Spoilers Russell T. Davies' Second Turn as Doctor Who Showrunner

[Firebird]

There's a lot in series 8 that makes me WTF hard. I've always had an issue with the ephemeralness of Moffat's tenure; the stories make sense in the moment, but when you stop to process the story it falls apart. (Which is why watching it with commercial breaks on BBC America really hurt it; the commercial breaks gave one time to think about the episode as it happens.) I think series 8 is Moffat's most Brannon Braga-esque series, imho, where he goes hard for the high-concept weird shit at the expense of sanity. "Kill the Moon" and "In the Forest of the Night" are the two key moments where the weird shit overwhelms sanity itself, though "Dark Water/Death in Heaven" is right up there as well. I recognize that Moffat's era is more magic realism with the sheen of science fiction than science fiction itself, but that doesn't absolve it of not working through the implications of its own storytelling.

Moffat's tenure was when I really started tuning out on the show. My unrest started with how much the show foregrounded Amy Pond to the point where it was almost a show more about the companion instead of the Doctor. From there, I started feeling bored by the overuse of the increasingly higher-stakes, universe-ending stakes in the stories. I'm pretty sure I didn't even make it all the way through to the end of Capaldi's run as The Doctor.

RTD's return, plus Ncuti's casting was what brought me back to the franchise... only to be disappointed by so many Doctor-lite episodes, quite a few scripts that were underwhelming, and Ncuti's far too short run. I wanted the Fifteenth Doctor's tenure to be so much better than it was, but 'twas not to be, I'm afraid.

 

[The Wormhole]

Interesting that you took that as race. It was entirely about class.

Though I don't know this for certain, I'm going to assume Danny was probably a character where the casting people left it open to all ethnicities. So as written, yeah, it would have been strictly about class. The fact that a black actor was cast in the role means there is now a race angle to look at the scene which may have been unintentional, but is there in the finished product nonetheless.

He wasn't too dumb to teach maths because of his race. It was because he was a soldier.

Although, this is where we definitely see it's about class and ties in with Danny's observation the Doctor is a general, or more accurately a high class nobleman, based on Danny's reaction "of course, Time Lord, it makes so much sense" when he learned what the Doctor was. The Doctor has such a hard time believing Danny, a soldier, can also be a math teacher, despite one of the Doctor's best friends also being a soldier and math teacher. Of course, the Brigadier was an officer, and a high ranking one at that, whereas Danny was a common enlisted soldier.

 

[Tallguy]

The Doctor has such a hard time believing Danny, a soldier, can also be a math teacher, despite one of the Doctor's best friends also being a soldier and math teacher. Of course, the Brigadier was an officer, and a high ranking one at that, whereas a common enlisted soldier.

Sgt. Benton has entered the chat.

 

[Mr Awe]

Though I don't know this for certain, I'm going to assume Danny was probably a character where the casting people left it open to all ethnicities. So as written, yeah, it would have been strictly about class. The fact that a black actor was cast in the role means there is now a race angle to look at the scene which may have been unintentional, but is there in the finished product nonetheless.

Although, this is where we definitely see it's about class and ties in with Danny's observation the Doctor is a general, or more accurately a high class nobleman, based on Danny's reaction "of course, Time Lord, it makes so much sense" when he learned what the Doctor was. The Doctor has such a hard time believing Danny, a soldier, can also be a math teacher, despite one of the Doctor's best friends also being a soldier and math teacher. Of course, the Brigadier was an officer, and a high ranking one at that, whereas a common enlisted soldier.

Ironically, the Brigadier ended up teaching math!

 

[Marc]

Sgt. Benton has entered the chat.

But neither he nor Yates were friend with the Doctor in the way the Brigadier was.

 

[Tallguy]

But neither he nor Yates were friend with the Doctor in the way the Brigadier was.

Yates was a captain, yeah?

But I'm just saying I don't recall any contempt for Benton.

 

[JD]

I've been on the verge of quitting this series so many times, with the Moon being an egg,

I really don't understand why people have such a problem with this, yes it's crazy and ridiculous, but I don't see where's that much more crazy and ridiculous than all of the other shit the show's done over the last 60+ years. I thought it was actually kind of a cool looking scene. But I'm a very visual person, and I don't care even the slightest bit about scientific accuracy or things like that when it comes to things like comes to something like Doctor Who.

 

[Set Harth]

If the moon is an egg can it be scrambled? How do you find a piece of bacon big enough to go with it?

 

[Turtletrekker]

I really don't understand why people have such a problem with this, yes it's crazy and ridiculous, but I don't see where's that much more crazy and ridiculous than all of the other shit the show's done over the last 60+ years. I thought it was actually kind of a cool looking scene. But I'm a very visual person, and I don't care even the slightest bit about scientific accuracy or things like that when it comes to things like comes to something like Doctor Who.

Yeah, I'll never understand getting angry over a bad episode of a television show. Bad episodes happen. If I stop being entertained over the long term, I stop watching. It's not worth getting angry or emotional over.

 

[Tallguy]

Kill the Moon was a perfect storm of a lot of things that might have been OK by themselves. It was a stupid idea. We've seen those. Heck, we'd seen them recently. But it was (and I'm going by a memory that is so faint that it is almost a vibe) The Doctor (and Twelve specifically) at what appeared to be his most callous and most abrasive AND at odds with the companion.

It wasn't JUST that it was a "factually" dumb idea. It was an extraordinary mix of dumb ideas.

Kinda makes me think about re-watching it...

I suppose I could finish Gatwa's run so I can dislike it in a much more informed way. (Topic!) *shudder*

 

[The Wormhole]

Kill the Moon is not my favorite episode at all. In fact, it is rather bad. That said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the idea presented there that the moon is an egg. Really, Doctor Who has presented far more preposterous and outrageous ideas than that, both modern Who and Classic Who.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Kill the Moon is not my favorite episode at all. In fact, it is rather bad. That said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the idea presented there that the moon is an egg. Really, Doctor Who has presented far more preposterous and outrageous ideas than that, both modern Who and Classic Who.

Like the post I shared said, it wasn't the absurdity of the idea but the execution of the idea without coherent reasoning that bothered me. Even my original review of the episode acknowledged the fun factor of the moon as an egg, but I took issue how it was handled.

 

[DigificWriter]

The concept of the moon being an Egg is exactly the kind of absurdity that I personally love, especially in Sci-Fi, and so I really enjoyed Kill the Moon when I watched it several years ago.

 

[The Wormhole]

I just looked up our old discussion thread for Kill the Moon. I really bitched about that episode a lot, though not once did I even comment about the moon being an egg one way or the other. Indeed, throughout the thread I was the one getting after others who were whining that Doctor Who needs to take its science more seriously.

Though getting back to my review of the episode, it wasn't all negative, just mostly. Here was the one positive I had to say about the episode:

The episode had "little moments" which were pretty cool, quite a few in fact, and there are worse episodes out there. But in the end it is just run of the mill see it all before type fare which isn't really all that interesting.