History Recap / DoctorWhoS34E7KillTheMoon

The one where [[ThatsNoMoon the moon is not made out of cheese]], a [[TheCynic cynical spacewoman needs to]] [[ShutUpHannibal shut her bloody pie hole]], the Doctor and Clara get all embroiled in a stew and a TagalongKid tosses her cookies.

The one where [[ThatsNoMoon the moon is not made out of cheese]], a [[TheCynic cynical spacewoman needs to]] [[ShutUpHannibal shut her pie hole]], the Doctor and Clara get all embroiled in a stew and a TagalongKid tosses her cookies.

The one where [[ThatsNoMoon the moon is not made out of cheese]], a [[TheCynic cynical spacewoman needs to]] [[ShutUpHannibal shut her pie hole]] and a TagalongKid tosses her cookies.

The one where [[ThatsNoMoon the moon is not made out of cheese]], a [[TheCynic cynical spacewoman needs to be gagged]] and a TagalongKid tosses her cookies.

The one where the moon is not made of cheese, a [[TheCynic cynical spacewoman]] and a TagalongKid.

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kill_the_moon_promo_poster_7404.jpg]]

*** This part, at least, can be handwaved, by saying that the "roar" was telepathic rather than an actual sound. It stands to reason that a spaceborne entity would have to have some method of communication other than sound.

** The Doctor refers to the Moon's age as 100 million years, implicating the theory that the moon was a stellar object that was snagged by the Earth's gravity. Though this is not the first ''Doctor Who'' story to make a plot point of the "captured stellar object" theory (see also [[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E2DoctorWhoAndTheSilurians "The Silurians"]], back in the 1970s), in reality the leading theory at present for the origin of Earth's Moon is that it formed from the debris of a collision between the Earth and a Mars-sized object about 4 billion years ago.

** The Doctor using a yo-yo to test gravity was done in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E2TheArkInSpace "The Ark in Space"]]. Estimating the age of manufacture of the spacecraft they've landed in by looking at its Bennett Oscillator is also something the Doctor did in that serial. "The Ark in Space" was the first serial produced by Philip Hinchcliffe, whose approach to the show was an acknowledged inspiration for this episode.

* GoneHorriblyRight: The Doctor was right in leaving Clara and Courtney to decide the fate of humanity . . . [[BreakingTheFellowship but he didn't foresee the consequences]].

* MythologyGag: In this episode, the Doctor, who currently looks older than his previous incarnations, travels with a Coal Hill School student and her teacher . . . the exact same set-up as the original Hartnell years (minus one schoolteacher, although Danny Pink fills that function).

* SignatureLine: Lundvik is not impressed by Courtney's take on the "One small step" speech. "So much for history . . ."

'''Duke:''' Pretty much all the satellites had been whacked out of orbit. They managed to send back some . . . screams.

* SpiritualAntithesis: Way back in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E16TheWatersOfMars "The Waters of Mars"]], the Doctor stumbled onto an early space exploration program, where he found himself involved with a critical point in human history; he decides to interfere, with tragic results. In this episode, the exact opposite happens. Plus, in that episode humans were ready to reach out to the stars, but found themselves in a CosmicHorrorStory, while here they're terrified about space travel but eventually their adventurous side is roused.

'''The Doctor:''' . . . Kill the Moon?

* YouKeepUsingThatWord: During her [[WhatTheHellHero speech to the Doctor at the end]], Clara refers to his behavior in the episode as "patronizing". However, what she's specifically calling him out on is refusing to step in when humanity needed him, demanding they choose for themselves what course of action to take. That is literally the ''exact opposite'' of what the word "patronizing" means; "patronizing" would have been the Doctor taking the choice ''away'' from humanity because he didn't think they were capable of doing the right thing. If Clara had said he were being ''neglectful'', she might have had a point; but as it is, you'd thing an ''English teacher'' would know the difference between the two ideas.

-->'''The Doctor:''' I was helping.
-->'''Clara:''' What, by clearing off?
-->'''The Doctor:''' Yes.
-->'''Clara:''' Well clear off! Go on! You can clear off, get back in your lonely...your lonely bloody TARDIS and you don't come back! ''(storms toward door)''
-->'''The Doctor:''' Clara... Clara!
-->'''Clara:''' You go away. OK? You go a long way away.

