In the Forest of the Night

[Anonymous @]

Hi @TheConsultingDoctor,

I am so crazy about the show. I don’t want you to get the idea that I’m judging the whole show because of that one episode. It is still my favorite along with Sherlock.

@craig said it best. It didn’t sound like you were judging the whole show. I wanted to post some other evidence that you might have forgot about. I agree with you that this is not the best episode.

Good point about the voice interface sounding different this time. I think it was suppose to be a joke about sounding like “Siri”. It works for this episode, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want that to be permanent.

ItFotN has been moving up my list of favorites lately. Only for convoluted reasons though. 🙂

For example, the kids in the Tardis have moved to a positive thing for me. I didn’t like the way the kids in Nightmare in Silver were unimpressed by the Tardis, but these kids weren’t impressed either. So it fits – that kids are just not impressed by the Tardis.

Now I have to give some credit to ItFotN for fixing NiS.  😕

[Anonymous @]

@craig

Oh bosh, now.  I do try but…..I am a bit of a silly tit (no: I was thinking of the laudable tit willow…tit willow etc).

I shall use the appropriate expression:  LOL. And you were right to pull my head in (gosh, can one say that in the UK?).Anyway, moving happily along.

Now @Theconsultingdoctor @mudlark I know what you mean re this episode: not a favourite for reasons not to do with burning trees -personally. But I do recall learning something principal about the UK:  I said that the European fairy stories are rougher, tougher and darker than the English or Western, counterparts. I was rebuked (well no, but it sounds good!) and it was right that I was. Until then, I believed the Western or English stories to be all about butter beer (not the Hogwarts brand), carved-up pumpkins, Rumplestilskin (sic)- changing woods of pretty beauty rather than the terror of the childhood tales witnessed, say, in Poland or the Czech areas.

Boy oh boy, have I changed my wrong mind on that since! The Beowulf tales alone are beautiful but intense and terrifying. And I’ve discovered that the stories I originally spoke of have been sanitised out of all proportion for a modern (Australian) market.

As you said:

“The counterfactual ‘science’ did not bother me particularly, because the story was clearly couched in terms of a fairy story, with specific references to some well known tales – and I am not talking here about the bowdlerised and sanitised (not to say Disneyfied) versions of fairy stories generally considered suitable for children, but the kind which I grew up with….”

And I grew up with the sanitised versions trembling on a platform of something wicked, magical, eerie and splendid. But they never quite made it over the edge. They should have confounded and thrilled but they didn’t.

Also, itFotN doesn’t really specify its author position and tone: so was it a fairy tale in that traditional  sense? Nope. Again, it didn’t quite make it. Yet it had a gentle optimism and a kind of blurred tone which I enjoyed. It didn’t fit into a classical sense of anything at all! And for that I applauded its efforts.  But it had some hilarity and a good dose of terror: mother riding her bike shouting for her child; her only daughter left…..that presented an intensity I found provocative.

I enjoyed the Doctor’s position here and again the interactions between the main characters: Danny and Clara, Danny and the Doctor -with Clara up to her old tricks lying to Danny about her marking on the Tardis.

For me, it’s always gonna be character interactions first. Because, you know, I’m a people person.  (:cough:).

I can’t say that Doctor Who is about the fireworks, the monsters, the running and the time travel. Strange: it’s a show exactly about that and yet…..something so much more. And different. I think that’s why it’s lasted and why people continue to present arguments for its continued appearance.

Kindest, puro.

[Anonymous @]

@fowl

indeed, the children.

Why are they not impressed? I found I enjoyed Nightmare In Silver mainly because of Smith’s efforts at playing an almost valeyard-style figure. I didn’t particularly dislike the children -at the end they realised the situation in which they were placed was precarious and terrifying. But to them the Tardis was ‘meh’. I can’t just believe this would be so.

And then itFotN it happened again!

Could it be, that lost, tired, unsure as to why their home is covered in hungry trees, they simply ditch any further concern or amazement? Children have extraordinary ways of protecting themselves:

“This Tardis thingy is sure weird. But the scary trees are odder. I don’t care about this strange ‘Doctor’ person and his ‘house’ which moves.”

Yeah, it’s evident I teach older children or young adults!

But I remember, long ago, a little girl, frightened by the death of her mother, who spent the day of the funeral sewing a skirt and finding exactly the right red cotton from her mother’s sewing basket. That activity kept the little girl grounded and less scared. Who knows how our minds’ work when we’re young and whether, by the time we’re aged adults ourselves, we can really present children in the correct light? It’s as if a veil has fallen on those memories and habituations. Perhaps that’s a good thing.

