Review of In the Forest of the Night
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.
Based on comments I’ve seen around the Internet and results of this week’s reader poll, In the Forest of the Night is the most universally reviled episode of Series Eight. I’d be lying if I said I thoroughly enjoyed it, but—though I can see a few similarities—I don’t think it comes anywhere close to earning the “Fear Her 2” label some have given it.
Perhaps it’s the heavy reliance on a fairy tale aesthetic that got in folks’ craws here. While it was well publicized that Moffat’s entire take on the Matt Smith era was based in the idea of Doctor Who as fairy tale, Series Eight has taken a sharp turn away from that conceit (much to its benefit, in my opinion). So a story that doesn’t just hint at the fairy tale style (even so blatantly as A Christmas Carol‘s “Peter Pan” theme or The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe‘s riff on the C.S. Lewis classic did) but outright states the connection to one (“Hansel & Gretel”) and makes only vaguely veiled reference to others (“Sleeping Beauty” and “Red Riding Hood”) may be putting fans of the more recent style of storytelling off their feed.
There’s also a similar problem with the plotting here as in Kill the Moon. Taking liberties with what we know of science is part and parcel of science fiction writing, but when things are set here on Earth, basic laws of physics still need to apply (or have a damn good explanation for why they are plausibly different from our daily experience), or the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief will be broken. A few weeks ago, it was gravity and mass conservation. This time, it’s the overnight appearance (and subsequent disappearance) of billions upon billions of trees across the entire planet (including areas that can’t support such life, like, err… the oceans).
I was willing to let the tree crap slide, actually (though Maebh outrunning the wolves really strained my credulity. Have you ever tried to catch a dog that’s gotten off its leash? Those suckers are fast. No way a little girl stays ahead of wolves), but when it got all connected with mysterious primordial beings flitting like gnats around the only child who could hear/see them, they lost me. How does increasing local gravity make these creatures glow visibly? And how can they suddenly speak through Maebh (this was the point, on second viewing, where I thought, “Oh! Now understand the Fear Her references; that’s very Chloe Webber…”)?
Maebh clearly thinks that somehow she’s responsible for bringing about this worldwide tree-pocalypse, though the Doctor assures her otherwise. And when the time comes, he allows her to take the lead on the class project so she can feel she’s finished what she started. I think one of the things that annoys me most is that I never got a satisfactory explanation of the connection between magically (dis)appearing trees, the primordial gnat-things, and Maebh.
Further, WTF was the deal with Maebh’s sister Annabel lurking in a bunch of vanishing bushes and getting revealed when the critters twinkled away? Okay, that moment is up there with Ten-lighting-the-Olympic-torch awful.
The astronomer in me is also having a hard time with the supposed CME (coronal mass ejection) headed right at Earth. I won’t go into the math/science of why that’s plain ridiculous here, but if you want to hear the full rant, I’ll be happy to elaborate in the comments. Suffice it to say, the mechanism for Earth’s potential destruction here is incredibly implausible, and the idea that it has happened many times before (following “a solar wind big enough to blow this whole planet away”) is equally laughable. And that’s before the whole “inflammable airbag” bullshit.
So ignoring the silly science, as some fans say one should always do without question, what did this episode have to offer? I saw threads of series arc throughout. There was the way Clara’s relationships with both Danny and the Doctor are developing—with Danny through the commission and discovery of lies and a clarification of personal perspectives; with the Doctor through the shared fascination for weird shit and a willingness to sacrifice her life, though not to outlive the rest of her species.
Then there were references back to previous stories and ideas. The Doctor mentioned that the upcoming solar flare was just “like the one that destroyed the Bank of Karabraxos.” He quotes Clara’s words from Kill the Moon back at her, acknowledging that “this is my world, too. I walk your earth, I breathe your air.” And though the words aren’t identical, Clara echoes Donna’s sentiments from the end of The Fires of Pompeii: “If you can’t save them all, save who you can. … Not everybody has to die.” I hope that is a tease to an upcoming explanation of why the Doctor is wearing this particular face.
Of course, heading into the finale, no episode review would be complete without speculation about the major arc and the series’ Big Bad. Given the trailer for next week’s episode, where it appears Missy and Clara are in some way interchangeable(?), my brain’s conspiracy generation subroutines went into overdrive.
Maebh just receives “thoughts” about all sorts of things. That was her explanation when the Doctor tried to get her to say who sent her looking for him. “It was just a thought,” she explains. “I think it came from Miss.” Since at the time, Clara didn’t even know there was anything out of the ordinary happening, there are two basic conclusions one can reach from that statement (presuming Maebh is telling the truth, at least as she understands it). The first possibility is that there’s something timey-wimey going on to allow a future Clara to think about the need for the Doctor such that Maebh could catch that thought before it occurred. The second is that it wasn’t Clara—at least not the one we know—who sent the thought. I’m betting on the latter, myself.
Although In the Forest of the Night is tied with Kill the Moon for my least favorite episode of Series Eight (to date), it still ranks well ahead of several episodes from other post-Hiatus series in my book. The shine of the series hasn’t worn off yet, but it’s certainly fizzling out compared to the last couple of episodes. Here’s hoping the two-part series finale isn’t as dire as Moffat’s denouements usually are.
Nightmare
Just thought this episode was awful. Ugh, little kids. Also, they all just happily waltz into the TARDIS. Whatever happened to the Doctor having to keep the fact that he’s alien secret? At this point I expect the next Companion to enter the TARDIS and be like “oh yeah bigger on the inside I heard about this from my uncle”. The story was a mess, with no villain/enemy (it was actual complete filler as the Doctor could have done nothing the entire episode and nothing would have changed). Also, how did nobody see the trees growing? Either they just sprung up in an instant or they grew, but then someone should have had video of it or something considering time zones. And Maebh outrunning the wolves was just about the silliest thing I’ve ever seen in Doctor Who.
