Doctor Who Review: In the Forest of the Night

Season 8/Episode 10 We’re almost at the end, folks! Unfortunately, I must say that I wasn’t impressed with this week’s episode. The best episodes of Doctor Who feature some kind of dense, emotionally-charged character development; exciting, challenging antagonist; and clever, action-filled plot. This episode didn’t have any of that and really felt kind of pointless. First off, let me say that it’s always a nice change of pace when the adventure comes to the companion, as opposed to the Doctor and companion seeking out the adventure. A forest that appears overnight seemed like it could be intriguing at first, but there was nothing threatening about the experience (a recurring theme in this season, by the way: perceived threats and antagonists that turn out to be harmless). Sure, we don’t know how and why the trees popped up so suddenly, but they’re still just trees. Not evil, flesh-eating trees. Not some weird alien species that disguises itself as shrubbery. Just regular trees that happened to have a very rapid growth spurt. They turn out to signal the actual issue: a giant solar flare that could potentially destroy the earth. But we don’t get a true sense of urgency at any point in the episode. We know it’s not the end of the world, because 1) it never is, and 2) whenever there is an actual threat of the world ending, we always have a good half hour or so of the Doctor and Clara running around and trying to figure out a way to stop it. We get a few dangerous wolves and tiger…