8x10 In the Forest of the Night (Grading/Discussion) SPOILERS!

Those helmets were reused in The Mysterious Planet and Delta And Bannermen, but nothing beyond that that I know of.

 

I'm not sure when "The Power of Three" is suppose to take place, but it could be anytime really. Kate's like was along the lines of "I was hoping it was you" to the Doctor. That could mean this is the first time she's met the Doctor, or she was hoping it was the 11th Doctor rather than one of the other Doctors she'd run into prior to this event (like maybe the 12th Doctor), or to prove herself after her near failure in the Day of the Doctor. "Science leads".

As for this episode, I got a laugh out of the Doctor's description of the TARDIS like a soda can that was this big, but has THIS much suger.

 

Finally had a chance to watch this episode.

Aside from the girl showing back up at the end, I really enjoyed it.

This season seems shorter than usual. I haven't really enjoyed it. Who used to make me smile but that hasn't really happened this year.

 

This was a terrible episode, especially since it was after the two with the new writer, which were excellent.

The things that annoyed me most:

1. All that is left from London are the subway-signs? Where are the people? I know there are areas in London that are not crowded 24/7 but this was a bit too convenient.

2. The only Londoner left is the mother of pseudo-Amy?

3. So, Miss Oswald, it would have been better to let the kiddies die instead of saving them because they would miss their parents soo much?

4. After scaring the tiger off with a torch, do they run away and hide? No, everybody stays at the gate for at least five minutes.

5. The children leave the Tardis willingly to die outside because they were too tired for a tour around space?

6. Firefly-cheese with Fake-Amy, who - without any motivation at all - misses her sister, who - equally unmotivated - transformed from a bush to human and the only reaction from her siblings is a halfhearted smile?

Bad bad bad ...

 

Moffat spoke recently about "In the Forest of the Night" where he defended its scientific accuracy.

Look, Moffat, it's scientifically stupid out the wazoo, and no amount of insistence on your part to the contrary will make it so. And I get that Frank Cottrell Boyce thought he was writing some sort of magical realistic tone poem, but even something magically realist still has to allow for a willing suspension of disbelief, and nothing about the setting or the characters is handled in any sort of realistic way to allow for that.

 

Ugh, I've really liked Moffat's work on the show overall, but comments like that really make me worry. Forest was a mess!

Mr Awe

 

Looking at the transcript, the trees filled the air with additional oxygen. This additional oxygen was consumed by the solar flare.

The problem is not the oxygen. It's the solar flare. Doctor Who writers have treated solar flares as if they were fire that burns a planet. It is not. A flare is

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/solar+flare

It wouldn't matter if the trees produced additional oxygen. It would have no impact on the solar flare. What would happened is that our technology would be damaged. There are astronomical events which can burn a planet. For instance, a supernova exploding near the Sol system would create gamma rays which would extinguish life on our planet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HIokbQMHB8

 

The science of the episode is horrible, even to someone who is usually quite liberal about scientific accuracy like myself. However, while re-watching the episode on the Blu-ray season set, the problem is that the characters act all wrong.

We have Clara, who's tears for the 2.47 billion children of Gallifrey were enough to make three Doctors reconsider their plan to destroy Gallifrey and instead hatch a plan to shift it into a pocket universe. Now she's of the opinion that it's best to let the children in her care die so they won't miss their parents. And she'd rather die herself than be the last of her kind. This is all wrong, Doctor Who is always pro-life. Sure, the bad guys are usually killed with barely a second thought, though prominent enough ones like the Master or Davros always return. But the underlying theme of the show has always been in support of life, as where there is life there are options. Now we have the character who is meant to be the heart and soul of the show, the show's conscience saying death is a preferable option. How the hell did Moffat, the guy famous for his "everybody lives" endings which do at times get tiresome even approve that?

And the Doctor, believing Earth couldn't be saved was just going to go inside the TARDIS, take off and let fate take its course? WTF? Let's be honest, should Earth ever be in a serious enough threat where destruction would seem imminent, the Doctor would stop at nothing to save the day. Hell, he'd likely summon all Doctors to bring their TARDISes onto the scene and send Earth into a pocket universe or a painting or whatever, there's no way he'd just shrug and walk away.

Yes, the science is horrible, but the even worse characterisations are what really does this episode in

 

But without those characters acting wrong, it could never feature the "catastrophe is the metabolism of the universe" line that makes it a beautiful episode!

 

Is the universe a living being?

(From what is spoken later, humans forgot that trees saved the Earth, for they turned the planet into a grey desert.)

 

This is yet another ep. where Capaldi's Doctor didn't have to do anything to save the day, which is IMO a mistake for a new Doctor we need to see his character and the choices he'd be making early on.

 

Hell, it doesn't matter if it's a new Doctor or not, a story where the Doctor has no important part to play, where the solution is just to sit back and let things sort themselves out just doesn't make for very interesting television in general.

 

Same thing happens in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indy's actions contributed absolutely nothing to the plot

 

Not really, if Indy knew ahead of time that he didn't have to do anything he'd let Belloq have the Ark insted of trying to get it back. But here and in Kill the Moon the Doctor's solution was to do nothing.

Truthfully though the idea of the Doctor doing nothing also happened in Warrior's Gate, but then the Doctor had a different task in that story and his actions weren't needed to free Biroc's people.

 

There are times in series 8 where I wondered if "The Day of the Doctor" really happened, largely because of Clara's behavior at various points throughout the series which didn't make any sense in light of what she experienced there. I had honestly come to the conclusion that it was, in fact, an apocryphal story, and then Osgood has to go an cosplay as a mash-up of the tenth and eleventh Doctors.

Maybe "The Day of the Doctor" happens, for Clara, after the events of series 8. Wait, that actually makes sense...

 

I agree with this completely. Sometimes you can have terrible science but if the characters act believably and everything else makes sense, you can live with it and enjoy the episode.

Also, if you're going to have bad science, it should be with the aspects of the story that you can't related to personally. So, it's fine to have a magic blue box that is larger on this inside that travels through time and space.

However, once you take liberties with actual science that you're familiar with, it stops being believable or enjoyable. That was the problem with the Kill the Moon episode and the problem with the trees, their instant sprouting, oxygen thing, and then suddenly vanishing without leaving any damage! Among other things!

Mr Awe

 

Also the Doctor talks to Clara about it in "The Time of the Doctor"...

 

I can generally forgive scientific inaccuracies as long as there's some sort of scientific basis, even if it's just bullshit pretend science. The problem with this episode is there is no scientific basis at all. It is literally a story where magic fairies did it.

And then there's Listen, which is clearly set after Day of the Doctor for Clara.