Doctor Who Series 8, Episode 10 Review: In the Forest of the Night - A Guilty Pleasure
- doctorbrick
- 8 minutes ago
- 3 min read
What did you think of this episode?
Sonic!
Good!
Bumpy-wumpy!
Exterminate!
Alright, let’s be clear here - In the Forest of the Night isn’t a Doctor Who masterpiece. It’s not topping any best of lists, and it gets a lot of shit from the fans. But you know what? I kind of love it. It’s my guilty pleasure, yes, that's right, I am a Forest defender! I probably shouldn’t enjoy as much as I do, but every time I watch it, I find myself smiling.
The concept is wonderfully weird - overnight, the world is swallowed by forests, trees springing up in the heart of London, shielding us from an impending solar flare. It’s not an action-packed rollercoaster, and there are no monsters, but it’s a quiet, reflective, dreamlike story. It’s Doctor Who as a bedtime story, and I think that’s where a lot of people miss its charm.
"London has just been taken over by a gigantic forest. Who do you want to talk to, Monty Don?"
The kids - usually the first thing I'll complain about - aren’t actually that bad on rewatch. Yes, they’re a bit “youth of today” with all the stereotypes you'd expect, but they don’t ruin the episode. Even the girl that voices that awful fucking pig (you know the one) is actually quite funny, and Maebh is genuinely sweet and watchable.
Oh and no Courtney, thank fuck!
Do schools sleep in museums a lot by the way? Maybe it's a London thing? Can't say I've ever heard of that though.
I'll admit, the ending is sickly sweet and a bit strange, Maebh’s sister seemingly sat in a bush. Sure. Why not? Fuck it, it's Doctor Who.
Maybe it's Peter Capaldi being Peter Capaldi, maybe it's Murray Gold, but it's oddly moving. Maybe I’ve just lost my mind, maybe I never had it - but it works for me.
One of the central themes of In the Forest of the Night is the resilience and beauty of the human race, that deep down, humanity is worth saving. It’s optimistic, it’s poetic, it’s hopeful. But rewatching it now, in 2025, it hits differently. When the world is an absolute shit show - when corporate greed rules everything, when Trump puts on pathetic little military parades, and when Starmer and co don't call him out - it’s hard to buy into the message that we're worth saving.
"What is it with you people? You hear voices, you want to shut them up. The tress come to save you, you want to chop them down."
There’s a disconnect between the idealism of Doctor Who and the bitterness of modern life. That might be one of the reasons the show has struggled to capture audiences in recent years. Episodes like this ask us to believe in humanity, but humanity doesn’t always feel very believable lately.
Still, Doctor Who is at its best when it dares to hope. And maybe that’s why I like In the Forest of the Night so much. Even when it’s weird. Even when it’s flawed. Even when it feels like it shouldn’t work, it believes in something. And sometimes, that’s exactly what we need, whether we deserve it or not.
Am I wrong not to hate this? Do you think Doctor Who wanks over humanity too much at the moment when we don't deserve to be wanked over? Let me know in the comments below.
RATING: Good!
BEST LINE: "I hope I’m right. It’d be slightly awkward if the world was destroyed at this point."
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