I enjoyed Into the Dalek, Mummy and Flatline so far, but I haven’t been impressed with the other episodes. I hope these final two can shed some light on some of the weird story bits of this season (like Maebh’s sister randomly appearing) to save this season for me.
On Rants and Reviews
“I won’t go into the math/science of why that’s plain ridiculous here, but if you want to hear the full rant, I’ll be happy to elaborate in the comments.”
Please do! 🙂
“Based on comments I’ve seen around the Internet and results of this week’s reader poll, In the Forest of the Night is the most universally reviled episode of Series Eight.”
Interestingly, one of the other review blogs I read gave it a 10/10, and ranked it in the top three.
But I’ve definitely seen mostly negative to neutral responses.
Clarifications
To clarify, as with every episode, even when there’s a “general consensus” among fans as to its quality, there are others who disagree vehemently. My comment was based on what I’ve seen in my little corner of the Internet and the reader poll here.
We have got 5-star votes here, but overall, it rates very low. The previously lowest-scoring episode (Kill the Moon) rated a cumulative 3.00. In contrast, In the Forest of the Night, through the first 16 votes, has a cumulative rating of 2.38. Compare that to the highest-rating Flatline, at 4.12. (For the science geeks, that puts ItFotN more than 2 sigma below the mean.)
Okay. About the CME. My biggest problem was not that there was one headed for Earth (this happens not infrequently, and can disrupt communications satellites and such), but that there was one that could destroy the planet unless the trees made an airbag (and how exactly does a bunch of oxygen negate the incoming free electrons and protons? Sorry—tangent…).
Maybe it was the phrasing that got me, because when I hear “blow this whole planet away,” I hear “reduce planet to rubble,” not “seriously disrupt the planet’s magnetosphere.” It’s a standard Doctor Who use of hyperbole to make the stakes seem high, but to me, it just sounded silly. (Also, umm… The particles would not have surrounded Earth in a glowing tide.)
If you want to learn a little more about CMEs, you can get a few basics with a quick Google search. Try pages like this CME FAQ page from Montana State University, or this overview of CMEs from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Solar Flares
There was an episode of Stargate Atlantis in which a planet was menaced by a solar flare. The heroes parked a space ship with its forcefield on high between the star and the planet, deflecting the radiation away and saving all the humans (and sentient space whales) and the ecosphere of the planet in general. I was expecting The Doctor to do something similar and was surprised when he seemed ready to give up immediately and kiss the Earth goodbye.
I’m not one of those fans who thinks that the science in a scifi show has to be perfect and I’m generally even more willing to give shady science a pass on Doctor Who. But I resent when the show’s writers seem to take me for an idiot. Things like the moon being an egg and instaforrests might work as allegory or as elements in fairy tales but I don’t want them in my scifi. It’s not like getting chocolate in my peanut butter. It’s more like getting chocolate in my tuna salad.
As for the relationship between Clara and Danny and The Doctor, I can’t say I’m a big fan of where this is going. I don’t like the way Danny thinks he can order Clara around but I’m even less happy with the way Clara has been lying to him. This is a toxic relationship and they’d both be happier with other people. It seems like Danny is destined to have decendants and it has been hinted that they are Clara’s decendants as well but that hasn’t been explicitly stated. There is still time for them to move on and find better relationships with other people.
Science in SF
As I tried to say in my review of Kill the Moon, I can overlook a lot of dodgy science in Doctor Who, but if it’s here on Earth, the physics had better either work as we know it, or have a damn good explanation for why it’s deviating.
The Clara/Danny thing is almost painful to watch, because you can tell they fit well together in certain ways, but they’re both failing some of the relationship maintenance. We’ll see how it plays out in the next two episodes…
Worst Episode Ever – Not By A Longshot
I keep seeing people talk about how bad this episode was; they rant and rave about how it was one of the worst NuWho episodes ever. Maybe it wasn’t great sure, but I can’t understanding calling it the worst. This week I’ve seen several articles about “Doctor Lite” episodes in relation to Flatline from a couple weeks ago – in it, somehow, The Crimson Horror is always mentioned. THE SINGLE WORST EPISODE OF DOCTOR WHO EVER! Maybe I’m strange, maybe my opinions are completely unique, but THAT was the episode were I wondered if everyone associated with that season should be fired. It’s such a turd of an episode – to even be able to seriously call this episode “worst’ anything is crazy. Rant done.
By no means
While it was my least favorite (though not by much) of this series, I concur that it was nowhere close to the worst ever.
And you’re not alone in your assessment. Though 10% of voters rated the episode “No stars” in the reader poll, another 29% said “Five stars.” 🙂
Nice Style, Shame About the Content
Full marks to the ProductionTeam for havig a go with the style of this story but surely someone should have had the courage at some point to have a “King’s New Clothes” moment. The premise was risible although I did particularly like the echoing back to Fires of Pompeii by Clara. I thought this was where we would find out about the Doctor’s face but that seems to be a pleasure deferred.
Yes I know it is a scI-fi show (sort of) but even if the science is fictional it should at least make some sense. Maybe it’s just me but did anyone else ask themselves “How will all the planes currently in the air land?” How exactly will an airbag protect us from a solar flare?
Not a good example of entertaining and informng. Have had to wait 10 days before I calmed down enough to post without too much bile and invective. This was bubble gum for the brain and not good bubble gum
Bad Science
Yeah, I wasn’t (favorably) impressed with the science on this one, either, though I think Kill the Moon was worse in that respect (if barely). Glad you were able to calm down eventually. 😉