at me. Look. It's alright if you're not."
"I'm fine."
This exchange, I think, perfectly sums up Clara's journey this series, and is, what this episode is really about: Clara realizing that it's alright if she's not fine. And she can do something about that. She can stop.
"Sea of crisis."
*lights flicker*
That really amused me. I am easily amused.
The line about the moon being 100 million years old... I don't know if that's supposed to be a clue (the Doctor has seen this happen before and is being a wanker and withholding that information), or an utter failing of the writer to do basic research, but the rest of line, "which gives you light at night, and seas to sail upon, is in the process of falling to bits," is chilling and poetic.
The quiet as Henry meets his fate is terrifying. This is a director who understands that silence and shadows are far more terrifying than actual monsters – though, in this case, the actual monster are pretty damn terrifying too. I don't have much problem with spiders anymore (I used to) but crap those spider germs are creepy.
"Stay still, it's sensing movement. It can't see you. Fast movement."
That's… actually surprisingly scientifically accurate for spiders.
"Slowly, slowly. Gently, gently. When I say run, run!"
"Who made you the boss?"
"OK, say run then."
Base under siege. Two quotes. Awesomeness.
It's interesting too, the thin line Twelve walks in this episode. He at times does a good job of acknowledging the authority and opinions of others, but it's like he's at war with himself, where he can't figure out when he should be in charge and when he isn't in charge, and then he deals with the stress by running away and leaving someone who never wanted to be in charge responsible for his mess.
And yeah, the floating scene still makes no sense (in Courtney's own words, "it's nuts"), but it's terrifying and tense, and Courtney kills the spider with Lysol, wh
I did like that the Doctor came back for Courtney. So, at least once in the episode he didn't run away from danger, but he didn't go into the room with the spider germs to save her either.
"Please, can I go now? I'm really… really sorry, but I'd like to go home."
The realistic response to the Doctor's lifestyle is very sad. I don't think Courtney is unworthy or a coward. I think she's one of the sanest, most resourceful people the Doctor has ever had on the TARDIS.
"He just had a grand-daughter… He taught me how to fly... We were both given the sack on the same day."
The quiet remembrance for Duke is also very sad. You can sense the great bond between these three astronauts who chose to sacrifice themselves to save the world.
"Doctor, this is dangerous now."
"It was dangerous before. Everything's dangerous if you want it to be. Eating chips is dangerous. Crossing the road… it's no way to live your life."
I like the inversion. Things that the Doctor says which are usually taken as positive are being shown in a darker light. But it's also… a lack of perspective. Nine didn't think eating chips was dangerous. He thought it was life. Ordinary, wonderful, normal human life.
My introduction to Nine was a TV spot telling me that, "it won't be quiet, it won't be safe, and it won't be calm. But I'll tell you what it will be: the trip of a lifetime!"
Eleven, on the other hand, came up to Clara with the offer of safe, pre-packaged life enhancing trips that could be regulated to Wednesdays only. She was given a different promise than most companions. It's only fair that she's upset when that promise is broken.
"Look, I have a duty of care, OK. You know what that is?"
I don't think he does.
Maybe he used to.
I like the parallels too between this and Clara being his Carer. Except, his lack of caring is now too much even for her.
"She's fine, what are you, 35?"
"15."
I'm beginning to wonder if he actually can't judge ages anymore, and if this is linked with his inability to see time the same way he used to.
"We don't have to stay, do we? It's obvious, isn't it? The moon doesn't break up."
"How do you know?"
"Because I've been in the future and the moon is still there. I think. You know the moon is still there, right?"
"Maybe it isn't the moon. Maybe it's a hologram or a big painting. Or a special effect. Maybe it's a completely different moon."
Wow, meta, with all of the painted/CGI moons the Whoniverse has had over the years. And more Nightmare in Silver connections with it being maybe a completely different (fake) moon (Spacey-Zoomer-Ride). And a stealthy end plot reveal as well.
"So it doesn't break-up. So the world doesn't end. So let's get in the TARDIS and go!"
"Clara, there are some moments in time that I simply can't see. Little eye blinks. They don't look the same as other things. They're not clear. They're fuzzy, they're grey. Little moments in which big things are decided."
The way he turns when he admits this is very telling. He's admitting that he's not all knowing. He's admitting too, that he doesn't entirely know how the future ended up the way it did, or if it will be the same future each time he visits.
And I don't think it is the same future each time. In The Long Game, Nine claims that his history is perfect, but then he realizes that someone else has nudged things in a different direction. Later on in the series, he discovers the fallouts of his actions and says, "Oh my god, I made this world."
Eleven, when he first meets up with Amy, discovers that large portions of time have been altered. Rose is, presumably, still locked away in the Doomsday dimension, but the events that locked her there never took place.
Back in the Classic series, there is the long-standing fan discussion on the Daleks, and would they have become such a threat if the First Doctor had never visiting their world? If the Fourth Doctor had touched two wires together?
Twelve says that the future is no more maellable than the past, but I don't believe in pre-destination and I don't think that the Whoniverse does either. Fixed points were introduced to show that there are some events that the Doctor can't change, but I've always preferred the idea that fixed points can be changed, but the outcome of doing so is completely unpredictable.
Some changes, the universe can smooth over to keep things on a steady course towards the end of time. Other decision are so momentous that they have the potential to unravel the entire web of time and put a new one up in its place.
The Doctor is many things, but he will always be a Time Lord. He will intervene to save a few lives, to help the Earth, to do good, but even he doesn't want to unravel the web.
"And this is one of them. Right now, I can't tell what happens to the moon, because whatever happens to the moon hasn't been decided yet. And it's going to be decided here, and now, which very much sounds as though… it's up to us."
