Question

[james_davis_nicoll]

From tor.com's discussion of the latest Dr Who program:

One of the core themes of the episode is clearly a reaction to the dismantling of NASA’s space program.

When did that happen?

Comments

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

Gee, I thought the heart of the episode was the Doctor being cruel, miserable, and misanthropic under the not-very-convincing guise of letting the humans make their own decisions. Also handwaving about not having an effects budget adequate to setting an episode on the moon.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

For all that he rebels against his upbringing, the Doctor is still governed by it to some extent. Isn't he?

[dewline.livejournal.com]

I don't think NASA's over and done just yet either. There's all sorts of non-crewed explorations and research still underway, last I checked. And the human-crewed ops are taking place via other means for the next few years.

[nelc.livejournal.com]

When NASA cancelled all Apollos after 17?

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

There was clearly some "progress = SPAAAACE!!" cheerleading in there, in the setup and at the end. Unfortunately the episode was not exactly doing its bit for basic scientific literacy.

I have to admit, unlike many commenters here, I like the "jerky Doctor gets told off" angle here, though I'll be upset if they just have the Doctor continue being an asshole and don't go anywhere in particular with it. It's an interesting change from Space Jesus, and has a lot of continuity with character stuff from the original series. (What the Doctor does at the climax here reminded me a lot of the William Hartnell Doctor locking Susan out of the TARDIS on post-Dalek-invasion Earth. He made a stirring speech about it, but it was still a dick move.)

But "Listen" was the really good one this season.