Forest of the unsettling perpetual half-life on a computer

[tardis_stowaway]

Completely unrelated to the rest of the post:  I saw a gray fox on my walk this evening!  So cool!  And now back to your regularly scheduled fannish rambles.

I just rewatched Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead.  I was somewhat hoping I'd like these episodes better the second time around, but nope.  It's still a collage of reused ideas that

Comments

[dameruth]

Yeah, the knowing the Doctor's name deal was annoying with River -- but I like to think it's something more interesting than an, "O hai, we're married in the future," thing. The way River apologizes to him, and the way he looks like his heart has been ripped out and handed to him implies to me that there's something about his name that's tied up in Gallifrey or the War, and River is revealing to him that he'll have to deal with something terribly painful in the future (with her) in order for her to have ever heard/learned his name at all (some kind of play on the "True Names" trope, since the Carrionites proved that names have power in the Whoniverse). Now that . . . that would be *interesting,* I think, and a more real/logical reason for River to know his name than becuze she's that speshul.

RE: RTD keeping the Moff away from info -- I don't have references at hand, but I've seen it mentioned in interviews with both men. RTD has repeatedly said that he doesn't want to mess with "genius," and the Moff has, in turn, repeatedly complained that "Russel never tells me anything!" One instance in particular I remember was the Moffat commentary on TGITF that he did with Noel Clarke (listened to it online ages ago, have no idea where to find it now). In the intro sequence of TGITF, when Rose is acting perfectly happy to have Mickey around, it's a bit of a continuity jump from SR, where she wasn't at all pleased to have Mickey joining the crew.

Moffat commented on that, saying that once he saw the episodes all together, he realized that he'd accidentally created a fairly big continuity glitch -- but all he knew at the time was that Mickey had just started traveling witih Rose and the Doctor, nothing more, and had just written accordingly. (He and Noel Clarke then went on to make some giggly jokes about just what Mickey and Rose might have been doing between episodes to improve her mood that much . . .). But Moffat seemed genuinely annoyed that he hadn't had the information he needed to make a smooth transition with the characters; IIRC, that was the first time I heard the "Russel never tells me anything!" comment . . .

[tardis_stowaway]

I like your explanation of why River knew the Doctor's name MUCH better than the marriage explanation. To the extent that I accept River as canon (not much), this is now my personal canon to go with her.

I'd heard about Moffat not knowing the circumstances under which Mickey ended up in the TARDIS, but I hadn't realized an RTD failure to communicate was an issue on his other episodes. I believe it though. Oh, RTD, you mad welshman.