...BELATED New Dr Who, 7/06/08, 7pm, The Forest of Fear...

[WoD]

your song

[WoD]

must end soon

[WoD]

as said by the ood

[The Monarch]

I enjoyed that a lot

[dweezil2]

More of this quality please. Brilliant stuff.

[Bongo Jack]

A bit hard to tell if Im just so sick of RTDisms that I will latch onto anything by Moffat and believe it to be fantastic.  All the same, this episode seemed a lot better than usual, undone by an unnecessary final scene that RTD has been quick to point out he never insists on putting into Moffats scripts.  What an odd thing to point out in an interview, thinks I.
Although - all of time and space and every woman in creation to pick from and he ends up with her off ER.  Id cry too.

[satchmo]

Almost too many good ideas to get into 45 minutes that one! Moffat should have a look at Lost and stretch them out to a whole season :)

I particularly liked Steve Pembertons character, he was like the architect who cuts corners in 70s disaster films, or the Mayor off Jaws. Or the "you only moved the headstones!" bloke off Poltergeist.
His family chopped down an entire planet of forests to make those books. I almost felt sorry for the monsters by the end.

I also liked how The Doctors final (chronological) meeting with River was to save her, which is the thing that makes him like her in the first place. My inner 8 year old adores Steven Moffat!

The best episode of the best series since the first one. In fact probably the best episode full stop apart from Empty Child.

[IndigoPrime]

I preferred the Doctor saving River, rather than the usual sacrificial stuff RTD usually piles on for little reason (see: Kylie). Plus, the door remains open for the character to return. Which is nice.

[Mardroid]

OK, I'll keep this short, in case it doesn't work (having difficulty posting).

Overall a very good episode I thought. I was a bit skeptical how easily the Doctor was able to reason with the shadows, considering they seemed non-sentient before then, basically just living to eat. Sure I understand they linked with their victim's mind chip thing, but it seems a bit of a stretch that they could do that.

Never mind they're alien. And it was still one of the best episodes of a good series I reckon.

[Leigh S]

A bit disappointing after part 1.  Thought the Donna stuff was over long, and the Vashta Nerada stuff sidelined and dealt with in a really poor fashion - the idea that the Doctor is some kind of superhero who everyone knows about and who talks about himself in third person really grates with me.  What did the VN have to lose by eating him there and then?  They agree to a deal that will leave them without meat - what have they got to lose?  Possibly it should have been made clearer that they only eat people to keep them away, not because they need to?

Even so, if the Doctor can just say "I refer you to my previous exploits" and win the day.... plus, can the Vashta Nerada even read?  Given they had loads of time wasted hammering home the Donna stuff and labouring the tears again. It was almost a "Greatest Hits" of the new series previous to this - "everyone lives", the Kylie "fairy dust" last minute resurrection, the Doctor as God, the Doctor and his love life, The Doctor using his future knowledge to affect things...  

You can argue its all handled with a lot more skill than the RTD version of these ideas, but as ideas, they dont really light my fire. Anyone else find the bit where River Song says that Tennants Doctor isnt like "her Doctor" was a bit odd - Moffat publicly lauds RTDs version, but the subtext of that is that when he takes the reins, things are gonna be a lot different - since the difference seems to suggest and even more God Like Doctor, cant say Im best pleased! so, despite all that, not bad, but a fall from part 1 and a lot of old tired ideas given preference over the interesting new ones.

[worldshown]

Just glad that all those suggestions that River Song was going to be Captain Jack with a sex change (because she's from the 51st century, has a square gun and been to the end of the universe with the Doctor) were proved to be wrong.

[Lobo Baggins]

Hopefully this is working now, as I've typed this about five times now...

I enjoyed that a lot.  The virtual world worked well - I liked the way time moved in exactly the same way as a TV programme edit - and Donna's faux kids' realisation that they weren't real was very creepy ('when you're not here, we're not here either').

Even liked Catherine Tate, as she actually had some acting to do rather than standing around bellowing in mock cockney.

The ending was a bit over sentimental (it worked better when the pair of them just walked off leaving the book), though, and the Shadows seemed to just bugger off a bit easily.

I don't know if it's deliberate or not, but the Doctor seems to have downloaded River Song into a  something very like the Time Lord equivalent of the afterlife - all that business in 'The Deadly Assassin' of downloading dead and dying Time Lord consciences into the Matrix was very similar.

Those chips also looked a bit Biochip like - he could have made River Song into a talking hat!  Missed a trick there, the buffoon!

[Tiplodocus]

Well I really enjoyed that one.

OK the shadow piranhas were talked away (very Star Trek Next Generation) but the whole River Song bit, I felt, was brilliantly handled.

I didn't think it was a "pixie dust" ending either. All the technology used to save her was shown in action during the episode, it didn't just come out of thin air, it was all their for you to piece together.

The whole virtual life as television edits was very good as well. Simple idea, well executed. Surely someone has done that before?

And Alex Kingston is weapons grade sexy - I'd tell her my real name.

Having had a bit of a downer on new Who,  and only watching it because Tiny Tips was watching it (he thought it was great too), I've actually found myself enjoying quite a few of these.

[Al Haroun]

I have to admit, that although I love Doctor Who (and Torchwood) as the only TV Sci-fi worth a damn, I find the inclusion of the Donna Noble character quite two-dimensional, making it difficult to take the rest of the stroies seriously. Its like having that red-haired harpy from Eastenders continuously cropping up to shriek something unintelligible into your sub-conscious. The sooner she gets killed the better.