This time the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) takes Clara (Jenna Coleman) and Courtney (Ellis George) to the moon, Clara finds out he took her on the TARDIS and she was sick. Now she can has motion sickness pills. Courtney can be the first woman on the moon, which she likes, but she' not. The TARDIS lands on a shuttle already destined for the moon carrying nuclear bombs. Which peaks the Doctor's curiosity. Clara asks if he knows what's wrong with the moon and he replies it's put on weight. The Doctor uses his yoyo and finds he can still use it, they're meant to be floating around. Also announcing himself as an alien. The rest of the shuttle's crew investigate the moon, whilst the others are chased by some enormous spider like creature.
The token extra crew is killed and the spider finds its way into the shuttle. Courtney gets separated from the others and is able to climb the walls. As the spider approaches, she kills it with the disinfectant she's brought with her. "Kills 99% of all known germs dead," as those TV ads tell us. The Doctor realizing she's onto something, working out that's what it is, a germ, bacteria. Heading out to find the source of the weight of the moon and why it's disintegrating, the Doctor finds there are plenty more spiders in the rock. It's multiplying and living on the moon. He goes down the hole and Courtney is sent back to the TARDIS to be safe as she wants to go back home. Lundvik (Hermione Norris) asks if he'll return and Clara is sure if he says he will, then he will. Watch this later, as he does return but then disappears again, with consequences.
The shuttle sinks into the hole and they head back to base. He also returns and has found that the moon is actually an egg. There's a baby growing inside of it, but it will cause the earth harm unless they destroy it. Therein lies the dilemma, do they destroy it or let it live. They can't decide and Clara needs to know what he thinks and if he can help. He uttering that today is a good day for mankind. Just to make sure we get some more Eleventh Doctor lines in. You know, lines like this (and others, like "today is not a good day to die. Ahh Matt!" The Doctor leaves them to sort it out for himself so it was timely that Courtney brought the TARDIS there and joined them. Clara doesn't know what to do, but then she decides along with Courtney that it's a baby, so they need to save it. Lundvik doesn't agree, so she decides to detonate the bombs. Once the sequence starts only the button will stop it. Clara still debates this since they can't kill a baby, whether or not it causes them any harm.
Lundvik contacts earth and is told the situation is dire. Clara intercedes and asks the earth what it thinks, leave the lights on to save the baby or lights off to kill it. Obviously they're fickle human beings who will always put their own lives first and gradually the lights begin to turn off, leaving the earth in darkness. Thus this ep should've been entitled the "darker side of earth," cos some things never really change do they. So much for embracing new life and other beings, say an alien Doctor.
Lundvik wants to die there anyway as she knows she will and just as Clara pushes the button to stop the countdown, the Doctor arrives back at the same time. He takes them back to earth and shows them the baby being born and flying away. The waves are still there and he says earth in the future where mankind is still making advances. A new moon takes its place as the Doctor calls it and so it will grow to have another baby and then so on. He sends Lundvik back to NASA, so she can be the first woman on the new moon and returns Clara and Courtney back to school.
This doesn't rest easy with Clara and she is angry to the point of tears with him. She doesn't like how he treated her, he didn't give her a choice to make up her own mind, that's not what she wanted. This is their earth, their planet and he breathes their air. She sends him packing and doesn't want to see him anymore. He knew what would happen and he wanted her to decide for herself, the fate of her own planet. She's clearly angry and finds solace in Danny (Sam Anderson). He's seen that look in her eyes when he left the army, he didn't want to but he had to. She thinks she's made the right decision as the Doctor's now back to being all alone. She returns home and there's no TARDIS in the house. How long will that last?
Seems that Clara is finally taking control of her destiny in some ways as she tells the Doctor how she feels at his treatment of her in no uncertain terms. A far cry from Doctor Eleven. He knew exactly how to save humanity over and over and didn't really have that many qualms about it. This Doctor is making no bones about it and seems to be saying humanity be damned, he's done enough saving and it's time someone took their own initiative and took that mantle away from him, cos at the end of the day he is only an alien! Though he does mention he's of superior intellect. Have to feel a little sad for him for the pelting Clara gave him, but he did deserve it, didn't he. Especially when she said she'll smack him and he'll begin to regenerate again. He's been saving humankind for all these years, an eternity to him and more and now he decides he'll pike out and leave it up to humanity itself. Since when has that ever been a good idea. So trying to get away from his emotional side and into portraying a more frightening, non-caring, abrasive side.
Plenty of allusions I thought to most every moon ep done in the show (let's face it, there have been quite a few in season/series 5, Day of the Moon etc. As well as Closing Time.) This one seems to be alluding to many other eps especially in its lines and speeches. Having written this, it all makes sense as this ep was originally written for Matt Smith and perhaps once again it was trying to show Doctor Eleven's dark side, a little. He did have his dark moments which all added to the character he brought out in the Doctor and would have made a fitting dent in their relationship, with Clara perhaps taking a definite step back in their friendship. Then again if it was meant to have been written with Clara in mind and not Amy.
David Tennent's Tenth Doctor went to the moon and found Martha Jones for the first time. Thought this ep had a bit of The Beast Below going on in it again, as he talks about the living creature inside it. Oh and let's not go into the number of times and episodes that spacesuit has been recycled and used, especially for Doctors Ten and Eleven! ha.
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