"I do have a personal beef with Steven Moffat, but that is irrelevant to this particular episode." I know you almost certainly mean this in your capacity as a critic, but I choose to believe he dinged your car once or something personal like that, because that's way funnier.

@soltandvinegar

Жыл бұрын

"AH SHIT SOMEONE ATE MY YOGURT. CURRRSSSEEE YOUUUU STEEEVENNN MOFFAAAAAAT!!!"

@SarahZ

Жыл бұрын

He never gave me his insurance info either

@thedragonsunicorn

Жыл бұрын

when she said that all i imagined was sarah shouting at moffat during a meet and greet and moffat just sitting there looking baffled. 💀

@daphneross2845

Жыл бұрын

I'm just imaging one of these cartoon villain situations where she looks up to the sky and screams "MOFFATTTTTT"

@merrittanimation7721

Жыл бұрын

@@daphneross2845 I'm imagining a Dan vs situation where Sarah is inconvenienced in a way that implicates some famous creator she dislikes/hates for whatever reason and her reasoning is always completely correct.

The nonsensical element of the baby dragon thing laying a new egg the size of the original moon is significant, not because it isn't scientifically accurate, but because it's not something that any of the human characters (including humanity as a whole) could possibly assume was a potential outcome. Everything up to that point clearly indicated that this one creature being born would destroy all life on earth, (not just human life) and having the episode then point to this wild contrivance as proof that Clara made the right choice, and that humanity was selfish to choose to prevent the birth, is just ridiculous and insulting.

@aximili113

Жыл бұрын

with all they knew at the time of the choice, Clara made the wrong one. And it is fair as fuck to be mad at the doctor as you described. It is not fair to say it was the right choice with the knowledge of hindsight, you just didn't get the negative concequences of the choice. As an example, if you are asked to draw a card from a deck and that by drawing a card you are almost garuanteed of loosing all your money. you decide not to draw a card but your friend reaches out and draws a card for you. then it so happened that no cards in the deck makes you lose money, but all the cards gives you more than you can use up in a lifetime. To come back and say you made the wrong choice is dumb, arrogant, selfserving and more akin to justification for gambling.

@skootties

Жыл бұрын

@@aximili113 this is a really important distinction. whether or not you made the best decision can only ever depend on your knowledge at the time leading up to the decision. if you know the outcome beforehand, you're not really making a decision at all, or at least not the same decision.

@drtaverner

Жыл бұрын

If the Doctor knew that there were zero actual stakes then he just wanted to watch a bunch of women argue for 45 minutes.

@brushdogart

Жыл бұрын

My first thought at finding out that the moon was an egg was, "Well of course! You lay eggs near a good source of food for your young!" With that in mind I simply could not understand the logic of letting it live. To me this was obviously the egg of a creature that eats worlds, possibly life bearing worlds in particular. Ending this threat would save not only the population of Earth but also any other worlds this creature might consume.

@LunamFlore

Жыл бұрын

There are so many cool things they could have done with the idea of planet moons being dragon eggs in space! Like that's such a cool concept! And then they had to go with this

The thing that blows my mind about this whole thing is that, in this mangled abortion allegory, the doctor (literally, the Doctor, in this case) knows for a fact that the mother is actually going to be fine and that the birth won't harm her at all, but instead chooses to allow her to believe that she is probably going to die if the pregnancy is allowed to go to term, and THEN acts all superior and judgemental at her for making the "wrong" choice when she chooses to abort, as if it's somehow her fault for making her decisions based on the incomplete information he chose to allow her to have. Could you IMAGINE how fucked up it would be for an actual doctor to do that?

@seekingabsolution1907

Жыл бұрын

Yup thats pretty awful.

@arnor398

Жыл бұрын

yeah, exactly... i hate when people make stories this way, thats just plain bad writing. they establish what would be the consequences of each decision, with one of them having more ethical consequences but at the same time being more difficult and uncomfortable to make. then the protagonist ignores how their choice will impact others and just does what makes them feel good and morally superior, and boom! a miracle happens so that those established consequences somehow dont happen. writers feels like they made such great argument for acting like the protagonist did, when in fact its enough to think about it for few seconds to see how ridiculous it is. in real life there are no miracles and sometimes theres literally no way to avoid chossing lesser evil. its hard to see those stories as anything more than a fantasy about a world where person can do anything they want and never faces consequences of it.

@juliabuonincontro8617

Жыл бұрын

Yeah that’s actually really common. Watch Abby Johnson’s movie Unplanned (she was PP’s employee of the year and a clinic director)

@grimreads

Жыл бұрын

It is a fixed event so the Doctor is just a heartless jerk toying with his pet humans

@CathalMcCrowley0013

Жыл бұрын

@@juliabuonincontro8617 Abby Johnson... you mean a disgraced anti-science activist who in addition to being pro-state sponsered forced pregnancy also is sexist, racist, and effectively anti-vaccination? Because yes let's believe someone with those particular credentials and conflicts of interest.

The Doctor: Oh hey, you're back early Female astronaut: Moon's pregnant The Doctor: What? Female astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket ship* Moon's pregnant. (I'm sorry, I had to. It's one of my favorite memes.)

@whiteraven181

Жыл бұрын

I am both delighted by this meme application and deeply disappointed that I didn't even consider said meme until seeing your comment.

@ava_marie_v

Жыл бұрын

@@whiteraven181 I'm happy you like my silly joke! I feel like the whole episode would have been so much more enjoyable if the astronaut had just ignored the doctor and cocked a pistol to go and shoot the moon egg.

@Cherri_Stars

Жыл бұрын

I was thinking about this joke during the video, so glad someone did it!!

@killernyancat8193

Жыл бұрын

I don't get it

@ava_marie_v

Жыл бұрын

@@killernyancat8193 Look up "moon's haunted meme"

"It's your moon womankind, your choice" oh but we didn't intended it to be an abortion metaphor 💀

@pissapocalypse

Жыл бұрын

Yeah there's just way too many coincidences for it to not be intentional. They said it wasn't a metaphor for abortion, but I honestly don't believe that at all.

@MissMarvel_

Жыл бұрын

I could be wrong, but I don't think "my body, my choice" was a phrase back then. I didn't start hearing it until around 2016. This might just actually be a very unfortunate coincidence.

@nolanbrewer877

Жыл бұрын

@@MissMarvel_ my body my choice has been around for decades

@FEKana

Жыл бұрын

@@MissMarvel_It's more prevalent now, however the phrase was coined since the year 1969.

@maddieb.4282

Жыл бұрын

@@MissMarvel_ maybe you could just double check your comments by googling before posting instead of using a bunch of hedging language like “idk guys this might not be right.” Misinformation gets spread that way.

Busy business woman waking up from an abortion and saying "ugh, I'm late for a meeting!" Would be a fantastic opener to a romcom.

@knodelimperator8790

Жыл бұрын

How about that business woman is actually a professional gamer? "Ugh, I'm late for a raid!"

@botanicalitus4194

Жыл бұрын

@@knodelimperator8790 that scenario made me cackle 😭

@imsotiredofthiscrap2341

Жыл бұрын

@@knodelimperator8790 *gets out ps5 controller and bag of cheetos* back to work.

@arempy5836

Жыл бұрын

The twist? She falls in love with her aborted baby from the future. It's like Back to the Future but with more mass appeal.

@blarg2429

Жыл бұрын

@@knodelimperator8790 The rest of her guild is made up of other execs. They do board meetings over voice chat while raiding as a team-building/multitasking exercise.

The author of the episode both claims to not have intended the abortion theme, but also included the line "It's your moon womankind, it's your choice" Amazing

@noizepusher7594

Жыл бұрын

The only possible reason for this I can imagine is some devious co-writer behind the scenes who wanted the story to be prolife who was seeing how much they could get away with

@louisvictor3473

Жыл бұрын

@@noizepusher7594 Gotta disagree with ya there, in the sense that there are other options. Obvious and easy one is editorial or management be massive dickhead cunts and either made suggestions, adjustments or demands, and the author still want to have a job in the industry so they go along and don't mention it. Or it could also be just honest unfiltered cluelessness + artistic head in the clouds or in ones own ass (either can easily lead an unintentionally saying harmful shit without actually meaning to, or even necessarily agreeing with). Bad, yes, but by negligence not intent. The writer has the high concept, the skeleton and a general outline of the sort of creature it belongs to. Mix in an author who is only familiar enough with the topic to recognize some parallels and superficially know some of the terms used so he can just toss them in there haphazardly (just like writers use scientific jargon like quantum this, relativity that, and end up with absolute nonsense; same shit, but sadly in a topic that hurts people).

@edwarddorey4480

Жыл бұрын

You should have used a semicolon instead of a comma in your quote.

@sathalel4084

Жыл бұрын

​@@edwarddorey4480 no one asked

@mtlewis973

Жыл бұрын

if he’s telling the truth, it’s genuinely fascinating how revealing art can be. that he could so obviously hold certain views but not even think you hold them. crazy

It seems worth noting that the egg had already caused deaths on earth even before it finished hatching, so this further justifies the position of protecting the planet from an evidently catastrophic event. This isn't an argument for killing the egg in revenge, but rather a point that reinforces the peril everyone believes themselves to be in, particularly with the imcomplete knowledge they had.

@katharineeavan9705

5 ай бұрын

This is actually a super important point, because the implication is that this is an ongoing cycle, right? Moon baby had a moon egg that will be a moon baby... which presumably means that when new moon egg starts to hatch, more people (or whatever lives on the planet by then) are going to die. So the moral issue is then even worse. Clara's decision more or less directly sentenced those future people to death. What about their "unborn innocence"? What about their "potential"?

@filthycasual8187

4 ай бұрын

@@katharineeavan9705 What about the fact that getting rid of the moon is going to cause untold havok all its own?

@caseysaunders2168

4 ай бұрын

​@@filthycasual8187... which is not stated anywhere in the text, as Sarah says? if that was an actual issue for this fictional universe, you'd think they'd bring it up in the moon abortion discussion. but they didn't, they brought up a baby kicking and the MANY DEATHS already caused by the moon egg? you could just as easily say that the moon, and it's effect on gravity or the tides, does not function the same in this universe... which would, again, further justify the position of killing the moon, since there would be no consequences suffered by the earth for doing so

They really should’ve terminated this episode before it made it to air

@manyagaver1946

Жыл бұрын

Ooh hi Lady Emily, I love your videos :) please excuse my shameless fan girling moment

@knodelimperator8790

Жыл бұрын

Now now, every episode is sacred and worth protecting, even if it's just an unfinished script. 🙏

@uwize5897

Жыл бұрын

@@knodelimperator8790 a pitch is worth just as much as a finished episode 🙏

What’s interesting to me about this episode is that in choosing to override the will of literally all of humanity, something the narrative sees as good, Clara’s decision is belittling and patronizing in the exact same way as The Doctor’s behavior, something the narrative sees as bad

@alexjames7144

Жыл бұрын

Exactly the whole time during Clara's speech I was seething because as bad as the Dr was for being a condescending prick her attitude and hypocrisy made her far worse.

@eccentriastes6273

Жыл бұрын

It's extra annoying because Clara is the one who recommends putting it to a "vote" and then when it doesn't go her way she changes her mind and ignores them. "Let the people decide, unless they don't agree with me in which case fuck 'em."

@samb4067

Жыл бұрын

@@eccentriastes6273 ooooooh I hadn’t even thought of that! Good point

@gemstonerose4648

Жыл бұрын

It does tie into her personal arc though. Of her thinking she is better than other humans and that her judgment is superior and becoming more like the doctor. (shitty message but consistent narratively)

@windwaker407

Жыл бұрын

in fairness, i think that is one of the few good points of this episode. the doctor belittles and patronizes clara, leaving her all on her own and against the entire world, forcing clara to respond to a stressful situation in an impulsive way. we are supposed to think this is all well and good until she rips into the doctor at the end of the episode, making it clear that she resented being forced to make that decision, even if it was 'good' as determined by the characters and narrative. yes it's belittling and patronizing but the doctor left her backed into that corner in the first place and her calling him out does indicate that she's not happy about *how* things went down, even if letting the creature live is the end result she wanted

Yeah, the moment I heard "it's a little baby", I knew where the episode was going, and I was pissed off. Every line after that felt soooo patronizing, "oh, I'm gonna let YOU WOMEN decide the fate of the world....". And in the end, it wasn't even about women's choice or Earth's choice, it was CLARA'S choice - a woman who wasn't even going to live with the consequences of her decision because she was just gonna jet off to another timeline after her "adventure".

@spookyputhy7991

Жыл бұрын

Ya and like even though they phrased is as "your choice womankind" it was actually a small minority that took autonomy away from everyone else and decided what was moral for them... like politicians deciding what is "moral" and taking away the autonomy of people who can give birth. It's a mess all around

@aisultanumar9152

Жыл бұрын

i mean... why are you mad over a simple tv show? ive seen countless of movies with racist stereotypes or other messed up shit, but having a simple pro-life allegory? must be really weird if you think saving babies is the same as bigotry but oh well~

@ElizabethMidfordHatesCops

Жыл бұрын

@@aisultanumar9152 I'm personally upset because Doctor Who means a lot to me. It's like if I found out my friend hates my cat. It's not the world's biggest problem, but both my friend and my cat mean a lot to me. I'd be upset and disappointed my friend hates me cat, and I'd want to discuss this and maybe rant a little to another friend who adores my cat as much as I do. Doctor Who means a lot to a lot of people. And a lot of people have stakes in the matter of having the right to choose. It hurts to know that there is an episode of Doctor Who that expresses that the Doctor doesn't support the right to choose.