Adults get all the rest of the fun -generally (say the children, at least 🙂

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@purofilion   My post yesterday was, of course, little more than a summary of points I made earlier in relation to this episode and on Kill the Moon, although I thought it worth repeating, on the assumption that @TheConsultingDoctor might not have had the time or patience to wade through all the pages of previous comments.  But I am enormously pleased and gratified that the discussion led you to look more deeply into the western tradition.  I once read somewhere that even the Brothers Grimm felt it necessary to do a little editing, to smooth the rough edges of some of the orally transmitted tales which they recorded but, if so, I don’t think that this did much to dilute the essential nature and impact of the stories.

puro and @fowl   Gradually and at intervals I have been re-viewing last season’s episodes in preparation for the next.  It has been raining all day today, and my choices were: a) to tidy my study and do some long overdue filing;  b) to do some house cleaning and attend to the ironing which has been piling up; c) to catch up on some reading, whether or not of an ‘improving’ nature; or d) to re-watch some more episodes of Doctor Who.  So I spent part of the afternoon watching Flatline and In the Forest of the Night, bearing in mind your thoughts on the children’s apparently blasé attitude to the Tardis.

First of all when Maebh first enters the Tardis she gasps in amazement but says nothing, and when the Doctor says  ‘The Tardis.  It’s bigger on the inside, or didn’t you notice?’   she replies  ‘I just thought it was supposed to be bigger on the inside, so I didn’t say anything’ .  And later she says ‘I find everything confusing, so I don’t say anything’.  I can remember exactly that feeling when I was a child; when everything, and especially the natural world, had a sharper and more immediate impact on my senses, when even the smallest detail could be almost overwhelming in its clarity, but I had no means of telling what was normal and what was unusual, so accepted everything as it came, without comment, even as I drank it in.  And yes, I do remember vividly what it felt like, even though now, in relative old age, I can frame it in a different perspective.

Later in the episode, when all the children enter the Tardis, they exhibit hyperactive curiosity, poking into everything, but don’t display the reaction which the Doctor has come to expect.  He says  ‘Haven’t any of you been struck by the fact that it’s, look, it’s bigger on the inside’  And Ruby, whom we have already seen is somewhat literal minded and ‘unimaginative’ in the judgement of her teachers, says ‘There wasn’t a forest.  Then there was a forest. Nothing surprises us any more’.  Which seems a reasonable observation in the circumstances.  When you have spent a morning adjusting to something seemingly impossible, one more impossible thing might not have quite so much impact.  As you say, puro, children can be remarkably resilient in the face of outer threat or strangeness; it is threats close to home which tend to be the more difficult to cope with; but what these children wanted most, in the end, was the reassuring presence of their parents.

P.S.  There was one detail which escaped me on previous viewings, and that was Maebh’s surname  – Arden, as in Forest of … ; and I would guess that this was intentional rather than coincidental.

 

 

 

 

[lisa @lisa]

@purofilion @mudlark Lots of the stories in Season 8 were morality/horror/fantasy
-lite stories geared to kids of all ages including those kids of ‘advanced’ age. And they sure did
use the Coal Hill School a lot as a sort of arc epicenter. I just thought I’d make an observation
about today’s generation kids. They just seem less bothered by anything unconventional probably
because in their young lives they’ve been bombarded with so much more then previous generations. So
they have quite a different conception of our world/universe then many of us might have when we were
very young. IMHO their emotional and intellectual progress has developed along a different ‘curve’.
It seems to me that every generation is just a little bit more clever than the one that came before.
The way children in the episodes that included any children reacted to all the odd situations was
not so very surprising to me but also very hopeful for our species.

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@lisa

They just seem less bothered by anything unconventional probably because in their young lives they’ve been bombarded with so much more then previous generations

That is a very good point.  A lot of things which children today take for granted would have seemed almost as fantastical as the Tardis to those of my generation – although as an avid reader of science fiction from a young age I like to think that I would have coped.  The rate of technological change accelerates almost exponentially, and people seem to adjust accordingly.  In addition, children today are used to seeing increasingly realistic CGI depictions of the fantastical in films, on TV and in computer games, and even though most of them will be perfectly capable of distinguishing make-believe from the real, this would perhaps make it easier for them to adjust to and accept the new and unprecedented.

[Anonymous @]

@lisa @mudlark

Oh absolutely are they getting smarter -evolution: it’s wonderful.

I love how they can cope with anything one (life) throws at them.

Cheers to kids and teenagers (she lifts her pills and water.  LOL)

[Anonymous @]

@mudlark

“There wasn’t a forest.  Then there was a forest. Nothing surprises us any more’. Which seems a reasonable observation in the circumstances.  When you have spent a morning adjusting to something seemingly impossible, one more impossible thing might not have quite so much impact”

Absolutely right: a forest eating into every known London artefact and a ‘place’ bigger on the inside wasn’t especially surprising, I think, given that their teachers (a comforting presence) were in there with them. Then of course we have the  ‘man who fixes things’ -the Doctor! So yes, I think “normal London, forest London” would be enough to deal with for today.

Perhaps tomorrow….

[janetteB @janetteb]

I actually thought the unexpected responses of the children to the Tardis was one of the better elements of this episode. It really highlighted the more open mindedness of children and their capacity for embracing the unexpected. Young children, (younger than the “gifted” group) can be confused by what is real or not. When our youngest first saw wolves in a zoo at age five he was shocked because having only read of Wolves in fairy tales along with giants and other forms of magical beast he had assumed they were fantasy beasts too.

