C+Q - Kill the Moon (2014)
It's been a long time since Doctor Who was this character focused and right now, after the four-year-long Trenzalore arc that spanned the entirety of the Matt Smith era, it's certainly a refreshing change of gear. In recent interviews, Steven Moffat has been discussing the characters of the Doctor, Clara, and Danny in the way that he used to discuss his huge pithy set pieces ("Asylum of the Daleks will feature every Dalek ever!") because this year the characters ARE the huge set pieces. Yes, we've had the occasional appearance from Missy and the promised land but it's always been tacked on to the end of episodes and doesn't seem to effect anything. It seems to me that the running theme of heaven is just a front to make us think that we're getting a typical Moffat series arc on the surface. After watching a few Series 8 episodes, it doesn't take long to realise that the true recurring theme of the series isn't so much the existence of heaven, but rather is the Doctor worthy of heaven? Is he a good man? We won't be able to really comment on how effective all of the recurring themes and motifs are until they all pay off in the finale, but right now, I'd go so far to say that Series 8 has probably the tightest and most engaging arc we've ever had.
The Twelfth Doctor's new fiercer persona is finally called out towards the end of the episode, where we see Clara apparently breaking up with him. Looking back over the series, the strong bond between the two characters has been slowly breaking down ever since his regeneration ("It's very obvious that you've been with him for a while." "Why?" "Because you're really good at the excuses.") and it was only a matter of time before Clara walked, something that I can't help but feel Peri Brown should've done after everything she put up with from Sixie. I love that instead of being another in a series of self-contained episodes with no emotional repercussions, Kill the Moon actually sees all of the problems Clara has had with the new Doctor boil over in the beautifully-acted final scenes. By abandoning Clara, Lundvik, and Courtney on the Moon to make the decision, the Doctor was clearly in the wrong. If Clara had done the same to the Eleventh, Tenth, and War Doctors in The Day of the Doctor, Gallifrey would never have been saved; it was entirely her "interference" in Time Lord affairs that rid the Doctor of his guilt and gave him the chance to recover his home planet. The very least the Doctor could have done is to return the favour.
The main body of the episode with the Moon being an egg is exactly the sort of whimsical sci-fi I expect from a show with a dimensionally transcendental police box from the 1960s. Peter Capaldi's delivery of the line "The Moon's an egg..." is perfect and you can tell that he's overcome with both scientific curiosity and general bemusement. The acting throughout this episode and this whole series from Capaldi and Coleman has been superb with both of them being able to handle both the light-hearted comedic moments and the heavy moral dilemmas. It's strange to think that this is only our seventh episode with the Twelfth Doctor as his character is already very well defined. There are certain Tom Baker elements in this portrayal which really come out in this episode, especially at the beginning where we see references to 1975's The Ark in Space with mentions of Bennett oscillators and the use of a yo-yo to measure gravity. The spider enemies that featured so much in the initial hype got pushed to the side pretty quickly which is a real shame, because for the few scenes they were in, they had a very menacing presence, albeit slightly let down by some bad effects (although in hindsight, the effects budget for Series 8 had probably been blown on Flatline).
Kill the Moon, whilst having a bit of dodgy science here and there (I'm not counting the Moon Dragon laying an egg seconds after it was born to be a flaw because I'm not an expert on Moon Dragon biology and neither are you), overall, this episode is a highlight of an already fantastic run and it's a good episode to show people who haven't seen Doctor Who yet. I'm hoping we see a lot more from Peter Harness in the future.