@aisultanumar9152

Жыл бұрын

@@ElizabethMidfordHatesCops again its just a show... if youre upset over a show NOT being supportive of killing babies, then idk maybe find another show that you dont disagree with on? im ok with shows that support abortion but pro-life shows should be allowed to exist too

@ElizabethMidfordHatesCops

Жыл бұрын

@@aisultanumar9152 It's a show that's existed for sixty years and I've grown very attached to. It may be "just a show" to you, but not to me.

I was a kid when the episode came out, and wasn't really aware of issues around abortion and the like. However, I remember being extremely frustrated by the episode - the decision seemed easy: a life never lived, versus a whole planet of creatures, living and having lived, humans and everything else alike? I also remember feeling really bad at the end for being so "wrong" according to Clara, a character I absolutely adored...

@gabbeaudoin4595

Жыл бұрын

dont forget that its an alien, who could be as intelligent as a hampster. Dumb dumb moral dilemma that should have had an easy answer

@timothymenard1750

Жыл бұрын

same, i watched this when i was a kid too.

@Error0101

Жыл бұрын

​@gabbeaudoin4595 Alternatively it could be as dumb as a human or far more intelligent and feeling beyond our comprehension. It's also literally the moon, even if it's apparently alive. You have no attachment to the fucking moon??

@i.ftekhar

Жыл бұрын

The one life vs many part makes sense, although a life never lived vs a life already lived could be swung around either way, in the sense that someone who hasn’t yet gotten the chance to live should be given the chance and someone who’s already had the benefits of life should give way to them. But regardless, the values at stake in a real abortion case can’t really be properly reflected in a sci fi tv show

@curlyfordoge4366

Жыл бұрын

@@i.ftekhar In context though, Earth would be filled with many, many babies, and many, many unborn fetuses. The amount of lives never lived would outweigh that of the Moon Egg, even if the Moon creature is just really big.

Sarah Z: After all these years... - Sherlock video - Supernatural video - Doctor Who video Sarah Z: Finally, I have them all

@cs6465

Жыл бұрын

She has completed the trinity!

@merrittanimation7721

Жыл бұрын

It is now time for the Superwholock video, as the prophets foretold in the lands of ancient Sumer and Akkad.

@daphneross2845

Жыл бұрын

Honestly, a video about how Superwholock even came to be would be interesting. I don't really understand how that happend. It's quite interesting

@merrittanimation7721

Жыл бұрын

@@daphneross2845 Me neither, especially since I wasn't on tumblr during that time

@celestee2264

Жыл бұрын

@@daphneross2845 I can see how people would cross DW and SPN universes together. Why adding Sherlock to the mix is beyond me

The line "your moon your choice" immediately has me side eyeing the notion that no metaphor was intended.

"It's your Moon, Womankind. It's your choice" may be the single worst line of dialogue in television history.

@timothymclean

6 ай бұрын

Doubly so if this was supposed to not be an abortion allegory. If you don't want your story to be read as an allegory for something, don't appropriate slogans associated with that thing!

@nickfielding5685

6 ай бұрын

@@timothymclean fristly that creater can't get pregnant. Kill the moon dose not equalky to abortion.

@ffejpsycho

5 ай бұрын

moon = womb....miiiindblooown!!

@drdeadred851

4 ай бұрын

@@timothymclean Just because some brand makes something a slogan doesn't mean they then own it. If I ate some bad food, got sick, then afterwards dramatically said "Never again" that doesnt mean im referencing the holocaust. It just means im dramatically saying that I wont ever eat that food again. If I ate some good food and someone asked if I liked it "Im loving it" isnt a reference to McDonalds its just normal humans communicating using common phrases. I've many times told my brother for instance walk a dog he bought but didnt walk to "its your dog, you walk it" which is the same basic phrase that "my body my choice" or "your moon your choice" all use.

@catfan913

3 ай бұрын

​@@drdeadred851okay? you're not the script of a tv episode

My mom, a married woman who wanted every kid she had, nearly died due to a misdiagnosed ectopic pregnancy. If anyone had been arguing about innocent life as she was literally bleeding out instead of doing what they had to to save her, she wouldn’t be here. Abortion is healthcare.

@fordshojoe8080

Жыл бұрын

When it's a medical problem sure it is but Tiffany down the street having one more and it's free on her punch card is not Healthcare sorry. I've heard of women literally getting pregnant and having one because they literally wanted to be able to tell people she did it and that's no joke.

@AleTitan

Жыл бұрын

@@fordshojoe8080 have you considered that one of Tiffany's partners removed the condom during sex without her knowing? Or punctured beforehand to spread an STD "for the rush", or didn't pull out when he said he would? There are many many many possibilities

@lumik.l4693

Жыл бұрын

This is what will happen to people in the U.S now with the new laws unfortunately. Also the guy above is an imbecile

@FirstnameLastname-rn2yt

Жыл бұрын

@@fordshojoe8080 That doesn't happen, and if it did thank god for abortions, because anyone that strange and irresponsible sounds like the kind of person who would absolutely abuse and neglect their child.

@zizi6538

Жыл бұрын

@@fordshojoe8080 sure stop with the hypothetical scenarios and just blatant lies no women want to have an abortion just to say they had one abortions are still dangerous and can make the person havig one go through extreme pain and feel extremely sick

It's funny that the Doctor, a being literally and deliberately named after a healthcare profession, disrespected the concept of informed consent. You know, *one of the most important parts of avoiding medical malpractice*

@lunasuji

Жыл бұрын

I mean real doctors do all the time lol

@thomasakagi7545

Жыл бұрын

iirc, it's mean to be a Doctor as in a PhD, since his enemy is named the Master.

@spudsbuchlaw

Жыл бұрын

@@thomasakagi7545 in 50 years, we'll meet the third of the trifecta, The Bachelor!

@spudsbuchlaw

Жыл бұрын

And yes, I know about the Rani shhh

@zakhawker344

Жыл бұрын

@@thomasakagi7545 it's not. It's supposed to be a title that reflects their self-adopted cosmic role. The War Doctor's first line is literally "Doctor no more" and there's a point made that they were only known as the Warrior while fighting in the Time War because they dropped the title. I feel like giving out PhD's is kind of pointless when your species is known for all being geniuses?

i will not lie. When i first saw this episode I didn't think of the pro-life message it could have, but I still had issues with it. Mainly the issue that all of the in fighting between the characters was unnecessary. What happens in the episode ultimately would not matter if the doctor would have just been like "oh the gravitational pull is only temporary and once it hatches an identical moon will replace it making everything go back to normal." None of the drama of the episode would have even mattered and it looks like he was there to watch the girlies fight. It felt like he was a jackass sitting with popcorn in his hands going "I know something that you dontt~~" and while this is generally his vibe it was the most annoying in this episode. How is it fair to expect humanity to make the right choice if it is not given all the answers. This only becomes a moral dilemma because he allows it to become one and not because it was one from the beginning.

@Spamhard

Жыл бұрын

This. When he already knows the result, the fact he's then stepping away to allow this seems like an exceptionally dick move. What if Clara HADN'T hit the button at the last second? Plus he's making the entire world internally debate on an issue that didn't matter. What if people on earth literally killed others over this? There's no way there wasn't some harm done between those with opposing ideals. On the pro-life pregnancy angle, it's like a Doctor telling you that if you have the baby, there's a large chance it might kill you, and also somehow all your family. After a long time of deliberating and having disagreements that may change your family forever, you and your family decide its in all your best interests to abort. But then the Doctor entirely ignores your decision, makes you have it anyway then goes "teehee, I was just messing with you, I knew all along you and your family will be fine." He literally made every single person in the entire world have this huge moral quandary that could have really fucked them up while trying to make the decision... for... no reason.

@masaufuku1735

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, I don't remember for sure whether I noticed the pro-life message the first time I watched it, but I definitely remember thinking the Doctor was a giant bag of dicks for withholding such incredibly important information for such a dumb fucking reason. And similarly being angry at Clara's decision to override the (wildly unscientific) poll of the human race - something I think the writers probably intended to indirectly criticize through Clara's tirade against the Doctor (though if that was the intent they didn't do a great job of it). Even ignoring all of the shit he put the other characters (and the people on Earth) through, using the life of a living creature as a bullshit test is super gross. Very Old Testament/Binding of Isaac vibes. Except had they made the "wrong" decision, he wasn't in a position to stop them and say "just joking, it was a test"

@maem7462

Жыл бұрын

If he didn’t knew the result then it would make more sense for the moral dilemma to happen and for him to sit out on the decision bc not even he has the answers

@masaufuku1735

Жыл бұрын

@@maem7462 Yeah - that would have been more tolerable, though the lack of consequences would still feel like a cop-out given that the moral dilemma is focused on "is it better to save one life if billions would die as a result".

@HeidiSholl

Жыл бұрын

I think that's the point though. He made the situation what it was, and that's why Clara shouted at him at the end of the episode. She knows none of that back and forth had to happen, because she knows that the Doctor at least a little bit knew the outcome. The whole point of the episode, with regards to the Doctor's character development, is that this is where he really fucks up. He thinks he's doing the right thing. He's having this mental battle of whether or not he's a good man, so he thinks he's doing something good, but fails to take what that might mentally do to someone into account. He really thinks he was respecting Clara, but she tells him off. And then he grows. In that sense, in the sense of character development and story, I think this episode makes perfect sense. How the executed it with the "but it's a baby" thing was less well done. Honestly, if you just look at the character arcs of The Doctor and Clara over the two series, they're pretty damn impressively done! The way they grow and change, how it kills Clara, and how all of that comes together in series 10 where The Doctor can finally say he's a good man!

Ill say it again - as a side realization the Doctor KNEW that it could be hatched safely and literally gambled the life of the lifeform hoping they would choose to save it. How could he possibly say he was being moral?

@danieltobin4498

Жыл бұрын

To say nothing of how his defense of the creature falls flat when you realize there are millions of pregnant women on earth

@HOTD108_

7 ай бұрын

​@@danieltobin4498What about all the pregnant men? Don't you dare forget about them. Don't forget about all the other pregnant people too.

@highflyer3353

6 ай бұрын

🤣@@HOTD108_

@timothymclean

6 ай бұрын

To be fair, this is a pretty common theodicy. When faced with the Problem of Evil, some Christians will claim that the all-knowing god letting us ignorantly but "freely" make choices is more moral than intervening to help us make good choices. Smug young atheists like I used to be know a wide variety of counterarguments to this theodicy, but not everyone used to be a smug young atheist.

@ChiIderic

5 ай бұрын

@@HOTD108_ Are you trolling or are you serious ?

I think this episode could've been saved if Clara went along with humanity's decision. She is ready to let them blow it up, and doesn't make any move to stop it. Then the Doctor comes back and finally tells them that nothing bad will happen, it will just hatch, lay another egg, and leave, and humanity will be better for it. Then lights all over the world turn on, humanity making an informed decision. Clara could still yell at the Doctor for waiting for the last minute, but it could be an episode about informed consent and not unintentional abortion, and Bitchy Childless Woman could yell at him too and be justified. It could've been great.

@sabinajoh

6 ай бұрын

Informed consent 100%

@Kaile.28

5 ай бұрын

this would have been the best way to end the episode. Especially addressing informed consent

One thing I always remember from Diamanda Hagan's review of Kill the Moon was where she points out that Clara's method of determining the vote meant that anyone who didn't have access to electricity, including likely those most affected by the coastal disasters the moon's breakup was already causing, wouldn't have a vote. The author may not have intended it as an abortion allegory, but the classist angle to why pro-life positions are promoted and that in conjunction really screamed to me.

@Spamhard

Жыл бұрын

I was literally just wondering this. Never seen the episode but the "lights on or off" method confused the fuck outta me. Not everyone gonna have access to electricity so you're already preventing those most disadvantaged from having a vote. Not to mention those well off enough to own multiple homes and businesses have the ability to sway the vote massively by switching on/off the electricity in many of their buildings around the world. Imagine someone owning multiple apartment complexes and then completely turning off the power to all units so people can't make their own choice even if they wanted. That's not even going into Government owned buildings too. (Also do they even wait for the earth to do a full rotation? In the clip it just shows them staring for a few seconds. What about all the folk who its day time for...)

@3seven5seven1nine9

Жыл бұрын

I really don't think the lights thing was meant to be that deep. It feels like they said "shoot, how would clara get voting data from the entire planet at a moments notice? well they got lights..."

@leowilliamson1573

Жыл бұрын

Oh, I'm not saying it's intentional and I doubt the other person is either. I'm saying it's interesting the show is an unintentional abortion allegory and also had this oversight about how the votes would be tallied that ensures those most affected likely don't get a vote. Abortion being restricted, analyzed through a class lens, is due to elites ultimately not being affected by the choice, like Clara who isn't from this time and is at least several decades detached. Wealthy enough people can just take a vacation for a while to the places where abortion can still be accessed within a society where abortion is banned, while the poor are left with their already strained resources further strapped by children and future workers they can't afford to have. So, in an episode about how abortion is bad, the writer also forgetting that not everyone could have access to electricity is weirdly fitting.