I feel like this works on a meta level, as well as driving the plot forward. This episode runs on the idea that humanity has abandoned space because it has run out of wonder, because it has been convinced there is nothing out there worth looking for. That might happen. That might be happening right now. Or it might not be.
Whatever happens in the future, whether it concerns space travel, or global warming, or intellectual property rights, or internet privacy, or world hunger, or terrorism, or choose-the-headline-of-your-choice hasn't been decided yet, and can go either way.
We choose. It's up to us. And the choices of one person – an astronaut, or a teacher, or a scared teenager caught up in a situation they don't understand –
Can change the course of history.
"Neither of you is going anywhere… we're the last chance for Earth, and you're staying to help me."
"Decision made."
I think that this dialogue is interesting. I keep coming back to it. Lundvik asks the Doctor for help. That is her choice. The Doctor says, "Decision made," and I think… at this point he has made his decision, and has also decided how he is going to go about putting it into practice.
And Clara is shaking, because throughout this, her thoughts on the matter have been completely over-ruled, and she knows that, come decision time, they will be over-ruled again. Whether the Doctor is there or not.
"How can the moon die though."
"Everything does, sooner or later."
Twelve has accumulated a lot of knowledge from his companions over the years, but he keeps applying it in all the wrong places. Instead of accepting loss, he has become fatalistic. Why bother trying to preserve life, or friendship, or hope when it just goes away in the end?
Why bother trying to reach for dead stars?
Why bother saving an intergalactic head louse?
Why bother sticking around?
Why bother with a world full of people who just don't care?
I feel like, "why bother?" is being asked a lot in this episode, and while the ending is kind of cheesy, it's also an answer to that question. We bother because we care, because we hope, and because we wonder.
And when we stop doing those things, it's the first stop on the way to losing more than just our momentum. It's the first stop on the way to losing the future.
Twelve doesn't care anymore. And so, he loses.
"You, get your bombs ready. You, back to the TARDIS, get safe, get Courtney safe. I will be back."
I'm just… jumping into a plot hole for a bit. I did enjoy this though. It's very dramatic.
"Will he? Will he be back?"
"If he says so, I suppose he will."
She begins to doubt, and, given the opening, the audience doubts as well.
"No, Courtney, don't put any photos on Tumblr."
"My granny used to put things on Tumblr."
xD
"She's in the shuttle, she'll turn up."
"Last time you said that she ended up on the other side of the planet!"
"You two have never gotten on, have you?"
xD
"I can't. The secretary hates me. She thinks I gave her a packet of TENAlady for secret santa."
xD
Clara's real life and Doctor life collide in the most ridiculous ways. I also really like that she doesn't have Courtney's phone number… because why would she? That would be weird and creepy. Weirder and creepier than abducting her to the moon, actually.
I am very glad that is acknowledged.
"Oh, she can't post that! She can't put pictures of me online!"
xD
Doctor, have you seen the pictures of you online?Or the fanfic.
xD
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"The moon's an egg?"
"Um… has it always been an egg?"
"Is it a chicken?"
xD
Okay, let's toss science out the window for a moment. This scene is so ridiculous and hillarious and I honestly can't think of any other TV show that could get away with this. I definitely can't think of any that can talk about a chicken laying the moon and then turn in into a serious ethical debate.
"I think that it's unique. I think that's the only one of its kind in the universe. I think that that is utterly beautiful."
"How do we kill it?"
So… apparently I'm not the only one who wondered if this was supposed to be a really ham-handed and inappropriate pro-life/pro-choice commentary. I don't …think… it was (at least, I really, really, really hope it wasn't.)
But all the stuff about little dead babies, "I don't have any kids," "you can't blame a baby for kicking," and, "it's your moon, womankind, it's your choice," had me going wtf more than a bit. Especially the Doctor backing off because, "Some decisions are too important not to make on your own," and then Clara telling the Doctor that he should have helped make the choice because it's his moon too.
Why did no one pick up on this subtext and edit the hell out of it. OMG.
Unless it's supposed to be there, in which case… OMG.
On a different spin, the Doctor saying, "Some decisions are too important not to make on your own," had me really side-eyeing him. Because when he's had important decisions to make in the past, he has usually looked to his companions for guidance:
"Do I have the right?" was decided as much by Sarah-Jane as it was by Four (though, he went with his own decision and didn't kill the Daleks).
In The Day of the Doctor, a giant segment of the plot was taken up with jiggling the timelines so that the War Doctor didn't have to make the choice to destroy Gallifrey on his own.
Because some decisions are too important not to get a second opinion.
Or… I don't get how Twelve is justifying his running away. I think he was afraid that he'd end up killing the moon baby, because it was the logical thing to do, and then he wouldn't, "be the Doctor anymore."
(Yeah, a lot of space whale parallels here too. Except… the space whale, we knew it was good. The moon baby, we know nothing about. I think the point is supposed to be that it shouldn't matter. But IDEK. I like the story and think it's a good script, but the message does get a bit muddled in the middle).
"Look at the atmosphere. That is paper-thin. That is the only thing that saves us from death. Everything else, the stars, the blackness, that's all dead. Sadly, that is the only life any of us will ever know."
This is sad, and beautiful. Life is fragile. Our planet is precious and a thing to inspire wonder.
I'm also going to stop here to say that the cinematography in this episode is gorgeous. It's primarly shot in a quarry and it still manages to be absolutely stunning. Absolute props to the director and production team for that.
"The Earth isn't my home. The moon's not my moon. Sorry."
WTF doctor?
"Who's better qualified?"
"I don't know, the Preside of America!"
