SPOILERS AHEAD
World-Building: Decent
Characterization: 2D
Plot: Decent
This episode wasn't as pointless as I expected nor was it as well done as it could have been. It was ok. Danny and a bunch of kids from the school were there just because. Danny and Clara had another really pointless conversation about how he doesn't like her lying to him and so on that had no context and no connection to what happened in previous episodes. I mean - why didn't they have a fight about the way she spoke to him - and clearly lied - on the phone in Flatline? That would have made more sense. Also, nobody really needed to do anything in this episode because those tree spirit things took care of it all so it was just the doctor being funny with a bunch of kids around...
It all comes back to the fact that the writers have no idea how to do characterization anymore. There's no mesh holding Clara's relationship to the Doctor and her relationship to Danny together from one episode to another. It's all just random. And this doesn't just apply to the main characters, it's everyone. We didn't get to see the actual human beings in London reacting to the forest. We didn't get to see them reacting to a little kid telling them to "be more trusting" - how was this a convincing argument to hundreds of scientists and governments? It would have made more sense for the Doctor to use his contacts at Torchwood or - anywhere - to get someone to halt the burning.
And in the end when the trees just disappeared within 2 seconds I was sitting there wondering why they couldn't have shown the humans burn them instead - not realizing that these same trees had just saved them. It would have made slightly more sense.
I won't even go into the laughable science because I honestly wouldn't have minded it if the characterizations and human interactions had been done well. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for magic tree spirits and a forest growing overnight if they'd just do the human parts properly.
Overall it was a watchable filler episode. I wouldn't necessarily care to see it again, but whatever.
As for the NEXT TIME PREVIEW:
All I want to say is that I predict a shambles on the order of Let's Kill Hitler and whatever the heck the season 6 plot-line and the Doctor marrying River to shut her up and all that nonsense was. Guys, it's going to be bad. Really bad. The missy nethersphere things never sat well with me, but I was willing to wait and see what they were all about. Now - with this stupid "there is no Clara" stuff I feel quite sure that the universe is going to be rebooted somehow or we're going to find out that Clara was some kind of Robot that Missy made up and not a real character or whatever. The only thing that will make this nonsense bearable for me at this point is for Danny to see Clara's reveal and be really ticked off and decide to join the doctor so he can get revenge for being used.
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