Doctor Who: Kill the Moon
Oct. 4th, 2014 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI have some thoughts.
I know the science on Doctor Who isn't worth dignifying with the name, but where did all that extra mass come from? And if it was growing so very slowly then how could it be, like, boom, extra mass, suffer earthlings? Ten years of weighing too much, somehow, that was all.
And that eggshell bit... that's just not how mass works. Sure it could be powder, burn up in the atmosphere, but it'd still be mass.
And the thing laying an egg that was the same mass it had been up until ten years before?
The only way it could work is if some really weird physics was happening, converting energy to moon mass, but then it would still need a hell of a lot of energy. So where did it get that? And what would happen if you nuked it?
I know they just wanted to set up the dilemma and let it run, I know I should just turn my brain off and watch a fairytale, but then it throws in references to physics textbooks and pretends like it's doing science and it winds me right up.
(It's also annoying them leaving their helmets off when there's already a leak, but filming constraints, whatever.)
Problem the second: Humans do not work like that.
I don't care what question you're asking, you would not get unanimity. For a start you could only see it on the night side where people would be asleep anyway. And it talked like people were deciding individually, but then you'd get individual lights still. I could buy governments cutting the power to send a message, but even then, you don't get unanimous multi government decisions in 45 minutes. You don't get them at all. There's always the 'it's a trap' contingent and the ones who blame the neighbours, even if you don't believe somebody somewhere would decide on hope.
But okay, fine, whatever. The whole fate of humanity came down to Clara deciding to be nice at the possible expense of every life on earth and in contradiction to, apparently, everyone. Implying there's only one nice human and the Doctor had to make her that way? Rubbish implication. Humans polish the nasty off the Doctor.
It's an interesting dilemma, democracy vs personal principles; it's a classic and should have been done better.
And then there's the Doctor.
Except there wasn't. Because that is not the Doctor.
I've had it with this interpretation. He's a jerk. He's mean and rude to children. Who would say she wasn't special? That's the exact opposite of what the Doctor says. He sees what's special in everyone and turns it to the task at hand.
And when it comes down to guns and bombs, he objects only because they're rubbish tools, making the wielders ignore all the other possibilities. The Doctor is there to find other possibilities.
Just being all hi, humans got themselves into this, they've got all the data they need, have at it?
Wouldn't he stay and argue passionately and eloquently about it? Wouldn't he at least seem to care?
But no. He leaves. Apparently leaving his companion and a school child to die.
Why is this what they're doing to a hero of family television?
Why is this how they want to introduce the Doctor to a generation of 8 year olds?
Every year has a new audience, and what is this year's learning?
He says at the end he's doing it to respect humanity's decisions.
Well that's a first, and a bit of a tough sell, what with the training wheels comment.
When it's Rose we get a big speech about how he believes in humans, specifically her.
He believes in his friends. Usually he can say so.
This time?
Why is this jerk supposed to be someone we want to spend an hour a week with?
I honestly can't come up with an answer.
Unless we're supposed to identify with him and get off on being rude to everyone stupider, like with Sherlock or a bazillion other white male 'heroes'.
The Doctor's usual rule breaking heads quite a long way down that path already, and his tendency to tell people to shut up, and his expressions of disdain for shooting things while turning around and telling people to shoot things.
This nasty version though has gone too far.
There's things in this one I should like, like three women, one of them black, doing most of the talking and definitely talking to each other about plot type things.
And yet somehow, not happy.
I've seen people compare last week's episode to the Sarah Jane Adventures, and I felt that was absolutely upside down wrong. Because the kids aren't people. They're jeopardy. They're stakes. In the kids TV version then kids younger than 15 get to make observations, deductions, decisions. They don't just sit in the TARDIS so they can bring it back to the Doctor at a plot convenient moment. And I know the bit about squirting the spider, but (a) that was the only thing to hand to try, it wasn't clever and (b) it led to bloody stupid non-science. Spraying anything with cleaner stuff could quite happily kill it, there was no reason to call a spider shaped thing a bacterium. Still, points for trying with the heroic moment.
Why wasn't it Courtney diving for the button?
Talking to the world was Clara's plan, wouldn't the disruptive influence be just as likely as the one to ignore it all?
One line at the end that is actually winding me up a bit: the bit Danny says about how you're not done with someone while they can still make you angry. I've turned that around in my head and that still sounds like abuse logic. You can get angry at someone because their actions and words are bad, it doesn't mean you've got some kind of relationship or emotional connection there. I'm angry at bloody politicians all the time, that doesn't mean anything relevant to that line's context. You can be done with someone because you're angry with them, and saying elsewise is just worrying.
That's quite a lot of thoughts, and yet I mostly didn't object to this episode, I just didn't like it either.
Or this season.
Or this Doctor.