@Spamhard

Жыл бұрын

@@3seven5seven1nine9 I mean the entire point of Sarah's video is "it might not be this deep but people can read deeper meaning into media". It might not be as deep as actually being a pro-life tale, but the phrasing and framing they do make it seem as such. The lights on/off part reflects that. "Its not that deep" isn't an excuse for poor story telling that can be torn apart with literally 10seconds of thought. ESPECIALLY when said story can be used to weaponize a narrative against others.

@Sammie1053

Жыл бұрын

proud to have been the 666th upvote on this

Kill the moon is definitely a hated episode amongst the doctor who fandom, but the ending of the story with the conflict between Clara and the doctor is fantastic

@Bowsile

Жыл бұрын

@@amycatass really? I personally enjoyed the argument between the two, I thought it was a great setup for MOTOE

@amycatass

Жыл бұрын

@@Bowsile should clarify, I thought you were talking about the moon breaking apart scene itself. Ignore my comment!

@Zomdra

Жыл бұрын

Eh, it's well performed certainly but the fact that what they're arguing about is so wrong-headed and ill-conceived completely ruins it for me. I already didn't like Clara as a character and her actions in this episode, plus the bizarre nature of that outburst and argument just further solidified my disdain for her.

@DiscoTimelordASD

Жыл бұрын

I agree.

@elliescott3326

Жыл бұрын

i always love when the companions tell the doctor off and he really needed to hear everything clara said in that scene

One other element that struck me (that I’m really surprised wasn’t touched on in the video) is that the Doctor, the only man present among the four main characters, is revealed at the end to be the one who knew the right decision all along. To really drive home the gross pro-life subtext, the episode ends with Clara, the character we were supposed to emphasize with, who was firmly in the pro-life camp and who overrode humanity’s choice to enforce her own morals, berating the Doctor for not being a part of the decision. The ending paints it as an objectively bad thing that The Man™️, who, again, is portrayed as having the right answers all along, let the women make their own decision instead of having a say, despite the fact that he had far less on the line than any of the women did. It’s an uncomfortable parallel for the conservative argument that women shouldn’t get an abortion, or even be allowed to get an abortion, without the consent of the man who got them pregnant.

@NicknotNak

Жыл бұрын

^^this is what i got from that conversation

@fordshojoe8080

Жыл бұрын

That's because tou don't see it as being a life and you don't see fathers as real parents. 🤷

@Sammie1053

Жыл бұрын

@@fordshojoe8080 You're right on one outta two, which is impressive for the kind of guy who'd come into this comments section to argue with people about abortion

@fordshojoe8080

Жыл бұрын

@@Sammie1053 I'm not a hard person to get along with I have some reasoning in me. I just think if anything 3rd trimester and before birth abortion unless the mother is danger shouldn't be allowed. It can live and breath on its own at that point its a life no argument about it. I mean that's literally about to be a new born baby at that point. There are people out there that think after birth abortions are ok like come on you've literally already had the kid let it live. I'm a reasonable guy I'm willing to work with people I'm for all rights not being trampled on if you wanna go to your black trans cousins gay wedding and shoot guns in the air while smoking a joint so be it send me an invite. There's just got to be middle ground on it.

@ShinyGoldBacon

Жыл бұрын

@@fordshojoe8080 Dude...What? What are you even talking about? There is no such thing as an "after birth abortion". An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy. You can't terminate a pregnancy after it's finished any more than you can pour out an already empty glass of water. Why in the world did you bring this up? You are adding nonexistent problems to the topic to make it seem worse somehow.

Ludvich: *Very reasonable, logical, flawless argument* Clara and the Doctor: Yeah but actually, Childless + Ratio The Episode: Well I think it is very clear who is objectively 100% correct in this situation

@batti591

Жыл бұрын

Also Clara and the Doctor, two people very famous for having children themselves

@killgriffinnow

Жыл бұрын

Sunless Sea fan?

@adamdavis1648

Жыл бұрын

@@batti591 Did Clara have a child at some point and I forgot about it, or are you being sarcastic?

@DominikaHare

Жыл бұрын

@@adamdavis1648 pretty sure sarcastic.

@adamdavis1648

Жыл бұрын

@@DominikaHare Wasn't sure since The Doctor does have a granddaughter, so they might have had a child at some point.

I always hated the argument of "you can't abort it, what if it does something great?!" yeah, and what if it becomes a serial killer? The fact that it can become *anything* goes both ways...

@blarg2429

Жыл бұрын

The rebuttal, of course, is that not being abruptly subject to a derailment of life plans can allow the pregnant person to do great things, but then the pro-life crowd doesn't believe that that's possible.

@killerkitten7534

Жыл бұрын

Honestly would have been great if the doctor allowed it to live and they go to the future of the planet where it killed everybody. Billions died because the doctor promoted archaic morals

@mittenstheninja626

Жыл бұрын

Not only that but unwanted children have even worse odds of becoming someone “great”. Kids in the foster care system are soooo much more likely to experience homelessness, suicide, jail time, sexual assault, and teen pregnancy. Turns out growing up unwanted and/or abused is really bad for people, huh who knew

@KillahMate

Жыл бұрын

@@blarg2429 When arguing with a pro-lifer you need to talk about how the baby can become a serial killer because any arguments involving the mother don't really enter the calculus for them. Not so much because they believe this or that about the mother, but because they comparatively don't really care about the mother one way or the other.

@FTZPLTC

Жыл бұрын

It's even worse in a narrative context, because it's basically telling you "the audience will be really disappointed if you kill Hitler". Because even if the foetus does grow up to be Hitler, narratively, that's more compelling than if it doesn't. In fiction, Hitlers are more interesting than non-Hitlers, dramatically speaking, and that means they have more right to exist than all the people they'll kill. Fiction is kind of fucked, when you think about it.

39:35 okay that is awful and absurd but does also remind me of the fact that, while she was in labor giving birth to me, my mom decided to take advantage of how long it was taking to get in billable work hours lmao. sometimes over-the-top career women DO want babies it turns out

@manyagaver1946

Жыл бұрын

I don’t know why I love this so much but I do. Yea, it could also be seen as the pressures of capitalism or something but as someone who is very career driven and a bit of a workaholic that also wants to be a mother I could see myself doing the same thing.

@annettehasnas7002

Жыл бұрын

@@manyagaver1946 it helps that she works in pharma and the anesthesiologist there to help her with her own labor happened to know some stuff she needed to learn about for work haha

@Katiethewizard

Жыл бұрын

During labor my sister got an epidural and basically colored in a coloring book until the doctors decided she was actually having a C-section. They put her to sleep and pulled the baby out, she made it sound like nbd 😭 Probably the most chilled birth experience I've ever seen

@cthulhuhoops

Жыл бұрын

lmao your mom is a (literal and figurative) boss, bless her.

@hypatiakovalevskayasklodow9195

Жыл бұрын

sometimes i forget some countries dont have tax funded year long pregnancy and parental leaves and someone reminds me and the world is a scary place

I remember watching this episode and being SO mad at the ending. It felt like Clara made the wrong choice and then got rewarded for it. She didn't know what would happen and if it went wrong she could be responsible for the deaths of billions of people but she didn't care. I feel like sometimes in life we have to put aside what personally makes us sad and make choices for the greater good of others, she let humanity decide and went for what I deem to be an incredibly selfish option, humanity voted for their sisters, brothers, daughters and mothers to live and clara basically said "actually I don't care my feelings are more important" except it was portrayed as the kind and morally correct thing to do. It's so idealistic and infuriating but I guess Dr who can just be like that sometimes

@novagray4143

7 ай бұрын

Especially since Clara eventually gets the "kill bc shes too much like the dr (becomes immortal?)" Arch in the next season. Youd think this would tie into that or be an example of something incredibly reckless but when the stakes arent real we dont see any growth, realizations, or even doubling down from Clara. Also the no stakes thing pisses me off. Like if they had never gone to the moon, the creature wouldve been born and the earth would be the same. If they killed the creature the earth would once again remain the same. Clara makes her choice. The earth stays the same. Why did we waste all this time?

They made her childless cause if she had kids down on earth then the whole story would fall apart. Do you expect a mother to potentially allow her children down on earth to die? No one would able to argue with her really. And if the other woman would have still stopped her from blowing up the moon, regardless of the outcome, it'd be hard to portray that as a morally good decision cause she chose to risk the death of someone else's child. Actually I think if any of these women in the episode would have had children then it would have fallen apart.

@lexa2310

Жыл бұрын

Which is why "mankind" is only ever talkes about in abstract ways. Not the fact that there are hundrets of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and literal babys down there.

@GuiSmith

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, the more is brought up, the more everything clearly shows its weaknesses. It’s just so inconsistent.

@annajung1234

Жыл бұрын

@@lexa2310 And pregnant women with unborn wanted babies too (for those who prefer the unborn ones to anyone living)...

@botanicalitus4194

Жыл бұрын

its also very ironic because in real life, people who ALREADY HAVE children make up the majority of patients who get abortions. So the episode portraying the pro abortion women as "cold and heartless because they dont have kids" makes even less sense because even in real life a ton of people who have kids get abortion.

@spookyputhy7991

Жыл бұрын

@@botanicalitus4194 ya I'm a single mom and if I got pregnant again I'd need an abortion. And it would break my heart. I love kids and always wanted a few. So it's pretty insulting to portray being pro-abortion as being cold and hearless. I get they were going for a different message but the fact they didn't catch how it would very obviously come across definitely shows how out of touch the creators were.

I never understood the argument of "it will never feel the sun on it's back" or any "it will never feel joy" like yeah? But it will never know pain either? Never known suffering?

@elan825

Жыл бұрын

Apparently "one unborn will never feel the sun" > "men, women and children will never feel the sun again cause they're dead".

@p1nnysk3n1s

Жыл бұрын

And it will never know the difference

@plamondonworks6948

Жыл бұрын

I think both sides of those facts are relevant and both hold a lot of importance and hence why this is such a staunchly debated and divisive topic.

@yikes2540

Жыл бұрын

@@p1nnysk3n1s oh fuck, that’s a great ending sentence

@yikes2540

Жыл бұрын

@@p1nnysk3n1s and a great username

Just one gripe about the Game of Thrones comment: That part of the book isn't about how Cersei's evil because she hates babies. Throughout the series she's shown to love her children and center a lot of her moral choices around them. It's just a line about how much contempt she has for Robert and how she doesn't want to have a child with him.

@nattteo

Жыл бұрын

Yeah definitely this, Cersei entire point in that scene was about how little regard she had for Robert that she went out of her way to get an abortion the moment he managed to get her pregnant, while happily giving birth to three of her brother's children.

@epicmarc

Жыл бұрын

Right, putting Cersei there as an example of a cold, callous, career-focussed woman is actually surprisingly out of touch for Sarah. This is a woman who was forced into a marriage she didn't want and is repeatedly being maritally raped wanting to abort the foetus of her rapist. She doesn't fit into that category at all.

@Joe-cc9it

Жыл бұрын

I know this is late but that interpretation is only stronger when you consider the implication that their relationship is bad, their sex life is characterised by affairs and things that probably border on marital rape, if not even deep into it. Regardless of how someone wants to interpret it, the reality is her refusal to carry Robert's child is very possibly a consequence of the fact that child is the product of an abusive relationship full of sexual assault.

@thomaswhite3059

Жыл бұрын

@@Joe-cc9it for sure. Ironically so much was caused not by Ned being bad at figuring things out, or by being "bad at the game," but by being *too* good at keeping secrets.

@nomenaodisponivel12

Жыл бұрын

also late here, but i think her point was mostly about the appeal to trope. a trope can be introduced to cause an initial impression of a character but then either flipped, reviewed or explained for more character depth.

Great video Sarah! I grew up in a very strict evangelical church (Church of Christ) and you’re right on the money with the forced birther’s obsessions with “motherhood will make you better” and “the potential of life is more sacred then actual life”. The great irony is that mothers that gave up their babies to adoption or foster care were still looked down upon even when they carried to term; same thing with poor mothers who needed “handouts” to take care of their kids. The conversation with forced birthers begins and ends with pregnancy. I think it’s because there’s a lot of “what ifs” and fantasy but once that period ends, either with abortion or through birth, there’s no support. They are obsessed with the idea of innocence instead trying to assist with the actual social and medical problems women face.

@NIHIL_EGO

Жыл бұрын

They're more enamored with ideas and fantasies than life and people.

I unironically love when essays about the episode/movie they’re analysing are longer than the episodes/movies themselves

@JDM-is-my-name

Жыл бұрын

Me too! It just proves that there is so much more to the original media than the media itself managed to talk through

@ninjaboyjoel9183

Жыл бұрын

I agree, but it is only by 5 minutes hehehe

@WolfHreda

Жыл бұрын

You should check out the wild set of videos about Dark Souls II. If I remember right, matthewmatosis made the original, followed by hbomberguy's longer response, followed by MauLer's epic 9-part series deconstructing that. It's ridiculous.

@ninjaboyjoel9183

Жыл бұрын

@@WolfHreda I would but I really don't like mauler lmao, i love hbomberguy though

I think that putting a hard limit of 45 minutes on a decision like that, "your lives or the life of a being you just found out existed", is never going to lead to "save the creature", especially when everyone had already been suffering because of it. Clara came from another time, she hadn't been dealing with all the problems that humanity was facing, so for her it was really easy to have compassion for the moon dragon. Also, nothing to do with the message but like,, did she never consider that the government or energy companies or something would be able to turn off the lights and make the choice for the people? And she only considered the voting power of half the world like??? That was a freaking undemocratic as fuck vote, by people who were uninformed and already desperate to return to normal, and possibly swqayed by voting fraud

@iain9757

Жыл бұрын

Also clearly earth already voted otherwise why is the spaceship full of nukes here ?

@Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat

Жыл бұрын

Even if it was a truly democratic vote with no swaying by politicians or businesses, how was it an informed vote? 45 minutes is barely enough time for those currently watching the news to see squabbling talking heads say something, much less time for anyone not watching the news, not at home, not having a home, not in a home with working electricity, etc. Etc. I get the idea of a vote but this execution is just ridiculous.

@WobblesandBean

Жыл бұрын

This is why I'm a Star Trek fan instead of a Whovian. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few".

@BarbaraYaga

Жыл бұрын

To put it simply the episode is really just Doctor Who's tradition of Political & Existential selfless optimism, that greatly suffers from Moffat inserting lines evoking unrelated rhetoric: Something he did constantly during his seasons. I remember that Zygon story had so much political rhetoric they forgot to insert a coherent plot.

@iain9757

Жыл бұрын

@@BarbaraYaga if you can remember “The Pyramid at The End of The World” what do you think of that because it’s also by the same writer Peter Harness

I also love/hate how the person that wouldn't get affected by this situation decided to put upon herself to be the one doing the final decision.

@Mish844

Жыл бұрын

truly, the prolifers are the heroes we deserve

One other thing that really bugs the hell out of me about the denouement of this episode: the Moon Dragon waking up is what got humanity to trek to the stars? Really? Not the multiple Dalek invasion, the Cybermen, the Sycorax, the Slitheen? The events of Children of Earth? None of these events did it, but the Moon turning out to be an alien dragon is what tipped us over? Really?

@LuluTheCorgi

Жыл бұрын

Damn I somehow didn't even think of this

@themorrigan7224

11 ай бұрын

A general rule of thumb I had to adopt while watching the Moffat era was this: nothing of consequence happened in the universe before this episode. The characters grow and learn from the events, but they are isolated from the universe at large. Every time humanity is told there is a larger universe, they forget it by the next episode. It’s very Rick and Morty, where it feels like every time they get back in the TARDIS, they just jump to a new reality or timeline to fuck with that one next.

@littleguy8714

11 ай бұрын

@@themorrigan7224I agree, I kind of always assumed it was a sort of multiverse and less time travel tho I know that’s me just providing some plot armor

@themorrigan7224

11 ай бұрын

@@littleguy8714 I think it’s just us coping with bad writing 😂😂

@thatpeskyrat

10 ай бұрын

it bugs me so bad because in waters of mars, it’s explicitly stated that space travel was pioneered by a woman specifically because of her encounter with a dalek. and now it’s actually because…. the moon was an egg? fuck adelaide i guess, girl literally shot herself for space travel but got beat out by moon dragon

I didn't notice the abortion stuff, I just hated it because The Doctor was so mean to Courtney. Her being a teenage girl and especially a Black girl, I just hated that. My least favourite line of Doctor Who has been the "5000 years of time and space, I've never met anyone who wasn't important" but then he goes and tells a little girl that she's unimportant. After hearing about the abortion thing, holy shit, I cannot not see it.

@tuffy135ify

Жыл бұрын

This is the worst modern doctor.

@KillahMate

Жыл бұрын

@@tuffy135ify Peter Capaldi does superb work with what he's given, which often isn't very much. In fact I'd say it's quite similar to Jodie Whittaker's run except in many ways... more so.

@eliphas_vlka

Жыл бұрын

Based doctor then

@ohBoyahandle

Жыл бұрын

@@eliphas_vlka 😬

@SunflowerLilypad

Жыл бұрын

I liked capaldi, but my god. This doctor was HORRIBLE to children. Especially after the 11th's run and how amzing he did around children. It was just a complete 180. 😭

My mom is as pro-life as can be, and even she was all "just kill the thing!"

@elijahfordsidioticvarietys8770

Жыл бұрын

Oh, they should definitely kill it. Despite being pro-life, this episode makes the abortion metaphor seem more unambiguously like a good idea than its real life counterpart. Having the baby will only fuck up the mother’s life, having the moon thing is gonna kill everyone on the entire planet.

@krombopulos_michael

Жыл бұрын

Yeah it's just a bad metaphor. Aside from the language and terminology being used, it's really not very much like an abortion debate at all.

@raro344

Жыл бұрын

@@krombopulos_michael it is not, is pretty much a trolley problem really.

@sarasthoughts

Жыл бұрын

Yikes. Call her anti-abortion. She doesn't value life. Only reproduction.

@KateeAngel

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, it is one alien vs whole life on Earth. Saving yourself or your own group vs a member of totally different species is pretty obvious choice for any living being ever. Being selfless to the point of being unreasonable is not a morally good thing in any system of values

I hurt my throat laughing at the giant “ABORTED”

@alanpennie8013

Жыл бұрын

A real "so bad it's good" moment.

@SpoopySquid

4 ай бұрын

"I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards."

Literally all of humanity: "stop the hatching to save millions of lives" Clara, *as the bugs bunny meme*, NO

@warwickwagner4797

6 ай бұрын

It's so funny because the ONLY way the show could make the moon hatching a non-catastrophic event is by having a cartoonish ending of 'upon being born the creature immediately lays an egg the exact size of the moon.' Truly ANYTHING other than that would have caused millions of deaths.

doctor who: moon's pregnant us: what? doctor who: *loading a pistol and getting back in the tardis* moon's pregnant

I studied oceanography at university, the idea of "high tides everywhere at once" haunted me for years. How could they fuck up science that basic.

@alexjames7144

Жыл бұрын

I didn't even catch this when I originally watched it (probably because I was too pissed off about how stupid the moral question was) but now you've pointed it out I'm cackling

@TheSquareheadgamer

Жыл бұрын

@@alexjames7144 oh don't get me wrong the whole morals of the epsiode had me pissed off. Also something Sarah didn't mention they did the vote by turning lights on or off. Which would only be visible at night, so they only actually questioned the western hemisphere on it's opinion based on the shots you see of earth. Which isn't the majority of the human race at all. I severely doubt the writer intended this message, and mostly just an effective of showing the UK, but in-universe Clara discounts many non-white majority countries and includes basically every white-majority country

@cebbi1313

Жыл бұрын

@@TheSquareheadgamer holy shit that's such a good point 😂 Really puts the cherry on the accidentally regressive cake

@TheSquareheadgamer

Жыл бұрын

@@cebbi1313 I really hate this episode. Mostly doctor who has pretty decent mortal messages but this and the bloody spiders really drop the ball.

@radiotomatosauce99

Жыл бұрын

the moon put more water in the ocean

Don't forget Moffat is also anti cremation and has used "forced cremation" as a plot point in Doctor Who and Dracula

@JRexRegis

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, the fact that it was a significant plot point in one episode that people who die are apparently still connected to their bodies and still feel pain is really weird when you consider this fact. Also the whole "joke" about someone giving their body to science and then being essentially tortured in the afterlife - the practice of donating one's body to science, especially when you're dying of a rare condition, is an incredibly selfless and altruistic act. To frame that as "haha isn't that guy a sucker" is extremely tasteless imo

@deltahalo241

Жыл бұрын

@@JRexRegis To be fair, that's more Missy's ploy. People don't actually feel pain after they die but Missy created a scenario in which she tricked people into believing they did in order to prevent them from destroying the bodies so that she could raise them as Cybermen.

@thatpeskyrat

10 ай бұрын

honestly i’d rather feel myself be cremated for a few mins than feel myself slowly rot for years, so moffat kind of lost with that one

@deltahalo241

10 ай бұрын

@@thatpeskyrat I mean the episode comes across as pro cremation to me. The bad guy tricks Humanity into preserving the dead so they can turn them into Cybermen. Then the day is only saved when those Cybermen detonate themselves in order to prevent the villains plot, essentially cremating themselves.

@honkstheclown8631

7 ай бұрын

...how is anyone anti cremation? That's such a strange thing to be against lmao.

The thing is, even if Clara is presented as the gentle (future) mother figure, there were billions of MOTHERS, pregnant women, women who planned to have kids, along with FATHERS and fathers-to-be, who all voted to preserve their children (and, of course, themselves), and they were all still presented as wrong for doing so. Honestly, to me that episode just sounds like the story has been written and rewritten so many times throughout the years (which it probably has been, considering how long it's been in the work) that along the way, they lost the message they were trying to tell.

“Having children will make you a more fulfilled, better person” *laughs in survivor of child abuse*

@z0mbabe

Жыл бұрын

THISSSSSSSS

@nervousbreakdown711

Жыл бұрын

@@Koki-hc3mw I’m sorry, what’s your problem?

@hypatiakovalevskayasklodow9195

Жыл бұрын

Same…

@billyharris2794

Жыл бұрын

@@Koki-hc3mw I think the point of the comment is that the abuse survivor's _parents_ weren't made into good people by having children. Which is kind of universally true by definition, because said parents abused their child.

@thefoxamongwolves9843

Жыл бұрын

@@Koki-hc3mw They don't speak for all survivors, but... what are you trying to say? That some survivors are glad their parents abused them? Huh? And the point is that having a child doesn't make you a better person (which child abusers aren't)

I don't understand, how does the doctor justify that 'humanity made the right choice' when they clearly made the wrong one (as far as the episode thinks)? He's like 'wow humanity voted entirely to kill the moon and then someone stopped that from happening! that says so much about humanity making the right choice!' what kind of leap of logic

@vcom741

Жыл бұрын

For him, Clara deciding to take charge for herself is humanity making the right choice. The idea is presented better in Thin Ice. Similar dialemma, except a creature is fully grown and is eating humans while being kept under Thames for a benefit of a rich factory owner. Doctor asks companion Bill as to what she wants done with the creature, killed or freed, since it's humanities choice to make. In spite of the creature eating children, she chooses to let it live. I now realize that Thin Ice is a better version of Kill the Moon. Ironically its written by a woman lol

@alisdraws

Жыл бұрын

@@vcom741 it still feels like a huge leap of logic to me but I guess that makes sense as an explanation to the monologue

@AB-ee2rg

Жыл бұрын

@@vcom741 bit odd on the doctor's part saying "humanity chose" when he knows Clara directly overrode the vote made by 'humanity' lol

@vcom741

Жыл бұрын

@@AB-ee2rg Again, for him “democracy” is not necessarily humanity. It’s what one person decides to do in a situation they believe to be critical (when it wasn’t really). I now realize that this might somewhat sound worse but this episode is legitimately weird and didn’t know what it wanted to be about lmao

@haroldharcourt

Жыл бұрын

@@AB-ee2rg I'd be willing to bet it was the writer being an asshole with words, that he meant specifically Clara's "Humanity" her compassion toward a new life, forced her to make the 'correct' decision and that on seeing the beautiful moon dragon the human race saw the value of approaching decisions with "Humanity" in mind, which newfound compassion let them interact with the rest of the universe going forward instead of pissing everyone off and getting their heads kicked in. Thanks doc, I hate it.

You mention the trolley problem at the end and I imagined the full version of the trolley problem as presented in the episode, from humanity’s point of view: There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are one of these people, but just within your reach is a lever that you can nudge with your foot. I’d you nudge this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on this side track. You have only two options: 1. Do nothing, in which case the trolley will magically fly over you and the other four people, leaving everyone completely unharmed. However, you are not aware of this outcome before nudging the lever, so you are not allowed to consider this fact: As far as you know the trolley will kill you and the other four people. 2. Nudge the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person. Which is the more ethical option?

Reminds me of that recent episode of doctor who where the doctor stops an employee of space Amazon from blowing up the space Amazon HQ as revenge for space Amazon's violation of workers rights, wherein the doctor states that "it's not the system that's the problem, it's the people that abuse it that are the problem." Yikes

@samlewis6487

9 ай бұрын

Technically the Dcotor doesn't say that, it's one of the companions, but the show very much agrees with it and treats it like truth.

given the fact that Clara (who is basically the unaffected medical professional in this situation) chose to override the decision of the billions of people who actually WILL be affected if things go wrong (basically the ones carrying the pregnancy), I can't imagine a pro-choice interpretation of this episode that holds any water. even if we choose to interpret _Clara_ as the one holding the pregnancy, we would have to make the Doctor the medical professional, and he was withholding information that would be critical in making the decision, which is anti-choice because the entire point of being pro-choice is allowing people to make their own INFORMED decisions

I'd forgotten most of this episode, including the fact that they claim this is why humanity went to space... despite having already done that with 10's Waters of Mars, in which they claim those events trigger one of the character's descendants to go to space... that was also an episode dealing a lot with the Dr's own moral responsibilities which actually managed to land the issue home properly

@PassTheMarmalade1957

Жыл бұрын

Making the Doctor the Time Lord Victorious, believing he can do whatever the damn hell he wants if it saves people, then having that assumed power crushed by someone who says, "Hell no, I do not consent to being saved in the face of all these potential consequences, this is *my* death," and then the Doctor is left with the fact that he is now MORE responsible for her death than he would have been if he'd just not saved her, worked so much better than....whatever the hell this is.

