Doctor Who "In the Forest of the Night" Review

Well, I said in my first post that I would be featuring the odd TV review on here and I thought I'd start with the most recent episode of one of my favourite shows on TV, "Doctor Who." This is a review for episode 10 of series 8, with a series recap coming soon! But beware :

Still here? Then let's begin. We were promised a darker series of "Doctor Who" this year, and many episodes have lived up to that, such as "Kill the Moon" or the surprisingly death-ridden "Mummy on the Orient Express." Other episodes, however, have not, such as the straight-up awful "Robot of Sherwood" and this particular episode. This episode is based off of the standard fairy tale line "and they ventured into the forest." And it shows. Many explicit references are made to fairy tales such as "Sleeping Beauty" and "Hansel and Gretel" and, to be honest, it takes away from the episode when you realise the similarities between them. 

The Doctor (Peter Capaldi) stands in Trafalgar Square, now overrun by trees.

  Peter Capaldi has brought mixed opinions from fans and casual viewers alike, with many praising his performance while others did not like it at all for numerous reasons (Americans, for example, have actually complained to the BBC that they are having trouble understanding his accent). It is my opinion, however, that he is doing a fine job as the Time Lord, bringing ignorant humour and intelligence to the role. In this episode, he displays his ability to work with younger actors as well and succeeds, which was essential here as two thirds of the cast was child actors. Unfortunately, these actors and actresses are not good. At all. Their characters just come across as annoying, contributing nothing to the plot or any good humour (their only purpose was for the BBC to basically say "CLARA IS A TEACHER, REMEMBER?"). This is unfortunate as one of the main characters is one of said children and is central to the resolution of the story, which involves the human race waking up to find that a forest has grown everywhere on Earth overnight. This has so far been an excellent season for Jenna Coleman as Clara, as the character has received some much needed character development. She is great in this episode to, bringing the passion and personality to the role. Newcomer Samuel Anderson as also done well this season in his small scale role as Clara's beau/possibly future husband Danny, making the character likable and humourous. His scenes have been a few of the most enjoyable, particularly those with himself, Capaldi, and Coleman.

The Doctor, Clara, and Danny (Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, and Samuel Anderson respectively) run through the new forest, a group of school children in tow

The plot of the episode, as previously mentioned, revolves around the Doctor arriving on Earth to find, to his shock, that the entire planet has been engulfed by trees and a solar flare is on the way. Reuniting with Clara, the Doctor, along with Danny and a group of school children, must try to figure out what has caused this mysterious event. Sounds intriguing and you'd think it would lead to a good payoff, right? Wrong. Unfortunately, this all just paves the way for writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce to enforce the same standard eco message that the trees are our friends and should be kept safe. Also, I could not get my head around what I had just watched at the end. There were just so many questions. Where did all of London's buildings go? What were the creatures that created the forest? Why would the government listen to a message from a child who appears to have hacked into all of their communications? And the ending. It just made absolutely no sense. How is her sister alive? I was just so confused. Seriously, I doubt anyone really understands what happened. It was just so we could have our obligatory emotional moment at the end. It was easily one of the weakest plots of the new season so far.

If you go down to the woods today, you're sure for a big surprise

 In the end, this was one of the weakest episodes of a mixed bag of a series so far, returning to the fairy tale-like narrative that Steven Moffat has so frequently brought to "Doctor Who." With the exceptions of Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, and Samuel Anderson, pitiful acting is present throughout, accompanied by a nonsensical plot only designed to push across the same tired eco message. This was a let down of an episode before the impressive looking finale, featuring some answers about the mysterious Missy and the return of old enemy the Cybermen. However, it is going to have to do a good job, with a lack of plot development through the series, leaving it all up to the final two-parter to give us all of the answers without feeling like it is all exposition.

Rating : 4/10