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Reg hacks see the woods or the trees In the Forest of the Night

Is this Doctor Who episode an enjoyable romp or a namby-pamby feelings fest?

Gavin says:

A girl with curly locks in a red coat is dashing through dense woods. She stumbles onto a small house from which pops a gnarled old figure: not a witch, but the Doctor.

Doctor Who In the Forest of the Night

'Tis me! The witch ... I mean, the Doctor!

This isn’t the dark woods of a middle German fairytale, this is central London and it’s been taken over by a mighty forest. So opens In the Forest of the Night. This week, the writers of Who blend Neil Gaiman (himself once a Who writer) and M Night Shyamalan (when he was – briefly – good) to tell a dark tale of mysticism and man’s tenuous foothold on the planet.

It’s a trippy telling of bright colours, dappled sunlight and soft edges with danger behind the leaves: escaped wolves and a snarling tiger.

“The forest ... is mankind’s’ nightmare,” the Doctor informs Clara. It’s a compelling canvas and nice tap into our eternal love/hate/fear of the fairytale.

Stylistically, tip of the hat to the Who writers this episode: That trippy look and feel and the playful visual on top of the writing comedy - use of wide angle camera for the children's interactions with the Doctor.

But to the plot: Why exactly has a dense wood sprung up in central London – and, it transpires, across the globe? An ancient and mystical life force on Earth is protecting the planet by throwing up trees to protect it against cataclysmic events from space.

The Who writers tied this into actual events - Tunguska, Siberia, and Curuçá, Brazil, sci-fi and conspiracy theorists’ favorites. I’ll go with that and leave it there, and gloss over the hokey bit about all those trees generating more oxygen as some kind of air bag. More like hot-air bag in this case.

But the plot’s pivot is that girl – Maebh – whose presence raised more questions than answers. Maebh has been hearing voices since her sister vanished, which turn out to be those tree-raising, planet-protecting Earth ancients. She's somehow tuned into their frequency.

She serves as a perfect plot foil, adorable and giving Doctor Who and the frightened Clara something to chase through the ever thickening and menacing woods. The trio’s escalating encounter with first the wolves and then a tiger was dark-comic genius of timing akin to Han Solo's "I've got a bad feeling about this" from Star Wars. Good writing and more comedy. But the fact Maebh’s sister's re-appeared at the end from under a bush suggests the tree-raising creatures abducted her. Are they therefore malevolent or was the abduction simply a device to reach Maebh - in which case why did they need to do it? Or did they return her, in which case who took her and where and why? This feel-good ending needlessly knackers the preceding story, adding the baggage of a bigger story I feel won't be answered in later episodes.

Maebh’s real purpose brings us to this week’s episode’s crux: the relationships between Clara and Pink and Clara and Doctor Who.

Maebh and Doctor Who In the Forest of the Night

It’s over Maebh that Pink and the Doctor lock horns – about the medication she’s been on to stop hearing voices. The practical Pink can see only bad in the Doctor and can't wait to rail she needs her pills and he can't "experiment" on her. The multi-dimensional Who sees things – correctly – differently. Clearly, Pink is as unwilling to cut the doctor any slack as the Doctor him. Are we building to a conclusion that, therefore, both are wrong choices for Clara?

But it’s the practical aspects of Pink’s personality we learn that the adventure junkie Clara loves: Mr Pink is safe and sensible. He’s had all the adventure he wanted in the army; so, no, he doesn’t want to see a planet-sized, once-in-a-lifetime series events from space in the Tardis. And, no, he’s not even letting his curiosity out of line on why London is suddenly full of trees. His priority, or duty number one, is seeing the children in his school party home to their parents. Priority number two: seeing what’s in front of him more clearly. Clara, that means you.

I’ve read plenty of times that women like Mr Adventure but want to settle down with Mr Safe. But is this supposed to apply to Clara, the Impossible Girl, too? I feel the Who writers are again selling her short.

As for the Doctor, once more we saw the limits of his power: accepting of Earth’s fate, then chewing his lip when Pink intervenes on the tiger, flummoxed the ancients didn’t call him to save Earth. Powerless, he’s sent away by Clara for a second time, this time to save himself as it seems Earth will get incinerated. For a second time - Kill the Moon was the first - the Doctor is left to decipher events rather than save them.

Is this credible for a Doctor such as this, with a heritage such as he has, or has it only become an issue thrown in to deliberate relief by the largeness of his personality? It feels like the latter.

Finally, the Who writers need to start involving Missy. Another episode closes on a Missy eyebrow-raiser – was she the author of the Sun’s plasma storm? Was she also behind the destruction of the planet that was home to the Bank of Karabraxos? It’s beginning to feel like she’s being bolted on for some last-minute dept effect or significance rather than integral to the story of the day.

Judging by the trailer for next week, it looks like the Who writers have decided that, too.

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