Forest of the Dead
Jun. 7th, 2008 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylI'm pleased to say that Forest of the Dead more than delivered on last week's promises.
I particularly liked the concentration on the gothic — a spectre in widow's weeds, a pair of children who, a la The Others, doubt their own existence, shambling corpses quickened by an unwholesome combination of technology and alien animus and an overpowering fear of the dark — and I thought the resolution to the Donna problem, which with all River Song's dark hints, looked terminal, was particularly elegant.
But, in amongst the darkness, were some truly wonderful moments: the Doctor's expression when something unexpected was whispered in his ear; Lux's emotional explanation of CAL; River's final appearance, turning out the lights; Donna's reaction when she discovers that she's being dieting for no reason. There was even, blink and you'd have missed it, an environmental message: don't chop down all the trees or the monsters that hide in the dark they provide will come to eat you.
I particularly liked the concentration on the gothic — a spectre in widow's weeds, a pair of children who, a la The Others, doubt their own existence, shambling corpses quickened by an unwholesome combination of technology and alien animus and an overpowering fear of the dark — and I thought the resolution to the Donna problem, which with all River Song's dark hints, looked terminal, was particularly elegant.
But, in amongst the darkness, were some truly wonderful moments: the Doctor's expression when something unexpected was whispered in his ear; Lux's emotional explanation of CAL; River's final appearance, turning out the lights; Donna's reaction when she discovers that she's being dieting for no reason. There was even, blink and you'd have missed it, an environmental message: don't chop down all the trees or the monsters that hide in the dark they provide will come to eat you.