I really enjoyed the scenes with the children. It is those elements which make this episode so re watchable despite its narrative flaws. The forest idea could have worked, maybe but for me veered too much into fairy tale. For instance what becomes of Nelson’s column. Does it just magically repair itself once the trees vanish and as others have mentioned Maebh’s plea to leave the trees alone was utterly unconvincing. I do love fairy tale elements being incorporated into Dr Who but there must be an internal logic or consistency and this story I felt lacked that.  I would love to see a story that delves into English fairy lore for instance. The land of faerie really was a form of alternate reality which is a useful narrative “get out of gaol free card”.

Once again there is a central character with a name drawn from mythology, Irish this time, Queen Maebh of Connacht from the Ulster Cycle. A quick scan does not suggest any association with trees but @mudlark will be more familiar than I am with the mythology.

Cheers

Janette

[nerys @nerys]

@janetteb I now agree with you about the kids. Watching the episode, uninterrupted by commercial breaks, I was able to get into the flow of the story far better than I was first time around. As a result, the children didn’t bother me nearly as much. On first viewing, they struck me as needless distractions, but I noticed much the same thing you did on subsequent, uninterrupted viewings. Their reactions to the Tardis and other bothersome (to adults) things were delightful. I was OK with the fairy tale aspect of the story, but felt somewhat unsatisfied at the end. Somehow it didn’t come together as well as I would have liked. My first reaction was to blame the kids, but I think you are correct: a lack of internal logic or consistency hindered what could have been a great episode.

[Anonymous @]

@janetteb @arbutus

It was interesting to read your analysis, again, of the re-watch of Time Heist.

So, I thought I’d join by starting with the episode which plagued me: ItFofN.

“If you remembered, you’d stop having wars and stop having babies…”

“Forgetting: the Human superpower”

I did enjoy it. More so on the re-watch where I used the subtitles and whilst the “mass coronal injections” and “geomagnetic storms” caused me to place a call to the geologist brother, I didn’t really understand the science and sort of figured I shouldn’t need to. The children didn’t seem to either but they did what was required: simply trust in the trees, their protectors and guides, rather than wanting to “chop them down and burn them up.” Such a proud feature of our race.

I was watching Sherlock last night.

It was awful.

I don’t mean Moffat’s serialised version, but the Robert Downey Jn one, where Holmes is a martial artiste, like an angel of death in slow motion, mourning the death of Irene Adler with a little too much normal human nostalgia and delivering monotonous one-liners with the ever -perplexed, Dr Watson.

My point is that this film cost however many millions and didn’t allow for much thought provoking interest: nothing to the extent that this little 40 minute episode of Who provided.

So many delightful scenes and scenarios with Clara deliberately justifying her contact with the Doctor, lying to Danny and, Danny himself, so understanding of Clara and her position that he asked her to tell him the truth but, “not now; sit down, get over the day and then when you’re ready, tell it to me. “I don’t care what it is, as long as it’s the truth. You owe me that much, I did save you from a tiger after all.”

There was a gentle, refined sophistication about this: layers of subtly- applied thought, the discretion of characters mixed in with rowdy honest and bickering children. There were lots of messages folded into raw entertainment and so I wasn’t sure whether I was getting popcorn and fairy floss or a generous helping of spuds and broccoli!

There had been discussion about how poorly Clara, as teacher, acted in the role of carer. I don’t agree that she was incompetent or her actions questionable. She was as careful and competent as Mr Pink. He was interested in one thing: keeping the children safe. I don’t think that prevents him, though, from asking reasonable questions: “What do we do next? Can we save our planet?”

Certainly Clara’s head is large enough to keep the safety of the children in mind at the same time as feeling her usual pull of intrigue and passion. She’s always questioning and she’s tempted at times to put these eager thoughts before the children -but not before their welfare and she’s still the Doctor’s ‘carer’-  to the extent that she wanted to save him: and he ‘allowed’ her to do so, as well. Of course he soon realised that the trees were having a ‘strop’ but were still protecting the earth from the sun’s solar flares.

Somehow they could meticulously encode their concerns inside Maebh’s mind.

After this third watch, I found the children not in the least disappointing! I loved Ruby’s lack of “imagination,” the flashes back to her confusion over ‘finding’ x  -surely Mr Pink’s fault and a flaw in his communication 🙂 , Bradley’s anger-management issues and the consecutive eye rolling over Danny’s use of the word ‘team’ -in the end that’s exactly what they all became: sending their own messages across the planet.

I’m not sure you could label this episode as adult lite or focussed only on the children -but it certainly did involve children (in vast amounts, comparatively) without it becoming some sort of 2014 version of Welcome Back Kotter for primary school kids!

It had a terrific message -or several messages, really, for children and adults. I liked how it brashly sat somewhere on the brink of sci-fi, fairy tale and fantasy. I like that I can’t really acquaint myself with its particular genre. I saw it as a smash up of all three.

