2nd Opinion: In the Forest of the Night
David Selby and John Hussey both give their own verdict on the 10th episode of Series 8.
David’s Verdict
The concept itself holds potential to flesh itself out long beyond the stretch of a forty-five minute episode and could have taken a number of different directions. I was initially surprised that, from an episode entitled ‘In the Forest of the Night’, there were no actual scenes set in an eerie, night-time forest. The episode instead decided to focus on a daytime forest, with the more unusual feel of a children’s adventure setting, sunlight peaking in through gaps in the foliage and casting a warm, enchanting hue over the characters.
There should have perhaps been some dissonance between this episode and Kill the Moon, as the repetition of a ‘harmless’ natural phenomena surrounding Earth has now snatched away the resolution from two different intriguing concepts. Whilst Kill the Moon seemed utterly impossible in a scientific environment but took itself seriously, In the Forest of the Night at least managed to embrace the magic full-on without covering it up with phoney science (that said, the scene with the returning of the missing girl was a grating mixture of embarrassing, gratuitous and insulting). On another plus side, the resemblance to Kill the Moon allowed for more thought-provoking comparisons as the Doctor had apparently learnt from Clara’s lecture about the Earth. It was interesting how Clara chose to send the Doctor away, yet would have scathed him for leaving without warning. All she asks for is honesty; a simple friendship.
It was a bitter shame for the climax to take up so much time in the TARDIS as the new locations could have been better-explored with some stronger, more powerful CGI shots set in the forest or above the Earth. The implication, however, that humanity fears forests because of their association rather than direct relation to danger was a stroke of genius, and a worthy continuation of the series’ thematic ideas.
Overall, In the Forest of the Night was far from perfect but vastly more enjoyable than last week’s episode. It was brimming with potential and at the very least made way for a finale that could yet save the series from dropping lower in my estimations. Let’s just hope that Moffat can continue from Listen with one of his strongest personal runs of episodes since 2010.
John’s Verdict
For two weeks in a row now I have found myself confronted with a dull episode, which is sad to see because I am a very optimistic person when it comes to Doctor Who. Sadly ‘Flatline’ and ‘In the Forest of the Night’ proved to be somewhat uninteresting.
The main reason for my disappointment of late is the execution of the writer’s idea. The ideas are there, especially with ‘In the Forest of the Night’ when you have this beautiful enchanted environment to work with, but they fade due to poor directions to the point where the plot misses the point of its intentions. As Steven Moffat declared to us during the build-up, the Forest would be the enemy and that the Earth is invading instead of an external force at work. This conceptually seemed perfect. It was fresh and exciting, plus as I said above it gave a chance to display a truly enchanted theme which could’ve worked well with Doctor Who I think.
What we got was far from what was promised. The Forest was never a threat to anyone and in fact from the get-go was trying to save humanity. It gets to that point where you can’t help but look back at the plot and think “what was the point?” An adventure with no real threat makes the hero’s journey seem unnecessary because there are no obstacles or dangers to get in their way. Essentially it’s not a journey by that point; it’s just a task without risk. I probably wouldn’t have minded the nice nature of the resolution had I not been mislead into thinking the opposite and therefore becoming disappointed by the expectations given by the production team.
I know for a fact that I can be a dark minded so-and-so when it comes to how I device plots and character arcs, and sometimes I do want to see things pushed and have the characters in peril and faced with moral dilemmas of the darkest nature – to me that is good storytelling. I don’t want to watch a story just about characters in no danger because that’s essentially a Soap Opera and I find them absolutely boring. That’s what ‘In the Forest of the Night’ almost felt like to me, an ordinary show set around two teachers and a school day out that happened to go wrong and the Doctor just happened to be there for the ride. There wasn’t much else to the story. Nothing really happened and even upon a second watch I still didn’t feel like I could love the episode.
I mean I can never truly hate an episode but I do have a few on my list that just make me cringe a bit because I know in my heart of heart how much better they could’ve been if they’d been executed better. Also I will admit it seemed quite shoddy in some places when it was clear that a building was in fact an unconvincing prop background. It kind of reminded me of 60s Doctor Who but at least back then you let it slide because it was the norm whereas nowadays it just seems tacky when used within a modern production.
The Forest idea would’ve really benefited from the children being placed in real danger to which Clara and Danny were faced with harsh decisions. This would’ve helped further with their rocky relationship as Clara had already shown in small drips throughout the story that she’d started to become cold and calculative like the Doctor, thinking first about the adventure rather than the people around them. One of the best examples was when Danny questioned whether or not Clara had rung the school and parents to which Clara lied about, knowing too well she’d failed in her duty and instead rang the Doctor to talk about the Forest. Later on she ran off with the Doctor without a second thought, leaving Danny behind with the kids whilst she went on an adventure. This to me was the best part of the story. It showed that, to the Doctor’s despair, Clara was changing for the worst due to her rubbing off on the Doctor’s behaviour.
The whole of Series Eight has been about whether the Doctor was a good man or not and now Clara is falling down the same route. Her decisions are now debatable like the Doctor’s and you wonder if you can trust her character in the same way due to this erratic change in characteristics. It’s a clever thing to turn someone as good as Clara into someone who is as distant and somewhat alien like the Doctor is. In the end I feel that Danny’s speech about how he perceives wonders within the world around him along with the notion of keeping secrets from one another may have made Clara realise that over the last few stories she has been changing for the worst, something even the Doctor didn’t want for her, and now she might snap back into her old self before it’s too late.
But like I said this small sub-plot, which in a sense could be entitled the main plot for obvious reasons, became the only thing I really admired about the story as the rest of it just wasn’t executed very well. The children didn’t fully bring enough to the story and somewhat grounded it, Maebh’s physic abilities just didn’t make sense to me whatsoever (especially the ending of her sister magically returning out of nowhere). There wasn’t conflict, dilemmas, nor any real danger (unless you count the wolves and tiger which in my eyes also served as one of the main highlights of the story) so as a viewer I couldn’t feel any need to feel scared for the safety of our heroes because there wasn’t any need to. Sure maybe on a first watch it leaves you hanging in mystery but once you know there’s no course for concern the story falls flat and serves no more than just blind entertainment to re-watch rather than full on excitement like other episodes might give.
So yeah, ‘In the Forest of the Night’ was disappointing and could’ve been a whole lot better had the Forest been a threat like it was promoted as rather than some guardian of the Earth. The saddest part is that the ‘next time trailer’ had a bigger wow-factor than the entire 45-minute episode preceding it.
