Wood is used by humankind for countless applications, from building materials, to heating, to artistic expression, to novelty keychains you pay far too much for in gift shops at the beach. We cut down trees for seemingly any reason we can conjure. But what if the trees had enough of that practice? What if they decided to fight back?
Such is the plot we all, including the Doctor, expected for the first 75% of the Series 8 episode, “In the Forest of the Night”. What we ended up with, however, was far less nefarious and more fanciful. With fairytale-like simplicity, and a complete absence of basis in any scientific fact, this episode still managed to capture our imagination. All the while, we sat back, did absolutely nothing, and watched it all play out. (Which is the best plan after all, right?)
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Ranking the Doctors (A.K.A. “How to Piss Off Every Damn Whovian”)
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Just letting you guys know that my week isn’t complete without watching Doctor Who, and then finding out what you have to say about it.
Hey, thanks! We do this for you — otherwise, we’d just blather our theories and reactions to the resident GPR house cats! (They’re incredibly indifferent to the Missy mystery.)
Looking forward to what you guys have to say about the Missy reveal. She turned out to be who I hoped she would be. I’ll say no more in case you haven’t seen it yet .
I’m firmly in the “meh” camp on this one. I was worried it was going to be something along the line of The Happening (remember that M. Night Shyamalan film?). Still kinda was, only the trees were good guys instead of killers.
I may be along in this, but I would have liked this one a lot better, as well as Kill The Moon, if they had moved the setting to off-Earth. The idea of a planet protected by the flora works better in some other part of the universe, just as the idea of a giant egg mistaken for a moon works better … “over there.” Heck, The Doctor has a TARDIS. The universe (as well as E-space and other realms) is within it’s range.
On a happier note, I am looking forward to the finale. And, unless something happens in the finale, I’m looking forward to Clara being around another season. Imma like me some Clara.
That’s an excellent point, Basil — the “off-worlding” convention buys a sci-fi writer a greater margin of creative license when it comes to “squidgy science”. Even in “Flatline”, Mathieson had the foresight to mention (via the Doctor’s exposition) that the idea of a two-dimensional universe was no more than conjecture to us, and as such, he couldn’t even begin to comprehend the laws of science that apply to beings from that alternate existence. (Of course, it didn’t stop a few hastily glued-together gizmos and a label reading “2dis” to save the day.)
Had either this, or Kill the Moon, taken place on a distant planet or semi-habitable asteroid, we might have been able to accept the rather laughable scientific “reasoning” we were being handed — but with this latest episode, we might have sacrificed the fanciful nature of seeing the overgrowth laying claim to our own comfortable world, not to mention the (I’ll admit it) charming interactions with and responses from Earth children witnessing it all.
Glad to hear we’ve got company in the “Coming Around to Clara” camp. We’re not ready to see her go, either!