Doctor Who: Kill the Moon

This review contains minor spoilers for the Doctor Who season 8 episode, “Kill the Moon.”

The Doctor Who episode “Kill the Moon” was a cool concept and I liked the episode overall. The visuals were great. But there were a few things that really irritated and worried me about the episode.

This episode, I thought the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) was very out of character all the way around. From the beginning, the Doctor told Courtney (Ellis George), a student of Clara’s at Coal Hill Elementary that she wasn’t special. This bothered me a lot. One of the common factors of all the Doctor’s has been their love and fascination for humanity. The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) often declared his love for humanity and the individuals he met.

The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) once said, “In 900 years of time and space, I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important” (Episode: A Christmas Carol). In “Kill the Moon”, the Doctor was unwilling to tell a young, troubled girl that she was special. This bothered me a lot, as it also did Clara (Jenna Coleman) throughout the episode.

BBC. Kill the Moon Promo Picture. Source

Another thing that bugged me about this episode was the Doctor’s complete lack of guidance and support for Clara and the other humans as they tried to make the decision to destroy the moon and or risk the creature inside destroying the Earth. In the episode, the Doctor leaves completely. He disappears for most of the episode after telling Clara to handle the situation.

The Doctor made a point that this was a turning point in the future of humanity, therefore, he said he shouldn’t be involved in the decision. The Eleventh Doctor dealt with a similar crucial point for humanity in the episode “Cold Blood”. In this episode where he, Amy, and a couple of other humans meet the reptile people living below the Earth. Once again, the Doctor steps back and tries to let the humans handle the decision making for their own future. But he also stays close by and helps them with this important choice.

The Doctor’s complete lack of help seemed out of character. I’ve seen many people online saying that Clara’s anger at the Doctor at the end of this episode was childish and misdirected. But I think she was completely right with her frustration at being left alone to make a seemingly impossible decision.

I’m not even going to go into the blatant parallels between the Clara’s decision in this episode and the pro-life, pro-choice debate. But if you would like to know more about that Claudia Boleyn talks about in her review of the episode. To watch that video click here.   

I’m still not sure whether I like this episode, because as I said in the beginning, I really liked the idea, the writing was great, and I thought Clara had a lot of great character development. All of the actors did a great job with the intense theme of the episode. But the Doctor’s characterization seemed off from his usual principles and ideals and that worried me quite a lot.