For humanity, the astronauts, Clara and even Courtney, an impossible choice: Kill an innocent, or doom the entire Earth . . .

The one whose themes [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement we don't talk about]].

** Clara and Courtney somehow see the entirety of Earth from the Moon in less than an hour with future-binoculars. Earth takes about 24 hours to rotate, and the Moon takes about 28 days to circle the Earth.

** The issues of the life-cycle of the Moon-creature are many: where it gets its mass from, why it laid dormant for 100 million years to then quadruple or more in mass within a very short timespan, or why a spaceborne creature would need wings.

** It's impossible for a creature that just hatched to lay an egg the same size it was in before.

* BigCreepyCrawlies: The spiders-germs are the size of dogs.

---> '''The Doctor:''' You still wouldn't expect me to kill Hitler! I've [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler never killed Hitler]].

* GunsAreUseless: The human expedition doesn't have guns despite bringing nukes with the expectation that hostile aliens might be involved. None of them are soldiers though, just over-the-hill astronauts from a defunct space program.
* GoneHorriblyRight: The Doctor was right in leaving Clara and Courtney to decide the fate of humanity . . . [[BreakingTheFellowship but he didn't foresee the consequences.]]

* HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct: The Doctor took Clara to a dinner in Berlin in 1937 and made a point of not killing Hitler while they were there. He discusses this to prove a point that some events in history are so monumental that he wouldn't dare interfere in them. Of course, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler he did have the opportunity once]].

* MegaMicrobes: The Doctor claims the spiders are "bacteria" from the enormous moon creature.

** The Spider Creatures' [[Film/JurassicPark vision is based on movement]]. Bonus points for having the characters wave torches around while this is being said.

--> '''Lundvik:''' How do we kill it?\\

* WomenAreWiser: The three humans the Doctor leaves to make the crucial decision are all female. Clara suggests calling the President of the United States and it turns out the President is female too. It's gender-flipped at the end of the episode when Danny Pink provides the [[RealMenWearPink traditional female comforting role]], and Clara asks him how he became so wise.

* WritersCannotDoMath: After Courtney mentions Tumblr, an amused Lundvik notes her "Gran" used to put things on Tumblr, implying it is some extremely quaint relic from the distant past, already old hat by the time Lundvik was born. The episode is only set thirty-five years in the future, and Lundvik is played by the ''forty-seven'' year old Hermione Norris -- if Lundvik is as old as she looks, she would probably have been using Tumblr herself, and even if she wasn't, it was definitely closer to her generation than that of her "Gran".

What time is it? [[WesternAnimation/AdventureTime Adventure time!]] With Clara, the Doctor...and Courtney! See, as it turns out, after the Doctor [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E6TheCaretaker showed Clara's wayward pupil the stars in the last episode]], he informed her [[GoodIsNotNice that she wasn't special, before unceremoniously booting her out.]] Courtney handled that as well as you could expect, and now she's off sulking and buying booze with the Doctor's psychic paper. Clara's none too pleased about that, and promptly brings Courtney back to the TARDIS so the Doctor can fix his mistake, and admit she's special after all.

The Doctor doesn't do that, because that's the boring way ''but'', one of the perks of being a space-and-time-traveller is that if somebody needs to be special, he can ''make'' them special. "Courtney the First Woman on the Moon" has a really nice ring to it.

*** Maybe it wasn't sound, maybe the creature is telepathic. There are plenty of telepathic creatures in Dr Who.

** The assumption that a lifeform on the scale of the Moon would have [[MegaMicrobes proportionately-sized microbes]] the look like spiders, down to the habit of making webs, but are killed by disinfectant (despite that not being how disinfectant works), can be chalked up to RuleOfCool or some "it's alien life" handwave.

* BittersweetEnding: The newly born giant creature leaves Earth alone and even lays an egg to be Earth's new Moon, and Courtney feels special. However, Clara is furious with the Doctor for the way he handled the situation him and never wants to see him again. Danny, however, feels she's not truly over him.

