Doctor Who retro review: Forest of the Dead (Tenth Doctor/River Song)

The Tenth Doctor faces his future while dealing with a very dangerous threat in the present, in our retro review for Forest of the Dead!

Continuing directly from where Silence in the Library left off, Forest of the Dead also continues the story of River Song, and her relationship with the Tenth Doctor. Naturally, it’s possibly even more of a key Doctor Who episode for her character than the last one.

In this episode, the scenes she shares with Ten get a lot more personal overall. Which isn’t surprising, as Donna is having a completely separate story.

With Donna’s side of the story and with CAL, everything becomes very meta. For example, you essentially have scenes of CAL watching Doctor Who on her television. Or at least, everything that’s happening in the episode for the Doctor and River.

More from Winter is Coming

With Donna, Moffat pulls off a brilliant trick that’s easy to miss at first. It’s only because Donna keeps pointing it out that we start to realize what’s going on.

Donna is noticing how her edited her life has become. What are usually natural time progressions in many TV shows and films become clues that’s something odd is going on.

We also get a rather unusual take on a virtual reality story. With thousands of people living out their lives in a virtual world, and having no idea about it, there are certainly nods to stories like The Matrix. Of course, this being Doctor Who, it feels rather more domesticated and even funnier than that. Especially Donna’s absolutely golden line:

"This isn’t the real me. This isn’t my real body. But I’ve been dieting!"

Photo credit: Doctor Who/BBC

Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.

Tragic love stories

But as hilarious as parts of Donna’s story are, there’s also a rather sad edge to it, too. When she finds out that her children, or even her relationship with Lee isn’t real, it clearly devastates her.

She clearly liked the life she had with her family, even if it wasn’t real. And of course, the moment Lee tries to call out to Donna but fails to because of his stammer is heartbreaking.

But that’s nothing compared to the Doctor’s and River’s story. I mentioned in my review for the previous episode that it was strange to see this on re-watch. That’s even more true in this episode.

Throughout Forest of the Dead, River talks about the Doctor she knows. About a man who opens the TARDIS doors with just a snap of his fingers. About a man who can make entire armies run away.

On first watch, these were distant events in the future for us. A description of a Doctor (or, as it later turned out, Doctors) who we hadn’t even met yet.

On re-watch, however, it’s a different experience altogether. Because we’ve seen the Doctor open the TARDIS doors with his fingers many times. We’ve even seen him make entire armies run away, in episodes such as The Pandorica Opens or A Good Man Goes to War.

And we’ve especially seen the moment when he took River to the Singing Towers of Darillium in The Husbands of River Song. A moment River describes right before her “death”.

And while the Doctor may have helped her survive, it is ultimately the ending of their story, at least from River’s perspective. Perhaps one with an epilogue in The Name of the Doctor, but that’s all.

Beginning and ending an era

So seeing that moment is even more gut-wrenching on re-watch than it is the first time. Because River wasn’t like Jenny (at least in the TV series). She wasn’t just a character who showed up for a couple of episodes that we never saw again.

River Song is now a huge part of the series, or at least, of Steven Moffat’s era. And that’s what makes Forest of the Dead such a great story.

On the one hand, it’s absolutely full of foreshadowing and nods of what’s to come for the Doctor. But at the same time, it’s also a brilliant ending to it, too. At least, to a major part of it.

It’s very fitting that Steven Moffat wrote this story during the final series of Russell T Davies as showrunner. Whatever you think of either of their eras, it’s still nice to see some carryover set up, from one era to the next.

But, along with preceding episode Silence in the Library, Forest of the Dead is also a brilliant Doctor Who story in its own right. Filled with adventure, horror, science-fiction, and more than a hint of bittersweet emotion, it has a lot of elements that many Doctor Who stories should have. One of the best from Series Four, and perhaps even one of the best from Tennant’s era.

Next: Doctor Who: Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall to appear at San Diego Comic-Con!

What do you think? Is Forest of the Dead a classic episode? Is it a story that gets better on re-watch? Or has knowing more about River made it less intriguing than on original viewing? Let us know in the comments below.

Home/Doctor Who