I was fascinated (recalling the penultimate episode) by the references to mass graves and wars, considering the cyber men and the cyber- virus that Missy would execute: how pertinent was that!

I liked the lighting -which I’ll mention in a minute but I would have liked more noise: creaking trees heavy with fruit and nuts, over-ripe fruit crashing to the ground, ivy casually crawling noisily up the towers and buildings, slithering over the Tardis, enveloping and hungry.

But I loved the lighting and sets: at different points every fixture in the Tardis was ablaze, and as dawn came, seeing those little ‘tree germs’ lighting up the morning sky was glorious. I think setting anything in a verdant or golden forest (similar to Robin Hood’s episode) provides sufficient arboreal trickery with lights: it’s so mysterious and disordered, what with dark references to “cannibal witches at the end of paths that have already vanished.”

Again, Danny’s fearful expression when he spies the Doctor and the inevitable path one takes in agreeing to travel with him:  one can easily imagine his shaking hands being icy and pale and whilst Clara is terrified for Maebh, she’s also unfailingly curious, looking over her shoulder at the Doctor furtively, as well as sadly and desperately trying to convince Danny that the Doctor will eventually settle on a “clever plan.”

“That’s his clever face, Danny. Next, he’ll come up with a clever plan, you’ll see.”

She’s so desperate that Danny trust the one man who she automatically trusts. But Danny can’t commit to that -not completely. Perhaps it’s not a matter of trust. Maybe he’s genuinely fearful and instinctively aware of what Clara’s association with the Doctor may cause: perhaps in the end he was serendipitously correct to feel this way.

Certainly it highlighted the nature of our instincts. It questioned ‘reality’ over imagination. I remember many times people have said “oh, that hasn’t happened, it’s just your imagination working over-time”

I took people’s word for that. Except perhaps our imagination: freakish and terrifying, is what makes us so adaptable, relentless and so exhaustingly rare and human.

It’s like the argument that technocrats make about how amateurs have panicked and that it’s ignorance and imagination ‘gone wrong’ which leads to panic. There’s the proliferation of the “that’s silly” argument when silliness is really a form of crazy idealism, and self doubt, like occasional panic, helps us to turn the right way ’round giving into the need for a complete re-evaluation: which is exactly what the Doctor and all his companions had to do. There was panic, doubt, idealism about, and cynicism directed at, the ‘silly idea’ which eventually led to collective questioning and decision making that was ultimately fruitful and acknowledged that the planet was already safe. For once, the answer was to do nothing. To wait.

[Anonymous @]

@nerys

hello there! Your post and mine crossed mid-air!

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

Regarding the TARDIS voice interface – she learnt to talk in The Doctor’s Wife, when she was decanted into Idris. It seems that the TARDIS then picked up the idea that the whole talking thing was a good way to communicate with her thief and his pets. Largely in emergencies, or when they’re being particularly stupid. 🙂

In this case, the Doctor is being particularly stupid and all that’s needed (from the TARDIS point of view) is a recorded reminder that he’s where he asked to go. I suspect she’s a little p.o.’d at the Doctor and the voice is supposed to be annoying – we certainly know that she’s quite capable of picking avatars that are intended to be annoying when she doesn’t like someone (Hide).

[nerys @nerys]

@purofilion Ships crossing, and all that.

And I agree with you about the (film) version of Sherlock. We saw it in the cinema, and I recall our reaction being one of ennui: “Well … it wasn’t awful.” But maybe your assessment is more accurate.

I enjoy your analysis of this episode. I think I’ll watch it with a printout of your post, and maybe I’ll appreciate it even more. Thank you!

[Anonymous @]

Only 10 days to go for the latest season of DW! It’s almost here guys. My opinion is that, according to the rumors, the story is gonna have a lot of twists. So, it is definitely worth watching, just like the previous seasons. I hope there are new actors in this show.

[Anonymous @]

@Judefjackets-2

Yes, on the trailer thread, we can discuss the Trailer and welcome to the Forum! Hope you enjoy it and jump right in 🙂  Who might be your favourite doctor of all?

As to new actors, I’m not sure who is coming. I do love Clara now and certainly Capaldi has exceeded all expectations in this most coveted of roles.

Kindest, puro.

[Anonymous @]

I think Capaldi does a brilliant job in playing The Doctor. Matt Smith and David Tennant were alright, but Capaldi has cemented his place as the ideal actor to play the role.

As for the new actors, well, i cant say much but i am very much hoping to see a couple of new faces. According to me, the directors do a fantastic job in grooming the young talents and give them the much needed boost. Dont you think? 😀

[Anonymous @]

@nerys

ah, thank you: yes, I was probably a  bit harsh about the American Sherlock: ennui certainly fits it. I was astounded by the editing: it was constant: no scene lasted more than about 3 seconds and the whole thing was so staged. It looked incredibly real but we sat there for a good 60 mins at one point and no-body moved: no shock, no laughter. All I could recall was the beautiful waltz Moffat’s Holmes had written for the happy Watson’s and the beautiful best man speech: not to mention the “bachelor party” where Holmes works out exactly how much he should drink to ensure Watson isn’t entirely smashed at is own wedding. Quite remarkable: the typical minds of Gatiss and Moffat, thinking precisely and uniformly about how to tell this story -one told a hundred times so it’s not unique. They certainly gave it a unique spin, though.

