Saying goodbye to Twelve: Ranking the Peter Capaldi era of Doctor Who
By Lacy Baugher
“In the Forest of the Night”
Technically, Doctor Who is a children’s show. So, we probably shouldn’t be surprised when it does an episode that is either about or heavily features kids. Sometimes that can work great. (Think back to season 1’s “The Empty Child”/”The Doctor Dances” two-parter.) Sometimes it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t … you get an episode like “In the Forest of the Night”.
“In the Forest of the Night” isn’t even a bad episode, per se. It’s just very dull. And kind of weird. (It’s actually not interesting enough to be bad, if we’re honest.) The focus on Clara’s students makes a certain kind of sense. Season 8 had been trying its best to make Clara’s life outside of the TARDIS part of the story. But most of these kids are either annoying, or generally indistinguishable from one another. Young Maebh has an interesting rapport with the Doctor — Capaldi is always so good opposite younger actors — but her strange family reunion at the end feels pretty unearned and almost completely random.
On the plus side, the episode’s imagery is beautiful. The forest that suddenly appears and grows to cover London looks amazing. And the idea behind the story isn’t bad on its face: It’s supposed to be a sort of poetic lesson where it turns out there’s no villain. Just a planet that’s trying to protect itself. But, in the end, the episode only feels silly and pointless. This is largely because it asks us to suspend our disbelief to a fairly ridiculous level. Are we really supposed to think the Doctor might actually abandon Earth? For real? Come on. We’ve all seen this show before. (In the end, it all just sort of makes the Doctor look stupid, which is irritating and deeply unfun. Do better, show!)