Kill the Moon (TV story)

Kill the Moon was the seventh episode in series 8 of Doctor Who. Narratively, it saw the Twelfth Doctor take Coal Hill School student Courtney Woods on a trip to the Moon following her discovery of his true nature in the previous episode. It also revealed the true nature of the Earth's natural satellite, which had been a fixture of many previous stories.

It revisited the Earth's environmentally disastrous mid-21st century as well as the concept of time in flux, with the Doctor choosing to take a step back and leaving the future in the hands of his human company, a choice that would lead to a divide between the Doctor and Clara.

Kill the Moon was also notable from a production standpoint. Lanzarote was utilised as a filming location for the first time since 1984 when it stood in for Planet of Fire ' s Sarn. The production team played upon this — early drafts of the script were titled Return to Sarn just to mislead those who theorised that this story would feature the return of the Master.

The concept behind the episode came to writer Peter Harness in 2011, so initially it was written for Matt Smith. Harness expressed a belief that the script suited Peter Capaldi more with the Doctor-Clara dynamic playing out better. (DWM 478).

Synopsis
The Doctor, Clara, and Courtney go to the Moon in 2049, where they discover that the Earth's constant companion is not what it seems...

Plot
In Coal Hill School, Clara tells the Doctor Courtney's become self-destructive as a result of the Doctor telling her she isn't special. Entering the TARDIS, Courtney's already there, and has bought travel sickness tablets in preparation for her travels, which Clara tells her won't happen. Pestering the Doctor about the effect of his comments, the Doctor offers to make her the first woman on the Moon.

The TARDIS arrives on a space shuttle carrying nuclear bombs, about to arrive on the lunar surface in 2049. The astronauts, Lundvik, Duke and Henry discover them, whereupon the Doctor deduces the Moon's increased gravity's been caused by added mass. The astronauts have travelled to destroy the Moon with the bombs. Investigating a disused mining base from a previous, Mexican, mission, they find corpses preserved in webs and research photos showing deformed landmasses; the Moon is disintegrating.

Henry investigates a cave outside the base, and is killed by a large spider, one of which then enters the base and begins menacing the Doctor, Clara, Courtney and Lundvik, and kills Duke. Courtney kills it with a detergent, and the Doctor works-out that they're germs. Courtney asks to return home out of fear. Courtney's taken back to the TARDIS, and Clara tells the Doctor she knows the Moon isn't destroyed, having seen it above Earth in the future, but the Doctor's open to the possibility of it being a hologram or something similar. The events happening on the moonbase are a fluxed point in time — he doesn't know what happens, so the moon could be destroyed, affecting humanity's future.

Going to analyse one of the crevices caused by the corrosion, the Doctor, Clara and Lundvik find Henry's corpse, where he's attacked by another spider, which is repelled by the deterring effects of sunlight. The Doctor jumps down the crevice to gather a sample. The Moon shakes, and sheds more of itself. Based on the seismic activity and the amniotic fluid the Doctor finds, he determines that what everyone calls "the Moon" is the egg of the real Moon: the creature within. In 2049, it's hatching, after growing for millions of years. Lundvik wants to know how to kill the moon. The Doctor puts her plan in context — to blow up a new creature with nuclear bombs, something they'll have to explain to their descendants. Lundvik reasons that the Moon's disintegration is causing catastrophic weather effects on Earth, and needs to be destroyed to save the world. Not being from Earth or the Moon, the Doctor chooses not to interfere, insisting that only Humans can decide the future of their planet. Courtney wants to return to be a part of the debate, and the Doctor instructs her over her phone how to bring the TARDIS to him. As soon as she does so, the Doctor departs — leaving only Clara, Courtney and Lundvik to make the choice. Clara thinks they should take the risk, and deal with any possible consequences if/when they happen. Lundvik has only humanity's interests to mind, and is prepared to kill the creature to stop the destruction. She activates a timer, after which, she'll detonate the bombs. Ground Control speaks to them over a screen, informing them that Earth's situation is "pretty bad". Clara broadcasts to Earth over the screen, telling them to give their vote. Turning their lights off votes "kill" and keeping their lights on votes "don't kill".

After the timer has elapsed, Earth has voted "kill". Lundvik primes the detonator, but Clara intercepts at the last second and overrides the command, just as the Doctor returns.

Returning to Earth, the Doctor, Clara, Courtney and Lundvik watch from a beach as the Moon disintegrates in space, while the creature it hatched (a massive butterfly-like creature) flies away — but not before it lays an egg, which has become a replacement Moon. The Doctor tells Lundvik that humanity from this point spreads into space, enduring to the end of the Universe, because they chose not to kill. Courtney realizes how special she now is, being one of the three people to allow Humankind to continue.

With Lundvik having been left safely back on Earth in 2049 (though she will have to make her own way back to NASA), the Doctor takes Courtney back to Coal Hill School, and Clara demands to know what the Doctor knew in order to leave them with such an important decision, threatening him that she will smack him so hard, he'll regenerate. When the Doctor explains why he abandoned her, Clara strikes out and stands up to him. She expresses her anger for him leaving them behind on the Moon, and becomes tearful, then even more angry when the Doctor gives patronizing responses to her feelings. The Doctor tries to make it up to her, but Clara is too furious to listen. She tells him that she never wants to see him again or travel through time and space with him again and ends their friendship, leaving the Doctor all alone.

Clara storms out of the TARDIS, which dematerializes. Danny finds her in her classroom, and as he comforts her, she recounts the story to him. Danny tells Clara her relationship with the Doctor isn't over, because he can still make her angry. Clara asks him how he became so wise, and he tells her that he left the army under circumstances that he only refers to as a "really bad day".

