March 22: "Forest of the Dead"

We open with Donna adjusting to a different life, one that seems to jump in time like a dream, but with Doctor Moon helping her.  "And then you remembered," he tells her each time she notices one of the jumps.  This new life is set on (roughly) 21st-century Earth, which is why the girl we saw last time was in that same time period.  Donna seems almost fully "integrated" into this life when glitches start appearing -- such as the Doctor in place of Doctor Moon, or a strange woman dressed all in black, leaving her cryptic notes.  Donna has already started to work out that something is wrong, but that woman (the data ghost of Miss Evangelista) confirms it for her, even though she doesn't want to believe it.  These scenes are directed well -- I really like the edits as time jumps -- and have some imaginative moments, like when we see that all the children playing on the playground are copies of the same two kids, but I think my favorite part is Murray Gold's score, which plays some of the score backwards to really reinforce the sense that something's wrong.  It's a great touch.

"Forest of the Dead" isn't quite as tense and scary as "Silence in the Library" was, but that's because it's more concerned with action and explanation than simply establishing the mood.  The reason the Vashta Nerada appeared in such large numbers in the Library is a clever moment, and the way the Doctor achieves a temporary truce with them at the end ("I'm the Doctor, and you're in the biggest library in the universe.  Look me up") works a lot better than it has any right to.  And there's still lots of running up and down corridors and dodging shadows and moving spacesuits full of Vashta Nerada, so it's not like it's completely action-free -- it's just that we get a couple moments where the Doctor actually confronts the Vashta Nerada for explanations.

River Song prepares to sacrifice herself to save everyone else.
("Forest of the Dead") ©BBC

But it's not just them we're getting explanations from; we also learn what CAL is and why Lux is so determined to protect his secrets -- it's not because of a patent, it's so that his aunt isn't turned into a freak show.  "This is only half a life, of course," Lux says.  "But it's forever."  It's a surprisingly sweet moment from a character who, up to this point, had only been something of an irritation, and it does make us revise our opinion of him.  CAL had saved everyone in the library from the Vashta Nerada, but now something's gone wrong and the place is going to self-destruct.  This is where we see River sacrifice herself to save everyone, in what's a surprisingly distressing moment (surprising because we've really only just met River).  "Funny thing is, this means you've always known how I was going to die," River tells the Doctor, who's handcuffed and unable to intervene.  "All the time we've been together, you knew I was coming here."  It's a rather tragic idea but a interesting one as well, to learn that the Doctor has (almost) always known how River would die, every time he sees her.  This also gives them a chance to have a sad ending, as the Doctor has lost River and Donna lost her husband in the computer world.  "Are you all right?" Donna asks him.  "I'm always all right," the Doctor responds, echoing what he said at the end of "The Girl in the Fireplace".  But Donna sees through that immediately: "Is 'all right' special Time Lord code for really not all right at all? ... Because I'm all right, too."

But they also then have a chance to have a (somewhat) happy ending, as the Doctor realizes he gave River his screwdriver in his personal future to save River: there was a (presumably special) neural relay in the screwdriver to save River's consciousness.  It's not a complete victory, because the Doctor can't bring her back into the real world, but it is something.  And this is where it turns out that this story is doing cleverer things than you might initially realize.  Because it is a little odd, having Charlotte Lux appear to be in contemporary times, but that's because the production team is trying to leave us with one last lingering question.  We've seen Charlotte watching the Doctor's adventures on her television -- she's essentially watching Doctor Who, just like the viewers (and note how the incidental music changes with the images as she changes channels), except that at one point the Doctor starts addressing her directly from inside the television.  River is now also in the computer, living her virtual life forever, and the final shot of the episode is of her directly addressing the audience: "Sweet dreams, everyone."  Given that that's exactly what happened to Charlotte, the programme seems to be saying to us, can we really be sure we're not inside the Library computer too?

It's clever, it's fun, it's got great characters and direction...  It's not as neatly packaged and presented as Steven Moffat's other stories thus far have been (where it's almost like solving a puzzle rather than experiencing a story), but that's actually one of the strengths of "Silence of the Library" / "Forest of the Dead".  There's a sense of a universe beyond what we're shown -- this world doesn't end just because the story does, and that's a good quality to have.  It's not as brilliant as "The Empty Child" / "The Doctor Dances" or "Blink", but there's a more subtle wonderfulness at work here.  This is why this story is one of the most satisfying tales we've had in Doctor Who.

(This entry is dedicated to the memory of Chris Tremlett, a friend and Doctor Who fan who lost her battle with cancer earlier today.  The universe is a little more sad and a little less mad without her.)