In this week’s podKast, we chat about the surprisingly divisive Kill the Moon. Did Christian Cawley think it nonsense? Was James McLean left spellbound by its magic? Could Brian A. Terranova quit fandom over it?
There’s only one way to find out…
Shownotes
- Grange Hill theme tune
- Recommendations: Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett, The Seeds of Death, The Moonbase, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Persuaders!.
Introduction by John Guilor; podKast theme courtesy of Russell Hugo.
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No, it wasn’t a pod cast, simply another pod, which divided, was reborn and replaced by another Kasterborous in its place that looked exactly like the original.
Verrrrrr interesting.
Hard to disagree with faults the chaps have found in Kill The Egg.
The series certainly needs to move away from familial, parochial matters on modern-day Earth ASAP. A traveller in time and space – let’s have that.
I came round to KTM a bit more on second viewing, but you’ve hit the nail on the head: I think my initial disappointment was due to expecting sinister alien manipulation being behind the strange events on the moon – which wasn’t the case.
That’s why I already fear that next week’s Mummy creature will turn out to be a space toddler swathed in a body-length nappy, looking for ‘Dadah’.
Ever since the (deserved) success of The Empty Child 9 years ago, the series has played a lot to the theme of childhood/parental bonds, and the ‘egg’ in KTM arguably continues that. More grown-ups, please, less kids – especially kids in the TARDIS.
I only started listening to the Podkast at the beginning of series 8, but I’m afraid I’ll have to stop now as they really don’t seem to like Doctor Who. It’s an odd, odd, and very negative place right now. ‘Kill the Moon’ is a romp, nothing more and nothing less. It’s fun in places, a bit shoddy in others, and otherwise a good episode of Doctor Who, a series which isn’t made to be examine too closely. If you do, it all falls apart at any point in its run!
Anyway, cheer up guys! I’ll check in again in series 9.
All the podcast views here are argued well and expressed calmly and constructively, but yeah, I do get the sense of people reaching for negative opinions. I didn’t find anything odd or implausible about Courtney’s being taken along, and the fall-out between the Doctor and Clara was so wonderful. Even if the latter is a self-contained moment that won’t have a bearing on future events–and I don’t believe that’s the case–the quality and subtlety justifies itself and the episode that cued it up.
The only improvement I can think of would be a smaller new moon. The size of it in comparison with the creature is jarring, but were the creature larger and the new moon smaller, my suspension of disbelief would remain in tact. And that’s a really small objection.
I genuinely thought, when I stopped watching and turned to the internet to enjoy the avalanche of positive reviews, that I’d just watched a dead-cert top-ten-of-all-time-poll fixture, and feel disorientated by the tone of the debate.
I feel sad that an episode I found tight and compelling (and eminently rewatchable) is being so fervently disliked, but if people don’t like it, they don’t like it.
That said, the new website design is really lovely. Good work.
Possibly, Oliver. But this is a website for Dr Who fans. Fans tend to examine their fixation in minute detail. I would be more worried if everything that came out bearing the Dr Who tag were accepted uncritically.
I agree that opinion on series 8 appears to be sharply divided. But I think the debate this causes is fun and healthy.
I do wish you would reconsider and stick with us. I don’t think that Kasterborous is a particularly negative place. I do think the contributors are discerning and prepared to argue their case.
Actually I was just talking about the podcast, the website is rather nice and accessible. 🙂 And the commenters are always very well balanced.
I think the podkast is just a little out of focus for me personally, and I don’t think the podcast makers even want to be presented as being so negative as they do seem, so I’ll not listen for a while and flag it up for them to think about.
Anyway, people, go talk about the podkast, not me!
I think you’re a bit of base their Oliver. You go listen to our Series 8 podkasts and there is not a single one, bar this episode, where the team universally dissented on an episode. Everyone has had someone praise the episode. There’s this notion that you can only be a true Who fan if you like everything that comes out of the BBC. If you do, then I envy your heavenly pleasure at enjoying anything with the Who tag, and I mean that genuinely. For me, Doctor Who, like any production will have its good and bad moments, what makes conversation is conversing as to where we think an episode has succeeded and where it has failed. No episode is totally perfect, no episode is totally terrible.
Personally speaking I’ve enjoy this series, Kill the Moon has been the worst for me, as it has for many. Slick, well acted, but ultimately lacks cohesion or effectiveness. As soon as we use “it’s just a romp”, we give products a get out clause. The question isn’t judging it by a defined standard, it’s about judging what it is intended to do and whether it succeeds. Robots of Sherwood is meant to be a little retro and cheesy, in fact the central plot detail stems from that, so you can’t judge Robots of Sherwood for not being a realistic depiction of Robin Hood because it doesn’t intend to.
Whatever Kill the Moon was trying, for me, didn’t work. It’s not about trying to be negative, it’s about being honest and when you ARE negative, justifying it constructively with what went wrong and how you think it could have gone right.
Sorry to lose you Oliver, but any critical assessment of any work should be open and honest. This isn’t about being a picky Who fan, I offer the same analysis on any subject if asked, to the best of my ability.
James
Kill the Moon was possibly the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen, and required suspension of disbelief beyond even accepting that some guy travels through space and time in a police box. Where did the extra mass of the moon come from? If it’s 2049, why is Lundvik reminiscing about her granny using Tumblr? Shouldn’t it be her mother? And most confusingly, why has no one on the web mentioned the strangely prescient Onion article from July of this year: http://www.theonion.com/articles/moon-finally-hatches,36414/