@EngineerLume

Жыл бұрын

At some point I realised that Moffat's DW series literally just copied and pasted themes from RTD's Tenth Doctor series but almost always did them worse and I got so mad

@leowilliamson1573

Жыл бұрын

Doctor Who has three separate, mutually exclusive, and contradictory explanations for the destruction of Atlantis, two from the same season. Airtight lore is often the product of a singular creator as opposed to Doctor Who, which is basically run by committee. The showrunners have to ask Terry Nation's estate for permission to use the daleks, for example. The Doctor Who lore is whatever you choose to be canon and whatever the showrunners at the time feel is canon.

@JustNierninwa

Жыл бұрын

Waters of Mars is much better imo. Also I love me a good inescapable destiny thing. It really annoys me that bad things happen no matter what, and I don't believe it to be a real thing, but when it's well written and they don't force it as a "and that's why you cannot change your own destiny in real life, dear reader/viewer/listener", then I find it really elegant.

@EngineerLume

Жыл бұрын

@@tj2375 I think it's one thing when they're recycling ideas/plots from the classic series in the modern era, it's another thing when it's not even been a decade and they're recycling the Doctors character arc from the later RTD series

It’s also interesting to me and seems like potentially the three women on the moon represent the idea of the maiden, the mother and the hag. But maybe that’s something I’m reading into it

@ariadnepyanfar1048

Жыл бұрын

Oh, I'm positive that archetype is in play, even if we update the terms: the teen virgin, the sexual woman, the post menopausal woman.

The small bit of "No Children" at 9:50 made me laugh so hard

He also has an episode where they pull the “it’s not mental illness, this person is just misunderstood” trope, in which they also demonize medication. Love Capaldi but a few of his episodes were shite

@S0larisPrime

Жыл бұрын

Forest of the Night is truly awful and deffo worse than KtM IMO

@JadeReloaded

Жыл бұрын

@@S0larisPrime was that the "suddenly, jungle!" episode? That was crap.

@S0larisPrime

Жыл бұрын

@@JadeReloaded the sudden jungle part isn't the problem. The sci fi logic/bad physics is never the problem. The problem is the anti-meds stuff.

@DeathnoteBB

Жыл бұрын

@@S0larisPrime Yeah they were asking which episode it was

@interestingemail561

Жыл бұрын

Genuinely cannot believe that episode really tried to pass off "traumatised child receiving medication to help with their mental health issues" as a bad thing, to the point of the Doctor repeatedly insulting her teachers for trying to "shut her up" because she was hearing voices, indicating that they were wrong for trying to help her.

30:31 see now, this could have made for a very interesting episode. The doctor and clara land on some alien world that's beginning to crack apart. The people living there are trying to find a way to stop it and, when they discover that it's an egg preparing to hatch, begin preparations to kill it. The doctor refuses to let them do that (maybe it's even the last of a species long thought extinct, and he feels kinship with it) and evacuates people but knows he won't be able to get everyone off the planet. Clara sides with the people of the planet, says the doctor doesn't have the right to make this choice for them. The doctor says "I make this choice every day." Clara goes "well maybe you shouldn't. And maybe I shouldn't either" and ends up leaving the doctor. I think the dumbest part about the episode is that people are... wrong. "Oh yeah the moon laid an egg so everything's fine". It makes the moral "dilemma" too simplistic. I think if you want to go "no the correct choice here is to let the egg hatch, risking billions of lives" you need to commit to that. And I think doing it on an alien world is better here than on earth; doctor who can blow up an alien world if it really wants to, but it's not gonna blow up the earth outside of the natural expansion of the sun

@liampoulton-king7479

Жыл бұрын

Humans living on the egg kind of turns the whole “parasite reliant on it’s host” idea on it’s head. It’s kind of interesting You still have the whole “foetus = baby” thing though, which isn’t great.

@ExtremeMadnessX

Жыл бұрын

@@liampoulton-king7479 Spoilers for Enternals...

@liampoulton-king7479

Жыл бұрын

@@ExtremeMadnessX haven’t seen it. Tbh, your comment feels like the spoiler here

@maddyrevenge

Жыл бұрын

I mean you basically just wrote the plotline for S05E02 The Beast Below

@alanpennie8013

Жыл бұрын

Cassie. Your rewrite improved the episode in more than one way.

When I first watched the episode it felt like a story written by committee. It just has such a scattered and meandering tone, and knowing that it was in development for years makes a lot of sense. This may be giving the writer too much credit, but I can definitely imagine that in that time it was transformed quite a bit from what it was originally.

i think every well-rounded person should have that ONE doctor who episode that will never leave them alone. personally, mine was silence in the library / forest of the dead.

@Spermwhales93

10 ай бұрын

Those episodes were filmed in the same building I had my graduation ceremony from University in. So yeah, those will both definitely NEVER leave me lmao.

you can't forget that moffat was the showrunner at this time and motherhood being a kind of all-encompassing good is a theme of his. don't forget the empty child/the doctor dances (nancy acknowledges that she is the mother, saves humanity), that one christmas episode, the whole amy pond/river song mystical pregnancy thing... moffat is/was obsessed with women as mothers and the mother figure as saviour, so it doesn't surprise me that an episode under his tenure has the same themes coming out, even if the story wasn't originally written by him. would be interesting to see the original script and see how it was different.

@squidgirl0413

5 ай бұрын

its interesting bc there are ways to do motherhood as a narrative device that are really good (one that comes to mind is library of ruina, specifically the character of Carmen and how shes a sort of mother figure to Angela albeit indirectly and how the idea of her being a savior is criticized repeatedly, especially since Angela considers her own existence to be tiresome and thus has no reason to feel grateful for Carmen in the same way other characters do and its really interesting and everyone should play library of ruina) and yet he somehow always finds like. the least interesting way to talk about motherhood.

@JCOdrjones

4 ай бұрын

"even though Moffat isn't behind this particular episode, I will blame him still in full" okay there

@brigsssss

4 ай бұрын

@@JCOdrjones i didn't say i blame him in full i just said it doesn't surprise me that these themes come out in an episode written and directed under his leadership. i was just pointing out a correlation.

@JCOdrjones

4 ай бұрын

@@brigsssss I apologize for my snark, I lashed out when I shouldn't have

@brigsssss

4 ай бұрын

@@JCOdrjones all good! no hard feelings :)

My biggest issue with the episode is... the Doctor comes across as SO out of character to drive the conflict. This man has done nothing but intervene with human timelines and the interactions with aliens (see episodes like The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood) but now the second the moon is an egg for reasons he doesnt want to? I just cant even see this character doing that.

@spntageous5249

Жыл бұрын

the episode feels as if it was written by someone who only saw the ending of the Christmas invasion (specifically the part with Harriet Jones) and also didnt take science in middle school

@4thofEleven

Жыл бұрын

It almost feels like a Rick and Morty storyline; I can see Rick just letting Morty think the world was going to die unless he made the right decision while refusing to help, only to reveal they were never in any real danger. The Doctor, not so much.

@connoraltier7081

Жыл бұрын

@@spntageous5249 Yeah, for sure. I also get what Sarah herself means about the science being wrong being a weird argument since... its a show about time travel. But for some reason (maybe just bias about the rest of the episode being terrible) I find this episode being WAY harder to suspend my disbelief around the awful science present here

@julieeverett7442

Жыл бұрын

@@spntageous5249 In my head cannon this was written by Courtney in her English class, a fantasy story with a pro life message. You cant say its not, not when the three main protagonists are the three stages of safe child bearing, Courtney the teenager (I'm hoping shes at least 15/16) Clara in her mid 20's (24-26) and the astronaut lady in her mid 40's (starting to get a bit dangerous, but still ok) and the father figure backs out, as it is NOT his choice to make. Its the only was I can stand this. I love 12, but Moffatt has a hard on for his character, she has to be the most perfect person ever, shes not. And the doctor is thousands of years old, and in in no way shape or form, human. Sometimes we need reminding!!!!

@marxistlynchist

Жыл бұрын

I think it fits Series 8 though. The whole theme of the season is about how the Doctor makes mistakes trying to find out who he is, whether he should keep doing what he’s doing, and if he’s even a good man. That’s why the final argument scene of this episode is so good and pivotal to the season - since it skews the audience into the most uncertainty yet as to whether he’s a good man.

This reminds me of the other Capaldi episode that was anti-medication, In the Forest of the Night. A little girl can hear tree aliens and she's on medication because of it, but it's framed as wrong to be on medication because the tree aliens were real the whole time.

@harrietamidala1691

Жыл бұрын

Well, kill the moonand in the forest of the night are both considered to be the worst episodes of series 8 so you’re not far off about Doctor Who episode with questionable messages. Or at least they are both my least favorite episodes of that season, though I was more bored with in the forest of the night then really angry with kill the moon.

@alanpennie8013

Жыл бұрын

@@harrietamidala1691 I would say they're the first and second worst episodes of Dr Who I've ever watched.

I was kinda waiting for the mention of the episode 'The Beast Below', the second episode of season 5 and Smith's Doctor. The one of the space-whale carrying the population of the UK while the ppl torture it believing that it will abandon them, and the people on the ship actively choosing to rather forget about it than let it be free. The resolution choice to stop the torture of the creature was also decided by Doctor's companion Amy. Doctor actually wanted to make the whale brain dead before Amy stopped him. I think that that episode handled the theme they were trying to make in 'Kill the moon' much better. The fact that people knew about the whale, and every year every adult got to vote if they wanted to continue the torture or rather forget it's whole existence. And most of them choose to forget. Also the choices in 'The Beast Below' had clear outcomes. Either kill it brain dead - nothing would change for the ppl on the ship, the whale wouldn't have any awareness of itself; let it be tortured - it started to attack the ship, but it's manageable, nothing would change for the ppl; or stop torturing it - they thought it would abandon them but Amy saw that it cared about the children and also it was said that it came to earth voluntarily (because it was lonely and cared about the children).

@andrewjenkins9965

Жыл бұрын

I know that episode was pretty contentious at the time, but I really enjoyed it. It does have a similar feel with the choices made, but... I think I prefer it to KTM.

One of the weird things about the point that Lundvik has no children being made is that the story would have been improved if protecting her children was one of the reasons that she was in the mission. It would have given her a stronger motivation, allowed more nuance to the plot of the episode, and gotten rid of the motherly/barren dichotomy. But so much about the writing of this episode was bad…and that it, unintentionally or not, stumbled through a discussion on abortion with only weak arguments and weak storytelling is the main reason that I never re-watched it.

@patrickphelan279

Жыл бұрын

"You're talking about killing a baby!" "Back at home, I have three babies. Well, you might say they're older than that - two, four, and seven - but they're certainly my babies. They're babies to me, and if this thing hatches, there is an excellent chance that it will murder all three of them without ever knowing it's done it. So if you expected to use my affection for babies to stop me from killing it, well, I think you'll find you've missed about as conclusively as it is possible to miss."

@afarensis16

Жыл бұрын

@@patrickphelan279 - exactly

@GoddessError

Жыл бұрын

Even making her an aunt or godmother to a friend's child would give her character more complexity and make her more realistic. I'm someone who is vehemently against having my own children and (partially jokingly) declare that I dislike children at any chance I get. Still, there are children in my life (my friends baby and kids I teach ice skating to) that I care for and I would blow up the moon if it meant they would have a future. I'm not even close to them, but I'm not a one dimensional heartless bitch that indiscriminately hates all kids.

@afarensis16

Жыл бұрын

@@GoddessError - that would also work. I have a real problem with the no children=uncaring trope because, when I worked in a family law office around 20 years ago, I met so many mothers who really didn't care about their children, and were quite open about it. And I have met more than a few people without children who care quite deeply about others.

@dantefarge3369

Жыл бұрын

Even if she doesn’t have children, she could talk about her family, like “yeah I don’t have children but a mother/husband who I want to see when I return home” and if you want to throw children into the mix a niece, or a friend’s child who she is the godmother

Ummm aaactually, he doesn't just take 20 year-old English women into space! He takes 20 year-old Scottish women into space too.

@chrisdaily2077

Жыл бұрын

Don't forget he took a 20 year old Scottish man with him as well.

@alicefeasey6795

Жыл бұрын

Umm actually she also took a couple of northern young adults into space with one of their granddads lol

you KNOW the channel is gonna be good when they say they're making a shorter video and its 50 minutes long

This is crazy. I LOVED Doctor Who during this era. I was watching this episode when it premiered. I'm also far left and obviously strongly pro-choice. I can't believe I didn't see the metaphor. Maybe I was too young, but the coincidences are staggering and now I'll never be able to un-see it lmao. What the heck? Thank you for this awesome video.

@harrietamidala1691

Жыл бұрын

I admit, I also didn’t catch on the first time I watched this episode too even though I am also pro-choice. I was more annoyed by the space dragon hatching, and laying another moon egg. That had me going “Are you kidding me?!@

I feel like if there was more emphasis on it being either an utterly unique creature, or like very rare/nearly extinct animal rather than just. “It’s a baby” it could have avoided the pro-life vibe a bit better. Idk, that feels like a stronger moral dilemma to me personally, just by shifting the language.

@alexjames7144

Жыл бұрын

The thing is that argument also falls apart because at this point humanity only exists on earth. So yeah there's this creature that may be the last of its kind, but there's also a whole shit tonne of species on earth that would be wiped out which makes that whole line of thought null and void

@lort8334

Жыл бұрын

@@alexjames7144 didn’t mean to say that it was a *good* dilemma, just improves on the basis of not being intended as an abortion allegory lol

@spir0u

Жыл бұрын

A little bit less of the « ok you girls decide, I, a masculine presenting person, will stay back smugly while knowing what the CORRECT decision is. » would have helped.