I am amused that Clara ends up being completely right about this.
"Listen, we went to dinner in Berlin in 1937, right? We didn't nip out after dinner and kill Hitler. I've never killed Hitler. And you'd never expect me to kill Hitler. The future, is no more malleable than the past."
You did shove him in a closet, though. Just saying.
"Oh, what a prat."
I agree completely.
"It's not a chicken."
"I don't think it's a chicken. I'm not completely stupid."
Courtney is amazing. Just brilliant at every turn.
"Listen, do you want today to be the day life on Earth stopped because you made an unfair decision?"
…
"Why don't you call me Clara?"
"I prefer Miss, Miss."
And thus Clara turns into the Doctor.
A time traveller who makes difficult decisions. Who goes by a title rather than a name.
It also makes me realise that there is another character in this series going by Miss. A character who sarcastically refers to the Doctor as "her boyfriend."
And we still don't know who that woman in the shop was…
"We don't know what this creature will do. If it'll hurt us, help us, or just leave us alone. We have to decide together."
Symmetry.
The thing with the lights was pretty brilliant, actually. Though… it kind of sucks for all those people on the day-lit side of the Earth who don't get to make a decision about humanity's future. Sorry Australia. And all those people living in poorer countries who also don't have lights, and don't get to make a decision.
A bit of (probably unintentional) social commentary there.
I like what the lights set up. It was very tense. If this happened, wouldn't we all turn our lights off? I kept expecting though, right up to the end, for all of the lights to come back on. For there to be a Doctor Who esque moment of humanity standing in solidarity for the rights of the little baby alien.
Instead it was humanity standing together in solidarity to say, "the alien flea has been causing chaos, please just blow it up already."
"Mind your language please, there are children present."
It's 8 pm somewhere, but yep, there probably are.
"Did you know?"
"You made your decision, humanity made its choice."
"No, we ignore humanity."
"So what happens now then? Tell me what happens now?"
"In the mid-21st century, humankind starts creeping off into the stars… spread its way through the galaxy… to the very edges of the universe… And it… endures til the end of time."
He turns his back on them again here.
I found Twelve's looking into time very interesting and utterly alien. It's not a skill we've seen the Doctor display before, so I wonder if it's something new this regeneration, or if it's something he's always been able to do somewhat effortlessly, but which Twelve has difficulty with. Because Twelve is clearly having a lot of trouble. He grits out the words like they're painful. Like he's uncertain. Like he wants them to be true.
Again, I'm thinking of something he said in Into the Dalek, "I'm trying to save the future."
I want to know how he knows it's in danger and what he's trying to save it from.
I want to know why he has to turn his back.
"And it does all that, because one day, in the year 2049, when it'd stopped thinking about going to the stars, something occurred that made it look up. Not down. It looked out there, into the blackness, and it saw something beautiful, something wonderful, that for once it didn't want to destroy. And in that one moment, the whole course of history was changed."
And in ten years, Bowie Base One will be built on Mars and there will be all that awfulness, and then humanity will spread across the stars. Or maybe history has shifted and things will proceed differently. I really feel that Clara hit the nail on the head when she said that the moon hatching is something that should've come up in conversation at some point.
I like the optimism though, and the idea that wonder and hope can change history. I keep going on about it, but as I told![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kaffyr in a different post, I really believe in the power of positive science fiction, because I think that our predictions of the future forms a good gauge of our present.
Science fiction is, in general, an optimistic genre. Even when it goes into dystopian places, it is generally about people rising above those circumstances, or serving as a warning for the reader about why we must always strive for better, but there does seem to be a trend today towards nihilism, towards a darker 'n grittier style which can be enjoyable, but it's dominance worries me.
Isaac Asimov wrote, "Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today - but the core of science fiction, its essence, the concept around which it revolves, has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all."
If everyone comes to believe that the future of the human race is a boot stamping on a face, repeatedly, forever… then we're probably going to get a boot.
It everyone believes that we can do better… If we believe we should: "explore new worlds, seek out new life, and go where no man has gone before," then we might not get a better world, but at least we get the possibility of having one.
Because, "aim for the moon, even if you fail, you'll land among the stars."
There's a far more in-depth essay about this over HERE at i09, which is really worth the read.
"Oh my gosh, it laid a new egg."
"That's what we call a new moon."
xD It's so cheesy. I love it.
"Tell me what you knew."
"Nothing. I told you, I've got… grey areas."
"Yeah. I noticed."
…
"Essentially, what I knew, was that you would make the best choice. I had faith that you'd always make the right choice."
I want to smack the smile right off his face when he says this. Generally, when the Doctor says he has faith in humanity, I think he means it, but right here, Clara can see exactly what he means: "I had faith that you'd do what I wanted you to do, even if I didn't tell you to. So if you made the wrong decision, it wouldn't have been my fault, but since you made the right choice, I can take credit."
"Yeah, well, respected is not how I feel."
I think that the Doctor genuinely does think he was being respectful. I don't think he was. I think Clara's rage is very justified. I really hope that they both learn something from this experience and become better, wiser people for having it.
I'm really sad that their friendship ended this way, but I am also really glad that Clara recognized how unhealthy her relationship with the Doctor had become and GTFO.
"You walk our Earth Doctor. You breathe our air. You make us your friend, and that is your moon too, and you can you can damn well help us when we need it."
…
"You go away, OK? You go a long way away."
I actually cheered. Clara looks so happy. So relieved. She never asked to be the Impossible Girl. She never asked to be the Doctor's Carer.
That was a departure right up there with Tegan's, "it's stopped being fun, Doctor, goodbye."
Though on less good terms.
