Dr. Horrible: Something to Sing About?

Exciting trailer news! A mini musical written/scored/directed/created by Joss Whedon and staring Nathan "Malcolm Reynolds" Fillion and Neil "Doogie" Patrick "Barney" Harris.......



Is that Adam "Jayne" Baldwin* I spy in that trailer? The excitement deepens!

(*) No. It was Doug "Fool for Love" Petrie as Professor Normal
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Introducing Mr. Tilney

Change of pace for this blog: a post regarding not the Doctor, but the lovely Miss Jane Austen. Actually, I'm completely stealing from a post on a Jane Austen Blog that linked to this video.

The Fabulous Henry Tilney! If you haven't met him before in the wonderful comic satire, Northanger Abbey, I highly recommend you read it and make his acquaintance. He is the highlight of the book (for me). And the dude who plays him in the TV movie--also a highlight.
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Speaking of The Doctor....

Today while driving to work I spied a novelty license plate that read: TARDIS1



Yeah, I geeked out a little. For my readers who don't have the patience to read the horrendously long, long, long Doctor Who recaps, let me 'splain. The TARDIS looks like a 1960s British police call box.

TARDIS stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. The TARDIS belongs to the Doctor, who is an alien. He uses it as his spaceship.

Some fun facts about the TARDIS:

• It is alive.
• It is bigger on the inside.
  
• Did I also mention it travels in time?
  

Anyway, back to the license plate. This car I saw with the TARDIS1 license plate, it was a Toyota Prius (bigger on the inside), but it was the wrong color. It was black. To live up to his license plate this owner must get it painted TARDIS blue.

My car, a Honda Civic, happens to be TARDIS blue. (In fact, the color is called "Atomic Blue." Are the guys at Honda Doctor Who fans?) Thanks to Honda engineering it, at times, feels bigger on the inside. So all I need is that license plate.......and time travel capability.
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Doctor Who: Forest of the Dead

Recap of the ninth episode in the 4th series of Doctor Who.

Last Time: We visited The Library Planet—infested with a swarm of flesh eating microscopic aliens who live in the shadows—on which the Doctor meets his future girlfriend and Donna gets “saved,” but probably not by Jesus. Also, this Library. It’s in a Little Girl’s mind.

Opening Titles.

Where did we leave off? Right. Possessed Skeletal Spacesuit and a shadow have cornered the Doctor, Professor River Song, Other Dave, Anita, and Mr. Lux in an aisle of bookshelves. River uses her sonic blaster to sonic a square doorway through one of the shelves. They RUN! through. Well, that was easy.

Little Girl watches on her television. She flips through channels showing different sections of The Library. The last channel flip shows her a large sanitarium/convalescent house in the country up to which an ambulance drives. From the rear doors and on a stretcher the medics pull a…“Donna?” recognizes Little Girl.

Next thing you know Donna is sitting on a bed in a pair of PJ’s. Dr. Moon enters. Donna doesn’t know him. Dr. Moon reminds her he’s been treating her for two years. Donna’s all: oops, oh yeah, sorry. Dr. Moon’s all: that’s okay (probably happens all the time) “shall we go for a walk?” Quick camera cut. Donna and Dr. Moon are outside walking. Dr. Moon asks if Donna still has those silly Doctor/magic blue box dreams. “Uh, how’d we get here?” questions Donna. Dr. Moon soothingly and patiently gives her a line about how they came down the stairs, out the front door, past Mrs. Whos-it, etc. “Oh, yeah we did,” Donna fake-remembers, “I forgot that.” “And then you remembered,” finishes Dr. Moon, “Shall we go down to the river?” Quick, seamless camera cut. Donna and Dr. Moon are by a river (a real, flowing, full-of-fish kind, not the soniced up, archaeologist kind, or the ass-kicking, crazy kind). “You said ‘river’ and suddenly we’re feeding ducks,” notices Donna. Dr. Moon tries harder to distract Donna and comes up with a brilliant plan the Doctor hasn’t thought up yet. He sets her up on a date! To go fishing (for which Donna fabulously overdresses) with Lee McAvoy, an earnest, good-looking, stutterer. The camera seamlessly cuts between their meeting and first date and then their wedding and their two kids……who are now six years old and running around the McAvoys’ living room as Donna visits with Dr. Moon over a cup of tea.

“You’ve done so much in seven years,” encourages Dr. Moon. Donna’s still hanging onto enough sense to realize that seven years sometimes feels like seven minutes. Dr. Moon packs up his suitcase, labeled CAL, and congratulates Donna on becoming “fully integrated.” Dr. Moon’s shape begins to cut out like an analog signal (oh how I’ll miss you rabbit ear analog TV) and a fuzzy hologram of the Doctor appears. He holds his screwdriver up in the air and babbles about its signal being blocked by the moon. The Doctor turns his head and sees her. His face glows with joy as he shouts her name. And he’s gone.

