Doctor Who 4x09: "Forest of the Dead"

Also known as "The Matrix Meets The Time Traveler's Wife."

This episode was half amazing and half... not amazing.

The half I loved: everything with Donna. I just... I love her, so dearly. I was really sad for her, especially in that scene with the kids. I also loved the explanation of the "Forest." The Vashta Nerada (sp?) came from the forests used to make the books. That was very clever, in my opinion, but it seemed to take the Doctor a while to figure it out (I don't like it when I get it before he does).

The half I hated: Everything with River. It... wasn't as bad as it could have been, I guess, but I was still so annoyed at the timing of this storyline. I'm so tired of Steven Moffat doing whatever the hell he wants when it comes to the episodes he writes. The crappy part is, I bet he's going to bring a younger River back at some point during his turn as showrunner, and we're going to have to deal with his version of Doctor romance. Is it terrible that all I want at this point is for David Tennant to leave and not have to be the one dealing with that? I just want my Ten/Rose OTP to be intact for as long as possible. I can probably be just fine with Eleven/River. I won't be ecstatic about it or anything, but I can deal with that because it won't hurt my eyes.

(I will make an allowance for the scene where River sacrifices herself rather than lose the memories she had with the Doctor in the future. I couldn't help myself - I cried. It didn't make me like her, it just made me really, really sad for her. This exchange: "Time can be rewritten." "Not those times. Don't you dare." That's what did it for me. It made me see her as someone that really does love him, and even if it's going to be a while before he realizes it, that he loved her too. Even if I concede that someday they will love each other, that still doesn't make any sense as to why they don't travel together. Seriously, what is the deal. Maybe she just got sick of it and wanted to have a real job? She did say something about that...)

I really just need the Doctor/Rose story to be wrapped up in a way that makes sense. And preferably not in a way that involves Rose dying prematurely. I STILL think the only acceptable way for them to carry that story out is to have the Doctor go spend the rest of his tenth life with Rose, and then when she dies (of old age), he regenerates and moves on with his life. Now that I think about it, maybe it makes sense for him to have a wife like River at some point down the line... not immediately, but eventually. If he was with Rose when she died (of old age), and of course he would be, then she obviously knew he was going to keep on living after her, for a long long time. And she wants the Doctor to be happy and not lonely. So maybe she told him to go out and find someone else to be with and even love the way he had loved her, because she doesn't want him to be alone. After living a life like that with Rose, he would probably be more open to doing it again with someone else.

This explanation is all that currently makes sense to me, because Rose is coming back. The Doctor is going to see her again before this River Song stuff goes down. No matter what ends up happening with her, if Rose leaves in any other circumstances other than what I described above, the Doctor's going to have to get over the loss again. And as we saw in series three, that was kind of hard for him. He's still not over losing her. In "The Doctor's Daughter" he kept saying stuff about how he can't ever have a family again, because when his family died, the part of him that loves in that way died also. At this point in the show, he isn't interested in settling down. The only person I think he could consider doing that with is Rose, but he lost her too, which just reinforced his Issues.

In the process of writing this post, I've started liking this episode a little bit more. If River really is way, way in the future for the Doctor, after Rose has told him to go and live his life and not be afraid to love people, then I think I can probably get behind it because Rose would most likely approve of him not being lonely. And if Rose is okay with it... well, I can probably make myself be okay with it too.

OH! And I now have a new theory about what happens to Donna! She DOESN'T die at the end, she just goes to the future and lives with that guy who got saved from the library, that she was married to in the computer! Stutter Guy! I was so sad at the end when he tried to call out to her but couldn't because he stuttered... I hope they end up together. That would be a much better alternative than her dying at the end of the series. And I'd really like her to be able to come back in the future.

Also, I just read a rumor that Neil Gaiman will be writing an episode in the next full season. ROCK ON.