From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: Forest of the Dead"

Zoinks, Scoob!

Last time, the Doctor was at a despair event horizon having lost Donna in the Library and the Vashta Nerada on the move again and hungry for flesh. With only a handful of humans and the enigmatic River Song at his side, can the Doctor figure out a way out of this and save the day?

Given that this is Series 4 of 13 at the time of this writing, probably. It's much more dramatic if I ask, though.

After a quick recap to catch everyone who might have missed the first episode up on the important parts (the Doctor and Donna come to the Library, 4022 people saved, River Song, etc.) and a trip through the time vortex for our opening title sequence, we arrive at the Library with our nightmare fuel already in progress. Proper Dave's repeated cries of "Hey, who turned out the lights?" echoing down the corridor after the Doctor, River, and company...as the little girl from before watches on her television. As she flips through channels, she finds something curious...an ambulance bringing Donna to a large building.

Donna meets with Doctor Moon. At first, she doesn't seem to recall him...but soon does. Moffat plays a little bit with continuity as Donna seems to be aware of the jump cuts that lead from inside the building to outside the building, but Doctor Moon explains how they got from there to the outside and then the river, where Donna meets a man named Lee McAvoy...and soon enough, she's going fishing with him and then...they're married and have two kids.

Later, at a new home (or is it an old home?) Doctor Moon tells Donna that he's quite happy to see that she's been fully integrated. He is then, suddenly replaced with a holographic image of the Doctor...and then reiterates himself. Donna has a mini-panic attack...and Doctor Moon makes her forget what she saw with an obvious trigger phrase.

"I'm definitely not the villain."

Back in the Library, the Doctor, River, Anita, Lux, and Other Dave get into another room with the Squareness Gun (and yes, it is apparently Jack's Squareness Gun according to Moffat). The Doctor checks the shadows in the room while everyone hangs out in the light. River gets some exposition about the Doctor to the humans in the room, telling them that she trusts that man 'til the end of the universe. The only problem with the whole thing being that he hasn't met her yet. Going to him, River presents him with her sonic screwdriver...and he inquires after why he would give her something like this.

This triggers an outburst from the Doctor, Lux accuses the pair of them like acting like an old married couple leading to a moment of awkward silence between the two. River tells him that she's sorry, but there's only one thing she can do to get him to trust her. She leans in and whispers something into his ear...and the Doctor looks stunned. River asks if they're good, and his entire demeanor has changed toward her as he confirms that they are.

Something is interfering with the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, and they work out that it's the moon orbiting the Library - a Doctor Moon meant to be a virus checker for the Library's computer core. As the Doctor fiddles, we see the holographic image of Donna, showing the other side of that scene. As he's working on that, Anita tearfully reveals that she has two shadows. River gets her helmet back onto her and the Doctor tints her visor in the hopes of tricking the Vashta Nerada into thinking they're already in the suit.

That settled, the Doctor points out the fact that River said there are five people alive in the room...and asks her why there are six. Yep, Proper Dave is back with his increasingly creepy battle cry and the group make a break for it.

That's the same wedding dress Catherine Tate wore in
The Runaway Bride, by the way.

In her home, the little girl changes the channel to show Donna, her husband Lee, and her kids. Donna looks outside, seeming distant for a moment and having seen...a woman in a black dress walking away. She mentions being tired, and suddenly she's in the bedroom with her husband, vocalizing what happened offscreen in the jump cut...or did it? Someone puts a letter through the mail slot downstairs, Donna seeing that woman in a black dress and veil walking away down the street.

The letter is addressed to Donna, telling her that the world is wrong and to come to her usual spot with her kids in the park tomorrow. She writes it off as rubbish, but a jump cut later and she's there. Donna tells her kids to go play and sits beside the woman in black. The Woman explains that time doesn't progress as it does in the real world. Donna didn't receive the letter the previous night, but instead only moments before she was arriving at the park. It's a very eerie, dream-like state. She mentions that Donna was kind to her once and she means to return that kindness.

The woman in black is Miss Evangelista...or what is left of her, at least...

Back at the Library, the Doctor attempts to reason with the Vashta Nerada despite River's reservations. He tries to get it to speak...and eventually succeeds, the swarm using Proper Dave's voice to talk to him, revealing that they did not come here, they come from here. The Vashta Nerada consider the Library their forests...and the Doctor figures it out - microspores in books brought here, a million million books with a million million Vashta Nerada in each.

Other Dave gets a repeated phrase of "We should go, Doctor!" as it's revealed that he, too, has been eaten. The two swarms try to box him in, but the Doctor escapes via a trap door in the floor.

