This series of Doctor Who has taken an interesting direction with how it tells the story, though a couple have been the more standard fair of one off adventures the majority have been part of a continuing story about Clara starting a relationship with Danny Pink and her waning trust in the Doctor, while one of those came to a head last week, the other came to a head this week.
Clara is in the process of telling off the Doctor for taking one of her students, Courtney, up in the TARDIS and telling her she wasn’t special last episode when they walk into the TARDIS and find Courtney there, the Doctor gets annoyed and decides to let her feel special by making her the first woman on the moon. They land on a ship heading to the moon in 2049 and meet three astronauts on their way to blow up the moon, which is breaking apart from the inside out. After some investigation the Doctor discovers what the moon is and decides this is a decision too important to humanity’s future for him to decide and leaves Clara, Courtney and the lead astronaut (the other two were killed by moon spiders) to make the decision on behalf of humanity.
This was a really solid episode, the dilemma of Clara’s decision is one that would have ramifications for the whole world and is the kind of thing the Doctor would make a decision on in a heartbeat, but his leaving makes this hard and drawn out in a way that is really trying on the character and is something no-one should have to decide. The Doctor saying he’s doing it to let humanity make its own decision is unusual; it isn’t the kind of thing he would normally do, and it seems to be for selfless reasons, but knowing this Doctor it could be entirely because he felt like testing humanity.
Clara is in the process of telling off the Doctor for taking one of her students, Courtney, up in the TARDIS and telling her she wasn’t special last episode when they walk into the TARDIS and find Courtney there, the Doctor gets annoyed and decides to let her feel special by making her the first woman on the moon. They land on a ship heading to the moon in 2049 and meet three astronauts on their way to blow up the moon, which is breaking apart from the inside out. After some investigation the Doctor discovers what the moon is and decides this is a decision too important to humanity’s future for him to decide and leaves Clara, Courtney and the lead astronaut (the other two were killed by moon spiders) to make the decision on behalf of humanity.
This was a really solid episode, the dilemma of Clara’s decision is one that would have ramifications for the whole world and is the kind of thing the Doctor would make a decision on in a heartbeat, but his leaving makes this hard and drawn out in a way that is really trying on the character and is something no-one should have to decide. The Doctor saying he’s doing it to let humanity make its own decision is unusual; it isn’t the kind of thing he would normally do, and it seems to be for selfless reasons, but knowing this Doctor it could be entirely because he felt like testing humanity.
Okay, there’s gonna be some spoilers about the end of the episode here, so feel free to skip ahead now if you like. At the end of the episode Clara takes all the frustrations that have been building up for this new Doctor and lets them all out, telling him how much of an uncaring monster he can be; and how she never wants to see him again, she tells him to leave and not come back. Then she finds comfort with Danny, who understands what she’s been going through from his own experiences within the army. This felt like something that had been building for some time now, and Clara’s actions were very natural and it’ll be interesting to see where things go from here.
This is probably my second favourite episode this series so far after Listen as it reflects the overall change in storytelling style this series and it really brings the character arcs to a head in a way that is going to have a big influence on everyone involved.
This is probably my second favourite episode this series so far after Listen as it reflects the overall change in storytelling style this series and it really brings the character arcs to a head in a way that is going to have a big influence on everyone involved.