Dr. Moon pops back in the Doctor’s place and blames his absence on rhubarb. (Yumm. Rhubarb. Especially yummy if my mom mixes it with strawberries and a pie crust.) Donna is overcome from her brief reunion. She tells Dr. Moon she saw the Doctor. “Yes you did,” agrees Dr. Moon, “and then you forgot.” That seems to knock Donna back into her un-reality. She re-greets Dr. Moon and offers to make him a cup of tea.

On The Library planet. We get a nice shot of the moon. That could be important. And then the camera pans into another room with a round skylight. The Doctor and accompanying Spacesuits enter via sonic square hole. Under River’s direction, they rest for a bit in the fading daylight and check the room for Vashta Nerada. The Doctor uses his screwdriver but it keeps shorting out. River tries the lunch box method. “Who’s got a chicken leg?” she asks. Ooh! David Tennant. He’s got two of them. Sorry David, but seriously, I’ve seen pictures and behind the scenes footage and there’s a reason the Doctor always wears trousers. Other Dave doesn’t get my joke and hands River a chicken leg from an actual chicken. River throws it in a shadow and it gets gobbled up. Uh Oh.

The Doctor thinks the Vashta Nerada won’t attack until there are enough of them, but sadly, more are coming. River delivers some clumsy exposition for anyone who missed the last episode about how she trusts the Doctor, has traveled to the end of the universe with him (really? I thought that was with Jack and Martha), and yeah the Doctor doesn’t know her right now, but that’s only because he hasn’t met her yet.

River walks over to the Doctor to see what the hold-up with the screwdriver is. River bosses him to “try the red settings” and “use the dampers.” It doesn’t have that stuff, complains the Doctor. “It will do one day,” and she offers the one in her hand. “So sometime in the future I just give you my screwdriver?” confronts an indignant Doctor. River looks smug and happy: “Yeah.” “Why would I do that?” he says rudely. Obviously, River isn’t too familiar with the “rude and not ginger” Doctor, she blames his attitude on Donna being ostensibly dead, which is kind, but delusional of her. They keep arguing about their trust issues and Mr. Lux tells them to shut up and stop squabbling like an old married couple. Heh. That phrase really shuts them up. Makes the Doctor looked panicked too. Hee. To get the Doctor to cooperate River decides to tell him something that will prove how completely his future self trusts her. She apologizes as she stretches forward and whispers in his ear.

You can’t see what she says, but you can see the Doctor’s face when he hears and that is enough for this devoted viewer. She. Knows. Oh my goodness she Knows. She knows his. NAME!!! She knows his Name. She knows his effing name. No one knows that. Not Rose, not Reinette, not the Master. wow. woW. wOW. WOW! I’m out of capital letters. The Doctor is stunned. And afraid. And a little sad. “We good?” she asks. Quietly, the Doctor answers “Yeah. We’re good.” He looks resolute but still wary, and with a determined turn of the head he springs into distracting action.

He starts pacing and babble-brainstorming about what is interfering with his screwdriver and asking the Spacesuits what has changed. “It’s gettin’ dark,” offers Other Dave with a line reading that is not as hilarious as last episode’s. The Doctor doesn’t think a solar day is interfering with his sonic toy, but on second thought the moonlight may be doing something. The Doctor asks, and Mr. Lux elaborates that the moon is an artificially built Doctor Moon (Ah Ha!) that works as a virus checker and also supports and maintains the computer at the core of the planet.

The Doctor tries to tap into the Doctor Moon signal and accidentally brings up a hologram of Donna. “Donna!” he shouts with joy, again, because we are back to near the beginning where Donna kept shoving cups of tea on Dr. Moon. Donna disappears and the Doctor tries to bring the hologram back.

Uh Oh. Anita diverts attention to herself. She’s in trouble with a capital “T” that stands for Two Shadows. The Doctor again tries to seal the double shadow victim into her own suit and adds the extra ruse of tinting the helmet visor to lull the Vashta Nerada into thinking they’re already inside the suit. In the middle of this mini rescue operation the doctor notices there is one extra Spacesuit in the room. It’s Skeletal Suit. Time to run.

Little Girl watches on her television in the apartment, but she gets scared by Skeletal Suit and flips the channel to the Donna Noble show. Donna’s just made that cuppa for Dr. Moon, but Dr. Moon is gone. No matter, her kids are there and hubby Lee McAvoy is home. Still, she checks out the window for Dr. Moon, but only glimpses a retreating figure in black. It’s nothing important she decides. She’s tired. Seamless, quick camera cut. She and Lee are in the bedroom. Donna feels something is out of whack, but once again talks herself out of it.