Back at the park, Miss Evangelista implores Donna to look at the children. She tells her that she has to look, has to see. The twist is this - the children aren't real, they were never alive. When Donna looks...they're all the same children repeated over and over again all across the playground. In a fit of panic and aggression, Donna pulls off the veil...and reveals that Miss Evangelista's face has become horrifically distorted.

Heh, spooky!

In the Library, River tells Anita of the Doctor. The one currently here isn't her Doctor...while he is the Doctor. Her Doctor, though...her Doctor has turned armies away and swagger off back to his TARDIS, opening the doors with a snap of his fingers.

The Doctor denies that a TARDIS could be opened in such a way, but River says that the Doctor can. The Doctor asks Anita if he can do anything for her, and she jokingly asks for an old age before asking him what it was that River had said that made him trust her. Telling him that his secrets are safe with her, it triggers the Doctor's brain into thinking of..."saved", rather than "safe" and he starts putting pieces together. The Library's harddrive has 4022 people teleported.

Now that Donna has seen the truth, it's impossible to unsee. The Library's harddrive is basically a version of the Matrix...either the one from Doctor Who or the film The Matrix works, actually...a virtual reality in which the people who were saved were placed. Miss Evangelista isn't a complete image download like Donna - hence why her face is distorted and her intellect has increased. She sees the absolute truth because she's brilliant and unloved. She also tells Donna that, as this is a dream, she doesn't exactly know who the dreamer is. However, she has heard a word: Cal.

The little girl reacts angrily to this, pressing a button on her remote and suddenly one of Donna's children hurts themselves on the playground equipment. Those Miss Evangelista tries to insist she has to let them go, Donna refutes her and walks away with her children. The little girl, angry and sobbing, insists that Miss Evangelista will "spoil everything". When her father comes to check up on her, she angrily (and accidentally) deletes him with the remote.

In the Library, alarms go off. The auto-destruct sequence has been activated.

At her home, Donna and her children have noticed that the skies have gone red.

Doctor Moon pops in and tries to get the little girl to stop...and she deletes him as well.

Basically, everything's going to Hell in a hand basket. It's your standard "Smoke 'em if you got 'em" protocol.

David Tennant and Alex Kingston have great chemistry.
Wish we could have seen more with them.

In the Library, the Doctor, River, Anita, and Lux open up the planet's core and head down to the main computer - where Lux promises he'll explain what "Cal" is.

Back in the Library harddrive, Donna puts her children to bed after having one more scene of explaining what happened in the jump cut and her children asks her if they're real...saying that when she isn't there, it's like they aren't. She refutes this, promising to never close her eyes again...and they vanish just as she leans in to kiss one of them good night. Needless to say, Donna is completely broken by the experience and Catherine Tate plays the soul-destroying sorrow very well.

In the planet core, the Doctor attempts to wake the computer core, but it doesn't work. Lux reveals the truth - "Cal" is Charlotte Abigail Lux, his grandfather's youngest daughter. The Library was built for her as she was dying from a terminal illness, her love of books meaning that she was given every book in all of history to live in as she wished. The Doctor realizes that's why Cal didn't talk to them directly soon and tell them what was wrong - she has 4,000 minds stuck in her head.

The Doctor comes up with a plan to jumpstart the computer, using himself as a sort of external hard drive. River protests, insisting that he'll die and won't regenerate if he does. River and Lux head off to help with the technobabble. Anita remains, asking the Doctor what they're going to do about the Vashta Nerada...and the Doctor reveals that he plans to offer them a deal, the Library for the people trapped in the data core. He then reveals, untinting the visor, that he knows Anita has been eaten.

The swarm insists that these are the forests and the people are their meat. The Doctor tells the swarm that he's the Doctor, and they're in the biggest library in the universe, and ends with three simple words:

"Look me up."

The swarm gives him one day, the body slumping to the floor just as River comes back in. River then knocks the Doctor out cold with a single punch. When he awakes, he's handcuffed to a pillar and River is hooking herself up into the machinery. The Doctor implores her to not do it, but River says that this all means he always knew she was going to die. The last time she saw him, she says, he turned up on her doorstep with a new haircut and a suit. They went to Darillium to see the Singing Towers. The towers sang...and the Doctor cried. Now, River knows it's because he knew...and always knew...that she'd come to the Library.

Alex Kingston absolutely sells the next bit, absolute anguish in her tone and expression as the Doctor insists that he do this.

"If you die here, it will mean I never met you."

"Time can be rewritten."

"Not those times. Not one line, don't you dare. … It's okay. It's okay, it's not over for you. You'll see me again. You've got all of that to come. You and me. Time and space. You watch us run."

It is then that the Doctor reveals that River whispered his name to him. Not "The Doctor", but his actual name, and he insists that there's only one reason he would ever tell anyone his name...only one time that he could?

River shushes him gently, her last word being "Spoilers." She brings two cables together, and a bright light floods the room.