* ContinuitySnarl: Courtney is definitely not the first woman on the Moon, given that [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones an entire London hospital]], with plenty of women in it, was once very publicly transported there. And the Doctor was there when it happened, so you'd think he would remember.

* SingleTear: Clara when the Doctor abandons them.

* ContinuitySnarl: Courtney is definitely not the first woman on the moon.

For humanity, the astronauts, Clara and even Courtney, an impossible choice: Kill an innocent, or doom the entire Earth...

* AlienNonInterferenceClause: Played with; The Doctor is generally none too shy about interfering, but it seems that meddling with an event that will influence with all of humanity's spacefaring future is where he draws the line. He has no qualms about letting a human from another time and culture make the decision for them, though.
* AllWebbedUp: The corpses of the Mexicans are wrapped in spider-germ webbing.

* BittersweetEnding: The newly born giant creature leaves Earth alone and even lays an egg to be Earth's new Moon and Courtney feels special. However, Clara is furious with the Doctor for the way he handled the situation him and never wants to see him again. Danny, however, feels she's not truly over him.

* CharacterDevelopment: The last time [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E2TheBeastBelow humans were asked to choose between themselves and an innocent alien life]], the Doctor was quite ready to jump in and try to fix the problem. This time, he's stepping back and letting humans make their own decisions. Harriet Jones's [[Recap/DoctorWho2005CSTheChristmasInvasion attempt at self-defence]] is also relevant as he's letting humanity make own their own choice with their own means instead of deciding that he knows best.
* ChekhovsGun: The bottle of disinfectant that Courtney has with her in the opening TARDIS scene is used to kill two spider-germs later on.

** The Doctor confuses Courtney's motion-sickness bracelet for a [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E12TheSoundOfDrums vortex]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E13TheBigBang manipulator]].

* CreatorProvincialism: Apparently Europe and North America are the only places whose votes count. In fairness, it's not like they have time to wait for the other side of the planet to wake up.
* DarkerAndEdgier: Harness was allegedly told to "[[http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Philip_Hinchcliffe Hinchcliffe]] the s**t out of the first half of the episode".

* GoneHorriblyRight: The Doctor was right in leaving Clara and Courtney to decide the fate of humanity...[[BreakingTheFellowship but he didn't foresee the consequences.]]

* JerkAss: The Doctor is summed up the moment he leaves with a curt, "Prat."
* LampshadeHanging: When the Doctor starts waxing poetic about how humanity made their choice, Lundvik points out that they had ignored humanity's choice.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall:

* MythologyGag: In this episode, the Doctor, who currently looks older than his previous incarnations, travels with a Coal Hill School student and her teacher... the exact same set-up as the original Hartnell years (minus one schoolteacher, although Danny Pink fills that function).
* TheNeedsOfTheMany: If they don't kill the creature hatching from the Moon, Earth will die. As Lundvik points out, they can kill one infant in order to save countless more on Earth.
* NoConservationOfMass: They explicitly point out that the Moon's increased gravity is due to its mass increasing, and then attribute that to the creature inside growing without. Then the creature somehow lays an egg (the act itself not that unusual; even chickens can lay eggs without males) that is bigger than itself, and apparently equal in mass to the Moon originally, seconds after it hatches. ''The explanation for this is complicated''. The spider microbes and, by extension, the moon creature itself, has something called [[TechnoBabble "unstable mass".]] The huge increase is something the creature needed for the next step of its reproduction cycle, exactly to pop out a very massive egg -- there's weirder things in this particular 'verse.

* OurPresidentsAreDifferent: Mentioned in passing, the President of the United States in 2049 is a woman. She's apparently a grown up Courtney. They must have changed the "born in the U.S. only" rule, unless she was born in the U.S. and moved to Britain as a child. (In real life there has been talk of changing this rule given the rise of potential presidential candidates over the years who are American but not born on US soil[[note]]i.e. Ted Cruz in 2016[[/note]], so maybe it's been done by 2049.)
* PatrickStewartSpeech: The Doctor gives one from the Earth after the Moon hatches about how humanity will expand and thrive in the stars.
* PlanetaryParasite:

* SignatureLine: Lundvik is not impressed by Courtney's take on the "One small step" speech. "So much for history..."

