On Silence and Silencing

Review of Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead / Midnight

I feel I should reiterate right off the top that I have never been a big River Song fan. From this first time we met her, when I found her foreknowledge of the Doctor off-putting rather than intriguing, through the entirety of her on-screen adventures with the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors, she just kind of rubbed me the wrong way. That is not least due to the fact that I have always hated the idea of the Doctor having a spouse, someone who is just so extra special to them, even more so than any of the dear friends they take along on their travels.

But I have to say, I can see why the Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead two-parter rates so highly with so many fans—especially once the audience can share some of River’s perspective. Everything hits just a little bit differently than it did the first time.

Obviously, when these episodes first aired, it was all a clever conceit, leaning heavily on the idea of “nostalgia for the future.” What if the Good Old Days weren’t really the best ever? What if the Doctor was even more awesome in a future incarnation?

It does make for some interesting character dynamics. While the Doctor still gets to be the cleverest person in the room, he doesn’t have a monopoly on knowing best how to take charge of a dangerous situation or to problem solve, because River is there. And, of course, the fact that River recognizes Donna—but only by name—hints at a departure the effects of which we are still feeling to this day.

While it’s tempting to call all of those details set dressing for a unique and twisty plot, I think the reverse is actually true. The main story being told here is River’s; that of the Library is simply an excuse to throw her together with the Doctor one last (or first) time.

All that is not to say that the Library has a peripheral or unworthy story. It begins with a little girl, apparently living across two realities, and the mystery of why there are no patrons (or staff) in anywhere in the Library. Since the Library is a planet-sized collection of (supposedly) all the books in the universe in one place—”brand new copies, specially printed!” crows the Doctor, in what seems like a complete throw-away line unless you know how this story plays out—the lack of visitors is distinctly strange.

But soon a batch of archaeologists, led by one Professor River Song, come to determine why everyone disappeared, and give the Doctor someone to shout at and boss around. To be fair, the Doctor has, since his and Donna’s arrival, realized that the Library is inexplicably infested with Vashta Nerada, the “piranhas of the air.” The party’s continuing encounters with this ravenous swarm lay the ground work for future pieces of the puzzle, as death and technology intertwine in sometimes alarming ways.

The fact that the 51st-century characters find this technology so commonplace that they give it hardly a thought is part of what makes that tech so alarming to the audience. But it’s the same “horror in the everyday” element that sets Steven Moffat—in his last turn as a scriptwriter here before he takes over as showrunner—apart from other Doctor Who writers, just twisted around the temporal axis.

And things the timeline isn’t the only thing getting twisted. As we shift into the second episode, we discover that Donna’s reality is pretty messed up, too.

Here, the magic of television (and the conventions of its storytelling) serves to obfuscate her experiences for the audience much like her environment does for her. We have to have it pointed out to us to understand that our brains are filling in gaps, too.

As the crossovers between the Library, the little girl’s world, and Donna’s world increase in number and frequency, the audience begins to gain purchase on how they all fit together, getting our hearts yanked around in the process. When Donna’s new worldview collapses out from under her, Catherine Tate’s masterful performance expresses the absolute agony of Donna’s loss, making it feel nearly as real for us as it clearly does for Donna.

Although we encounter loss after loss in this episode, we also get Moffat’s classic refusal to let a good death stand, with another manifestation of his favorite motto: Everybody lives*! [*Sort of.] There are a few knife-twists to the heart that stand (like Donna’s love interest “Lee”), but for the most part, Moffat does his best to tie things off with a happy little bow.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons that the following episode, one of RTD’s best one-off’s ever, in my opinion, packs such a punch. “Happy little bow” is pretty much the exact opposite of how one would describe the end of Midnight.

From a writer’s perspective, I am mildly awed by how skillfully RTD met the restrictions he set for himself with this episode. For one thing, it’s a Donna-lite episode, so he had to find ways for the Doctor to monologue against a different group of characters without his main Companion.

But there were clearly also budgetary limitations. It’s easy to see that, as showrunner, RTD was looking for ways to cut costs and settled on a nearly single-set episode as one avenue to savings.

During my re-watch, I was struck several times by how easily this episode could’ve been turned into a stage play. Almost the entirety of the action takes place within the confines of a touring shuttle, with a cast of eight (including Second Doctor Patrick Troughton’s son David Troughton as Professor Hobbes and Merlin lead actor Colin Morgan as Jethro). The cast is phenomenal, and makes the progression of fear to murderous intent that RTD has written for them flow completely naturally.

And the premise is both simple and incredibly f***ing creepy. To lose one’s voice, to be silenced—especially someone like the Doctor, whose words are almost always his way out of any sort of danger—is a frightening loss of self, and of control. Sometimes I wonder if RTD sat down and said to himself, “What’s the worst handicap I could possibly give the Doctor?” before he came up with this episode.

If for some reason you still haven’t seen this episode (I mean, it’s been 15 years, so I suppose you might consider it old, and haven’t bothered to backtrack yet), I strongly recommend it to you. There is psychological horror involved, for sure, so be aware of that going in, and as with pretty much all Doctor Who (unless it’s written by Steven Moffat on a roll—see above) there is death. But it is an amazing self-contained story that needs no previous knowledge of Doctor Who.

Midnight could really have fit anywhere within Series 4, but it makes for a nice palate cleanser between the “future nostalgia” of our introduction to River Song and the it’s-actually-three-parts finale of the series. It’s a different kind of heaviness than that of Donna’s departure, so in a weird way helps me to reset my frame of mind before diving into that mess.

We’ll see how messy I still find it all in next month’s review.