When she called Twelve out on what an ass he's been, it felt like she was speaking up for all the viewers at home. Stop telling us to take off the training wheels when we've had them off for quite a while. Stop pretending like you have the moral high ground when you clearly don't.
I agree that letting humanity choose its own fate may have been the correct decision, the respectful decision possibly… except, the Doctor didn't do that. If he'd wanted to let humanity choose, he could have left when Clara asked him to. He didn't do that. He said, "it's up to us." He stayed, and then he left Clara to make his hard decision by proxy, and that is why she was angry. And I agree with her.
"You're never finished with anyone while they can still make you angry."
"When did you get to be so wise? Same way as anyone else. I had a really bad day."
I liked Danny's commentary at the end. I didn't find his interaction with Clara patronizing in this scene, because he was clearing speaking to her as an equal, from a place of mutual experience. I also found it to be good advice in general. We all have bad days. The important thing is to learn from them. And then put them behind us.
This episode has actually made me like The Caretaker a bit, in retrospect, because knowing what all that awkwardness is set-up for somehow makes it a lot more palatable. I still think everyone behaves awfully in that episode, but… I also think I might be able to re-watch it now without screaming (though, I'm not confident enough in this theory to put it to the test any time soon. Maybe in a few months...)
I think that Clara will be back again at some point this series. I hope she isn't Missy, because it would sadden me to see a character as amazing as Clara reduced to that because she's unable to let go of her anger. I am excited for next week, because there are mummies on the Orient Express! In Space! And I think I saw an Osirian!
I'm hoping that Twelve learns something from this episode and stops being so awful. I really hope that he gets a new companion and doesn't spent the next four episodes until the finale bouncing around time and space on his own, because that generally doesn't turn out too well.
Or, in short, I liked this episode and it made me think many thinky thoughts.
"An innocent life, versus the future of all mankind. We have forty-five minutes to decide."
Yes, the opening is a bit trope-y and cliche, but I think it works well, and I do love symmetry.
Initially, I thought that Courtney was going to be the innocent life, because she was standing right there looking distressed. And even though she wasn't… I wonder how much it would have changed the episode if she had been? The Earth would still (logically) have said yes, and Clara would have been far more enthusiastic about hitting the abort button. And would still have been angry at the Doctor at the end...
"She took your psychic paper, she's been using it as fake ID."
"To get into museums?"
"No, to buy White Lightning or alcopops or whatever."
And speaking of Courtney, I really enjoyed her in this episode. She's out of her depth, but that's not because she's an unworthy companion; it's because she's a terrified fifteen year old, and the Doctor is being more of a jerk than usual.
I like how this exchange with Clara shows how utterly out of touch with humanity the Doctor can be sometimes, but it also shows that, despite how he's acting, he does actually have quite a bit of respect for Courtney. Heck, he probably let her steal the psychic paper, under the assumption that she wouldn't do anything he wouldn't do.
"You really think it. I'm nothing?"
"How would you like to be the first woman on the moon? That special enough for you?"
I'm also interested with the parallels between this and Nightmare in Silver which also contained the moon (sort of) and the Doctor abducting some children to try and set things right with Clara. It also has a monster-of-the-week which can be defeated using dish soap, but that's neither here nor there.
More importantly, Nightmare in Silver had a Clara who trusted the Doctor to keep her and her charges safe. Right from the beginning of this episode, she doesn't share that trust with Twelve – and rightly so as it turns out. Because when things took a bad turn in Nightmare, Eleven was ready to sacrifice himself to save those he'd put in danger. In Kill the Moon, and indeed, throughout series 8 so far, when the water gets hot, Twelve climbs out of the pot and runs away – often using Clara as a ladder.
On the other side of things, this Clara understands her own responsibilities better. In Nightmare in Silver, Angie and Artie got a trip via blackmail, but teacher!Clara is wise to the ways of her charges and wouldn't be so easily tricked. She understands that she is in a position of authority and that it is her job to keep Courtney safe.
Having Twelve disregard that authority and then run off is a double blow.
"Why didn't you just tell her you didn't mean it?"
The Doctor made a problem. Clara offered him a solution. The Doctor disregarded it in favour of his own solution, making the problem bigger, and then spread his arms magnanimously, and said that he'd been trying to make amends. Why are you mad at me?
I actually can't tell if Twelve is that much of a manipulative arse, or… if he actually can't judge these things anymore, and the terrible behaviour is the unintentional result of him trying to follow a script he can only half remember. I think that the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. I almost feel bad for him… except, I wouldn't particularly want to be around him either until he figures out how to be a bit more pleasant. I like Six, but I wouldn't want to be Peri, if you get what I mean.
Jumping ahead a little bit, I found "We're about to crash into the moon; hang onto a nuclear bomb for safety!" to be absolutely hilarious, though I did scream at them to put their helmets back on.
"You'll have to spend a lot of time shooting me, because I'll keep on regenerating."
The regeneration joke, combined with Twelve's ridiculous windmill dance, made me giggle. "Shoot the girl," was fairly shocking, though it was certainly meant to be, and I could envision quite a few other Doctors using the same tactic.
One thing I found interesting here is Twelve confronting the fact that he doesn't know how many regenerations he has now. If it's a new set, a half-set, or if he is now, essentially, immortal. And it must be frightening to be that unsure of your own mortality. I'm thinking of Ten at the end of his run, when, I think, he had a feeling that something (the War Doctor) had happened, and, combined with the aborted regeneration in Journey's End, he miscounted a bit. That led to some rather erratic behaviour (okay, that was more the world economy going down the tubes, Tennant double-booking himself with Hamlet, and probably several other real life factors), but still –
I think there are other reasons (in the actually Whoniverse this time) at play for why Twelve is so… off.