Donna hears someone dropping off a letter and asks Lee to go to the door and get it. At the window, Donna again glimpses the dark figure clothed in a black, bustled Victorian dress with a black veil. Lee retrieves and reads the letter: “Dear Donna: The world is wrong. Meet me at your usual play park. Two o’clock tomorrow.” Little Girl is still watching the Donna Noble show on her television and begs Donna to not go.

Donna goes anyway (screw you Little Girl) with her son and daughter in tow. The kids play while Donna joins the dark figure on a park bench. Dark Figure dresses and talks like a woman. She corrects Donna that Donna didn’t just receive her note last night, but a few seconds ago and explains how time progresses like a dream in this reality. “How do you know me?” asks Donna. The Dark Figure claims they met in The Library where Donna was kind to her. Miss Evangelista? I thought we were well rid of you. Donna starts to recognize Miss E’s voice. The Dark Figure confirms she is what is left of Miss Evangelista.

On The Library planet, the Doctor and Spacesuits are still running, this time through adjoining, suspended breezeways. The Doctor, who is starting to act more himself now, finally pulls out his I’m-going-to-reason-with-the-alien shtick. He sends River, Anita and Mr. Lux ahead. River has Other Dave stay with the Doctor. Skeletal Spacesuit approaches, and the Doctor convinces the swarm inside it to try using the “ghosting” communicator to…well…communicate.

The Doctor wants to know why the Vashta Nerada are here hunting in The Library when they normally hunt in forests. “We did not come here,” answers the carnivorous Spacesuit, “We come from here. We hatched here.” The Doctor, not yet at his usual lightening level of intuition, still wonders what they are doing here since they hatch from spores in trees. “These are our forests,” and the Spacesuit speaks deliberately with small words, so I guess even the Vashta Nerada think the Doctor is slow on the up-take. “You’re nowhere near a forest,” says the Doctor still not getting it. “There are no trees in a libra—” Heh. Now he gets it. “Books!” The Vashta Nerada were in the trees that got pulped into books that spawned 1,000,000,000,000 micro-spores. Darn. So the books aren’t alive. Just the flesh eating midges inside them.

“We should go, Doctor,” repeats Dave. Oh Other Dave! We liked you. Now he’s Possessed Carnivorous Skeletal Spacesuit #2. The Doctor apologizes to dead Other Dave and then starts babbling about his escape route. It’s a trap door beneath his feet that opens up to the air below. The Doctor falls through, without a parachute.

Another camera angle shows us the Doctor, blessedly alive and hanging from an I-beam running beneath the suspended breezeway. He monkey-bars his way across. Little Girl sees this too, and she’s smiling because all little children with British accents love the Doctor.

Back on the Donna Noble show, Miss E is happy Donna remembers her and the Doctor and The Library. The memories are still there, Donna has just been programmed not to look. “Sorry, but you’re dead,” remembers Donna. Miss E explains that in a way they are all dead. They are the dead of The Library. And Donna’s children? They were never alive. Donna loves her virtual children! Don’t you say that Miss E. She loves those annoying children. Miss E asks her to look at the jungle gym where all the children are playing. Donna spots her pair of kids and several other identical pairs. The children are all the same. The same boy and the same girl, over and over again.

Mother Donna is upset at this revelation and in retaliation yanks off Miss E’s veil and screams. Because the features of Miss E’s face have been stretched and contorted to resemble some of the cosmetic and visual effects work from Pan’s Labyrinth. And since I’ve already seen and been freaked out by that film. I can handle Miss E’s face. Like the stuff in Pan it’s both disturbing and beautiful.

Uh Oh. Little Girl hasn’t seen Pan’s Labyrinth. She screams louder than Donna and ducks her face behind a pillow. Parents, this is why your children must never see Pan’s Labyrinth.

Night time on planet Library. Somehow, River, Anita and Mr. Lux have found a room with working artificial lights. River is still bummed that this Doctor sucks. She offloads her emotional baggage on Anita, describing the doctor as incomplete. “Yes, the Doctor’s here,” she whines, “but not my Doctor.” Oh, get over it. You think there aren’t certain episodes when I wish for Christopher Eccleston. Evidently, River’s Doctor is ten times more fantastic than Ten. She goes off on how he can repel entire armies with a swagger and open the TARDIS with a finger snap. Now, I don’t think River is being exactly fair here. Her appearance has thrown the Doctor on one of the biggest loops I’ve ever seen him stuck on. Sure, he’s been a little soft this season, but that’s only because he found so much forgiveness and humility at the end of last season, in which he’s still basking. “The Doctor in the TARDIS” romanticizes River, “next stop: everywhere.”

