In which the Doctor is disturbed by someone knocking on the door of the TARDIS...
This proves to a be a young girl named Maebh, who says she is looking for a doctor. The Doctor is concerned that the ship is not going where he wants it to go. It should be in Trafalgar Square, but is instead in the middle of a forest.
Maebh takes him outside and shows him that they are in the Square, but an entire forest has sprung up in it.
At the Natural History Museum in Kensington, Danny and Clara have just come to the end of a sleep-over with their class of "gifted" children. On trying to exit the building they discover that a lot of foliage is now blocking the doors, and they have to force their way out. They also discover that one of their pupils has disappeared - Maebh.
It transpires that this overnight tree growth is not confined to the UK, but is replicated all over the planet. The British government announces that it will burn the trees down.
Everyone gathers in Trafalgar Square where the Doctor allows them all into the TARDIS. One of the pupils, Ruby, shows him a branch which has no growth rings in it - meaning that the forest must have sprouted overnight.
Danny spots homework folders in the ship - proving that Clara has not been honest with him about no longer travelling with the Doctor. Amongst the papers are drawings which appear to feature a ball of fire from the sky, which the Doctor interprets as a solar flare. Today's date is also mentioned. It transpires that it was Maebh who drew these. Clara tells the Doctor that the girl has been hearing voices ever since her older sister went missing the previous year. The Doctor realises that someone has been trying to warn everyone through Maebh, but no-one has been listening. They notice that she has gone missing again, and decide to track her through her mobile phone.
Maebh leaves a trail of belonging and the Doctor and Clara follow, whilst Danny remains in the TARDIS with the rest of the pupils. However, they talk him into all going after them. The Doctor and Clara come upon a group of men in protective suits, who are using flame throwers on the vegetation. However, the plants and trees will not burn.
They eventually find Maebh, who is being threatened by a pack of wolves, escaped from London Zoo. They are chased away by another escapee - a tiger. When this approaches them, it too is chased off, this time by Danny and the other pupils who dazzle it with a flashlight.
Maebh finds herself surrounded by tiny points of light which dance around in the air. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to hold them still, and they communicate through Maebh. They are the life-force of the trees. They have existed for all of time, and will always exist. They warn of the impending solar flare, then ask to be released. The Doctor lets them go, freeing the girl.
Clara wants the Doctor to use the TARDIS to carry them all to safety, but they refuse to leave their families, and Danny also refuses to go. Clara decides to also stay behind. The Doctor realises that this sort of global event has happened before. The trees have saved the Earth, and will do so again. On hearing from the children that the world's governments are going to use chemical defoliants, he has them all compose a message to send out to world leaders, urging them to protect the trees as they have protected the planet. Maebh's mother turns up to find her daughter, and the rest of the pupils decide to head for home. Only Clara accepts the opportunity to observe the solar flare from space. They see a ball of flame envelope the Earth, but fail to cause damage due to the tree cover. This event is also being observed by Missy...
Back in London, Clara and the Doctor see the additional trees crumble away. On her way home, a vanishing bush reveals Maebh's missing sister.
Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night
What immortal hand or eye
could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Cottrell-Boyce elected to make it "forest", singular, as his is a single global entity. As well as the forest setting, the title sets up the appearance of a tiger, escaped from the zoo at Regents Park, later in the episode.
The writer was best known for his children's fiction, including a sequel to Ian Fleming's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He came to national fame when he was selected to write the scenario for the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games. This was based loosely on themes from The Tempest.
For his Doctor Who debut Cottrell-Boyce delivered a story which very much leans on magic and fantasy, despite it attempting to give a scientific explanation for events. This don't really work but, coming just a few weeks after someone has attempted to sell the idea that the Moon is an egg, it doesn't seem as bizarre as it should be.
This time we are expected to believe that trees have spirit life-forms which can work together to predict solar flares and pre-empt them by growing flame-retardant forests that cover the entire surface of the Earth overnight...
The only damage which we see is Nelson's Column collapsing. When the forests vanish there ought to be widespread devastation, but this is simply glossed over.
Maebh's full name is Maebh Arden. The name Maebh is an Irish one, meaning "she who rules" or "the intoxicated one". It was also the name of a warrior queen of Connacht, as well as a queen of the fairies. Presumably it is the latter which inspired Cottrell-Boyce. Arden is the name of a famous forest in central England, which has connections with William Shakespeare. It is the setting for As You Like It, and "Arden" was his mother's miden name. The forest stretched from Stratford-Upon-Avon in Warwickshire to Tamworth in Staffordshire.
Children, and children's literature, feature prominently - the story having few adult guest artists. Maebh wears a bright red coat, inspired by Little Red Riding Hood (even encountering wolves), and her leaving of a trail of belongings reminds us of Hansel & Gretel.
Fortunately the child cast are very good, otherwise this could have been a complete disaster (Fear Her and Night Terrors had been let down by their child actors).
Maebh is played by Abigail Eames, and her mother by Siwan Morris. The main speaking child actors are Jaydon Harris-Wallace (Samson), Ashley Foster (Bradley) and Harley Bird (Ruby).
Michelle Gomez makes her final cameo as Missy, as her identity will be revealed in the first part of the series finale next week.
Overall, an enchanting, magical episode. Just a pity it isn't a Doctor Who one... The appearance of Maebh's missing sister at the end is one of the naffest scenes in the whole of Doctor Who.
Things you might like to know:
- Blake's poem had featured in the series once before. When Tommy had his mental abilities boosted by the blue crystal from Metebelis III in Planet of the Spiders he read the first four lines of the poem.
- Doctor Who is advertised on the side of a bus. This is one of only two occasions when the series got self-referential, the other being the near announcement of the programme about to start on TV in Remembrance of the Daleks.
- The story was filmed in a Welsh forest (Forest Fawr) using pieces of London street furniture, cardboard cut-outs and photo blow-up backdrops to make it look like the characters are in the capital.
- The Doctor mentions two historical events - Tunguska, Siberia (1908), and Curuca, Brazil (1930) - in which something from space exploded in the air before it could strike the ground. He suggests that these were both incidents when the forests saved the planet in the past.
- He insists that everyone will forget about this event - citing previous incidents involving alien invasions and monsters running amok. However, people didn't walk about with cameras in their phones when the Yeti were in the Underground, or when the Skarasen swan up the Thames. Nor was there CCTV everywhere.
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