I've seen it being postulated, and am starting to agree with the theory, that Twelve's regeneration has been tampered with. Whether that tampering was done by the Time Lords, by the Mysterious Missy, or by some other, so-far unknown force, I don't know. But I do hope that this situation is resolved by the series' end.
"No, no, no. Easier question: what's wrong with my yo-yo?"
"Doctor, it goes up and down."
"Bingo."
The yo-yo also made me smile (and again with the questions! He is a very scientific Doctor, Twelve, coming up with hypothesises all the time. And scribbling on his blackboard… I really can't wait to find out what that's all about!)
But, for a scientific Doctor… wow, he stumbles into some interestingly researched episodes. The moon increasing in gravity makes zero sense. Eggs don't work like that. Though, I suppose that the Doctor's original hypothesis of there being a lot of spider germs could possibly be correct (1.3 billion ton of spider germ? Eek.). I am, however, willing to dismiss this incredibly dodgy science for one reason and one reason only:
It is a hilariously clever plot device for explaining why the characters aren't bouncing around like fluffy little clouds in harnesses a la the Cybermen in The Moonbase. Budget-saving hand waves, especially when they're this obvious, always make me lol.
It doesn't explain what was going on with floating Courtney right after the spider germs showed up. I wonder if there was some dialogue cut for timing reasons which explained that. Obviously, the scene itself wouldn't have been cut, because it looked somewhat expensive to film. Kind of shaking my head at it a bit though.
"Must be causing chaos on Earth. The Tides will be so high, that they will drown whole cities."
One thing that this episode did very well, I think, is that it made the Earth's decision understandable. While Clara's choice at the end was shown to be the best one, for the weird moon baby, and for the future of humanity; the way things played, humanity's choice – given the information provided to them, and given the large scale death and destruction wrecked by the moon baby's birth – was not wrong either.
I expected them to bomb the moon baby in this episode, and I would've been sad about it, but not disapproving.
"That's what you do with aliens isn't it? You blow them up?"
When Twelve looks at Lundvik here, and acknowledges her, I see him acknowledging Herriot Jones, The Brigadier, Ambrose Northover, and all those other humans he has met over the years who choose destruction as defence.
And I am… conflicted about this.
For one, it is good that the Doctor acknowledges that sometimes there is no better way, and that choosing the less good choice doesn't necessarily make a person evil (especially given all the times he's mae those choices himself. Having the Doctor acknowledge his own hyprocrisy is always refreshing), but he also seems to have lost his ability to see the better choices, to strive for a better way, even when it's impossible.
And that is such a key point of his characterisation throughout all of his incarnations. Something that cannot, must not be lost.
On a lighter note, Courtney and her smart phone cracks me up.
"So then you came up to rescue them with your bombs?"
"Not quite."
"They disappeared ten years ago."
"Nobody came?"
"There was no shuttle."
"You had one."
"It was in a museum. They cut the back off it so kids could ride in it. We'd stopped going into space. Nobody cared, not until…"
Obviously a few people cared, because, by this time line, there was a privately funded moon mission in 2039, and they did a very good job of it for their base to still be habitable after a decade without maintenance.
That said, I think this episode is a very interesting commentary on the modern world. There are a lot of privately funded space programs going on right now, Mars One and the such. Whether or not they'll succeed depends as much on technology and funding as on whether or not they manage to capture people's imaginations.
Certain aspects of space exploration are alive and well at the moment. Putting satellites up into orbit for GPS, and internet, and weather monitoring, etc. is big business. Manned space travel has kind of fallen by the wayside of, "Well, that's nice, but it's not really practical, and what purpose does it serve?" disregarding the many technologies we now use and rely on which owe their existence to astronauts trying to jury-rig a place to live in the most inhospitable conditions imaginable.
But it is amazing how a little wonder can get people looking up at the stars again.
I have more thoughts on this, but they are better placed later in the episode.
"I'm fine."
"Hey, look at me. Look at me. Look. It's alright if you're not."
"I'm fine."
This exchange, I think, perfectly sums up Clara's journey this series, and is, what this episode is really about: Clara realizing that it's alright if she's not fine. And she can do something about that. She can stop.
"Sea of crisis."
*lights flicker*
That really amused me. I am easily amused.
The line about the moon being 100 million years old... I don't know if that's supposed to be a clue (the Doctor has seen this happen before and is being a wanker and withholding that information), or an utter failing of the writer to do basic research, but the rest of line, "which gives you light at night, and seas to sail upon, is in the process of falling to bits," is chilling and poetic.
The quiet as Henry meets his fate is terrifying. This is a director who understands that silence and shadows are far more terrifying than actual monsters – though, in this case, the actual monster are pretty damn terrifying too. I don't have much problem with spiders anymore (I used to) but crap those spider germs are creepy.
"Stay still, it's sensing movement. It can't see you. Fast movement."
That's… actually surprisingly scientifically accurate for spiders.
"Slowly, slowly. Gently, gently. When I say run, run!"
"Who made you the boss?"
"OK, say run then."
Base under siege. Two quotes. Awesomeness.
It's interesting too, the thin line Twelve walks in this episode. He at times does a good job of acknowledging the authority and opinions of others, but it's like he's at war with himself, where he can't figure out when he should be in charge and when he isn't in charge, and then he deals with the stress by running away and leaving someone who never wanted to be in charge responsible for his mess.
And yeah, the floating scene still makes no sense (in Courtney's own words, "it's nuts"), but it's terrifying and tense, and Courtney kills the spider with Lysol, wh
I did like that the Doctor came back for Courtney. So, at least once in the episode he didn't run away from danger, but he didn't go into the room with the spider germs to save her either.