I think ItFotN has that same unique quality: we see Coal Hill’s ‘G&T’ students for the whole episode and we experience Danny and Clara’s rather unusual teaching day. It was a  reminder of the original teachers of Coal Hill back in 1963: this time with cell phones, women having sleep overs, wearing pants and not dresses etc. Also, having the last word! Niiice. Not that the female teacher in 1963 was a ‘follower’ -she was all shades of clever and very brave. No screaming for her! That was left to poor Susan to ‘execute’ -I’m surprised she didn’t have a very sore voice every day after shooting the ‘screaming scenes’ -of which there were plenty

 

[Anonymous @]

@purofilion

what if i ask you, if you get the chance to have something from DW, what would you go for? perhaps one of the Doctor’s signature outfit.

[ichabod @ichabod]

@purofilion  So good, on the virtues of ItFotN — yes.  I like it better now than I did originally.  The lighting and the setting remind me strongly of the way my artist dad illustrated the kid-books he worked on for Little Golden Books — the shifting dapple of light that shows up best in watercolors by a deft hand, and the sparkling atmosphere that this evokes.  The kids reminded me of what it was like to be a kid attending to kid-things while the grown ups, sometimes seeming tall as trees themselves, wove their own impenetrable purposes among themselves but also enclosing (protecting, caging) us.  I’m reading a YA novel by a colleague here who began as an illustrator and is now writing as well, and it has some of that rapid shimmer to it, so maybe these things are bleeding together for me.  Especially since she has packs of convincingly lively and impudent children pelting through the story six ways from Sunday, dappling it with brightness themselves.

Season 9 is almost upon us; and I have a good, good book to read and help promote.  Good times, happy night!

[Anonymous @]

@judefjackets-2

probably I’d go for River Song’s red shoes or, it being this thread on ItFotN, a couple of ’round things’ from The Tardis -even the kiddies loved them

[Anonymous @]

@purofilion

that is a big crowd pleaser for sure! but what about Peter’s coat. I mean, at the comic con, i saw a huge demand for it.

[nerys @nerys]

@purofilion You nailed it exactly with the film version of Sherlock. The editing was machine gun-style, but the scenes didn’t carry any power because, as you point out, none of the scenes were sustained, so there was no emotional heft to any of it. It was almost as if the editing were done on some sort of autopilot function: set an editing “tempo” and then use it throughout the entire film. Might look good on paper, but it was a dud for viewers like myself.

[Anonymous @]

@nerys Absolutely: I saw it like an enormously long and expensive MTV ‘outing’ -a lot of ‘shoot ’em up’ flicks tend to be set around some bouncy score with action involving bullets, slow mo fights and aggressively styled heroes with typical antagonists.

In re-watching, ItFofN, though, I noticed some lovely takes -slow and long, beautifully set up: seems to me that the directors of Who set aside ample time to create a mini-movie every week with well placed and thought out scenes and longer ‘one-ers.’

[nerys @nerys]

@purofilion I so agree with you. I have enjoyed the pacing of Doctor Who episodes this season. As much as I loved the Eccleston/Tennant/Smith Doctors, I felt that the action and pacing were ramped up with each subsequent season, especially during the Matt Smith era. The Doctor seemed to becoming more and more an action hero. I appreciate how Capaldi’s Doctor has been dialed back a notch, so that we get those long, lingering shots and sustained scenes.

[Anonymous @]

@nerys

“we get those long, lingering shots and sustained scenes”.

We do, such lingering gives us truth: of real life and believability.

I was watching Jonathan Creek the other day with Boy Ilion. The action was centred in a car with various flash backs and as the resolution flickers across Creek’s face, one can see the knowledge dawn. It was the Boy who said, “this is like Buffy, or Doctor Who: it’s all one take.”

Indeed it was! There’s such work in the positioning of these scenes: curiosity as to how the audience will react, a real sense of joining in with the drama. By giving us long scenes and takes, the director allows us to decide where our interest takes us. In this we become part of the process. The confidence rests with the viewer. The intensity of the actors and their work is more noticeable and therefore appreciated.

[Anonymous @]

great theories @purofilion

[Anonymous @]

@judefjackets-2

Well thank you! Really, I’m not too good at theories: like Ruby I have little imagination. I do observe though 🙂

[ichabod @ichabod]

@purofilion   Yes, excellent: longer scenes and single takes give you breathing time.  I think if the actors are good enough, susceptible viewers breathe with them, which puts us right into the scene in an intimate way that feeds perception, rather than just the satisfaction of being entertained (though that, too, one hopes).  It’s like with reading, experienced readers often have a narrative voice that runs in the mind and that responds to the punctuation, given or implied, that tells them where to breathe.

