Doctor Who (2005) s04e09 – Forest of the Dead

During this episode I made two very unfortunate observations. First and more unfortunate but less damaging… Euros Lyn has really not been keeping up with the latest “Who” narrative devices. It just feels different. When it shouldn’t. It’s weird. But not too damaging to the episode overall. It’s a lot, it’s not a surprise Lyn couldn’t crack it.

The damaging thing is Alex Kingston, who’s the de facto companion this episode because Catherine Tate’s off doing the more important and potentially better subplot where writer Steven Moffat clearly has more ideas but instead we stick with guest star Kingston and her mysterious future history with David Tennant. Because she’s bad. At some point during her talking to someone, I flashed back to “ER” and Kingston’s forehead doing the same things and remembered realizing she’s not good and wasn’t good on “ER” and she’s not good on “Who.”

Doesn’t help Tennant’s being weird too. Given how much chemistry Tennant’s had with pretty much every female character since his first episode—like, he sexed up the Billie Piper stuff palpably, hell, even the Camille Coduri—but he’s got nothing for Kingston. It’s part of the serious Doctor thing he’s doing around her.

At some point they have to go to the core of a planet, sadly not to see the Devil, and then there are some other reveals and then there’s a big twist or whatever and a call back to the previous episode and finish. And blah.

Meanwhile Tate gets this poorly executed good idea for a short movie and at least gets to do some acting.

My indifference to Tennant these days is concerning. The romantic Doctor stuff is not successful. Not here, not last season, not for ages. They push too hard, like with the constant jokes about he and Tate not dating (nearly every episode).

For a big deal two-parter, Forest of the Dead is probably better than the previous episode—even with Kingston—just on the strengths of the Tate material. Though I don’t know, the end is pretty bad. It’s at best a shrug and definitely not on par with creepy stone angels.

Doctor Who (2005) s04e08 – Silence in the Library

Silence in the Library is writer Steven Moffat’s first episode since last season’s big deal killer stone angels episode starring movie star Carey Mulligan. No movie star guest star for Silence, rather “she made it in Hollywood on ‘ER’ and now she’s back in the UK” Alex Kingston. I mean… it was pre-streaming. It was prestige. Ish.

Also Colin Salmon. Colin Salmon’s a pretty solid guest star.

Salmon’s in the hook too.

The episode opens with psychiatrist Salmon checking on kid patient Eve Newton, who sees this giant library whenever she closes her eyes and now all of a sudden David Tennant and Catherine Tate appear, Newton screams (kid in danger, not a “Who” norm, got to take it up a notch), and cue titles.

When the show comes back, it’s back to normal—i.e. from Tennant and Tate’s perspective—and he’s brought her to the universe’s largest library. It’s a whole planet of books. Moffat’s sparing no expense with this one. Lots of big ideas.

Like dying people being trapped in their communicator devices—imagine if the predictive text on your phone was predictive voice and kept going when you died—and good old monsters like killer shadows who then inhabit space suits with skull faces.

The space suits come from Kingston and her team of interstellar archeologists—Tennant hates interstellar archeologists incidentally, which seems to surprise Kingston—who are at the library on an expedition for apparently shitty rich guy Steve Pemberton.

There’s a likable bunch of potential victims—Sarah Niles, Josh Dallas, Harry Peacock, O-T Fagbenle—plus Pemberton’s assistant, Talulah Riley, who isn’t smart but she’s hot and no one listens to her and Tate is nice to her because Tate seems to realize poorly written “stupid” characters are the worst.

Except not even Tate listens to Riley when it’s important and the results are tragic. Then things just race towards getting us to the “to be continued,” with Moffat taking the additional swing of having Kingston knowing Tennant from his future. And they seem to be intimate.

So apparently at some point in the future Tennant gets a libido and uses it on the female costar he’s had the least amount of chemistry with in his entire time on the show, which sort of draws attention to Tennant being nowhere near as fun in the role as he used to be.

His serious Doctor thing these days just comes off camp.

Anyway.

Big cliffhanger. But not really, of course. “Doctor Who” cliffhangers are pretty perfunctory at this point. Lots of “Doctor Who” is pretty perfunctory at this point.