"Please, can I go now? I'm really… really sorry, but I'd like to go home."
The realistic response to the Doctor's lifestyle is very sad. I don't think Courtney is unworthy or a coward. I think she's one of the sanest, most resourceful people the Doctor has ever had on the TARDIS.
"He just had a grand-daughter… He taught me how to fly... We were both given the sack on the same day."
The quiet remembrance for Duke is also very sad. You can sense the great bond between these three astronauts who chose to sacrifice themselves to save the world.
"Doctor, this is dangerous now."
"It was dangerous before. Everything's dangerous if you want it to be. Eating chips is dangerous. Crossing the road… it's no way to live your life."
I like the inversion. Things that the Doctor says which are usually taken as positive are being shown in a darker light. But it's also… a lack of perspective. Nine didn't think eating chips was dangerous. He thought it was life. Ordinary, wonderful, normal human life.
My introduction to Nine was a TV spot telling me that, "it won't be quiet, it won't be safe, and it won't be calm. But I'll tell you what it will be: the trip of a lifetime!"
Eleven, on the other hand, came up to Clara with the offer of safe, pre-packaged life enhancing trips that could be regulated to Wednesdays only. She was given a different promise than most companions. It's only fair that she's upset when that promise is broken.
"Look, I have a duty of care, OK. You know what that is?"
I don't think he does.
Maybe he used to.
I like the parallels too between this and Clara being his Carer. Except, his lack of caring is now too much even for her.
"She's fine, what are you, 35?"
"15."
I'm beginning to wonder if he actually can't judge ages anymore, and if this is linked with his inability to see time the same way he used to.
"We don't have to stay, do we? It's obvious, isn't it? The moon doesn't break up."
"How do you know?"
"Because I've been in the future and the moon is still there. I think. You know the moon is still there, right?"
"Maybe it isn't the moon. Maybe it's a hologram or a big painting. Or a special effect. Maybe it's a completely different moon."
Wow, meta, with all of the painted/CGI moons the Whoniverse has had over the years. And more Nightmare in Silver connections with it being maybe a completely different (fake) moon (Spacey-Zoomer-Ride). And a stealthy end plot reveal as well.
"So it doesn't break-up. So the world doesn't end. So let's get in the TARDIS and go!"
"Clara, there are some moments in time that I simply can't see. Little eye blinks. They don't look the same as other things. They're not clear. They're fuzzy, they're grey. Little moments in which big things are decided."
The way he turns when he admits this is very telling. He's admitting that he's not all knowing. He's admitting too, that he doesn't entirely know how the future ended up the way it did, or if it will be the same future each time he visits.
And I don't think it is the same future each time. In The Long Game, Nine claims that his history is perfect, but then he realizes that someone else has nudged things in a different direction. Later on in the series, he discovers the fallouts of his actions and says, "Oh my god, I made this world."
Eleven, when he first meets up with Amy, discovers that large portions of time have been altered. Rose is, presumably, still locked away in the Doomsday dimension, but the events that locked her there never took place.
Back in the Classic series, there is the long-standing fan discussion on the Daleks, and would they have become such a threat if the First Doctor had never visiting their world? If the Fourth Doctor had touched two wires together?
Twelve says that the future is no more maellable than the past, but I don't believe in pre-destination and I don't think that the Whoniverse does either. Fixed points were introduced to show that there are some events that the Doctor can't change, but I've always preferred the idea that fixed points can be changed, but the outcome of doing so is completely unpredictable.
Some changes, the universe can smooth over to keep things on a steady course towards the end of time. Other decision are so momentous that they have the potential to unravel the entire web of time and put a new one up in its place.
The Doctor is many things, but he will always be a Time Lord. He will intervene to save a few lives, to help the Earth, to do good, but even he doesn't want to unravel the web.
"And this is one of them. Right now, I can't tell what happens to the moon, because whatever happens to the moon hasn't been decided yet. And it's going to be decided here, and now, which very much sounds as though… it's up to us."
I feel like this works on a meta level, as well as driving the plot forward. This episode runs on the idea that humanity has abandoned space because it has run out of wonder, because it has been convinced there is nothing out there worth looking for. That might happen. That might be happening right now. Or it might not be.
Whatever happens in the future, whether it concerns space travel, or global warming, or intellectual property rights, or internet privacy, or world hunger, or terrorism, or choose-the-headline-of-your-choice hasn't been decided yet, and can go either way.
We choose. It's up to us. And the choices of one person – an astronaut, or a teacher, or a scared teenager caught up in a situation they don't understand –
Can change the course of history.
"Neither of you is going anywhere… we're the last chance for Earth, and you're staying to help me."
"Decision made."
I think that this dialogue is interesting. I keep coming back to it. Lundvik asks the Doctor for help. That is her choice. The Doctor says, "Decision made," and I think… at this point he has made his decision, and has also decided how he is going to go about putting it into practice.
And Clara is shaking, because throughout this, her thoughts on the matter have been completely over-ruled, and she knows that, come decision time, they will be over-ruled again. Whether the Doctor is there or not.
"How can the moon die though."
"Everything does, sooner or later."
Twelve has accumulated a lot of knowledge from his companions over the years, but he keeps applying it in all the wrong places. Instead of accepting loss, he has become fatalistic. Why bother trying to preserve life, or friendship, or hope when it just goes away in the end?
Why bother trying to reach for dead stars?
Why bother saving an intergalactic head louse?
Why bother sticking around?
Why bother with a world full of people who just don't care?
I feel like, "why bother?" is being asked a lot in this episode, and while the ending is kind of cheesy, it's also an answer to that question. We bother because we care, because we hope, and because we wonder.