Ignore me, I'm just cranky.
I know the science on Doctor Who isn't worth dignifying with the name, but where did all that extra mass come from? And if it was growing so very slowly then how could it be, like, boom, extra mass, suffer earthlings? Ten years of weighing too much, somehow, that was all.
And that eggshell bit... that's just not how mass works. Sure it could be powder, burn up in the atmosphere, but it'd still be mass.
And the thing laying an egg that was the same mass it had been up until ten years before?
The only way it could work is if some really weird physics was happening, converting energy to moon mass, but then it would still need a hell of a lot of energy. So where did it get that? And what would happen if you nuked it?
I know they just wanted to set up the dilemma and let it run, I know I should just turn my brain off and watch a fairytale, but then it throws in references to physics textbooks and pretends like it's doing science and it winds me right up.
(It's also annoying them leaving their helmets off when there's already a leak, but filming constraints, whatever.)
Problem the second: Humans do not work like that.
I don't care what question you're asking, you would not get unanimity. For a start you could only see it on the night side where people would be asleep anyway. And it talked like people were deciding individually, but then you'd get individual lights still. I could buy governments cutting the power to send a message, but even then, you don't get unanimous multi government decisions in 45 minutes. You don't get them at all. There's always the 'it's a trap' contingent and the ones who blame the neighbours, even if you don't believe somebody somewhere would decide on hope.
But okay, fine, whatever. The whole fate of humanity came down to Clara deciding to be nice at the possible expense of every life on earth and in contradiction to, apparently, everyone. Implying there's only one nice human and the Doctor had to make her that way? Rubbish implication. Humans polish the nasty off the Doctor.
It's an interesting dilemma, democracy vs personal principles; it's a classic and should have been done better.
And then there's the Doctor.
Except there wasn't. Because that is not the Doctor.
I've had it with this interpretation. He's a jerk. He's mean and rude to children. Who would say she wasn't special? That's the exact opposite of what the Doctor says. He sees what's special in everyone and turns it to the task at hand.
And when it comes down to guns and bombs, he objects only because they're rubbish tools, making the wielders ignore all the other possibilities. The Doctor is there to find other possibilities.
Just being all hi, humans got themselves into this, they've got all the data they need, have at it?
Wouldn't he stay and argue passionately and eloquently about it? Wouldn't he at least seem to care?
But no. He leaves. Apparently leaving his companion and a school child to die.
Why is this what they're doing to a hero of family television?
Why is this how they want to introduce the Doctor to a generation of 8 year olds?
Every year has a new audience, and what is this year's learning?
He says at the end he's doing it to respect humanity's decisions.
Well that's a first, and a bit of a tough sell, what with the training wheels comment.
When it's Rose we get a big speech about how he believes in humans, specifically her.
He believes in his friends. Usually he can say so.
This time?
Why is this jerk supposed to be someone we want to spend an hour a week with?
I honestly can't come up with an answer.
Unless we're supposed to identify with him and get off on being rude to everyone stupider, like with Sherlock or a bazillion other white male 'heroes'.
The Doctor's usual rule breaking heads quite a long way down that path already, and his tendency to tell people to shut up, and his expressions of disdain for shooting things while turning around and telling people to shoot things.
This nasty version though has gone too far.
There's things in this one I should like, like three women, one of them black, doing most of the talking and definitely talking to each other about plot type things.
And yet somehow, not happy.
I've seen people compare last week's episode to the Sarah Jane Adventures, and I felt that was absolutely upside down wrong. Because the kids aren't people. They're jeopardy. They're stakes. In the kids TV version then kids younger than 15 get to make observations, deductions, decisions. They don't just sit in the TARDIS so they can bring it back to the Doctor at a plot convenient moment. And I know the bit about squirting the spider, but (a) that was the only thing to hand to try, it wasn't clever and (b) it led to bloody stupid non-science. Spraying anything with cleaner stuff could quite happily kill it, there was no reason to call a spider shaped thing a bacterium. Still, points for trying with the heroic moment.
Why wasn't it Courtney diving for the button?
Talking to the world was Clara's plan, wouldn't the disruptive influence be just as likely as the one to ignore it all?
One line at the end that is actually winding me up a bit: the bit Danny says about how you're not done with someone while they can still make you angry. I've turned that around in my head and that still sounds like abuse logic. You can get angry at someone because their actions and words are bad, it doesn't mean you've got some kind of relationship or emotional connection there. I'm angry at bloody politicians all the time, that doesn't mean anything relevant to that line's context. You can be done with someone because you're angry with them, and saying elsewise is just worrying.
That's quite a lot of thoughts, and yet I mostly didn't object to this episode, I just didn't like it either.
Or this season.
Or this Doctor.
Ignore me, I'm just cranky.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-05 06:43 pm (UTC)