Silence in the library / Forest of the dead (2008)
Review
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Review
This two-parter was first broadcast on May 31 - June 7 2008. A brief and somewhat spoiler-ish summary of the plot: stay out of the shadows...
This is another story that is full of ideas, and many of those are weird and wonderful. Also, this is a great story for Donna, and Catherine Tate gives us another outstanding performance.
And yet, I'm not nuts about this two-parter.
The villains of this story are the biggest problem (spoilers ahead):
- for the first episode and part of the second, the Vashta Nerada are a great enemy. They're a swarm of tiny bits of darkness that lurks... and strikes... and eats... and scares the living daylights out of the Doctor.
And then the Doctor tells them, "I'm the Doctor! We're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up!" and they retreat. This is a disappointment on several different levels. First of all, turning the Vashta Nerada into an anthropomorphic entity that can be talked to and negotiated with robs them of much of their power. And, also, their retreat makes no sense. Up until then, there's been nothing that indicated that the Doctor could do anything about the Vashta Nerada other than telling everyone else to run away. Why would they bother to listen to him? And how would they look him up? They may be able to make empty space suits get up and lurch about (though they don't seem to have a reason for doing so other than that it looks cool) but are they able to pick up a book, turn the pages, or read?
Some minor problems (more spoilers ahead):
- the relationship between River Song and the Doctor remains a bit of a puzzle. If she had met, let's say, the Eleventh or the Twelfth Doctor and not the Tenth, the Doctor's answer to even one of her questions about their shared past would have made it obvious that he had never met her. The fact that she keeps asking him questions and appears unable to believe that he doesn't recognise her seems to indicate that it's the Tenth Doctor who she's met, and not a later model. The technologically advanced version of the sonic screwdriver that the Doctor has given to Song indicates that their time together is not going to be happening in the Doctor's near future, and yet we know that the Tenth Doctor won't be with us for much longer
- the other problem is the Matrix trilogy, as I find it hard to watch this two-parter without comparing and contrasting
- and then there are the weird statues with the dead people's faces. The idea is sort of cool, but there's no reason why anyone would implement it in real life
My verdict:
A story that tries to do a lot of different things and doesn't quite succeed.
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