10.40: Forest of the Dead

In which the Doctor avoids spoilers, and the Moffat era reaches its end, two years before it starts.

Broadcast: June 2008

Watched: October 2021

“Can I just say what a pleasure it is to see you fully integrated?” The first episode was already dense enough; the second throws in an entire virtual world and *two* tragic love stories. Bloody hell.

Donna’s fantasy – nothing more than a life in which she’s loved – is so simple it’s sort of heartbreaking. I love the way her world acts as a sort of meta-commentary on television: suddenly she can see the scene breaks and it freaks her out. Also, I love the way that Lee’s stammer is a) what makes him perfect for Donna, and b) the thing that means he can’t cry out to tell her he’s real at the end. “You don’t understand, you don’t have children” – oh god she’d be the most obnoxious mother

We can tell River is awesome because she keeps making jokes to the end (WI’m not allowed to have a career, I suppose”), then tells a story (the singing towers bit, the new hair cut, the suit; *this* is the bit that doesn’t fit with Husbands) and it breaks your heart. There’s something very modern Doctor Who about both leads losing their loves at the moment they save thousands of people (4,022 is… really not many people for an entire planet is it?). Especially since we didn’t know either of those loves even existed 90 minutes earlier. 

The last few moments of the episode – the Doctor clicking his fingers, something horrible due to happen to Donna, “When you run with the Doctor...” – really do have an incredible end of an era feeling to them. There’s still more than a third of the season left... but of course, it’s not about Donna’s time coming to an end, it’s about Russell’s.

Anyway, I already said most of the structural things about this story in part one, so here are a jumble of random observations.

• The title has no “the” yet my mind refuses to retain this information.

• Fewer funny lines in this one because it’s the sad bit, but the hairdryer bit (“Or, possibly alive and drying their hair”) is brilliant.

• Bit of a repeated theme: Dr Moon seems creepy, but isn’t; River seems suspicious, but isn’t; Lux feels like he might be evil, but isn’t; the Miss Evangelisata simulation (why would an ugly computer simulation be unloved? What?) seems sinister, but isn’t. I wonder what Moffat is trying to say.

• Absolutely love the sense of scale in the shots where we can see them all running through corridors side on, from outside the windows. Although, the Doctor definitely gets Other Dave killed, the prick.

• Jessika Williams, who plays Anita, is *amazing* in the scene when she realises she’s going to die (“I’m only crying – I’m about to die, it’s not an over-reaction”). Was thinking it’s a shame her career doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere, but I googled her and she was recently interviewed by the New York Times about playing Othello. Cool.

• This episode reuses the trick of showing a scene from two angles, both in- and out-side the computer, from Silence... But it’s a good trick so fair play. 

• The moment when Cal switches off her dad is amazing, as an encapsulation of both what a child might want in a crisis, and of how terrifying it would be to actually get it. 

• Talking of terrifying: the endlessly repeating children. “But, Mummy, sometimes, when you’re not here, it’s like we’re not here.” Fuuuucking hell.

• “She’s got over 4,000 living minds chatting away inside her head, it must be like being... well, me” – Timewyrm:Revelation is canon, guys!

• River’s fate is to spend the rest of eternity with some people she just met on a work trip, tending to three children, two of whom don’t exist. Moffat very obviously hasn’t worked out who she is yet, but he’ll explore the idea of keeping dead people in a computer again in the season 8 finale.

• On a similar note: “Look me up” is an amazing trick that could kill the show and, under the Moffat regime, nearly will.

• Why does a virus checker need an entire moon anyway?