• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

8X07 "Kill The Moon" (Grading/Discussion)(SPOILERS!)

Rating


  • Total voters
    119
Well, the shuttle couldn't go to the moon...nor is there an airlock in the payload bay...nor could the payload bay be pressurized nor could the people on the moon see all the lights on earth since the moon doesn't revolve around the Earth that quickly (and if it was a new moon then they'd be SOL because the moon would be facing the day side of the Earth).
Damn. When I watch Doctor Who, I expect total verisimilitude in the portrayal of NASA's technical specs.

There were so many ridiculus science errors that it really detracted from the drama. It was hard to take it seriously. You can only accept so many unbelievable things in a story before your suspension of disbelief is gone.

The script was really rough draft that needed a thorough review.

Mr Awe
 
The Doctor behaved correctly in this episode to some extent, he isn't God and should keep showing up and making all the critical choices for humans.

The idea of the Doctor letting the humans making the choice was the best part of an otherwise laughable story. If they had a story that wasn't full of holes, this would've been a classic.

Mr Awe
 
Eh, Courtney's the same basic age as Ace (as well as Nyssa and Adric were also supposed to about 15/16).

Plus, if he does go back for Journey Blue, it could be Journey and Courtney

Actually you are right, Adric was 15? and Ace was just a year older than Courtney.

Nyssa was older, Sarah Sutton was 19 but I don't think Nyssa was given an age.

So Courtney for companion after Clara goes.
Yea, Nyssa's introduction on Trakken seemed to portray her as a few years younger than Sarah Sutton, and in Logopolis Tegan certainly seemed to treat her like a child (Though, Nyssa did feel older in Davison stories)
 
People do realize this is the same show that had abiogenesis created by a spaceship (City of Death) and at the wrong time too (400 million years) and planets that could move like spaceships (Tenth Planet, Pirate Planet, Dalek Invasion of Earth, and most recently the Stolen Earth/Journey's End).
 
I like the direction the Doctor is going... He's spent so many of his lives being the protector of the earth, holding our hands along the way, only to see us screw things up... I see where they are going with his distaste of soldiers and I really think it's a larger statement on war in general... First you have Hurt's "War Doctor" who sacrificed everything... Then Smith's Doctor, who despite his childish exterior, was very violence prone. Then, with all that transpired toward the end at Trenzelor... He's just tired... Tired of being the one who has to decide right or wrong and then no matter what, being held accountable... Tired of war and fighting...

I think he's still finding his way as a "new and improved" Doctor because he's finding that his version of "new and improved" doesn't suit everyone else.
 
In terms of drama and emotion, the "break-up" scene between Clara and the Doctor was excellent. Jenna and Peter do a great acting job in that scene. What's interesting is that the Doctor genuinely does not seem to "get it". He seems to honestly think that he was respecting Clara by leaving when they needed to make the decision to blow up the moon or not. He does not seem to understand why Clara is reacting the way she did.
 
Intense episode. Loved it despite the science errors I was more interested in the drama this time. Capaldi really shines as the 12th in this. I almost feel like the first few episodes we had this season were more suited to 11 and now we are into 12th territory.
 
There needs to be a limit of ONE really outlandish sci-fi concept per story, and that's only if the drama and characters can balance it out. The "moon is an egg" idea does not need to be hampered by any more bad science, at all.
 
Admittedly the Doctor is about 900 years out of practice in dealing with humans, and Clara specifically. He's been living on a planet that has a truth field for 900 years and figting everything in the known universe to keep a planet with a crack in the universe safe. No telling what that did to his personality, even as the 11th Doctor. The change to the 12th Doctor was something he wasn't expecting and has no idea how it works. He even mentions that they might have to shoot him a lot as he might keep regenerating forever, he doesn't know.
 
One random thought. Could the older moon base, the Mexican one, have been the remains of the Transmat center on the Moon that the Ice Warriors invaded during a period of time when Earth had no space program remaining? The Doctor had needed to use an old experimental rocket to get to the Moon, much like NASA needed on old shuttle to get to the Moon this time. (The TARDIS was completely unreliable for short hops within a point in time back then. Actually it was unreliable for going about anyplace the Doctor might want to go back then, just kind of hoping around at random, though centering on Earth a lot)

This would be during the Second Doctor's run.

