Mathieson has a great way with a trope: last week’s Bechdel Test line, and this episode’s Hammerspace moment. I agree with whoever said that he “gets” what the show ought to be: a lot of what I liked about this episode {and the previous one} was the sheer pace: just so many ideas and jokes and lines just tumbling out, but never in a way that felt rushed or contrived, and the climax was deeply satisfying, with the Doctor being brilliant or laying the smack. I actually felt excited watching this one.
I think that was an excellent summary of why Kill The Moon was such rubbish. The denouement of Flatliners worked perfectly because it fit the rules it had established: the Graffiti Killers could be tricked by a Road-Runneresque cartoon illusion of a door painted on a wall because that was how the world they lived in worked. It wasn’t a dumb deus ex machina, it was a smart, consistent solution that didn’t cheat by stepping outside its own premise. Kill The Moon, on the other hand, could only be resolved by throwing everything we know about the actual physical properties of large objects out the window: it was a dumb, lazy solution to a dumb, lazy problem.
I could’ve lived with the moon/egg thing. But then they treated the whole physics of the moon seriously. Once you start examining the effects of the moon’s gravity on earth, you better come up with less eye rolling stuff. That really lost me.
Sure, there’s lots of stuff in DW the fails a cursory examination. But at least give us handwave of a chance.