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There are some good lines in this episode. As the young girl, Maebh, tells the Doctor that she thinks the trees must talk to each other, so that they all grow at the same time. He replies: “So you think that’s how trees communicate? On ‘Tree Facebook’? They all send texts to each other?”
And as Clara speaks to the The Doctor about it, he quips about having never seen it, “Even my incredibly long life is too short for Les Miserables.”
Overall, In The Forest of the Night was another disappointment for me. There was a reasonably interesting premise, but then it just threw in a complete rip-off of Knowing, and far too much time was spent with Danny blabbering on about how he’d never leave the kids. End of the world? Pah! He’s been in Afghanistan, so he’s harder than Biffa Bacon from Viz! Jeez, just get rid of him. He’s dead wood. How come when the world met a solar flare, it couldn’t just burn him away?
And since the forest was full of wolves and tigers, ready to kill the Doctor et al, where the hell did they disappear to?
And we had to endure an episode with lots of annoying kids.
AND… we have apparently experienced these solar flares before, and been protected by the trees. So why didn’t we remember it from last time? Because, according to the Doctor, we simply forgot. What?!! Do me a favour! That’s piss-poor script-writing at best!
Oh, and when they found a section of a tree in a museum which, unlike all its other rings, it had a single red ring around it, this was the cause of atmospheric dust? To me, when I have a red ring, it’s usually the result of a bad curry the night before.
Next week: Clara turns evil, the Cybermen return, “time can be rewritten” and Missy gets more than just a few seconds in the occasional episode.
Score: 4/10
Director: Sheree Folkson
Producer: Paul Frift
Screenplay: Frank Cottrell-Boyce
Music: Murray Gold
Stunt Co-ordinator: Dani Biernat
Cast:
The Doctor: Peter Capaldi
Clara Oswald: Jenna Coleman
Danny Pink: Samuel Anderson
Maebh: Abigail Eames
Samson: Jaydon Harris-Wallace
Bradley: Ashley Foster
Ruby: Harley Bird
Missy: Michelle Gomez
Maebh’s Mum: Siwan Morris
George: Harry Dickman
Minister: James Weber Brown
Neighbour: Michelle Asante
Emergency Services Officer: Curtis Flowers
Herself: Jenny Hill
Paris Reporter: Kate Tydman
Accra Reporter: Nana Amoo-Gottfried
Annabel: Eloise Barnes
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.