Returning home, Clara goes into the kitchen pouring herself a glass of red wine and then sadly gazes out of her window at the Moon.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Peter Capaldi
 * Clara - Jenna Coleman
 * Danny - Samuel Anderson
 * Courtney Woods - Ellis George
 * Lundvik - Hermione Norris
 * Duke - Tony Osoba
 * Henry - Phil Nice
 * McKean - Christopher Dane

Cultural references from the real world

 * Clara had given a lesson about Charles Dickens and David Copperfield at Coal Hill School before she and Courtney travelled to the Moon.
 * Courtney has a Tumblr account, from where she uploads pictures she's taken during her trip; not surprisingly, the Doctor is furious. Lundvik says that she remembers her grandmother uploading stuff to Tumblr.
 * One of the atom bombs has a Cyrillic inscription: дождь. There was a Twitter rumour in July 2010, that a new Russian bomb would be called by this name. But this turned out to be a joke; дождь (pronounced "dozhd") means "rain" and many Russians just had tweeted about rain in Moscow after a long period of drought.

Story notes

 * This episode's original broadcast was followed by a teaser for the second series of fellow BBC Saturday night drama, Atlantis, confirming that it would premiere on 15 November, the week following the Series 8 finale of Doctor Who. Atlantis ' first episode, The Earth Bull, was bookended by the initial stings promoting The Day of the Doctor.
 * This episode marks the fourth story of Series 8 not to feature Missy, after Robot of Sherwood, Listen and Time Heist.
 * The Doctor choosing not to interfere with human matters which could affect the fate of their existence may more accurately explain his absence during the 456 crisis. During this event, humanity had to decide if they should forfeit 10 percent of their children or risk the 456 wiping out their entire species. In Children of Earth: Day Five, Gwen Cooper assumed that the Doctor chose not to interfere out of shame at what humanity was doing.
 * During the writing process, showrunner Steven Moffat told writer Peter Harness to "Hinchcliffe the s**t out of it", in particular the first half. (DWM 478) This referred to the period when Philip Hinchcliffe was series producer (1975-77), which is remembered as especially frightening.

Filming locations

 * Lanzarote

Continuity

 * The Doctor refers to his new cycle of regenerations, granted by the Time Lords. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
 * As he often said in his second incarnation, the Doctor says "When I say 'run', run". (TV: The Power of the Daleks, The Faceless Ones, The Evil of the Daleks etc.)
 * The Doctor uses not killing Hitler as an example of not interfering with the course of history. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus, TV: Let's Kill Hitler)
 * The Doctor previously propounded upon the life-producing qualities of amniotic fluid in his fourth incarnation. (TV: City of Death)
 * Earth of the mid-21st century is worse for wear enviromentally compared to the start of the century. (TV: The Waters of Mars, Aeolian)
 * This is not the first time the Doctor faces a terrible choice about millions of innocent humans or an innocent alien lifeform (TV: The Beast Below). This time he decides not to be involved. As happened previously, his companion solves the dilemma.
 * The Doctor deliberately chooses to take a step back in the face of a potentially apocalyptic event, leaving humanity to choose the future. The Ninth Doctor initially took a similar approach upon witnessing what appeared to be humanity's first contact with alien life. (TV: Aliens of London)
 * The Doctor previously used a yo-yo to assess the gravity in his fourth incarnation. (TV: The Ark in Space et al.)
 * The Doctor spied a prototype version of the Bennett Oscillator, using it to deduce that the year was 2049. He has previously indicated that a modified version of the Bennett Oscillator was from the late 29th to early 30th century. (TV: The Ark in Space)
 * Clara mentions the previous time the TARDIS disappeared and the Doctor said it would "turn up". (TV: Cold War)
 * The publication date of David Copperfield is written on the whiteboard as 1850. This date is correct, but Clara had previously argued with the Doctor over the date of Pride and Prejudice. (TV: The Caretaker)
 * Courtney suggestively teases "Mr. Pink," referring to her knowledge of Clara's relationship with Danny Pink. (TV: The Caretaker)
 * The Doctor erroneously thinks Courtney has vortex manipulators. (TV: The Empty Child, et. al.)
 * The Doctor is concerned that Courtney has posted pictures of him on Tumblr. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks)
 * Clara believes that the Moon can't be destroyed in 2049 because she knows of its existence in the future. Sarah Jane Smith once made a similar comment about the impossibility of Earth being laid waste by Sutekh in 1911, and Donna Noble about the possibility that Agatha Christie died in 1926. In all three cases, the Doctor explained that time was in flux, and the future beyond that point was uncertain. (TV: Pyramids of Mars, The Unicorn and the Wasp)
 * Lundvik likens the chunks of falling rock from the moon to "whatever killed the dinosaurs." What killed the dinosaurs was in fact a freighter from the 26th century, which had been warped back in time by 65 million years before crashing into the earth. (TV: Earthshock)
 * The Doctor tells Courtney where to find a pile of DVDs in the TARDIS, and that putting one into the console would bring the TARDIS to him. He also explains that if Courtney doesn't hold onto the TARDIS console, it will leave her behind. (TV: Blink)
 * Humanity had lost interest in space travel by the middle of the 21st century. (TV: The Seeds of Death)
 * The Doctor tells people to watch their language after using the word "bloody", including his companion. The Tenth Doctor told Wilfred Mott not to swear when he said this word in front of him. (TV: The End of Time)

DVD releases

 * The episode will be released as part of the Complete Series 8 box set in November 2014.

Blu-ray releases
to be added