Day 747: Forest of the Dead

I have to say, my relationship with Forest of the Dead is one that has evolved over time. On first viewing, I didn't actually care a great deal about it. Yes, I speculated about who River Song was in the lead-up to this episode, but when it first aired on Australian television, I actually found that I wasn't that engaged by it, possibly due to the fact that I was doing my Maths homework at the same time as watching it. But every viewing after that first bad impression has made me re-evaluate it, making it better and better. And the joy is that this is something that's still happening, because even yesterday I stated that I thought that this two-parter was Moffat's weakest for Davies. Now, I'd be inclined to say that it's his best.

There are so many reasons as to why I've come to think this. There's the horror of being in a virtual dream-state of a world, where you believe that everything is real despite the fact that it doesn't make complete logical sense. It's something that taps into my inner hypnophobia, or fear of sleep, where I occasionally have panic attacks about my state of mind when dreaming. The entire idea of a loss of control over such basic mental processes frightens me, and yet it is something that we deal with on a regular basis. It's one of the more overlooked things in Moffat's script - most people focus on the fact that he tried to make shadows scary. I'd argue that he succeeded in making dreaming scary.

There's also, of course, River Song's story. While yesterday I bemoaned the fact that knowing River's backstory with the Doctor takes a whole lot of the fun out of the adventure, in Forest of the Dead it makes it all the better. Given the events of The Husbands of River Song, where we see the Doctor's penultimate encounter with River, and where the groundwork is laid for the ending here, it makes the ending all the more heartbreaking. We see this character that we know so well die such that her future time with the Doctor can be preserved, and her speaking of the Doctor with the suit and new haircut immediately brings to mind Capaldi's beautiful performance in The Husbands of River Song. And of course, it makes it the ending triumphant as well, because when the Doctor realises that how to save River, it doesn't feel like Tennant coming to this realisation, it feels like we're seeing the final leg of a relay race, where Tennant, Capaldi and Smith have been constantly running through time and space to try and rescue River. It's a beautiful moment, and helped me to re-evaluate this story immensely, making it one in a long line of Doctor Who episodes that I'm glad I watched again as part of this blog's voyage through time and space.