And when we stop doing those things, it's the first stop on the way to losing more than just our momentum. It's the first stop on the way to losing the future.
Twelve doesn't care anymore. And so, he loses.
"You, get your bombs ready. You, back to the TARDIS, get safe, get Courtney safe. I will be back."
I'm just… jumping into a plot hole for a bit. I did enjoy this though. It's very dramatic.
"Will he? Will he be back?"
"If he says so, I suppose he will."
She begins to doubt, and, given the opening, the audience doubts as well.
"No, Courtney, don't put any photos on Tumblr."
"My granny used to put things on Tumblr."
xD
"She's in the shuttle, she'll turn up."
"Last time you said that she ended up on the other side of the planet!"
"You two have never gotten on, have you?"
xD
"I can't. The secretary hates me. She thinks I gave her a packet of TENAlady for secret santa."
xD
Clara's real life and Doctor life collide in the most ridiculous ways. I also really like that she doesn't have Courtney's phone number… because why would she? That would be weird and creepy. Weirder and creepier than abducting her to the moon, actually.
I am very glad that is acknowledged.
"Oh, she can't post that! She can't put pictures of me online!"
xD
Doctor, have you seen the pictures of you online?
xD
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"The moon's an egg?"
"Um… has it always been an egg?"
"Is it a chicken?"
xD
Okay, let's toss science out the window for a moment. This scene is so ridiculous and hillarious and I honestly can't think of any other TV show that could get away with this. I definitely can't think of any that can talk about a chicken laying the moon and then turn in into a serious ethical debate.
"I think that it's unique. I think that's the only one of its kind in the universe. I think that that is utterly beautiful."
"How do we kill it?"
So… apparently I'm not the only one who wondered if this was supposed to be a really ham-handed and inappropriate pro-life/pro-choice commentary. I don't …think… it was (at least, I really, really, really hope it wasn't.)
But all the stuff about little dead babies, "I don't have any kids," "you can't blame a baby for kicking," and, "it's your moon, womankind, it's your choice," had me going wtf more than a bit. Especially the Doctor backing off because, "Some decisions are too important not to make on your own," and then Clara telling the Doctor that he should have helped make the choice because it's his moon too.
Why did no one pick up on this subtext and edit the hell out of it. OMG.
Unless it's supposed to be there, in which case… OMG.
On a different spin, the Doctor saying, "Some decisions are too important not to make on your own," had me really side-eyeing him. Because when he's had important decisions to make in the past, he has usually looked to his companions for guidance:
"Do I have the right?" was decided as much by Sarah-Jane as it was by Four (though, he went with his own decision and didn't kill the Daleks).
In The Day of the Doctor, a giant segment of the plot was taken up with jiggling the timelines so that the War Doctor didn't have to make the choice to destroy Gallifrey on his own.
Because some decisions are too important not to get a second opinion.
Or… I don't get how Twelve is justifying his running away. I think he was afraid that he'd end up killing the moon baby, because it was the logical thing to do, and then he wouldn't, "be the Doctor anymore."
(Yeah, a lot of space whale parallels here too. Except… the space whale, we knew it was good. The moon baby, we know nothing about. I think the point is supposed to be that it shouldn't matter. But IDEK. I like the story and think it's a good script, but the message does get a bit muddled in the middle).
"Look at the atmosphere. That is paper-thin. That is the only thing that saves us from death. Everything else, the stars, the blackness, that's all dead. Sadly, that is the only life any of us will ever know."
This is sad, and beautiful. Life is fragile. Our planet is precious and a thing to inspire wonder.
I'm also going to stop here to say that the cinematography in this episode is gorgeous. It's primarly shot in a quarry and it still manages to be absolutely stunning. Absolute props to the director and production team for that.
"The Earth isn't my home. The moon's not my moon. Sorry."
WTF doctor?
"Who's better qualified?"
"I don't know, the Preside of America!"
I am amused that Clara ends up being completely right about this.
"Listen, we went to dinner in Berlin in 1937, right? We didn't nip out after dinner and kill Hitler. I've never killed Hitler. And you'd never expect me to kill Hitler. The future, is no more malleable than the past."
You did shove him in a closet, though. Just saying.
"Oh, what a prat."
I agree completely.
"It's not a chicken."
"I don't think it's a chicken. I'm not completely stupid."
Courtney is amazing. Just brilliant at every turn.
"Listen, do you want today to be the day life on Earth stopped because you made an unfair decision?"
…
"Why don't you call me Clara?"
"I prefer Miss, Miss."
And thus Clara turns into the Doctor.
A time traveller who makes difficult decisions. Who goes by a title rather than a name.
It also makes me realise that there is another character in this series going by Miss. A character who sarcastically refers to the Doctor as "her boyfriend."
And we still don't know who that woman in the shop was…
"We don't know what this creature will do. If it'll hurt us, help us, or just leave us alone. We have to decide together."
Symmetry.
The thing with the lights was pretty brilliant, actually. Though… it kind of sucks for all those people on the day-lit side of the Earth who don't get to make a decision about humanity's future. Sorry Australia. And all those people living in poorer countries who also don't have lights, and don't get to make a decision.
A bit of (probably unintentional) social commentary there.
I like what the lights set up. It was very tense. If this happened, wouldn't we all turn our lights off? I kept expecting though, right up to the end, for all of the lights to come back on. For there to be a Doctor Who esque moment of humanity standing in solidarity for the rights of the little baby alien.
Instead it was humanity standing together in solidarity to say, "the alien flea has been causing chaos, please just blow it up already."
"Mind your language please, there are children present."
It's 8 pm somewhere, but yep, there probably are.