Later, also on the Moon, there would be a moonbase in 2070 (invaded by Cybermen), and later still a space station called the Wheel farther out. And that is only nine years later (also invaded by Cybermen).

While The Moonbase is definitely 2070AD, there's no definite date for either Wheel in Space or Seeds of Death beyond '21st Century'. So they could be before or after 2070, and many fans have gone grey trying to work out which!

Even within the stories (with no reference to wider continuity), it's difficult to work out: Wheel in Space might be quite early in spaceflight and well before 2070, and (in so far as any of the 'space facts' mentioned make sense, as most of them don't, even by Who or 1960s TVSF standards) it might be at the L3 Lagrange point (as it's Station 3). But now it could be an early outpost after the expansion into space following 2050 and Kill the Moon.

Similarly, the internal evidence within Seeds suggests it's maybe 50 years since the 'first Lunar passenger module' (which seems as if it might have been a crew transport, larger than just a Lunar Module, but not necessarily a proper passenger vessel, more like using a Chinook as a transport for troops etc. Or more directly, the Big Gemini proposal which was around when the story was made), though it could be as little as 20 or as much as 100 (depends on how old Professor Eldred's father was when he worked on the module, and when he became a father)
A common assumption, reflected by the New Adventures, has been that as the Seeds Moonbase looks larger than the one in The Moonbase, it's later. But if the Seeds one was lost when the Moon disappeared, then the smaller one could be the replacement.
 
I read this was originally actually written for Smith.


They did that episode already--speaking of..

Was that the space whale that carries Britain on it's back in a couple years?

Meanwhile did the moon go, when the Daleks stole the Earth?


Ah, the egg swap..


So in other words, Clara just turned a species that had no problem with killing an innocent creature to save their own necks loose to conquer and enslave its way across space. Thanks.

It wouldn't just be humans that could have been harmed with the lunar break up--which looked rather weak



I did like the idea of Space Mexicans though complete with a flag and a serape draped over a chair.

Me too. Now for them to build Sea Dragon


Why did they land in a big space shuttle? They couldn't think of a more creative space ship to go to the Moon in?
Well, the shuttle couldn't go to the moon


Speaking of that--there actually was a plan for a cislunar mission--but it would have been costly..pdf follows:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19910014907.pdf
http://cosmoquest.org/forum/showthread.php?136623-Space-Shuttle-flying-to-the-moon


I would have blown the moon up.

Not with that payload. Had an orbiter filled with nukes detonated on the lunar surface, the result would have been another ho-hum sized crater---no biggie.

Since we are on a Trek board I was wondering if, when the moon hatched, anyone else thought the creature was the Great Bird of the Galaxy? Because that's what I thought. :vulcan:

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Great_Bird_of_the_Galaxy

Nah, I was thinking of the Superfriends episode where the Moon was an egg.
http://superfriends.wikia.com/wiki/Luna

Horrible science (mass, gravity, etc.) and horrible history (100 million years?!). The climax almost makes up for all of that, but not quite.


That's my hang-up. Junk science should at least make some sense...
 
Last edited:
Horrible science (mass, gravity, etc.) and horrible history (100 million years?!). The climax almost makes up for all of that, but not quite.


That's my hang-up. Junk science should at least make some sense...
I'm not understanding what's wrong with a 100 Million Year Cycle?

That doesn't mean the Moon hasn't already done this Cycle 100 or 1000 or even a million times.

It also doesn't need to mean that the moon has always been next to Earth. Maybe the Spiders are a Recon team , that helps the newly hatched Space bird determine if it should lay the next egg again where it hatched from, or if it should travel with it for 1000 years to lay it at a new location :shrug:
 
Last edited:
^ So, the Doctor knew *exactly* what was going on to know that? That the moon was this creature and all the habits of that creature? No, he didn't. It was just bad science on top of bad science.
 