Well, with really good stories, that’s how it works for me.  And that’s why one stage of the final polish of a story is to read it aloud to myself, making sure the breathing flows and doesn’t get hung up on the wrong punctuation, or on obscurity that makes the internal voice pause and say, “Huh?  What can *that* mean?”

[Anonymous @]

@purofilion

no problem man. Actually, these type of theories create a lot of hype. I hope one the theories on this forum gets picked up

[Arbutus @arbutus]

I’ve enjoyed reading everyone’s more recent comments about this story, but waited until I had reached it in my rewatch before jumping in. But I loved @ichabod‘s comparison of the visual look and feel to a beautifully illustrated children’s book. I’m sure that must have been exactly what they were aiming for, those lovely pages filled with rich greens and browns, punctuated with splashes of little red riding hood. 🙂

There was an awful lot of vitriol aimed at this and I’m just not sure why. I know that some people are dead set against kids ever being involved (odd in what started out and has always been a show aimed at least partly at kids). And as with “the moon is an egg”, some people didn’t like the fantasy premise of the story. The trees protect us from space danger! I liked the kids in this, I found them hilariously believable. The episode was visually gorgeous, haunting and vivid, and I thought that the fairy-tale ending was in keeping with the tone of the episode.

Some nice moments: Clara realizing that Mr. Danny “Responsible” Pink was extremely attractive. The Doctor saying that there are good scientific reasons to be very afraid when facing a tiger! Maebh artlessly explaining that she usually has no idea what’s going on, so she doesn’t bother to ask anymore. “Stop calling us ‘team’.”

I loved the sound of Maebh’s voice telling us “Be less afraid.” What a great message, that we should probably pay more attention to when we hear it, usually less specifically stated, from our children. Children are risk takers and optimists. I would guess that Clara understands that better than Danny. Like @purofilion, I don’t think she was being uncaring or irresponsible. Sometimes, in real life, keeping the children safe is only a part of an adult’s responsibilities.

I enjoyed Danny’s lovely speech at the end about wanting to see, not more, but deeper, about looking inside people for wonders, rather than outward into space. It was really beginning to seem clear at this point that Danny and Clara probably didn’t in the end have a future. This is a pretty fundamental difference of viewpoint; and unless Clara was going to come round to his philosophy, it could never have ended well.

By the way, I agree with others here that the constant, swift splicing from scene to scene that happens so much nowadays gets old pretty fast. But of course, it’s aimed at younger viewers, the YouTube generation,  used to the dice and splice of videos and games, and the constant stimulation that goes with that. It’s nice to encounter something once in awhile that allows you to time to contemplate what you are seeing.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@arbutus

It was really beginning to seem clear at this point that Danny and Clara probably didn’t in the end have a future.

Agreed. I remain convinced that Moffat, having given us two dissimilar characters who are nonetheless a perfect match (Amy and Rory) was now giving us the opposite: two characters who love each other very much, but are utterly, horribly disastrous for each other.

Clara and Danny both brought out the worst in each other, not the best. In the end, their relationship killed Danny and nearly killed Clara.

Whether Moffat was just doing this for fun, or whether he wanted the Clara/Danny relationship to hint at the way the Missy/Doctor relationship might have been is one of those interesting little questions. 🙂

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@arbutus

the visual look and feel to a beautifully illustrated children’s book

Not as in my copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. The illustrations in that are the stuff of nightmares – although, to be fair, I don’t think that particular edition was intended for children; my great uncle who gave it to me just had a very robust idea of what a six year old could cope with.

In any case,  I always had a preference for the Arthur Rackham style of illustration, with witchy-fingered trees and bug-eyed goblins, to the more Romantic, pastoral style.

 

[Arbutus @arbutus]

@mudlark    Yes, well I think there was in general a more robust view of those things back in the day. But I was actually thinking of some of the modern picture books my son had, a decade or so ago, that were just works of art. I think in the back of my mind was a book about a snake in the rain forest, with semi-gloss pages full of different shades of green and yellow. It was really gorgeous, and it was his favourite story for awhile, so we went through it pretty frequently.

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@arbutus   Yes, I was thinking of the way that traditional fairy stories in particular are generally illustrated.  But there is, as you say, another class of wonderfully illustrated children’s books. Your comment prompted me to look out one, a copy of which I gave to my one of my nephews and which was one of his favourites when he was little.  This was Tiger Flower by Robert Vavra, illustrated with paintings by Fleur Cowles.  The paintings are extraordinary, vivid and slightly surreal studies of plants, animals, trees and African type landscapes, but with everything in inverse scale and in curious juxtapositions, so that toadstools become the size of trees, a tiger can light upon a blade of grass, and lions hunt flowers.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@mudlark. I share you love of Rackham’s ethereal illustrations. I have managed to get hold of a few books illustrated by him over the years.