@littlewyzard

Жыл бұрын

not to mention that could actually give the scientists a moral dilemma since they might want the chance to study this completely unique creature

@LilyLewis771

Жыл бұрын

Personally I always thought the episode was about endangered species because in my head the doctor and Clara couldn’t be so wrong as to be pro-life, yknow? If they’d made it a moon dragon waking up from hibernation instead of having a baby, and the value of preserving a unique, endangered life instead of unborn life they maybe could’ve saved the episode.

Honestly I can hardly even focus on the pro-life propaganda aspect of this episode because I’m too hung up on how extremely cruel and out of character the Doctor himself feels. I am 100% with Clara in thinking he was a cowardly, condescending dick with how he handled the whole situation and it didn’t feel true to 12’s character at all.

@Bowsile

Жыл бұрын

Peter Harness failed in this episode to capture 12s character, it’s so disappointing.

@Mooam

Жыл бұрын

They also butchered his character in Thin Ice because he just watched a child die without giving a single fuck, not even when Bill shouted at him did he care. He was just glad he got his sonic back.

@ThePonderer

Жыл бұрын

@@Mooam nah, Thin Ice was perfectly in character and a great episode. It was far too late to save that kid by the time he arrived, and he chooses not to get hung up on it because he needs to be completely focused on the problem at hand before anyone *else* dies.

@Mooam

Жыл бұрын

@@ThePonderer rewatch it and you'll see how he doesn't care, they don't even mention it again.

@ThePonderer

Жыл бұрын

@@Mooam I’ve rewatched the episode very recently. He refuses to care openly because to his mind caring when there’s nothing to be done obscures his ability to solve the problem.

The way you described this episode haunting you is exactly how that episode where trees grow everywhere to protect the Earth from a solar flare has haunted me and my journey with medications... it preaches such a lazy ableist irresponsible message about pharmaceuticals and mental health. --- btw I was so happy to read this video title, none of my friends watch Doctor Who so I never get valuable discussions with lesser known episodes like this. Thank you!

@nonsensicalramblings9167

Жыл бұрын

The way they treated the neurodivergent girl in that episode who was "speaking with the aliens" always left a really really bad taste in my mouth

@sabinajoh

6 ай бұрын

As an autistic person who takes multiple meds I never saw it that way. I always saw it as a “what if in the universe of Doctor Who some hallucinations are actually people who are able to communicate with other lifeforms”. Vincent Van Gogh could see that alien creature that no-one else could, which looked like hallucinations to everyone else. ButI also completely missed that (spoilers) Donna Noble’s Daughter is trans and her being misgendered was a big part of the story. I thought she had a brother who died smh. So idk how accurately I interpret things

@littlemissmello

5 ай бұрын

That episode is the reason I quit doctor who, although admittedly not necessarily about the potentially harmful medication messages, I just thought it was suuuuch lazy writing

Great video! Though, that A Song of Ice and Fire quote from Cersei is a very bad pull. In context, Cersei is a terrible person, but, her desire to abort Robert's unborn kid is not painted as further damnation. Instead, Cersei's villainy is often directly connected to her own motherhood and her desire to provide for and protect her children. Additionally, Cersei had no choice in her marriage and never loved or really even liked Robert. Each time her and Robert have had sex, according to Cersei, was him sort of forcing himself on her while he was drunk. Her choice to abort the kid is a decision, both in the text and I'd argue in subtext, is her response to marital rape. The conversation the quote you used takes place in is easily the most sympathetic portrayal of Cersei in the first book by far. Anyway, love your stuff I just thought this quote and example was a bad pull and only benefits the argument you were making when taken entirely out of context.

Playing the song "No children" after she said she didn't have any kids is simultaneously subtle and super on the nose and I love it

If I had kids, I imagine my hand would slam down so hard so fast on that nuke button to protect them. I really don't get how the writers thought they were being clever with that.

@DeathnoteBB

Жыл бұрын

Same. I only ever considered humanity to be “wrong” because at the end, they only now _already know_ what was going to happen. Of course NOW you can say the choice was wrong! Even Clara tearfully admits she didn’t want to save the moon, and was probably terrified she’s possibly killing the Earth.

@sunyavadin

Жыл бұрын

You know what did a similar sort of narrative to this better? Season 4 of Discovery. I was 100% with Book the entire way, and was SO glad he got his say at the end.

@iain9757

Жыл бұрын

Also especially because the Earth in the episode voted twice for it to die. Why would they send a spaceship full of nukes if they hadn’t made the decision already ? We’ve been told millions have died from the flooding caused by the moon growing

@4thofEleven

Жыл бұрын

@@sunyavadin I really appreciated that Discovery season 4 didn't have any real villains - just people with different and understandable perspectives.

@MayaMint

Жыл бұрын

Imagine being like "I'm going to sacrifice the lives of my loved ones to save this definitely non human creature I just found out exists"

I had my first kiss when I watched the episode with a girl from my school. So I completely missed the plot. It's hilarious that this is what was playing in the background

@samlewis6487

9 ай бұрын

I just realized that I have no indication of your gender, but you mentioned kissing a girl so I just assumed you're a lesbian. Because that's how my brain is.

@user-ts4yd6he6k

9 ай бұрын

@@samlewis6487 Yeah, I'm a dude, we still exist

I think when Clara says she almost made the wrong decision, she meant incorrect rather than immoral. There was an objectively correct choice in hindsight, and the Doctor not only forced her to guess which one but actively deceived her about its potential risk.

@loginssuckx3

Жыл бұрын

The correct choice was *definitely* to kill the moon. This is established at the end of the episode, when the creature which has just been born immediately lays an egg. What sort of creatures do that? Extremely fast-reproducing creatures which become extremely dangerous pests if not controlled... the writers Failed Ecology

@tomnorton4277

Жыл бұрын

Peter Capaldi was a total shitstain in this episode. And no, I'm not calling him the Doctor because the Valeyard would be proud to have Capaldi in his regeneration cycle and the Dream Lord would be laughing hysterically at how low he sank. Hell, I don't consider Capaldi legitimate Doctor material until his anti-war speech in the latter half of his second season. The man should never have played this incarnation. He could have managed the War Doctor and would have been an outright fantastic Valeyard, a worthy successor to Michael Jayston, but he botched this Doctor. It's the most unique form of miscasting in history. The Doctor didn't need to look like an outright villain here because the story is written to present two valid sides of the argument. If John Hurt was handling this, he would have delivered "That was me respecting you" with the gentle confidence of a man who genuinely thought he was helping Clara and was proud of her but ashamed of himself because he knew that he had been cruel to be kind. Peter Capaldi delivered that line as though he was desperately grasping for excuses because he couldn't understand why Clara was angry with him. It's ironic that Peter Capaldi's old enough to have watched William Hartnell's entire era before several of his episodes were lost, yet he destroyed the Doctor's core personality through some idiotic acting choices. Hartnell would be ashamed that one of his biggest fans could show such a fundamental misunderstanding of the character. To be fair, Capaldi managed to fix the damage in his second and third seasons but a better actor wouldn't have fucked up in the first place.

@jewishautisticnerd3874

10 ай бұрын

@@tomnorton4277what a load of crap 😂

@TheStanishStudios

4 ай бұрын

@@tomnorton4277Why are you assuming Peter is who decided to write the character that way? Weird, weird take… he’s the actor not the writer

@tomnorton4277

4 ай бұрын

@@TheStanishStudios He could have delivered "That was me... respecting you" as if he actually believed what he was saying. Instead he looked and sounded uncertain and confused, like he couldn't understand that Clara had a very good reason to be angry with him. He played it like he couldn't wrap his "genius" Time Lord mind around why she wasn't thanking him. At best, Peter Capaldi made the Doctor look like a complete idiot who had learned nothing after 12 lifetimes. At worst, he made him look like a sociopath. Either way, it's a disgrace to the Doctor's character. Give the exact same scene to John Hurt and he would have made the Doctor sound like he knew exactly how Clara felt but was trying to help her become stronger. This was written to be a cruel to be kind situation. Peter Capaldi turned it into a cruel one through either stupidity or a sociopathic lack of empathy.

This episode feels pro-choice while still maintaining there’s only one morally correct choice. “Women should be free to make the RIGHT choice”

@Quirderph

Жыл бұрын

The issue is that the episode basically consists of a pair of women arguing over whether or not to kill *someone else’s* baby.

@kevinschlueter4343

Жыл бұрын

@@Quirderph Although the baby is hatching from an egg and is no longer part of its mother. So, the analogy with human pregnancy is somewhat weaker.

@bly7303

Жыл бұрын

@@kevinschlueter4343 i mean its still someones unborn baby i dont see why it matters if its in an egg or a womb at least in response to the other commenter

@MissaBrevis

Жыл бұрын

@@bly7303 I think it matters because bodily autonomy is so central to the discussion of reproductive rights. Not that the Quirderph's original point isn't valid, it's definitely one of the troubling aspects of the episode, but there very much is a difference in the implications.

@paulelkin3531

Жыл бұрын

​@@bly7303 Do you accept that *all* people have certain inalienable rights? Or do you limit such a thing only to unborn babies?

I can toootally see how the ugly implications of this episode flew over the heads of the people...okay, the *men* who made it. They not only wanted to do their own twist on the old "Does the Doctor have the right...?" idea by having him hand the choice over to the people he's so often made it for, they also probably thought they were doing a female empowerment episode. All the major characters who have to make this decision are women, and more specifically it's Clara, the female sidekick to the usual hero, who assumes the Doctor's seat of power where she's the one who makes the decision for the good of humanity, as well as taking the Doctor to task in the end. The problem is that it's pretty obvious this script was written on the clueless assumption that woman protagonists need a more "womany" story. And so the big issue of the episode is a baby, and zero thought was put in to how that impacted the theme.

@ea5145

Жыл бұрын

god this is so spot on it's like you read their minds

@arempy5836

Жыл бұрын

"Alright, this is a woman episode, so what is it women do again? Oh yeah, babies. They're for to make babies. Make it about a baby, lads. Damn, we might just be doing one of those 'theme' things I hear so much about!"

@ChrisStoneinator

Жыл бұрын

Guys guys guys. The writers are FUCKING BRITISH. Abortion was a non issue in the UK in 2014. The writers had absolutely zero responsibility to avoid such implications on account of it couldn’t possibly have crossed their minds. Read it however you want in your very own Americentric 2022 but getting mad at the writers is uncalled for.

@damdamfino

Жыл бұрын

Oh god. Its so true. Makes me think of all the sexist ways men write stories for women characters. “Need to put the woman in danger? Threaten and/or do r@pe! Bonus points is it can be their PTSD for the rest of the story!” “Need a tragic backstory for our female character? She can’t have children! The woooorst thing to happen to any woman ever!”

@edward4840

Жыл бұрын

@@damdamfino gives me "no guys, women can't just know martial arts - they have to have this deep childhood fear of abandonment or some complicated backstory as to why" vibes

since you brought up Omelas, i just thought i should mention that, when i read the story in undergrad, there was a boy in my class who very firmly supported the society depicted in the story, basically saying, "what's the problem with torturing one child if it means thousands of people can live in peace and happiness?" just a couple weeks later he was arguing against abortion.

I find it forever ridiculous that people will value something that relies on your body for survival over the person hosting it. Pregnancy literally kills women and takes so much out of them. With so many already born kids on this planet its ridiculous that people don't focused their efforts on caring for them rather than adding to them.

@SlayerOfTheDamned

Жыл бұрын

Can you say the same about baby’s having already been born but rely on their mother’s for breast milk? If not then why? The baby heavily relies on the mother’s sustenance and, as you would describe, is burdening her. Also, when a mother is undergoing a pregnancy, she isn’t dying. If accommodating for your unborn baby within your womb is dying then I guess you can say we’re all dying by simply aging because our body has to accommodate the environment and our actions withering us down slowly but surely. Also, with the born children, I think it is great that charities and programs are set in place to find these children a loving home and happy life. But labor is NOT a right. You do not have a right to force someone into producing labor in order to satisfy the needs of someone else.

@deathdragoncat

Жыл бұрын

@@SlayerOfTheDamned I have no idea what your point is. I'm against people forcing women to birth children they dont want. Women can literally die giving birth to a baby???? I legit dont understand wtf youre trying to say, like kids dont deserve homes when they were abandoned?? Who else is going to take care of kids people choose to have but dont want to raise?

@zoebirss9944

Жыл бұрын

@@SlayerOfTheDamned Yes, I also believe that forcing a woman to breastfeed is wrong. I do not see the point you are trying to make, here.

@Misora7303

Жыл бұрын

@@SlayerOfTheDamned the difference is that the baby out of the mom can feel pain and presents no danger to the pregnant person, this baby doesn't need to feed directly from the mom, there are formulas for them nowadays. Pregnancied, even on the better circunstances are a physical, psycological and economical Risk to the pregnant person. Aborting It on the first weeks (which most abortions take place) would not hurt them, because It literally can't feel pain yet, and I do care more about a person that is Alive already than a thing that nobody knows or cares about. In the case of late abortions...they are done on extreme situations for the mom, not just because

@alicethemad1613

Жыл бұрын

@Slayer I’m about to blow your mind. Are you ready? … Ahem Formula

the moon being an egg that hatches a dragon thing and the beauty of that makes humanity go exploring is actually a really cool concept imo! i just really hate that it was used for..this

The science of this episode is just bonkers. Like, the moon somehow doubles in mass or something because it's an egg and the thing inside is growing, but that makes no sense. Eggs are closed systems, there is nowhere for more mass to come from. An egg actually gets slightly lighter as the thing inside grows due to moisture loss. Even ignoring that nonsense and just granting that for whatever reason the egg gets heavier, it is still ridiculous because the moon is billions of years old, but it only starts to get heavier a few years before the thing hatches? That would be like a pregnant woman not gaining any weight until 10 seconds before giving birth.