"Did you know?"
"You made your decision, humanity made its choice."
"No, we ignore humanity."
"So what happens now then? Tell me what happens now?"
"In the mid-21st century, humankind starts creeping off into the stars… spread its way through the galaxy… to the very edges of the universe… And it… endures til the end of time."
He turns his back on them again here.
I found Twelve's looking into time very interesting and utterly alien. It's not a skill we've seen the Doctor display before, so I wonder if it's something new this regeneration, or if it's something he's always been able to do somewhat effortlessly, but which Twelve has difficulty with. Because Twelve is clearly having a lot of trouble. He grits out the words like they're painful. Like he's uncertain. Like he wants them to be true.
Again, I'm thinking of something he said in Into the Dalek, "I'm trying to save the future."
I want to know how he knows it's in danger and what he's trying to save it from.
I want to know why he has to turn his back.
"And it does all that, because one day, in the year 2049, when it'd stopped thinking about going to the stars, something occurred that made it look up. Not down. It looked out there, into the blackness, and it saw something beautiful, something wonderful, that for once it didn't want to destroy. And in that one moment, the whole course of history was changed."
And in ten years, Bowie Base One will be built on Mars and there will be all that awfulness, and then humanity will spread across the stars. Or maybe history has shifted and things will proceed differently. I really feel that Clara hit the nail on the head when she said that the moon hatching is something that should've come up in conversation at some point.
I like the optimism though, and the idea that wonder and hope can change history. I keep going on about it, but as I told
kaffyr in a different post, I really believe in the power of positive science fiction, because I think that our predictions of the future forms a good gauge of our present.Science fiction is, in general, an optimistic genre. Even when it goes into dystopian places, it is generally about people rising above those circumstances, or serving as a warning for the reader about why we must always strive for better, but there does seem to be a trend today towards nihilism, towards a darker 'n grittier style which can be enjoyable, but it's dominance worries me.
Isaac Asimov wrote, "Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today - but the core of science fiction, its essence, the concept around which it revolves, has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all."
If everyone comes to believe that the future of the human race is a boot stamping on a face, repeatedly, forever… then we're probably going to get a boot.
It everyone believes that we can do better… If we believe we should: "explore new worlds, seek out new life, and go where no man has gone before," then we might not get a better world, but at least we get the possibility of having one.
Because, "aim for the moon, even if you fail, you'll land among the stars."
There's a far more in-depth essay about this over HERE at i09, which is really worth the read.
"Oh my gosh, it laid a new egg."
"That's what we call a new moon."
xD It's so cheesy. I love it.
"Tell me what you knew."
"Nothing. I told you, I've got… grey areas."
"Yeah. I noticed."
…
"Essentially, what I knew, was that you would make the best choice. I had faith that you'd always make the right choice."
I want to smack the smile right off his face when he says this. Generally, when the Doctor says he has faith in humanity, I think he means it, but right here, Clara can see exactly what he means: "I had faith that you'd do what I wanted you to do, even if I didn't tell you to. So if you made the wrong decision, it wouldn't have been my fault, but since you made the right choice, I can take credit."
"Yeah, well, respected is not how I feel."
I think that the Doctor genuinely does think he was being respectful. I don't think he was. I think Clara's rage is very justified. I really hope that they both learn something from this experience and become better, wiser people for having it.
I'm really sad that their friendship ended this way, but I am also really glad that Clara recognized how unhealthy her relationship with the Doctor had become and GTFO.
"You walk our Earth Doctor. You breathe our air. You make us your friend, and that is your moon too, and you can you can damn well help us when we need it."
…
"You go away, OK? You go a long way away."
I actually cheered. Clara looks so happy. So relieved. She never asked to be the Impossible Girl. She never asked to be the Doctor's Carer.
That was a departure right up there with Tegan's, "it's stopped being fun, Doctor, goodbye."
Though on less good terms.
When she called Twelve out on what an ass he's been, it felt like she was speaking up for all the viewers at home. Stop telling us to take off the training wheels when we've had them off for quite a while. Stop pretending like you have the moral high ground when you clearly don't.
I agree that letting humanity choose its own fate may have been the correct decision, the respectful decision possibly… except, the Doctor didn't do that. If he'd wanted to let humanity choose, he could have left when Clara asked him to. He didn't do that. He said, "it's up to us." He stayed, and then he left Clara to make his hard decision by proxy, and that is why she was angry. And I agree with her.
"You're never finished with anyone while they can still make you angry."
"When did you get to be so wise? Same way as anyone else. I had a really bad day."
I liked Danny's commentary at the end. I didn't find his interaction with Clara patronizing in this scene, because he was clearing speaking to her as an equal, from a place of mutual experience. I also found it to be good advice in general. We all have bad days. The important thing is to learn from them. And then put them behind us.
This episode has actually made me like The Caretaker a bit, in retrospect, because knowing what all that awkwardness is set-up for somehow makes it a lot more palatable. I still think everyone behaves awfully in that episode, but… I also think I might be able to re-watch it now without screaming (though, I'm not confident enough in this theory to put it to the test any time soon. Maybe in a few months...)
I think that Clara will be back again at some point this series. I hope she isn't Missy, because it would sadden me to see a character as amazing as Clara reduced to that because she's unable to let go of her anger. I am excited for next week, because there are mummies on the Orient Express! In Space! And I think I saw an Osirian!
I'm hoping that Twelve learns something from this episode and stops being so awful. I really hope that he gets a new companion and doesn't spent the next four episodes until the finale bouncing around time and space on his own, because that generally doesn't turn out too well.
Or, in short, I liked this episode and it made me think many thinky thoughts.