Blogtor Who: EPISODE PREVIEW: Kill The Moon [Spoiler~free]

New-to-Who writer Peter Harness has come up trumps in a very exciting and fresh fashion with his first, and most definitely not his last, story for the Time Lord. Whilst on the surface it may evoke The Impossible Planet and The Waters of Mars (due to the space station setting and, of course, those spacesuits) in look, Kill The Moon also evokes the latter in terms of The Doctor and his role in history and future.

But before we get to that particular conundrum, there's the small question of HUGE FLIPPIN' SPIDERS! ARGH!

Let's start from the start, though. After a pre-titles sequence which bangs us right in the middle of the action, we then go back a little to find Coal Hill School pupil Courtney pining [Oh dear - Ed.] for the TARDIS and adventures. Mischievously, The Doctor makes her the first woman on the Moon as the gang travel to 2049 but they also discover an Earth team there, determined to blow up the Moon.

Why? The Moon has been naughty. It has been causing all sorts of natural disasters on Earth due to... well, that would be saying. A previous expedition managed to send back some screams before disappearing (yes, that is pretty creepy) and it's taken us humans ten years to send some help. Well, I say "help", these astronauts aren't quite the caliber that NASA used to send.

Don't worry, though, as they starting getting picked off by those HUGE FLIPPIN' SPIDERS! ARGH! pretty quickly. It's been a long time since Doctor Who has actually made my skin crawl. The scenes involving the little bastards, as I now call them, are astoundingly impressive and I would wager that more than a sofa will be needed to save the eyes and memories of the audience.

Director, and another new-to-Who chap, Paul Wilmshurst has adeptly shot these scenes to evoke the best (ie. scariest) reaction from the viewers. They are truly suspenseful and horror-packed; much more so than any story in many years. Both the design and realisation of the creatures are creepy and unsettling, and well utilised - I suspect a new generation of arachnophobics being created...

Elsewhere the CG work on the Moon is top notch (the moonbase, for example) whilst the location filming in Lanzarote has paid off immensely. The scenes on the Moon's surface are beautiful, incredibly cinematic and aid the feel of the story superbly.

Also impressing greatly is actress Ellis George, who plays the aforementioned Courtney. Here, she gets some great stuff to get her teeth into from writer Peter Harness - from a fun and exciting opening to the incredible drama and dilemma faced later on. George was tremendous last week in The Caretaker and has now firmly marked her place in Who.

Hermione Norris, who plays the doomed captain (well, she's in charge at any rate) of the expedition clocks in a very low-key performance. the suicidal nature of their gambit is portrayed in almost every word she speaks, softly and with some bitterness and almost detachment at times.

There are some pretty big questions raised here - why is the Moon causing so much havoc, what's the matter with it? This mystery hangs heavy but when the solution comes - and one that is bonkers, brave and bewilderingly good - then Kill The Moon begins to ask different questions. Huge questions about life and the future (and its stability) which, again, I shan't spoil but will linger on the mind of the viewer; just as much as as the HUGE FLIPPIN' SPIDERS! ARGH! will, and those beautiful shots of the Moon and more.

Not only that, writer Harness leaves the pairing of The Doctor and Clara in such a predicament that you'll be wondering just what's in store for them both and how they can continue together. Capaldi and Coleman are on top form, fully giving life to the script and its emotions.