@siobhanelysia8852

Жыл бұрын

Could you imagine people just filling up like balloons immediately before popping out the baby?

@lycianempire

Жыл бұрын

@@siobhanelysia8852 Mark that down as a new/updated nightmare in the collection.

@kashiichan

Жыл бұрын

@@siobhanelysia8852 Like in the Umbrella Academy tv show lol

@Stinkoman87

Жыл бұрын

@@siobhanelysia8852 shh... don't tell the inflation fetishists.

@tuffy135ify

Жыл бұрын

It's sci-fi

I mean I'd rather deal with the weird implications of this story genuinely being about the doctor wanting to protect a life, than the weird implications of that one time the woman doctor punished an Indian dude by deliberately leaving him to be tortured to death by actual Nazis. So if the doctor is gonna be problematic, there's better ways to do that

When you think about it the doctor's actions in this episode are just narcissistic gaslighting: "I'm not being condescending, because I'm actually respecting you" "I knew all along what the outcome would be, because you're so predictable and you knew which decision I would want you to make" "Going against what everyone else tells you to do and sticking with what you knew I would want was the ultimate in good decision making and morality" "I don't need to take a moral stand on the taking of life or saving it, because the choice here is so obvious even YOU could make it" Either the writing is spot on for the doctor and he's a horrible incarnation of the doctor, or the writer does not have good relationships themselves and genuinely thinks this is how you help someone make a decision.

@loginssuckx3

Жыл бұрын

This incarnation of the Doctor is genuinely awful in practically every episode. A few writers go in a different direction but not many. What makes this episode different, and exceptionally bad, is that in the other episodes where he's being awful, you can argue that it's the character being awful -- you don't have to agree with him. This episode's heavy-handed moralizing from the scriptwriter make it clear that the writer is trying to push an agenda. An agenda which makes no sense. Any creature which can lay an egg within a day of being born is a dangerously fast-reproducing pest; an ecological nightmare which you do NOT want to set loose. But the writer obviously doesn't understand ecology. He just wanted to write a just-so story for his anti-abortion religious tract nonsense. It should never have been filmed.

@tomnorton4277

Жыл бұрын

@@loginssuckx3 Okay, first of all the complaints about ecology is nonsense. This is a show where a sentient police box that is bigger on the inside and travels through time and space is in every episode. Furthermore, alien physiology doesn't need to conform to any physiology that humans are familiar with for obvious reasons. The rules are different. Second, I blame Peter Capaldi more than anybody else for the Doctor being a total shitbag. If John Hurt had been handling this episode, he could have made it seem like the Doctor genuinely did respect Clara. He would have delivered "That was me respecting you" with the confidence of a man who genuinely thought he was helping her. Peter Capaldi delivered it with the defensiveness of a man who was just making excuses. The whole point was that he was pushing Clara out of her comfort zone in order to help her become stronger but with that context, the Doctor KNEW that he was being a shitty friend, yet Capaldi played it as though he expected Clara to be grateful. Just look at that stupid smile he gives her before she rips into him. It's like he thinks everything is fine and dandy, despite throwing Clara into a situation which was similar to him trying to decide whether he should use the Moment at the end of the Time War. The Doctor would know better than anybody why Clara was upset but Capaldi played it like he was completely baffled. At best, Capaldi made the Doctor look retarded and at worst he made him look as sociopathic as the Valeyard. And third, the episode doesn't demand that the audience agrees with either side of the issue. People just feel uncomfortable about abortion, so they blame the episode for presenting arguments for and against it. Thing is, abortion is something that needs to be thought about. That's all the episode asks you to do. I don't blame writers for being terrified of allowing audiences to decide for themselves because showing respect for human intelligence often results in backlash due to most of the human race being idiots.

i rewatched this series over lockdown and its wild like 3 episodes later there's a story where a child being given prescription medicine for mental health is treated as an unambiguously bad thing by the narrative

@lulucool45

Жыл бұрын

rancid!

@mvlligrvbs

Жыл бұрын

wait what😃

@lazypines

Жыл бұрын

@@mvlligrvbs it's In The Forest of the Night, it's about trees that spring up all over London overnight and one of Clara's students is taking medicine (I think for schizophrenia), turns out the medicine was dampening her psychic powers to hear the trees' psychic messages and the Doctor goes off on how adults are bad for "not listening to children" or something. it's pretty ridiculous and may be a bad message to send to kids who are being prescribed medication, especially when the narrative treats her no longer taking meds as a good thing with no consequences 😬

@mvlligrvbs

Жыл бұрын

@@lazypines 😬

@Carewolf

Жыл бұрын

And the next doctor preferred a long painful death to humanely killing a dying beast with a gun.

While I agree with almost the entirety of the video, I don't think book-Cersei is a good example of "bad woman does an abortion" - Cersei has 3 kids with Jamie, the man she loves, and while both her and her eldest son Joffrey are antagonist she's presented as a caring mother. The abortion referenced in the video is a result of Cersei being impregnated by Robert Baratheon, a man she hates, who treats her poorly, and one she was forced into marriage with to increase her father's political power. It's been a while since I've read the first book but this is one of Cersei's most sympathetic scenes, the face that she had to sneak to have the abortion because of how much she hated her forced relationship with Robert and later hide it because she could suffer for aborting the King's child (even though, for all the people of Westeros know, she'd given him three kids already) is shown for the hard situation that it is.

@viinaart

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, that's such a tiny part of the video, but it took me out so bad lmao

@r.j.penfold

Жыл бұрын

Yea but isn't she related to Jamie?

@cfv7461

Жыл бұрын

@@r.j.penfold yes, but not relevant to this point

@split776

Жыл бұрын

@@r.j.penfold yes, but it's not related to the abortion in question in any way so I fail to see how it's relevant If it makes you feel any better it's presented as A Bad Thing since the start, and by book 4 Jamie is done with Cersei anyway

@r.j.penfold

Жыл бұрын

@@split776 okay yes it had nothing to do with the abortion but I was trying to remember which character is who cuz I never watched the show or read the books and only heard about it through the grape vine

Them: "Nooo we can't kill it it's a babyyyy :(" Millions of unborn babies on earth: 👁👄👁

@Silburific

Жыл бұрын

Not to mention the billions of already born babies, and toddlers and older children- and teens and adults!- who could have potentially been killed in tsunamis after all the tides got borked from the moon exploding. But who gives a fuck about them- the moon monster is innocent... maybe... who knows (I mean, if it could be anything, it could just as easily be something that consumes worlds, but no one wants to think about that).

Thank you so much! I'm a rabid Whovian and a repro rights activist and clinic escort of the past several decades. It's really, really damned amazing I didn't throw a boot through my TV watching that ep, and the thought of it still leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. Also, my inner physics geek found absolutely everything about the moon/egg so badly justified, even in a series in which I'm happy with ridiculous amounts of handwavy explanation, I couldn't suspend disbelief nearly far enough.

I think that “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” is a bit more nuanced than your summary here depicts. I think LeGuin has empathy for the people who stay, and seems to imply that knowing about the cost of their good fortune helps them appreciate it more, and not take it for granted. I don’t think “walking away” is intended to be the only valid choice, I think we as readers are expected to truly consider what cost would be too high for happiness. Now, I think many of us as readers have the kind of empathy that makes walking away feel like the right decision for us, but when reading the story I never felt like LeGuin was criticizing the people who didn’t make that same decision.

@ramennoodles776

Жыл бұрын

It’s also important to note that those who walk away aren’t helping the child either- they are quite literally walking away from the problem

@ramblinentertainment1922

Жыл бұрын

Exactly, I felt the story is condemning those who walk away and those who stay almost equally, in the end saying that only dismantling the system entirely can be the solution

@RobertWSquirrel

Жыл бұрын

I think both these readings are great, but I don’t think either of them are “the” meaning of the text. That’s sort of the point I was trying to make earlier: LeGuin sets up a hypothetical situation and then asks us to imagine our response, but there are no obvious answers, every decision sucks in its own different way. Ending the suffering of the child ends the happiness of the population. Walking away means being ethically clear but abdicating responsibility. Enjoying the happiness causes the suffering of the child. My reading of the story has changed quite a bit in the 30 years since I first read it, because it is nuanced enough to contain all of these decisions while being empathetic to all of them.

@JustNierninwa

Жыл бұрын

Like my interpretation was always that when they walked away they essentially died. Also I know I really took the story's claims to be true, that the child would not really be able to enjoy anything. My French teacher made us read the story (translated in French) in class when I was 15 and in the same class we had also worked a lot on like the myth of the Wild/Feral Child, whether Victor of Aveyron or other similar stories, whether legend like Remus and Romulus, some more classical literature like the original Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Jungle Book by by Rudyard Kipling, we worked a lot on play adaptation of Les Animaux dénaturés by Jean Bruller (aka Vercors), a book known by many name in English, by the way, and we also worked on the story of Kaspar Hauser. And the tragic end to a lot of these, well, more so the real life ones (granted, Kaspar Hauser was doing well and was just assassinated…), all that and the debates we had on what makes us human after also studying 2001 A Space Odyssey had me thinking that you know, the kid probably isn't functioning well enough anyways? Though I did kind of see it as more of a symbol than anything else. Like, it's not a child, really, it just represents… well, yeah, innocence I guess, but you can't really free him cause he's not *really real* if it makes sensE? But to be fair, I can't quite detach the story from how I saw it when I first read it and the whole *essentially fan fiction* I created to explain what happens. When we studied the story, our teacher told us to write a piece on "where do the ones who walk away from Omelas go?" and I ran with an idea that this is the start of their cycle of reincarnation before they are free from it. And if I can overshare a bit, there's some really funny stuff, there. Cause I had only heard about reincarnation as a concept at that age, and otherwise was familiar with some catholic theology (being in a catholic school) and so still had the ideas of heaven and hell very present and essentially I accidentally stumbled upon the concepts of: 1) Saṃsāra as they go around the reincarnation cycle for centuries 2) Duḥkha as they start off as lowly animals, then end up humans in bad situations, etc. (although some of that I was kind of aware of as being the traditional idea of reincarnation coupled with karma) 3) as they leave they go up into the mountains / Eighteen Peaks, all of the ones leaving for the first time taking a specific path that grows darker and darker and they start to climb back down, making them forget about Omelas, in a way comparable to the Meng Po Soup / the Bridge of Forgetfulness of Chinese mythology 4) the Bardo Thodol, that being Omelas - in this case, it is a starting point where souls are born, decide to leave, eventually, starting their enlightenment process. I invented a train that brought babies to Omelas - they weren't born there. They just arrived and were assigned families (which could almost be equated to a Jāti group like one seen in Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, so I guess 5, here). The trains sometime just pass through without stopping, though, carrying the people who died on Earth but aren't done with their Saṃsāra. The last thing is that some babies are born with a mark (and handed over to the priests and priestesses of Omelas) and these children leave the first time they see The Child, taking a second path through the mountains and that might have been an accidental inclusion of Nirvana (6) Also incidentally the French teacher was my mother, but uh… yeah, that was another load of fun haha.

@Hellooo134

Жыл бұрын

I completely agree. I honestly read the whole thing and at the end just thought, no I wouldn’t walk away from Omelas. It wouldn’t help the child to do that.

my abortion and divorce - unrelated and amicable - were two of the best decisions of my life, due to the fact that they were both my choice, and I'd done them w such conviction (necessary in life altering decisions) and logic (not that necessary) that those decisions never possessed the potential to cause me regret. abortion at 22 and divorce at 30. 0regrets.

@spudsbuchlaw

Жыл бұрын

Girlboss

@Aphelia.

Жыл бұрын

I hope life is fantastic for you

@sarasthoughts

Жыл бұрын

I hope your pillow is always chilly and your socks always soft

@mercurycures

Жыл бұрын

hell yeah

@diehard7517

Жыл бұрын

I don't know, i would say that logic is pretty necessary when it comes to life altering decisions.

This isn’t a very hot take by me but honestly for me what saved this episode in my head when I watched it was that it was “the only one left” in the universe and so I felt it was more of a reason for Clara to wanna save the creature in the way that it’s extinction vs extinction for both species, it’s not the same but I feel like it’s similar to the star whale episode with Amy .

@kragary

6 ай бұрын

Even then it's a choice between one species and thousands of species... The Beast Below is indeed a similarly set-up story, but with one major difference: Amy's choice in the end wasn't uninformed because she'd collected clues throughout the episode.

This episode has such a weird, extreme anti-abortion message?? Like, I've got a lot of pro-life relatives, but I think they'd all also kill the moon in this scenario. Absolutely none of them think that termination is wrong if the life of the mother is at stake. They just tend to be against elective abortion, which is a whole other argument. So even if this HAD been intended as a pro-life episode, it fails at portraying most actual pro-life people's views, and it instead shows the most extreme possible version of absolute anti-abortion rhetoric.

@alanpennie8013

Жыл бұрын

It also ignores the fact that blowing up The Moon is an extremely bad idea because of Earth's gravity field. The scientific illiteracy of this episode was just as grating as its moral nullity.

