It's like someones half remembered dream

[ellestra]

I had a very hard time with this episode because it was dependant on so much hand waving it was hard for me to turn my brain off - every time I was ignoring something they hit me with something even more ridiculous. I know it's just Doctor Who so I shouldn't expect any scientific accuracy but this was particularly hard episode for me. There was also a moment when I thought I missed a part of the episode - the cuts between the shuttle dropping, Doctor returning and the inside of the base were so sudden I started thinking this was first filmed as two parter and then cut in last minute. It just added to the all the horrible things about this episode - from the real consequences of something like that happening to the Moon to screw you democracy I know better even though I'm not one living it - and the knowledge that Doctor Who always ends dilemmas like this with magical happy endings (shell dissolving without trace, all the tide/orbit problems magically going away, New Moon) so the whole conflict was just to show how less evolved humans are (even though they are the ones dying). All this made the whole thing felt like cheating because you know both unique creature and Earth had to be saved at the end so even when everything that was happening would basically leave the whole planet devastated you know that the right decision must be to let the Space Dragon live.


I liked the idea of the moral dilemma but I couldn't get into the actual conflict because the stakes were so obviously rigged (from the moment Doctor snarks about the bombs you know they are the wrong choice) and so ridiculously fake (every bit of physics and biology in this is dream logic) I just felt cheated. We never see people dying all over the Earth and neither does Clara or Courtney - for them they are purely theoretical problem while Moon creature is here and now and about to be killed - but they are the ones who get decide ignoring the people who actually will suffer the consequences. And then magically this has absolutely no negative consequences (not even the flyby of Moon sized Dragon). And now they both also know to move away from the coasts before 2039.


However, I loved the idea of Doctor letting humans decide their own faith. And I was totally with Clara on her outburst at the end because he just told them the scary parts and then left. While they were being attacked by the gravity changing, unicellular, space spiders. So that conflict was actually an interesting one and a way of showing the complexity of relationship between human and a 2000 year old alien. Sometimes they may really not understand each other. Too bad it was wasted on such a horrible mess of a story.


Also Jack Whelan and Marcus should just take the fall from the roof instead of Gary. I actually prefer the Qui Reverti to them now even though I wish they all died irreversibly. The guy who Rose brought back to satisfy her selfish needs was right - some things shouldn't be done. Like almost all that Jack says or does. As Shepard says - there is no justice. The only person I actually want to succeed is that policeman - please let him just arrest everybody forever.

The only thing that made me feel better was watching Peter Capaldi being adorably embarassed by his own fandom past (and Denzel Washington being completely confused by all those weird new concepts - Doctor Who, Eurovision Song Contest, Malmo).