Dr. Who Series 4 - Forest of the dead
Added 2022-08-27 14:01:03 +0000 UTCOk.....Now I´m embarrassed :D :D
Comments
I like the episode, too. I just learned a new word, because I have never ever heard the word "albeit" before. The german translation is a word that is almost not used anymore. Only by grandparents or super intellectual people. Is that the case for the english word, too. Or is it used more regularly in english? (Please don´t get me wrong here, i do not say you´re old! That´s not my intention. I´m just curious) :) Yeah I guess the part with the whole in the ground was a little over the top. But I agree with the story beeing on another level :) I knew why they did that, I belive either you or maybe some commenters told me this at the end of the first series. But other shows would have just stopped I guess, and they found a super creative solution, to continue. I have never heard of another show finding a solution like this. At the moment I do have a long list of episodes that I do want to rewatch some day. I just need to find time for it. :D :D
Nicologik
2022-08-31 13:16:14 +0000 UTCI really start to enjoy his stories. I knwo the first ones weren´t mine, but the more recent stories of him, do really meet my expectations. I love that darker side of the Who universe. :) Wow the story of your friend really touches me. Crying for characters that you know nothing about. I mean the show is great and the episode it, too. But your friend seems like a very warmhearted person. Did she start watching the whole show after this? I don´t know the book, and I think I don´t knwo the movie either. At least I have never heard that title before. Ohhhh I sooooo curious about your comments to some or may I say especially one particular episode in the next weeks. :D
Nicologik
2022-08-31 13:07:14 +0000 UTCYes it really is :) Wow number 12 of 136. I think you might like this episode more than I do :) But I still like it :)
Nicologik
2022-08-31 13:02:50 +0000 UTCWow thank you for your thoughts. That´s an interesting take on those episodes, especially the second one. It seems like you have thought a lot about it. I don´t share those feelings though, but I can understand where you´re coming from. :) The part with the TARDIS, now that I have read your comment, is interesting. When I watched it I thought it was really cool. And the way it way it was shot was epic. But I also thought it might play a bigger role one day, in an episode. And I don´t know if it will, but I really like the thought. I just wondered how the doctor was able to get to 900 years without ever snipping in front of the TARID, not even accidentaly. And how he didn´t know that for 900 years. That was almost unbelivable to me. I liked the story very much though :)
Nicologik
2022-08-31 13:01:53 +0000 UTCI agree, the story is really good. :) Well, I guess in terms of credibility, this show has offered us too many examples already. I just acept it as a given :D :D Oh those are some interesting thoughts you have about the time jumps. I guess you´re right. I´m thinking about the reason, why we think like this, but I guess there´s no easy answer for that. Yes, the scene with the playground was so well done. It really shocked me, I guess that´s what it was made for. :D It is nice to know those things about the sonic screwdriver. :) Oh that´s so cool. :) It´s always nice to know when people who make show, are really into it. :) That´s the best thing that can happen to a show, if the makers of it, are it´s biggest fans. :) "The doctor runs" would have been a great title :) Oh I didn´t notice that Christopher reference. Thank you for pointing it out. :)
Nicologik
2022-08-31 12:55:30 +0000 UTC"But I've been dieting!" - Donna Noble, Forest of the Dead A really good story. I suppose the Vashta Nerada-swarm animating the spacesuits and then chatting to the Doctor is pretty creepy and we get a nice information dump. But, it's on the edge of credibility for me that a swarm of microscopic creatures could do that. The way time progresses in the virtual world is a really interesting idea because it messes with the way that we, as TV viewers, perceive the show. Jump cuts are the way viewers would normally observe time in a TV drama and we understand it and have no problem with it - but it's disconcerting when we find out that this is the way Donna is experiencing her virtual world. I like the idea of the duplicate children at the playground presented so we don't really notice until it's pointed out. Apparently hairdryers can interfere with the sonic screwdriver. And from last week it also doesn't work on wood. That's nice to know. RTD mentioned that he asked Steven Moffat not to spoil the story for him so he could read the script as a first-time viewer. I've seen it mentioned that a possible working title of this episode was "The Doctor Runs" - in parallel with "The Doctor Dances". And another reference going back to that Christopher Doctor story is that again someone emphasizes that "everybody lives" (this time it was voiced by River Song).
Andrew Vignaux
2022-08-29 04:49:27 +0000 UTCI enjoy Part 1. Part 2 has always been a struggle for me. I always feel I should REALLY like it, but for me it has a dreadfully self-satisfied ethos to it - from the 'explaining a paradox cliffhanger and/or storyline by using even more paradoxes' to the embarrassing 'the Doctor is such a God!' fan-service (clicking his fingers to open the Tardis doors is not only intellectually dumb; it begs the question of why he ever needed a key in the first place. Presumably , now that the Tardis is in thrall to him, he'll never need to use a key from this moment on? Mhmm.) Yes, it (kinda, sorta) all makes sense in the end - but it's the type of story where I feel the need to applaud the writer (and Steven Moffat undoubtedly has talent above and beyond most other writers working today) because of how clever the plot is, rather than actually enjoy it as a piece of entertainment. When all is said and done, though, it's still strong.
Ian Smith
2022-08-27 21:42:46 +0000 UTCA great story, It ranks number 12 out of 136 for me. Love the scene where he Doctor tells the Vashta Nerada to look him up and they back off.
Jade Ellis
2022-08-27 21:22:52 +0000 UTCSteven Moffatt thinks of "stories like that" and Steven Moffatt loves a bootstrap paradox. And he loves making us scared of everyday things that we never thought we could be scared of. Here, he makes us scared of our own shadows. After the last reaction I said: "I will say that a friend I used to work with had never watched any Doctor Who until she heard me babbling enthusiastically about this episode. She felt obliged to watch the second part to find out what happened and told me what she thought after watching it. I won't say what her reaction was until next time because of spoilers" She cried. She knew nothing much about the programme, she had never watched it, not even part one of this story. But she cried at the end of the second part anyway. I think that makes it a high rating story if anything does. The thing about River Song meeting the tenth Doctor quite late her life but much earlier in his, because of time travel. That always made me think of the book The Time Traveller's Wife. A book which made me cry at the end. Hated the film version though.! I'm so looking forward to the next few episodes and your reactions...
Stephen Males
2022-08-27 19:42:55 +0000 UTCThis is a very good episode, albeit weakened for me by the way the cliffhanger was resolved and by the dreadful business with the Doctor plunging through a hole in the floor but somehow managing to grab onto something unseen on his way down. Without that (especially the latter) I think this would be as close to perfection as humanly possible! So many things that could be said about this story, the writing is on another level. I'll randomly restrict myself to two things: (a) The main lead changing from time to time was never in the original concept of the show, and was a creative solution to replacing William Hartnell (the First Doctor) as his declining health meant he couldn't continue with the punishing workload required of the regular cast back in the 1960s. I doubt they thought back then that they'd still be making it in the 1970s, let alone two decades into the 21st century! (b) When I rewatched the first few series of New Who last year I suddenly realised that the conversation between the Doctor and Donna about being alright both parallels and expands upon the conversation between the Doctor and Rose at the end of "The Girl in the Fireplace". I'll finish by saying that this story is strongly rewatchable, as (unlike the same writer's more famous episode "Blink") this has so many different elements crammed into it; also, they're not overly crammed, and the actual episodes mostly do an excellent job of presenting things to us.
Andrew Gwilliam
2022-08-27 16:02:38 +0000 UTC
