Doctor Who 8x10: In the Forest of the Night

One of the joys of watching Doctor Who is that the variety of storytelling means you can sometimes get something a little offbeat and strange, like Warriors Gate, Kinda of The Greatest Show in the Galaxy. In the Forest of the Night aims for the same kind of thing, although I'd argue it was not quite on the same level as those previous efforts I mentioned.

Danny and Clara have been taking a class to a museum sleepover. When they get outside, they find that trees have grown over the whole world. It turns out that while the human race slept, the trees grew. The immediately problem with this idea is that there would be people awake somewhere in the world to see this. It might have been better for it just being Danny, Clara and the class who woke up to see the trees and have everyone else already know.

One of the children, Maebh, has a strange mental powers and has tracked down the Doctor. She also detected a solar flare above the Earth and can talk to the trees. She is in the role of a shaman character, who needs to lose her medication to see the truth which enables her to speak through the trees.

Fortunately, the trees are growing for a benevolent reason. They deflect the solar flare and the trouble dissolves. The Doctor says that people will forget, but it is genuinely unlikely.

One issue with this episode is that with only the trees as a threat, there is nothing of any danger. We get Nelson's column falling down, a wolf and a tiger, but nothing particularly big. On the one hand, it's great to have a Doctor Who story without a villain, but on the other hand, it derives the story of tension.

The Danny and Clara relationship is on the back burner in this episode. Sparks don't fly. I guess we'll have to wait for the next episode to see about this.

Peter Capaldi is once again brilliant as the Doctor. He's less ethically dubious in this episode, but is still delightfully blunt to the children at times. It looks as if he might be mellowing.

If there's a "proper" way of viewing this episode, I'd say its to view the whole thing as an educational film, with the kids making a "project" to tell the adults not to cut down the trees, like the kind of things I remember my class doing back in the primary school for the rainforest.

7/10

Next Time: A modern remake of The Invasion, which would be more interesting if we didn't already have the original. Clara seems to turn evil, but is it really that straightforward? Missy is finally revealed, which would be nice if I cared about the character. Nice that Kate Stewart and Osgood are returning though.