Rate "In The Forest Of The Night"

The most surprising invasion of Earth, yet.  Trees.  All over the world, people awake to find that forests have overgrown themselves and taken back the world.  Forests have all kinds of dangers, and it doesn't take the Doctor long to work out that the final days of human kind are near.  

So let's hear what you thought of Episode 10 of this new Doctor's first season.  Same disclosure rules apply: this thread will remain locked until UK transmission of the story.  Following that, any North American Wrinklies who wander in here should scroll down at your own risk, for the potential to be spoiled is certainly there.

But will it be Child's Play? Very hopeful for this episode, especially after Flatline.

Well my hope was badly misplaced. Only the third episode I've watched on transmission this series and on the whole I found it to be a load of old bollocks. A few nice touches stop it getting an "Awful" rating.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have been surprised by my reaction to Saturday's episode.

First, ITFOTN featured a cast largely composed of kids.  Right there, in that decision, you already know whatever else happens in the story, you're not going to have lot of scary or gory content.  I mean, it's a given that you aren't even going to have a body count to speak of, because of the cast composed largely of kids.  

Second, as we know from episodes like "Fear Hear" or "The Rings Of Akhaten," a story which relies largely on a cast of child actors to pull it off has every chance of going wrong if the kids get into a plot that goes over their heads.  While Saturday's episode didn't come completely off the rails, it was touch and go in a couple of places.

Finally, we had a story where the invading force were... trees.  Trees aren't particularly scary.  A forest isn't particularly scary when you see it in full daylight.  Trees don't tend to move an awful lot.  They certainly don't create much of a menace when they have all their foliage on and look nicely summery.

Combine all these factors, and what you get is a story that simply lacked tension.  There was nothing particularly wrong with the story, it just wasn't as compelling a tale as I prefer, and after listening to an interview with the lady who directed the final two part conclusion of Series 8 yesterday, I'm guessing this was a conscious decision to give viewers a bit of a breather before we get to meet Missy properly.

3/5 from me.