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In The Forest of the Night begins with a young girl telling the Doctor that she needs his help. He’s more concerned about the fact he and the TARDIS should be in London, rather than in a forest.
However, not only does she know, or possibly *think* she was sent by Clara to find him, but… they ARE in London.
Yes, overnight, the entire world has become covered in a forest. “It’s a brand new forest. Like the New Forest, but even newer.” No-one knows where it’s come from, but overnight it’s just appeared. Then again, there will be night workers out there who must’ve spotted something, but then this is a TV show with 45 minutes to tell its tale.
But how did the trees grow overnight? The Doctor says that the Earth had the Ice Age, so now this is the Tree Age. It’s a natural event, and that Earth’s periods of Ages are a result of a series of catatrosphes.
The year is 2016, so just slightly in the future, and the goverment’s plan to cut paths through the forest for the emergency services, by burning the trees, has been thwarted by the fact that these trees don’t burn down. And as Maebh goes missing, the Doctor shows Clara the girl’s homework which has been left in the TARDIS. It’s about the fact that a solar flare is about to wipe out the planet, and that date is today. And her homework is dated today. Uh-oh!
Anyway, given that we have a dark-haired little girl knows all about the forthcoming end of the world, and that whoever’s causing this ends up communicating only to children – and through them in this case – this is such a rip-off of the 2008 Nicolas Cage sci-fi movie Knowing!
And what sort of name is Maebh, anyway?
However, while they think this is the end of all humanity, and since the Doctor and Clara apparently haven’t been hanging out for a few months, he thinks the answer is to save them all. Clara replies: “What, and stick all the kids on an asteroid?”
It seems like this is the end of everything, and so the Doctor is sent away for good, out into the galaxy to watch the Earth burn from afar… except that as eventually figures out, the trees are covering everything because when the solar flare hits us, they will protect us rather than dominate it, as The Doctor explains in a quick science lecture about oxygen, fire and trees, and how the trees have risen up so they’ll produce a shedload of oxygen which rises into the atmosphere, like a massive highly-inflamable airbag, so that the impact burns off the excess oxygen, so apart from some hectic weather for a few days and some fairly trippy sunsets, humanity will be saved, as the the trees will effectively harvest the solar fire.
And then, as if by magic, the forest disappeared!
Go to page 2 for more thoughts on this episode.
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.
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