^ So, the Doctor knew *exactly* what was going on to know that? That the moon was this creature and all the habits of that creature? No, he didn't. It was just bad science on top of bad science.
Maybe he didn't "Know" know, but he might've known enough subconsciously to randomly spout that inaccuracy, inexplicably? ;)
 
^ So, the Doctor knew *exactly* what was going on to know that? That the moon was this creature and all the habits of that creature? No, he didn't. It was just bad science on top of bad science.
Maybe he didn't "Know" know, but he might've known enough subconsciously to randomly spout that inaccuracy, inexplicably? ;)

The Doctor makes educated guesses, most of the time he is in the right ballpark but not completely correct. Occasionally, he's spectacularly wrong.
 
People do realize this is the same show that had abiogenesis created by a spaceship (City of Death) and at the wrong time too (400 million years) and planets that could move like spaceships (Tenth Planet, Pirate Planet, Dalek Invasion of Earth, and most recently the Stolen Earth/Journey's End).
Bad science should at least have an explanation to it. Fantastical impossibilities are far easier to accept than the highly improbable. Call it an inter-dimensional creature pulling mass from the other side of a wormhole. Have the new egg appear as part of some sort of dimensional jiggery-pokery. Give the moon an age more in line with what our science knows to be accurate, or even use the fact that it crashed into the earth as hypothesis for why it has taken billions of years to hatch. Anything is better than just making up nonsense that anyone with a highschool education is going to know is woefully inaccurate.
 
^ So, the Doctor knew *exactly* what was going on to know that? That the moon was this creature and all the habits of that creature? No, he didn't. It was just bad science on top of bad science.
Maybe he didn't "Know" know, but he might've known enough subconsciously to randomly spout that inaccuracy, inexplicably? ;)

Nah, it was just crap science.

Doctor Who isn't always accurate but it is usually intelligent, or at least not outright dumb. This story just had dumb science.


  1. The shuttle couldn't have gotten to the moon but if it could, it couldn't have carried 100 nukes.
  2. But, if it could carry 100 nukes, they wouldn't be able to blow up the moon.
  3. But, if they could blow up the moon it would cause debris to rain down on the Earth.
  4. But, if somehow the moon debris didn't ruin the Earth and floated away in space, the absence of the moon would cause huge problems because the moon stabilizes the Earths tilt.
See how one stupid science error compiles on top of another to detract from the drama?

And that's not getting into other huge errors like the mass magically increasing just because the bird was developing and how it magically laid a moon-massed egg right after hatching. The incorrect age of the moon. And so on.

Mr Awe
 
The shuttle and nukes are acceptable levels of dumb I think. If it is some kind of slapped together shuttle remix designed for a one-way trip and the nukes have likewise been amped up by some technology that will be developed in the next few decades.
 
[*]The shuttle couldn't have gotten to the moon but if it could, it couldn't have carried 100 nukes.

Mr Awe

Once you've got a shuttle orbiter into a LEO parking orbit (as usual) there's no reason why you couldn't get it to the Moon IF you'd also put up a booster stage to provide the Trans Lunar Injection burn.
The EDO wafer would be enough to support a crew for the round trip to lunar space and back (though you'd have to build one, as it was lost with Columbia and I don't think NASA ever had a spare).
Whether the orbiter OMS system would have the punch to drop it into lunar orbit, let alone conduct a final descent burn or push it out of orbit back to Earth is more questionable. And any sort of landing, even a survivable ditch like we saw, is pushing things way past doable. You'd need a specialist LM in the cargo bay for that (simple solution within the Kill the Moon concept would be to pull a Soviet L3 cabin from a museum as well, but that could only carry one person and no nukes).

Edit; Actually, thinking about it, that could have worked nicely: TARDIS lands on the Moon just as Hermione Norris lands solo in an L3, with a mission to locate a weak spot in the crust and plant a beacon which will guide in the nuke-landed shuttle she's left in orbit. Not perfect, but slightly less tech-incredible and the shuttle's descent trajectory provides a natural countdown to a final abort point, not an arbitrary "I'll set it for an hour".
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top