DW 8.10

Right at the beginning we have several things which irritate me and will probably never be resolved. Good start, episode! One fairly innocuous one I can mention: since when has the TARDIS has a GPS "you have arrived" announcer? And why will it never come up again?

The whole forest out of nowhere is a more interesting set up than what I thought was going to happen based on the trailer last week. I thought the Doctor was going to take them on a school trip, instead it's a magical mystery tour in the present day... in which a massive reset button is pushed at the end and conveniently no-one will ever remember, despite the number of digital footage and such around.... eh, what? Then again, no-one remembers the Daleks or that there was a huge alien spaceship...

On one hand, this is a nice tight story in which we get to focus on just a few characters and developed. On the other hand... WHERE IS EVERYBODY? Yes, they get told to stay inside, but rubbish! Any opportunity for people to get out and loot will be taken, let alone people just getting out and enjoying the new surroundings. Then again, we are talking about a planet which 100% voted to kill a new moon creature. The Doctor Who New Series Earth sucks.

This is all because the story isn't about the forest (and I totally picked that the forest was a good thing early in the story), it's about Danny and Clara and the relationship with the Doctor. With the kids providing colour commentary. And being annoying. Yeah, those are some damn irritating kids, and I'm sure we will be subjected to them again. And no-one minds they know about the TARDIS and such now? Anywoo, once again Danny and Clara and that's nice character development... but it's repeated character development. This is just Danny finding out about the Doctor again, we've been there. And, to be honest, The Caretaker did it better.

This story took a while to grow (sic) on me, but once I got into the groove of it, I did settle back and enjoy it. It's not a brilliant episode, but it's better than many others this season.

Next week: The beginning of the End. Again.

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