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“I have the two qualities you require to see absolute truth – I am brilliant, and unloved.”

More dangerous than the Dewey Decimal system, the Vashta Nerada continue to chow down in the biggest library in the cosmos, while Donna plays house. 4022 saved, with no survivors.

Plot Points – Now incorporated into the computer mainframe, Donna experiences a “reality” of a happy life with a handsome husband and two beautiful children. But the dream begins to crack when she encounters the shrouded figure of Miss Evangelista. Meanwhile, the Doctor and River run and run and run.

Doctor Who? – Of her future-Doctor, River says “I’ve seen whole armies just turn and run away, and he’d just swagger off back to his TARDIS and open the doors with a snap of his fingers.” Asked who the Doctor is, she replies, “He’s the only story you’ll ever tell, if you survive him.” River’s comment that her Doctor appeared at her doorstep with “a new haircut and suit” may imply that he had regenerated. And most obviously – River knows the Doctor’s true name, which causes him to trust her. Needless to say, this has never been revealed in the series, nor should it ever be revealed – in fact, it’s the whole point of the title: Doctor Who. The implication is that they were married – or something vaguely equivalent.

Hey, Hey, Donna  – Catherine Tate finally gets a chance to really shine in this episode, and her gradual realization that the virtual world around her isn’t real is downright heartbreaking. Donna’s perfect man is “gorgeous, adores me, and hardly ever speaks a word.”

Too Cool – Funny how this episode seems completely opulent, even though most of it happens in just a couple of rooms. It’s all in the details, and the details here are superb, although CAL’s mainframe does look suspiciously like the colony spaceship from “The Doctor’s Daughter.”

Weird Science – When the Vashta Nerada speak through Proper Dave’s comm system, it is with a booming “scary” voice completely unlike Dave’s, and yet when they talk through Anita’s comm, they sound just like Anita. Are we supposed to think they’re adapting? The implication is that Anita never actually has a repeating “ghost” pattern, and that the V.N. start speaking for her to try and fool the Doctor into thinking she’s still alive. Which is a little odd. The first episode seemed to portray them as mindless devourers – certainly piranha have no sense of right or wrong, only instinct. But here they’re presented as having a fairly high level of intelligence, and certainly the capacity for rational thought.  Also, the status of The Library itself is a bit muddled… the Doctor talks as if it’s the most famous book bank in the known universe, and yet there are implications that the V.N. attack occurred before it was even open – when retrieved, the 4022 people are all wearing similar clothes (all black, for one thing) that seems to indicate they might be staff rather than customers, and if The Library covers an entire planet, there should be far more than four thousand people in attendance.

Dumb Stuff – While it’s true that Mr. Lux says that CAL can choose “any era to live in,” doesn’t it seem a bit odd that she chooses the early 21st century, rather than her own time, in which to spend her everyday life? Wouldn’t someone accustomed to a level of technology – and especially a child – be more comfortable in their normal surroundings, rather than a comparative dark age? Similarly, it’s logical that Donna is put where she would be most comfortable, but what about her husband? Wouldn’t he also be used to the 51st century? (But then, I suppose Dr. Moon could just say, “Yes, you did live in the future… and then you forgot.”) When the two dead Daves stare out the portal through which the Doctor has just disappeared, they watch his long brown coat flutter down to the buildings below, falling hundreds of feet; and yet, at the end of the episode the Doctor’s got it back again (I’m starting to wonder if this coat has some magical properties of its own). It’s certainly not impossible that he retrieved it, but how?  And probably the biggest thing: the Vashta Nerada are meat-eaters; why would they calmly allow their only source of food to just walk away, leaving them to starve?

Classic Who – River’s line “You don’t rewrite those times, not one line” is a reference to a very famous quote from the classic first-season William Hartnell story “The Aztecs” (1.6, 1964), in which he tells schoolteacher Barbara Wright, “You can’t re-write history. Not one line!”

Final Answer – Yes, it’s The Matrix, yes the monsters don’t quite make sense, and yes it’s yet another self-sacrifice to save the Doctor’s hide. Just this twice, everybody lives. But it doesn’t matter, because “Forest of the Dead” rumbles and prowls and growls like a sleek animal in its prime. Rarely have so many disparate elements come together to make something so damn good. From the small details (sitting in her virtual living room watching television, Charlotte/CAL is framed against a wallpaper made up of a forest of trees) to the haunting dialogue (“Mummy – what’s wrong with the sky?”) to the creepy imagery (the Doctor trapped between the corpses of two guys named Dave) to the gut-wrenching emotions (the Doctor’s realization that River is even more important than he could have imagined), this is Doctor Who getting it spectacularly right, something that happens all too seldom in the new series. It’s not perfect, but it’ll do in a pinch.

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