* SoundOnlyDeath
-->'''The Doctor:''' Messages? Mayday? SOS?
-->'''Duke:''' Pretty much all the satellites had been whacked out of orbit. They managed to send back some...screams.

* ThisIsSomethingHesGotToDoHimself: This choice will have tremendous impact on the future of the human race and so the Doctor insists that they do it without Time Lord intervention.
* TrailersAlwaysLie: The episode's trailer made it appear like the germs were a major threat (they barely appear after the twenty-minute mark) and in general made the episode appear more like an ''Film/{{Alien}}''-esque thriller rather than the moral dilemma drama it really is.
* WeaksauceWeakness: The germs can be killed by household disinfectant.
* WhamEpisode: Clara walks out of the TARDIS and angrily tells the Doctor to go off without her. She doesn't appear in the preview of the next episode.

* WritersCannotDoMath: After Courtney mentions Tumblr, an amused Lundvik notes her 'Gran' used to put things on Tumblr, implying it is some extremely quaint relic from the distant past, already old hat by the time Lundvik was born. The episode is only set thirty five years in the future and Lundvik is played by the ''forty-seven'' year old Hermione Norris -- if Lundvik is as old as she looks, she would probably have been using Tumblr herself, and even if she wasn't, it was definitely closer to her generation than that of her 'Gran'.

* AMillionIsAStatistic: The fact that what's happening on the moon is killing people by the millions is considered completely irrelevant by the present-day characters, but the life of the non-sentient creature causing those deaths is given massive moral weight.

** The Doctor refers to the Moon's age as 100 million years, implicating the theory that the moon was a stellar object that was snagged by the Earth's gravity. Though this is not the first ''Doctor Who'' story to make a plot point of the "captured stellar object" theory (see also [[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E2DoctorWhoAndTheSilurians "The Silurians"]], back in the 1970s), in reality the leading theory at present for the origin of Earth's moon is that it formed from the debris of a collision between the Earth and a Mars-sized object about 4 billion years ago.

* ArtisticLicencePhysics:

* AMillionIsAStatistic: The fact that what's happening on the moon is killing people by the millions is considered completely irrelevant by the present-day characters, but the life of the non-sentient creature causing those deaths is given massive moral weight.

* ArmorPiercingSlap: Clara demands the Doctor tell her how much he knew in advance about the situation or she'll smack him so hard, he'll regenerate. We know [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E2IntoTheDalek she's quite capable of hauling off on him, too]].
* ArtisticLicenseAstronomy:
** The stars are visible from the moon's surface. In reality, they would be too dim to see with the naked eye while the Moon was facing the Sun. Also, the Earth is rotating much too fast when the three ladies view the populace's decision.

** The Doctor refers to the moon's age as 100 million years, implicating the theory that the moon was a stellar object that was snagged by the Earth's gravity. Though this is not the first ''Doctor Who'' story to make a plot point of the "captured stellar object" theory (see also "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E2DoctorWhoAndTheSilurians The Silurians]]", back in the 1970s), in reality the leading theory at present for the origin of Earth's moon is that it formed from the debris of a collision between the Earth and a Mars-sized object about 4 billion years ago.
** Sound doesn't travel in space, so in the end, the Doctor shouldn't be able to hear the roar of the creature. If sound did travel, it should take the Doctor about 13 days to hear it because of the speed of sound and the distance of the moon.

* ArtisticLicenseBiology:
** The assumption that a lifeform on the scale of the moon would have [[MegaMicrobes proportionately-sized microbes]] the look like spiders, down to the habit of making webs, but are killed by disinfectant (despite that not being how disinfectant works), can be chalked up to RuleOfCool or some "it's alien life" handwave.
** The issues of the life-cycle of the moon-creature are many: where it gets its mass from, why it laid dormant for 100 million years to then quadruple or more in mass within a very short timespan, or why a spaceborne creature would need wings.

