Doctor Who:
Silence in the Library/Forest of
the Dead
By Steven Moffat
“Donna Noble has left the
library. Donna Noble has been saved.”
Silence in the Library and Forest
of the Dead is the story that launched River Song mania. In fact, and this is quite wibbly wobbly, it
is her first and last appearance. River
has in fact already met the Doctor several times but The Doctor, in this case
Doctor 10, has never met her before. So
this is all new to him having this woman who knows all about him and he has no
clue who she is while trying to save everyone from the Vashta Nerada.
Silence in the Library and Forest
of the Dead is one of the more ambitious stories undertaken during the
relaunch. Here you have a complex story
with the Vashta Nerada, Donna in a dream like world, and the computer and Dr.
Moon. In fact you have two stories going
on. You have the computer CAL living the
life of a little girl. But she is having
visions of the library and those who are in it. She is being helped by Dr. Moon
who tells her that the library is real and those inside of it need to be
saved.
Then we have the story of the
Doctor and River Song. Running away from
the Vashta Nerada and trying to get out alive.
Then The Doctor realizes what has happened to the occupants of the
Library and thus tries to figure all that out.
This all comes to light with the brilliant cliffhanger of Donna being
saved. How chilling was it to see
Donna’s face in that egg shaped device with her face on it saying. “Donna Noble
has been saved.”
Steven Moffat has penned a story
that gives more questions than it answers.
This story has big ramifications to the shows future. In fact the introduction of River Song
becomes a pivotal character in the Eleventh Doctor’s era. She has a future with him and we have seen
her end and now the questions are formed of who is she really.
While that is all answered later
on Silence in the Library and The Forest of the Dead was a very scary and
spooky story. In fact this story brought
back the behind the sofa syndrome as the Vashta Nerada was a different type of
enemy hiding in the shadows and killing you by attaching itself to your shadow
and taking you over without you knowing it.
That in itself is pretty scary.
The story is well done and I like
the two different aspects of it. I liked
trying to figure out what the little girl and Dr. Moon had to do with the
overall story. I liked how she was
watching everything from a TV or Radio.
Once you find out that she was the library’s computer it all made sense
and was a brilliant way to portray it. This story had a real paranoia feel to
it. You had the feeling that the Vashta
Nerada would be around every corner.
Silence in the Library and Forest
of the Dead is also a sad story. Donna
while in CAL had the storybook life. A
loving husband, kids and a nice home she had the life she always wanted. Everything was perfect for her and it was sad
when she was looking Lee after all the saved ones were returned to normal and
Lee sees her but his stuttering problem prevents him from calling out to her
before he was beamed off world. It also has one of the dumbest escapes as The
Doctor use a trap door in the floor to escape the Vashta Nerada. Come on that was a cop out if I had ever seen
one and not what you’d expect in a Steven Moffat story. Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead
is indeed a story that is really well done, with a great story behind it and
with lots of emotion and questions that will be answered in the seasons to
come.
Grade B-
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