Friday, October 31, 2014

Forest of the Dead

Dear Gary—
Silence in the Library did a brilliant job of setting up this multi-layered mystery; that was the easy part. Forest of the Dead has the hard task of justifying the first half of the story with a satisfying conclusion, and for the most part it succeeds.
To begin with, I love how the dreamlike quality of the first part is expanded on in Forest of the Dead, most dramatically with Donna’s storyline.
“You said river, and suddenly we’re feeding ducks.” Donna sees through the illusion, but then, as Dr. Moon would say, she forgets. Throughout these sequences Donna struggles with the shifting realities, desperately trying to keep her grasp on the slippery nature of time and place. She manages to create a pleasant life for herself in this surreal environment complete with husband, home, and two children. However the truth continually breaks in on her fantasy and ultimately breaks her heart. Her grief at the loss of her children, regardless that they are illusions, is breathtakingly sad.
It is intriguing. Even though the world she has created is a dream come true and the truth is excruciating, Donna chooses to face reality. Of course the Doctor and Miss Evangelista push her, but it is ultimately her decision. Donna senses the world is wrong, and having received Evangelista’s note confirming it she resolves to confront the facts. Her eyes are opened and she sees the duplication of children and understands the rational explanations of Miss Evangelista despite rebelling emotionally.
Between Evangelista and the Doctor we get the reasonable answers to many of the questions raised in this multifaceted mystery. The (measly) 4,022 library patrons and employees, as well as Donna and Miss Evangelista, have been saved to the library’s hard drive; they exist in cyberspace; they are experiencing virtual lives. The one missing piece, however, the one piece that completes this mystifying puzzle, comes courtesy of Lux. “CAL. Charlotte Abigail Lux.” A dying granddaughter given new life inside a library “with a moon to watch over her and all of human history to pass the time.” The little girl, the computer, the library, the dreamscape—all wrapped up into a neat package.
With this fundamentally sound core the outer trappings contribute in making this an entertaining and absorbing story; and it starts with the little girl. Having the little girl observing the proceedings on TV, switching between the Library and Donna’s world, is a great tactic. It establishes her as an innocent and yet she is not on the sideline with the audience. She is central to the action, unwitting though she may be. Her story is the most tragic, and when she turns the remote on her father the horror of her surreal existence crashes in on her. She is trapped in a mad world of her own making and she is helpless to control it.
The Doctor and River provide another enriching element to the tale. The mystery that is River deepens and remains unsolved but provides a hint of tantalizing things to come. While this is still mildly annoying to me, I am again impressed with Alex Kingston’s interpretation and can overlook the more irksome aspects. Most disturbing to me is the imagery of the Doctor as a future warrior who can make “whole armies turn and run away.” This is not the Doctor I know. It is a Doctor, apparently, who River knows, but not one I care to encounter. Added to this is the god-like pronouncement: “And he’d just swagger off back to his TARDIS and open the doors with a snap of his fingers.” These are shadows of things to come, Gary, which I am not looking forward to. But I digress. Instead I will dwell on the more adventurous depiction of the Doctor: “The Doctor in the TARDIS; next stop everywhere.” And the evident spark between these two strong personalities. A comparative stranger, River manages to convey a solid relationship with the Doctor notwithstanding their lack of history (at least as far as the Doctor and the audience are concerned). Her obvious frustration with the man he is vs. the man she knows is perfectly balanced against the Doctor’s bafflement over this woman who carries his screwdriver and knows his name.
Quick diversion—can we please dispense with this whole Name of the Doctor self aggrandizement already? But I suppose that’s a little like River Song and her spoilers, so I’ll leave that be. I’ll take my cue from the Doctor and his reaction to the death of Anita: “I’m going to let that pass, just as long as you let them pass.” He is talking to the Vashta Nerada, the forgotten element of the tale. Not forgotten exactly, just kind of lost amongst the more compelling aspects of the little girl, the dream world, and River Song. The Vashta Nerada are a perfect fit to the shadowy nature of this mind bending narrative. Just enough information is provided to lend a menacing aura and just enough is going on around them to keep the doubts from lingering.
I won’t go into those doubts, Gary. If Forest of the Dead had been built around the Vashta Nerada I would, but even though The Library is their Forest of the title, the Vashta Nerada are merely a plot convenience to propel the action and I’ll leave them to their dead pages.
Piling up, however, are the hints of Doctor Who future that leave me queasy. “I’m the Doctor, and you’re in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up.” Taken by itself in this one episode and isolated from the canon it’s a great line. But spoilers aside, it is one in a long line of a growing trend that makes my blood boil. Forget the fact that the Doctor historically likes to keep a low profile and goes out of his way to erase all mention of himself from the public record . . . oh, I don’t even want to begin. Gods and Monsters. I don’t want my Doctor to be either.
I have started on this tangent, and following it through: I want to be able to watch this single episode, or actually two since it is a two part story, and not have to see it in the context of the entirety of the series. I can do that with any of the Classic Who with no problem. However New Who forces me to think in terms of story arcs, and perhaps that is the source of my annoyance with River Song; she is indicative of a larger construct of the current show that I find distasteful. First time viewing doesn’t uncover the trend; multiple screenings, however, amplifies it.
Sorry, Gary. I admire this story; I like this season of Doctor Who; I love Donna as a companion; I enjoy David Tennant as the Doctor. But I have been finding it harder and harder to write as I progress through the series, and little by little I am gaining an understanding of why that is and therefore feel the need to express these ideas as I think of them.
I’m not sure how to right this ship, particularly since I still want to cite my least favorite line perhaps in all of Doctor Who: “I have the two qualities you require to see absolute truth. I am brilliant and unloved.” How absolutely, fundamentally wrong is that? Not to mention demeaning and idiotic. Now I never thought Evangelista was a raving beauty to begin with, and her supposed imbecility was unbelievably ham-fisted, but to suggest that merely by becoming ugly she has become brilliant is beyond the pale. And again, Gary, I sigh and don’t even want to waste any more time on it.
Donna to the rescue with, “Is all right special Time Lord code for really not all right at all?” Moving, poignant, everything that is right about this serial. And so much of this serial is right. If I can only keep those shadows from crossing my path.
But the show keeps intruding. “Everybody knows that everybody dies. But not every day.” There is nothing wrong with ending on the melancholy. For that matter, there is nothing wrong with ending on the uplifting. But you have to pick. Too often these days Doctor Who tries to have it both ways and tacks fairy tale endings onto otherwise dramatically powerful conclusions. (Rose anyone? Sorry—spoilers.) The Doctor is so joyous and proud of himself for having ‘saved’ River. But what he has saved her to is a glorified Purgatory. I can’t imagine that she is going to be happy reliving the same day over and over with the same people, reading the same story again and again to the same fake kids, and never again experiencing the constant rush of adventure she knows and loves with the Doctor. First glance, the Doctor’s triumph is exhilarating. However it doesn’t hold up. I wish it did. I wish I could watch this story and enjoy it as I did upon first view. I still enjoy it, but oh those spoilers . . .
I send this out, Gary, hoping that it finds you all right, because I’m all right too.

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