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“I’m a time traveler. I point and laugh at archeologists.”

Terror in the stacks as deadly shadows make their presence felt in the biggest library in the universe. It’s this year’s Steven Moffat episode(s) and that’s always reason to rejoice. Hey! Who turned out the lights?

Plot Points – Responding to a call on the psychic paper, the Doctor and Donna arrive at The Library – a planet devoted exclusively to housing newly-printed tomes reproducing every book in history – but the place is completely empty. And silent. The arrival of an archaeological team led by professor River Song (Alex Kingston) clues them in that The Library has been closed for a hundred years, since an unknown force wiped out everyone there. The Doctor deduces that the culprit is the Vashta Narada – “piranhas of the air,” who feed voraciously and hide in the shadows. “Not every shadow, but any shadow.”

Doctor Who? – The Doctor, unsurprisingly, loves books, and has no patience for archaeologists. He never lands on Sunday because he thinks Sundays are boring.  He claims that he doesn’t go around giving his sonic screwdriver to people, and seems a bit unnerved by River’s future knowledge of him. (Her comment that the almost millennia-old Doctor is “so young” seems to indicate that “her” Doctor is much, much older.) He knows all about the Vashta Narada.

Hey, Hey, Donna – Seems a bit perturbed/possessive at River’s casual intimacy with the Doctor, and is grossed out by the thought of donated faces. She cries “Hands! when the Doctor physically moves her.

This Year’s Arc – When Professor Song realizes that Donna is Donna Noble, she regards her gravely, and won’t answer Donna’s query about what happens to her in the future. Doom for Donna? Russell T. Davies has always maintained that he would never kill off a companion because it would be traumatic for the kiddies watching. But he’s lied before (e.g., The Master).

Too Cool – Where to begin? Superb sets, excellent CGI, terrific design work… Thank heaven they actually designed some new spacesuits rather than simply re-painting (again) the ones previously used in “The Satan Pit” and “42.” And what nerd can resist the concept of a planet that’s just one gigantic library?

Weird Science – Doesn’t it seem a bit odd to manufacture billions and billions of new books especially to fill this giant world-sized library, rather than simply collecting together the books that already exist? There’s ample evidence in other episodes of the series to indicate that paper and books are still in use well into the far future.

Dumb Stuff – The most troublesome thing here is the exact nature of the Vashta Narada. Like the Quantum Angels in Moffat’s 2007 episode “Blink,” they seem to pass up many, many opportunities to attack (people are constantly walking in and out of shadows, letting shadows touch them, etc. – not every shadow, sure, but after a while you start to wonder if they’re in any shadows), and seem to do so only when it’s convenient for the script. The Doctor says “Light doesn’t stop them, but it slows them down” – but every time they imitate a shadow, aren’t they putting themselves directly into the light?

Internal Continuity - It’s the 51st Century again, home of Captain Jack Harkness, and the same era as Moffat’s second-season classic “The Girl in the Fireplace.” River uses a “squareness gun” (sonic blaster) like Capt. Jack’s (in fact, behind-the-scenes info reveals that Moffat intends it as the exact same gun), and the Doctor mentions “Emergency Program One,” which will send Donna home to Earth if she’s alone in the TARDIS for more than five hours; he used this with Rose in “The Parting of the Ways.”

Classic Who – Nothing really, though the Doctor’s impatience with archaeologists may be a callback to the classic Patrick Troughten episode “Tomb of the Cybermen” (5.1, 1967).

Final Answer – Proof once again that, when it comes to NuWho, there’s Steven Moffat, and then there’s everybody else. Sure, the script has some trite elements – shadows that kill and walking corpses – but Moffat stacks the episode with so many other intriguing elements (the little girl and her “nightmares,” the relationship between River and the Doctor, data “ghosting,” and even fun character bits like “Proper Dave” and “Other Dave”) that the episode never hangs on any one plot thread, and is outrageously entertaining. Euros Lyn is one of the new series’ better directors (though he’s helmed some crappers, like “The Runaway Bride” and “Fear Her") and does a terrific job here, keeping pace with the script. Moffat contributes his usual stellar dialogue and gift for structure, and the end result is an episode that is not only head and shoulders above anything else this season, but also has a sense of joy about it. If only this guy could be in charge of the show instead of just writing one episode per year – hey wait a minute! Starting in 2010, he is in charge. And I’m counting the days.

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