There are so many different styles of book illustration and a truly good picture books is not purely aimed at children. Colin Thompson for instance wrote specifically for all ages. His illustrations are remarkably packed and colourful. Looking at some now I can see a similarity of style. There is one I found of a child wearing a red backpack wandering into a forest titled “the paradise garden” which could easily have inspired the set design of ItFofN.

Cheers

Janette

 

[lisa @lisa]

@janetteb @mudlark Quite some years ago I was visiting over in the UK
and I took a trip to Hay-on-Wye which is an area known for being filled with
bookshops and some have very collectable books.
I remember several that had some beautiful old children’s books with stunning
illustrations. I did buy a book but it wasn’t a illustrated book. Now
after having read these recent posts I think I missed an opportunity to get
something special? I’m sure there are great reproductions but if I ever get
back to that place I think that I know what sort of book I want to be hunting for!

[Anonymous @]

@lisa

dont lose hope 🙂

[Frobisher @frobisher]

Sorry to bring back a very old thread, but I have a question that has been bothering me ever since I saw this episode. I’ve skimmed this thread, and can’t see a definitive answer/theory. To be honest, there was quite a bit of troll-y behaviour going on, so it may have been lost under all that.

Anyway, as other posters have also noted, this episode is set in 2016. The events that end Series 8 (CapDoc 1) seem to definitively prevent this from happening. Or are all the episodes we are watching, including Death in Heaven, set in 2016 or later? Was this episode actually an alternative future timeline, or a dream of some sort? I am very confused! Help! ??? :¬s ???

[nerys @nerys]

You know, I had forgotten this little detail of it being set in 2016. At the time, I didn’t think much of it … but then, I didn’t know what was going to happen to Danny. Then again, do we know what year we’re supposed to be in currently? I’m never sure if we’re to consider this “present time” or not. This is a time-traveling Doctor, after all. I don’t have any answers. Anyone else?

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@fatmaninabox, @jimthefish, @phaseshift

I was trying to track down an old post I made to try and answer the questions of @frobisher and @nerys above. In my post #34221, I talked about making a post on the Trailers thread. But I do not seem to be able to find that thread. Any advice?

[Anonymous @]

@frobisher @nerys

Ah, the old dating conundrum.

Clara doesn’t travel ‘full-time’ with The Doctor, prefering to live a normal(ish) life for a few months between ‘adventures’. Assuming that the modern-day events in The Bells of Saint John took place in 2013, then Clara’s ‘gap months’ would be enough to bump the in-series date for Series 8 to 2016.

I noticed that in The Zygon Invasion, when Kate was in New Mexico, there was a clock/calendar on the Sherrif’s office wall which showed the date/time as being 11:01 am on Thursday 1st (the month & year isn’t visible). The next time the 1st of the month falls on a Thursday is September 2016 which would indicate that the in-series year is still 2016. Or is it?

To add to the dating confusion, if we assume that The Zygon Invasion was set in November (the episode was broadcast on 31st October) then that would now put the in-series year to 2018 which is the next time that the 1st November falls on a Thursday.

I’m confused 😕

I find the best way to think about time-travel is to not think about it – Captain Katherine Janeway (USS Voyager)

Sound advice Captain 😉

[Anonymous @]

@blenkinsopthebrave – I vaguely remember a Trailers thread but thought it had been superceded by the Official Spoilers thread.

@craig – has the Trailers thread been deleted?

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@fatmaninabox

I’m pretty sure the Trailers ‘thread’ was a Blog, or rather, a series of Blogs, until we decided that was too inconvenient and replaced it with the BBC Spoilers forum.

[gamergirlavatar @gamergirlavatar]

I really like this episode. There were funny moments brought out by a darker Doctor. It was great to see the Earth cover with plants and how humans would react to the plants. It was also great to see the kids send a message to the world and it was wonderful to see the great scene were the earth is saved by the plants when the solar flare came. I love the idea of the creatures talking through May. I wonder if May still hears the little creatures however, she might not if the solar flare is gone and if her sister is back home.

[ichabod @ichabod]

@gamegirlavatar  I feel the same way about this episode; I’m glad you liked it too!

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

In The Forest of the Night

Marvellous title, and it starts off really well. The Doctor is quite disconcerted at Maebh’s noncommittal acceptance of the Tardis interior – “I just thought it was supposed to be bigger on the inside, so I didn’t say anything”. I like Maebh, unlike the insufferable Courtney. And the Doctor’s perplexity at setting course for London and arriving in a jungle is as amusing, as the Trafalgar Square jungle is intriguing.

(Also intriguing that her name is pronounced ‘Maeve’, which means that the ‘b’ is pronounced ‘v’ – exactly as in Cyrillic (Mockba = Moskva))

Danny is being a little annoying. Also calling the kids ‘team’ which instantly raises my hackles but that’s just me. Well, some of the kids evidently feel the same way, too. Does the Natural History Museum allow sleepovers by school parties? Really?

But then it goes all weird and metaphysical. Not quite Kill the Moon levels of nonsense but heading up there. Clearing pathways through the trees with flamethrowers – will not work. Certainly not on green vegetation. All you’ll get after immense expenditure of fuel is a tangle of charred trunks and branches. “Trees control the oxygen” so they can prevent burning – is just sheer nonsense.