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: They specifically said coastal cities were being destroyed by super-high tides, yet the outlines of places like Florida are still exactly the same as we see the lights from space.
* ArtisticLicensePhysics:
** Some of the problems caused by the moon being too massive or being blown to bits are discussed, but are basically downplayed. The moon hatching, flying away and leaving a moderately smaller replica is also treated as a harmless event.
** The extra mass the moon has gained is said to have caused "high tides everywhere at once." In reality, if the moon were to suddenly become far more massive, tides would still follow largely the same cycles as always, they would just be more extreme - high tides would become higher, and low tides would become lower.

* BBCQuarry: Deliberately averted when the idea of filming the Moon's surface in Lanzarote came up, but a Welsh quarry shoot wasn't ruled out beforehand. A studio moon shoot was also in the cards as an alternative.

* BittersweetEnding: The newly born giant creature leaves Earth alone and even lays an egg to be Earth's new Moon and Courtney feels special. However,Clara is furious with the Doctor for the way he handled the situation him and never wants to see him again. Danny, however, feels she's not truly over him.

* BrickJoke: Clara suggests leaving the Decision to someone like the President of the United States, which the Doctor derides as POTUS has never even been into space. Turns out Courtney will be President, maybe even the same President.

* CharacterDevelopment: The last time [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E2TheBeastBelow humans were asked to choose between themselves and an innocent alien life]], the Doctor was quite ready to jump in and try to fix the problem. This time, he's stepping back and letting humans make their own decisions. Harriet Jones's attempts at self-defense is also relevant as he's letting humanity make own their own choice with their own means instead of deciding that he knows best.

** The Doctor using a yo-yo to test gravity was done in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E2TheArkInSpace The Ark in Space]]". Estimating the age of manufacture of the spacecraft they've landed in by looking at its Bennett Oscillator is also something the Doctor did in that serial. "The Ark in Space" was the first serial produced by Philip Hinchcliffe, whose approach to the show was an acknowledged inspiration for this episode.

** The Doctor once again [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink uses a DVD to transport the TARDIS to himself]]. Unlike that time, he has Courtney grab the center console so she isn't left behind.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E6TheMoonbase Cleaning fluids on the moon are effective against the monster]].

---> '''The Doctor''': You still wouldn't expect me to kill Hitler! I've [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler never killed Hitler]].

** Clara going ballistic on the Doctor at the end has no precedent in the series (not even when compared to Steven Taylor telling the First Doctor to go to hell way back in 1965, or Tegan telling the Doctor she doesn't want to travel with him anymore in 1984, or when Rory tells the Doctor that he makes people a danger to themselves in Series 5).

* FigureItOutYourself: The Doctor refuses to provide a solution for the moon dilemma, leaving the fate of the hatchling in the hands of three representatives of humanity. He might well be justified, but Clara still lets him have it.
* FirstNameBasis: defied; when Courtney is asked to call her teacher Clara, she demurs and says she prefers "miss".

%% * TheHecateSisters: The three women in whose hands the fate of the moon rests: Courtney (maiden), Clara (mother) and Lundvik (crone).

* HollywoodDensity: Clara protests that if the moon were to shatter the fragments wouldn't do any harm because it's made of eggshell, not rock. The density of eggshell isn't that different from limestone, so a sufficiently big chunk of it would be just as devastating. Lundvik points this out.
* HowWeGotHere: The episode opens with Clara and Courtney trapped on the moon, making their message to Earth. After the titles we go back to earlier that day.

** Clara protests that the moon can't break up, because she's seen it in the future. The Doctor replies that she can't be sure it was the moon; it might just have been a painting, or a special effect.
* MegaMicrobes: The Doctor claims the spiders are "bactria" from the enormous moon creature.