@soulstealer5625

5 ай бұрын

@@alanpennie8013i missed all the themes in this episode because the sheer fiction in this sci fi show just took me out

I love the idea that going through this was just so beautiful and majestic that it inspired humanity to explore the universe. A more plausible interpretation is that humanity realized they all almost died because of their own moon and decided they needed to get to work on off-world colonies in case it ever happened again. But I guess that's not as inspiring an ending.

@annajung1234

Жыл бұрын

Oh, you are right! And the fact the new moon is another egg makes it certain the same thing WILL happen again (millions of people will die while it tries to hatch). So doing their best to be able to get tf out of there before or when it happens makes total sense.

The deeply ironic thing is, while the episode probably was meant as a riff on the trolley problem, the trolley problem originated in a 1967 philosophy paper by Philippa Foot about the abortion rights debate, "The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect."

@KD-ou2np

Жыл бұрын

Whaaaaat? This is def my new fav philosophy fun fact

@FelisImpurrator

Жыл бұрын

Wait, what, really? Trolley problems are still contrived bullshit though.

@HeyItsMad

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, but Foot is largely anti-abortion, she beleives the issue comes down to wether the fetus is morally considerable or not and that, oddly in contrast with her typical objectivism, the point at which moral considerability occurs should be determined by a community. She disagrees that Jarvis-Thompson's famous violinist argument shows that abortion is permissible regardless of moral status, which Thompson argues is an example of the doctrine of double effect, that is, that removing a fetus is akin to letting die, rather than murdering. Foot says that in the cade of the violinist, already ailing, this is true, but in the case of a healthy fetus, this is false, hence there's a failure in analogy. I find Foots position here to be contradictory. Neither the fetus nor the violinist can have an independent existence, so their posistions do seem directly comparable. Both of these women seem to me victims of writing at the time, the 60s & 70s still had heavily male dominated formalist ethics, deontology and utilitarianism being pretty much the only two theories taken seriously. As more women entered ethics, we have seen much more devolution into less systemic ethical theories like virtue and care ethics, and softer variations of utilitarianism like preference utilitarianism, along with relativist and subjectivist theories in the meta space, and more rights centered theories (utiliatiransim and deontology tend to use rights almost as tie-breakers/decision aiders rather than the basis of their theories).

@FelisImpurrator

Жыл бұрын

@@HeyItsMad Interesting take, but isn't that odd bit out a consensus ethics position? Also, virtue ethics is... very much a hegemonic masculine, traditionally Western ethical system, is it not? Classical Greek and all that. Personally, I hold a deep skepticism of any moral essentialist or realist positions. I'm basically an empiricist at heart, so I lean toward a moral anti-realist, multiple stage utilitarian moral foundation. Going down the line... I can't stand deontology; I find that it tends to reduce to tautology ("bad because bad") or magic ("bad because God") or neglect of minorities (sacrifice the exception for the rule). I dislike consensus ethics even more, because it's so highly susceptible to biases (tribalism being one, and propaganda influences being another; it's so easy to have popular opinion swayed by manipulation to serve hegemony). Virtue ethics just seems... kind of baseless to me? I don't know if there's such a thing as non-essentialist virtue ethics, but essentialism itself to me is abominable and tyrannical, leading to a sort of crass fatalism. I'm not sure whether virtue can be meaningfully said to exist in any other sense either... Or what purpose it serves to conceive of "character" to begin with, except to create projections of other people's consciousnesses (that we can't access; seems presumptuous) for the sake of judging them for personal gratification. Care ethics honestly just sounds like soft utilitarianism to me, on that note. That is, accounting for people's emotions as having utility value. Rights are an odd concept to me... I don't really understand how they're supposed to be constructed or defended. On what basis can they be said to exist? If we drop moral realism (and rightly so, considering the assertion of singular objective truth necessarily presupposes hegemonic authority over that truth), then rights are a construct, and for a purpose... What formulation of rights isn't just deontological (they exist axiomatically and have inherent value) or utilitarian (they exist to ground our definition of utility in concrete functions useful to us or other life) or consensus (they exist purely because we say they do, and are thus subject to people deciding you just don't get them)?

This is not a new theme for Moffat run Who. To Moffat, a woman is most important when she's a mother, it is what she's most meant to be. We see this in multiple characters across his entire run going right back to the beginning with Nancy in The Doctor Dances. It's a theme we just can't get away from under his leadership.

A 50 minute video on this episode is what I needed that many years ago when I watched it. No one would quite talk about it straight. So yes, the beginning of this video is a feeling! I have had!

1. Amazing video, as always 2. I had this moment when you were describing how space-military-lady is depicted as cruel and heartless because of her childlessness where I thought, “what if they /did/ make her a mother, with all of the stereotypes that entails?” Obvs it doesn’t solve the childless=bad depiction, but I think it could have really added a much-needed dimension to the moral decision here. Because she could respond to the doctor when he asks what will you tell your children, “I’m doing this FOR my children. This thing has ALREADY killed other children, and if it is allowed to continue, it will probably kill and harm even more, including mine. You are effectively asking me to /kill my children/ by allowing this threat to survive.” And if you wanna do an exploration of motherhood, that’s a hell of a lot more of an interesting dilemma. Plus, you know, with the whole abortion metaphor, it acknowledges that a lot of the people who get abortions are ALREADY parents, who are choosing to get an abortion for the good of their existing children (either because they couldn’t handle more kids for whatever reason or they want to make sure they are still around to care for their children). Plus then if you still have Clara override humanity’s decision, you can see the devastation in her eyes as she thinks this will kill her kids. (And then have Clara’s decision actually have consequences-maybe the birth is still miraculous and doesn’t wipe out all of humanity, but it does kill many people. And if you wanna go really dark (probably too dark for doctor who, though torchwood might have gone for it) have some of the people it kills be military lady’s children. THAT would be a moral decision with actual consequences, that now Clara and the doctor have to live with.) like, if you’re gonna make it an abortion/motherhood metaphor, make it a fucking abortion/motherhood metaphor

@MystiqMiu

Жыл бұрын

👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

@hypatiakovalevskayasklodow9195

Жыл бұрын

I guess… but a woman doesn’t have to be a mother to have empathy towards whole of humanity? i really dont see it improves, it simply changes?

@adamdavis1648

Жыл бұрын

@@hypatiakovalevskayasklodow9195 It makes the moral dilemma feel more real to the audience because the people who supposedly might die if the moon hatches are the children of a character we know. It's kind of like the difference between the death of a main character vs. the death of some random nameless background characters.

@hypatiakovalevskayasklodow9195

Жыл бұрын

@@adamdavis1648 How does it make it more real? I'm not trying to be sarcastic or condescending anything, I am genuinely asking. I'm not a mother yet, I'm not particularly maternal and never dreamed of having kids, is my passion for humanity getting better and saving itself weaker than someone's who is a mother? My husband puts his life on the line daily for bettering the world and there's people who already have kids who will actively work on destroying the planet? Also, can't help but wonder if this same point would be brought up if the scientist was a man. But that's besides the point cause it isn't a man. I just don't see how it would make it more real or stronger.It would just make it different. I feel like it is the other way around, it would make it wekaer. it's like men who are feminists cause they have such world views and values from a young age, and men who realize they're misogynists only once they have a daughter. One do it from the inherent kindness in their hearts, the others had to be shook into it and didnt care until it affected their own little sphere of the world.

@adamdavis1648

Жыл бұрын

@@hypatiakovalevskayasklodow9195 I'm saying that I think it's easier for most consumers of fiction to care about 1. fictional characters they feel like they've gotten to know and have a personal investment in and 2. the fictional people who characters in category 1 know and have a personal investment in. I suspect most viewers would feel more said about the death of a companion of The Doctor they liked than a character who only appears in one scene only to get killed by the monster of the week. Likewise, most people who watch Star Wars probably feel stronger emotions in reaction to the death of Yoda or even Darth Vader than the death of some random storm trooper, party because (unless you count ex storm trooper Finn) we don't know any of those troopers or know any character who cares about them. Most also probably don't feel that much for the dead on Alderan because we never see any of them, but they feel more than they otherwise would because Leia feels bad about their deaths. There are people who cried over the death kf Dobby in Harry Potter, but probably not many who cried over the deaths of nameless people who are part of Voldemort's kill count from before the first book. When you know that someone is fictional anyway, it's hard to get emotionally invested in what happens to them unless the story makes them *feel* real or at least creates a personal connection between them and another character who feels real. I suspect most audience members who have felt more for "poor Lundvic's children" then the abstraction of "all those fictional billions we know nothing about."

“I do have personal beef with Steven Moffet” multiple fandoms do, it goes without saying at this point lol

Great video! I remember watching this episode years ago, and all of the subtext flew right over my head. However, I think this is a very persuasive video and good food for thought. Definitely made me think! One of my favorite Sarah Z videos :)

there are two main ways i think they could have made this episode so much more nuanced: 1) just to make Lundvik a mother, it gives it so much more nuance and it makes Clara's decision to take away her (and humanity's) choice much more personal and interesting to discuss. Or 2) let them switch places, Ludivik is the one that wants to save the moon egg and Clara doesn't

If writers rooms were diverse at all someone would have been able to tell the writer that there were some uncomfortable parallels. He may not have meant the abortion parallel, but this is exactly what happens when all your writers are men. I was watching the mandalorian with my mom, and there was the one episode with Grogu eating Frog Ladys eggs and it genuinely triggered my mom bc she struggled with fertility. I looked if up and all male writers room. Writers rooms need to be diverse and full of different perspectives. Edit to add: i dont mean to be gender essentialist here. This is to say: all white rooms are going to have blind spots about race, all straight/cis rooms with lgbtq issues, etc.

@DeathnoteBB

Жыл бұрын

Seriously. Ugh. Russian Doll is an _amazing_ show and guess what? All women writers.

@alphasia91

Жыл бұрын

Because pro-life women don’t exist…. Right….

@Flameclaw123

Жыл бұрын

I felt the same way about that episode of the Mandalorian! I haven't had fertility issues myself, but it still felt very gross to see the eggs of a sapient creature - who was trusting Mando to get her and her kids to safety - getting eaten by Grogu and having it become a "recurring bit" that was exclusively played for comedy. Like it's not even that the act itself is uncomfortable (which it is imo) but sure, species eat other species eggs all the time, and in something like a nature documentary that would be fine. But these are sapient beings and the whole thing being played for comedy was icky. It's the way it's framed, like it's a meaningless joke we can all have a laugh at, while we're also supposed to be invested in the frog lady getting the last of her eggs to safety.

@bookswithike3256

Жыл бұрын

British shows don't generally do writers rooms. They have one person write the script for the episode, polish it up as much as possible, then it goes to the script editor, who is usually also the showrunner.

@Leafeon56

Жыл бұрын

@@bookswithike3256 ok so its worse? There are even more opportunities for massive blind spots bc there are only two people ever checking scripts?

With no frame of reference coming into this (having never watched Doctor Who), I wasn't sure how subtextual the thesis was gonna be. Then The Doctor said "it's your moon *womankind*, it's your choice" and I died a little inside. Also, commenting for the algorithm. All my homies hate the algorithm.

@danimalfarm

Жыл бұрын

I always parsed that line as him just feeling silly addressing three women as "mankind."

@hjt091

Жыл бұрын

@@danimalfarm Fair enough. It's not as if there's a gender-neutral way of referring to HUMANS

@Acquilla7

Жыл бұрын

Just gonna say, as a trans dude who can, theoretically, get pregnant, that bit really rubbed me the wrong way even back then. The emphasis on womanhood + the obvious abortion metaphor is... really not great when you look at the implications and how non-women with the ability to get pregnant get erased in these discussions. And it doesn't get better when you factor in the childless woman is the pro-abortion side.

@Xondar11223344

Жыл бұрын

@@hjt091 Technically, "mankind" is gender neutral! In Old English, "man" was "wereman" and "woman" was "wyfeman." We get "woman" directly from "wyfeman," and words like "werewolf" from "wereman" (a man who can turn into a wolf = wereman + wolf = werewolf). Thus words like "mankind" and "human" were in fact gender neutral. Since we dropped the "were" modifier for "man," it doesn't really work out to be gender neutral any longer though I think.

The correct answer to the trolley problem is to actually do nothing, cross your fingers and hope the tram explodes and reforms itself into a trolley with brakes

This episode had a similar tone deaf take on life that the 13th Doctors giant spider episode had. Suffocating the spiders to death seems just as if not MORE cruel than shooting them. Also love a good Mountain Goats reference

It really sucks that Capaldi's very progressive aligned era is tinged by something so shitty.

@amycatass

Жыл бұрын

Big agree here, I have to skip this one and a couple other stinkers when I watch capaldi. His run as the doctor has such High Highs! But this episode… woof. Real big poo poo stinky stain.

@SarahZ

Жыл бұрын

Capaldi is honestly a fantastic Doctor in general. Weird episode! But I love his stuff.

@hamstercom23

Жыл бұрын

Capaldi was the perfect choice to play the Doctor, but his run was one of the biggest wastes of potential. Of all the actors who've played the role so far, he's the one who most deserved better.

@robbiemartin9312

Жыл бұрын

The writer of this episode swears it wasn't about prolife it just was a coincidence

@DeathnoteBB

Жыл бұрын

@@hamstercom23 Same with Jenna Coleman. Clara had so much potential and they just… never let it go anywhere