The eyes coming into focus in the bushes behind Maeve is a chilling moment, though I was sure they were a black panther rather than a wolf.

But as for the rest – Danny being annoying as usual, the trees arbitrarily increasing the oxygen in the atmosphere to ‘burn off’ a solar flare (how’s that work?), come to that how did the trees manage to suddenly grow a thousand times faster than usual? How did the trees know a solar flare is coming? This is Who, not the Discworld or Middle-Earth.
And we have Maeve’s appeal to the earth (just like Clara in KTM), and then the forest magically evaporates (how?) after its job is done (just like the Moon reset in KTM). And then Maeve’s long-lost sister reappears for absolutely no reason. Ah, I give up, toss this one in the bucket with Kill the Moon. At least Danny got suddenly un-annoying in the next episode.

I’m a tree-hugger, I should love the idea of a ‘London Forest’. It probably sounded great as a concept, just like ‘the Moon is an egg’ did. Unfortunately, it fell down badly in the execution, there are just too many wtf? improbabilities.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

Well, I just wrote a long rant about this ep. And now I find that the last person who ranted about this ep was – me. So I won’t repeat it all again (much to everybody’s relief, I should think). So this is just some thoughts additional to what I said last time.

Top marks to Doc for ‘The brand new forest. It’s like the New Forest except even newer.’ Which isn’t difficult since the New Forest was officially proclaimed in 1079 by William of Normandy and I grew up there so of course I love the reference.

Mention of Cromwell Road – so it was the Natural History Museum. I do like the touch of the traffic light in the trees in the background. Oh, here’s the museum sign – top marks to the props department, the sign is a pretty good copy of the actual sign (visible on Streetview) on the corner of Cromwell Road and Exhibition Road, and there is an UndergrounD sign close beside it (indicating a long foot tunnel to South Kensington station).

If you break a small branch off a tree (as Ruby did), the end isn’t clean-cut, it’s splintery. Props goofed there.

“The forest. It’s in all the stories that kept you awake at night. The forest is mankind’s nightmare.” Not really. I like forests. But I’ll admit, I’ve been in a pine forest in a strong wind and it’s quite creepy. There are sporadic creakings and sharp bangings coming apparently from nowhere – they’re actually the tops of the trees hitting together. If you look straight up you can see them but at your level, nothing is moving. You can’t hear the wind because it’s in the tops of the trees 50 feet above, so at ground level it’s just a vague backround sussuration.

Why Maebh is running away and leaving a trail of personal items I don’t know. And it wouldn’t work that way, you need a marker every 20 feet or so to follow a ‘trail’ in a forest.

There is a nice moment where Clara sends the Doctor off to save himself. When he asks her why she doesn’t come I was expecting ‘because she loves Danny’ which would have been cringe, instead she doesn’t want to be the last of her kind which I can respect.

The effect of governments trying to send out teams with defoliant chemicals would be insignificant short-term. There are (in this scenario) just too many trees everywhere. And Maebh convincing everyone to stop it is equally unlikely. I’m a greenie and a tree hugger, I think “Leave the trees alone!” is a lovely slogan. However I just can’t believe this episode.
Also, how did the trees all grow overnight? And then all the trees just – evaporate? Seriously? How? This is Kill the Moon levels of nonsense.
And then Maebh’s long-lost sister Annabel – rematerialises?

This episode divides neatly into two halves. The first half is intriguing and quite promising setup. The second half is increasingly nonsensical – nonsense.

 

[janetteB @janetteb]

Urgh. I have replied twice to this. The first time I closed down Firefox before posting. The second time I was logged out. So third attempt

Another excellent review @dentarthurdent. There are some critical logical flaws in this episode and while I like the idea that the writer is trying to convey the execution does not work. I still prefer this episode to Kill the Moon which has no redeeming features at all for me.  I love trees and the idea of London being covered in trees has appeal. It is a pity that the story makes no sense. still at least there are some good moments and as usual lovely snappy dialogue which makes it mostly watchable. The first half, the set up, is definitely better than the pay off. The ending is down there with the broadcast in Kill the Moon and the golden arrow.

(I am certain that my original post was much better worded.)

Cheers

Janette.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

Hi @janetteb     That is uncanny.   If someone changed the name on your post to mine, and I came across it in a month or two, I would unhesitatingly accept that I’d written it, you’ve summarised exactly what I feel about this episode!  Though rather better written than I would manage.

The only tiny difference I would make is that the golden arrow in Robot of Sherwood, while I find it disconcerting and unconvincing, doesn’t crash me out of the story in the way that KTM does, I can overlook one impossibility for the sake of the story.

Could ‘In the Forest of the Night’ be more credibly explained?   As I said, the setup was intriguing, it would be nice to imagine a more logically satisfactory resolution, but I really can’t.   These are terrestrial trees, not alien, so one easy explanation goes out the window.

[Author]

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