Doctor Who Series 8 Episode 10, “In the Forest of the Night:” ARGH!

by William Hohmeister

This episode… “In the Forest of the Night” is bad. So bad. It’s dull, the bad kind of ridiculous, and full of people who ought to know better. So, like the Doctor Who writer’s room, I guess?

The Doctor (Peter Capaldi), Clara (Jenna Coleman), and Danny Pink (Samuel Anderson) explore London after trees grow across the entire city overnight. As they try to figure out what happened we find out the forest is not limited to London, or even England: it’s global. Cool mystery, right?

The Doctor finds a little girl early on named Maeve, because Doctor Who is still sometimes about fairy tales you guys, and the writers really want us to know that. In this episode alone we get: a little girl in a red hood running through the magic forest, “breadcrumbs” for clues, Little Red Riding Ciché confronted by SEVERAL big bad wolves, and the Doctor and Clara pointing out over and over that “this is like a fairy tale” or “this is not a fairy tale.” There are probably more, but my head hurts now.

Doctor Who is a science-fiction show, but it’s always played fast and loose with the science. Sometimes this means it gets burned. Every scientific oddity, from the trees growing overnight, to an unexplained solar flare that’s about to kill humanity, is mentioned but never explained. Each is so half-hearted that the episode feels like 45 minutes of pure filler.

The half-hearted story isn’t limited to bad science, either. Everyone gets a taste of the awful. Clara and Danny are back. Clara lies to Danny so much I honestly think she has an actual problem. And she’s not the only one! Danny is apparently willing to put up with it, so screw him too. And the kids, dear god the kids. Every child is so painfully terrible that I think they came from George Lucas’ Home for Wayward Waifs. The only upside is we get a few flashbacks that show how awful Danny and Clara are as teachers.

Maeve is by far the worst, but it’s not her fault. Her sister died, I think? I don’t know, the show never says, and anyone who has to deal with actual problems probably feels pretty insulted. Don’t take your meds, kids! The forest will grant you magic visions! Maeve sought out the Doctor to tell him about the flare, but runs away and leaves pieces of her school stuff as clues because… because. After the Doctor and Clara (and then Danny and the class) find her and chase off the wolves (and subsequent tiger), Maeve lays some heavy exposition on us.

I couldn’t understand a word she said, and I refuse to look it up. Suffice to say, by this point it’s incredibly obvious that the trees are there to stop the solar flare from destroying earth. The only people who don’t know are in the show because, again, you have to fill the time somehow. Seriously: the Doctor could literally not have shown up, and the episode would have ended exactly the same.

To top off this hate sundae, the story nearly made me like it toward the end. It appears as though the solar flare really will destroy the earth, and Clara convinces the Doctor to escape with the kids and their teachers. It’s a bluff! She really just wants him to leave so the humans can all burn together.  I . . .

. . . I am not the best person. I love the Doctor, but I also think he has a lot in common with Satan. So: as the Doctor prepared to leave the earth to die, I started cackling. Full-on witch cackle, too. I was so glad everyone was going to die. I mean, sure, they’d come back – that’s what the finale would be about, and maybe that would be Missy’s role! To preserve everyone until the Doctor saves the day!

I was so excited.

It doesn’t happen. The Doctor returns to reassure everyone that there was never, ever any reason to worry, or even watch this show, and then the end happens. Trees absorb sun-fire. Yay. The ending is so sparkling clean and happy that Maeve – whose only character traits are being weird, magic, and having a dead sister – somehow resurrects her freaking sister via a fern. I don’t know.

I DON’T KNOW.

Shot of Missy saying something ominous, cut to Danny being entirely too tolerant of Clara’s crap, roll credits. Then some stuff about the finale (presumably a two-parter) that . . .  does anyone care about it?

Can you tell me why? I need a reason!

Please?