* TheNeedsOfTheMany: If they don't kill the creature hatching from the moon, Earth will die. As Lundvik points out, they can kill one infant in order to save countless more on Earth.
* NoConservationOfMass: They explicitly point out that the Moon's increased gravity is due to its mass increasing and then attribute that to the creature inside growing without. Then the creature somehow lays an egg (the act itself not that unusual; even chickens can lay eggs without males) that is bigger than itself, and apparently equal in mass to the Moon originally, seconds after it hatches. ''The explanation for this is complicated''. The spider microbes and, by extension, the moon creature itself, has something called [[TechnoBabble "unstable mass".]] The huge increase is something the creature needed for the next step of its reproduction cycle, exactly to pop out a very massive egg - there's weirder things in this particular 'verse.

* NothingIsTheSameAnymore: this episode marks a turning point in the relationship between the Doctor and Clara, although this is not made explicit until later episodes. His attitude towards her changes, she actually becomes more understanding of his methods as the movement of Clara towards becoming his DistaffCounterpart accelerates, and if anything the two grow closer to the detriment of her relationship with Danny.

* OmniscientMoralityLicense: Clara angrily calls out the Doctor for this at the end of the episode before leaving him. All of his talk about how he trusted her to make the right decision and respected her to make her own choices fall on deaf ears.
* OurPresidentsAreDifferent: Mentioned in passing, the President of the United States in 2049 is a woman. She's apparently a grown up Courtney. They must have changed the "born in the U.S. only" rule, unless she was born in the U.S. and moved to Britain as a child. (In real life there has been talk of changing this rule given the rise of potential presidential candidates over the years who are American but not born on US soil, i.e. Ted Cruz in 2016, so maybe it's been done by 2049.)
* PatrickStewartSpeech: The Doctor gives one from the Earth after the moon hatches about how humanity will expand and thrive in the stars.

** The spider-germs are living off the creature in the moon.
** Lundvik calls the moon-creature an "exoparasite" and assumes that if allowed to hatch, it will attack or infest the Earth.

* SendInTheSearchTeam: The DistressCall from the Mexican mining expedition was ten years ago, as it's taken that long to BreakOutTheMuseumPiece. No-one expects to find survivors.
* ScifiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: 100 nuclear weapons are orders of magnitude too ineffective to cause significant damage to a moon-sized creature, let alone kill it. This gets a handwave--the Doctor refers to the weapons as the best that humanity could build in 2049, and the creature is vulnerable as it hasn't hatched.

* SecretTestOfCharacter: Clara interprets being left alone with the moon fiasco as such, and finds it unforgivably patronizing.

* SingleSpecimenSpecies: The moon-creature is implied to be this, presumably because the Doctor would've heard of something so spectacular before if they were numerous.

* SpaceWhale: On a lunar scale but this creature looks more like a pteranodon.

* SpiritualAntithesis: Way back in ''The Waters of Mars'', the Doctor stumbled onto an early space exploration program, where he found himself involved with a critical point in human history; he decides to interfere, with tragic results. In this episode, the exact opposite happens. Plus, in that episode humans were ready to reach out to the stars, but found themselves in a CosmicHorrorStory, while here they're terrified about space travel but eventually their adventurous side is roused.

--> '''Lundvik''': How do we kill it?\\
'''The Doctor''': .. Kill the moon?

** Clara tries to get the Doctor to apologize for messing with Courtney's feelings by saying she's not special. The Doctor decides to make her special by making her the first woman on the moon.

* WritersCannotDoMath: After Courtney mentions Tumblr, an amused Lundvik notes her 'Gran' used to put things on Tumblr, implying it is some extremely quaint relic from the distant past, already old hat by the time Lundvik was born. The episode is only set thirty five years in the future and Lundvik is played by the ''forty seven'' year old Hermione Norris - if Lundvik is as old as she looks, she would probably have been using Tumblr herself, and even if she wasn't, it was definitely closer to her generation than that of her 'Gran'.

* NothingIsTheSameAnymore: this episode marks a turning point in the relationship between the Doctor and Clara, although this is not made explicit until later episodes. [[spoiler: His attitude towards her changes, she actually becomes more understanding of his methods as the movement of Clara towards becoming his DistaffCounterpart accellerates, and if anything the two grow closer to the detriment of her relationship with Danny.]]

* YouLookFamiliar: Tony Osoba (Duke) appeared in different roles in "Destiny of the Daleks" and "Dragonfire".