Goodbye, River. See you earlier.

In the hard drive, Lee runs in to find a hysterical Donna. As reality falls apart around them, Donna assures Lee that he is real and that she's going to find him when she gets out.

In the Library, Lux is witness to many of the 4022 people having returned...all of them saved.

The Doctor, in the basement, stares mournfully where River had been moments before.

A bit later, Donna reunites with the Doctor. Donna has, sadly, had no luck finding Lee or anyone named "Lee". She thinks he must not have been real - being that he was gorgeous, adores her, and can't say a word. The Doctor says that says everything about her, then quickly insists "nothing, I meant nothing". Donna then asks the Doctor, after giving him such a look, if he's alright.

"I'm always alright."

"Is 'alright' special Time Lord code for 'Really not alright at all'?"

"Why?"

"'Cos I'm alright, too."

They turn to leave...Lee spying Donna as she and the Doctor go, but his stammer meaning he is unable to call out to her before he gets teleported away. And, finally, the Doctor and Donna are on the balcony where this adventure started. As the sun sets on the Library, the Doctor sets River's diary down on the railing. Donna asks the Doctor about River, and about what she knew about Donna's future...given the look she gave her when she heard her name, it's kind of understandable. The Doctor taps his fingers against River's diary, saying it's his future and they could look her up. Donna, though, decides they shouldn't and the Doctor agrees.

He sets the screwdriver down on the diary and the pair start off...only for River to narrate. She speaks of running with the Doctor, and how it feels like it will never end. "But no matter how hard you try, you can't run forever." In the end, everybody knows that everybody dies...and nobody knows it like the Doctor. "But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark if he ever, for one moment, accepts it."

The Doctor rushes up, snatching the screwdriver from where it lay on top of the diary. He questions why he gave River a screwdriver - the only thing left unanswered. His future self would have had years to think about it, so long to think of a way to save her. He peels back part of the paneling to reveal a communication device. He shows it to Donna, going on the one last run with River to get her down to the computer core, even disabling the platform to drop down to the core with great speed...and gets the screwdriver to its destination, implanting River's consciousness into it as Cal looks on with a happy smile.

River, in a white dress, finds herself in a field outside the building where Donna met Doctor Moon. Cal and Doctor Moon are both present. Cal tells her that the Doctor fixed the data core and all is well, and she brought River some friends. Anita, Proper Dave, Other Dave, and a restored Miss Evangelista are there as well, joyously reuniting with River, happy tears are cried. River's narration continues. 

"Some days are special, some days are so blessed. Some days, nobody dies at all."

The Doctor returns to the TARDIS, and we get one of my favorite moments in David Tennant's era and the show entire as he stares sternly at it. If nothing else, it's absolutely the best scene in the entire episode. We see this alien, this being that is 900+ years old and beyond any sort of human understanding staring at his time machine...and he raises a hand, snapping his fingers just one time. The doors open, and we see a warm, exuberant smile erupt across his face. 900+ years, and the old girl can still surprise him. He closes the doors with a snap as well, he and Donna traveling off into time and space.

River's narration finishes, and we see she's reading a bedtime story to Cal and the repeated children.

"Now and then, every once in a very long while, every day in a million days when the wind stands fair, and the Doctor comes to call...everybody lives."

River tucks the children, already asleep, in for the night and wishes them sweet dreams before turning out the light...ending the episode and the two-parter. 

This scene makes me tear up, just a little, knowing now what I know.

Seriously, what in the hell can I say about this that hasn't already been said? Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead are some of the greatest episodes that Steven Moffat has ever written for Doctor Who. It's one of those episodes that makes me wish that David Tennant had gotten more time under his pen, because Moffat episodes are absolutely where he most shined as the Doctor. Alex Kingston takes her first stab at being River Song, and she does an absolutely great job of it without some of the baggage we'll be getting into in later seasons.

Yeah, like I said before, there are some issues there.

It's just a beautifully done episode that speaks to Moffat's strengths as writer, also giving  the Doctor a day where everybody lives and some optimism about his future. He's gonna need some optimism for what's coming up, believe you me.

And yes, I know about the whole Doctor Moon is the 45th Doctor idea Steven Moffat had. It's not bad, but I have some issues with the idea as we'll get into later on down the line in the River storyline. Not that important now.

Next time, however...we'll be entering a parallel dimension. A dimension where Russell T. Davies...actually has writing talent.

I know, I'm shocked, too. But it's there. It's actually the first of two. And here's the real shocker, folks: one of them has Rose as a main character.

Next week won't be that episode, but will instead be Midnight. The Doctor and Donna end up on a radiation-soaked planet and the Doctor goes on a four hour tour...into Hell.

Check it out! One week!