“Spoilers!” claims the Doctor who’s been eavesdropping off camera. “Nobody can open the TARDIS by snapping their fingers. It doesn’t work like that.” He’s right. It doesn’t work like that for him or for Nine. For them, the TARDIS only opens with a key. The key means love and trust. River doesn’t have a key. Maybe that’s why the Doctor didn’t trust her. “It does for the Doctor,” says a mournful, and frankly at this moment very annoying River. “I AM the Doctor,” he assures her. “Yeah, someday,” bitches River. Ooh, she’s pissing me off, and the Doctor too. But he lets it go.

The Doctor checks on Anita and relates the bad news about Other Dave. He counts her shadows. Still two, so the Doctor assumes Anita is still alive in there. (She probably is, but at this moment, in preparation for the awkward dialog she is about to spew, I’d like to think she is possessed by a Vashta Nerada swarm trying to worm information out of the Doctor.) The Doctor asks if he can get her anything. Anita claims she wants some word of comfort from the Doctor, and suggests whatever word River whispered in his ear. (What?? Shouldn’t you ask River instead? Also, that was a private moment. Finally, lady, he is not going to tell you his name. ) “Your secrets are safe with me,” she adds.

“Safe.” The Doctor gets stuck on that word and thinks how the Nodes and data extracted message said “saved” instead of “safe.” What if the 4,022 people (plus Donna!) weren’t “saved” as in rescued but “saved” as in to a hard drive?

Back on the Donna Noble show, she is walking with Miss E listening to her give some exposition. The children are all the same because they are the same pattern. It saves a lot of space. Cyberspace. Little Girl is very unhappy with Miss E’s exposition. She lunges for the television and begs: “No. Don’t tell. You mustn’t tell.”

Exposition in this show really is the Doctor’s job, so the camera lets him have a say. He stares at a kiosk screen and explains there was a massive power surge when the Vashta Nerada hit their hatching cycle. Someone hit the alarm and the computer tried to teleport everyone—all 4022 at once—and succeeded. But the entire world was infested and the computer had no place to which to teleport them. So, the computer saved their 4022 people patterns to its hard drive. These people are now stuck in the computer system waiting to be sent, like emails, like thought-mail.

On the Donna Noble show Miss E explains it to Donna: her physical self is stored in The Library index as an energy signature that can be actualized again. Donna starts some quick thinking. One, her face could have ended up on one of the Nodes. Revolting. Two, her virtual body isn’t real and she’s been dieting this whole time. Aggravating. Three, if the whole world is virtual reality why does Miss E look like that? Puzzling. Unlike Donna who teleported and is a perfect reproduction, Miss E was just a data ghost, a thought-mail, caught in The Library WiFi and automatically uploaded. Miss E got lucky in a way. In uploading her, the computer moved a decimal point, screwing up her face and amping up her intellect thereby giving her the two qualities necessary to see the absolute truth: she is brilliant and unloved. (Gee, that’s sad. Also, I don’t think I buy that logic.)

Little Girl watches and silently cries. If this is all a dream, wonders Donna, whose is it? Miss E is not sure about that, but there is a word, just one word: CAL. Little Girl, tears rolling down her face, can’t take it any more (Ahh, the power of a name) she grabs the remote, hits a button, and…..seamless camera cut. Donna’s little girl has fallen and hurt her knee. Donna runs to help. Miss E tries to persuade her that the children aren’t real; they are sustained only by Donna’s belief. Donna, mother hen feathers ruffled, is not hearing any of it. Miss E can’t possibly understand since she isn’t a mother. Donna takes her fake children home.

Little Girl watches the TV and yells at Miss E to “Stop it!” She’s ruining everything and Little Girl hates her. Father hears Little Girl and wants to know what’s wrong. She turns on her dad and tells him to “Shut up!” and then pushes a remote control button to make him disappear. Oh man. That remote would have been real handy for me growing up. Does it work on little brothers? Little Girl realizes she just killed her Daddy. She’s sorry and very, very scared. She smashes the remote to the ground in frustrated anger.

In The Library an alarm goes off: “Auto destruct enabled in twenty minutes.” That’s not good.

Little Girl is crumpled on the living room floor, quietly sobbing and watching the Donna Noble show. Donna tells the kiddies they are going home. Seamless quick camera cut. They are home. Donna and the boy kid realize that was seamless and quick. Girl kid draws momma Donna’s attention to the suddenly red sky outside.

In The Library the Doctor worries that in twenty minutes the planet will crack like an egg. Mr Lux thinks the Doctor Moon will stop it, “it’s meant to protect CAL.”

In the apartment, Dr. Moon kneels over Little Girl’s crumpled, sobbing body. He chides her to stop her emotional break-down. “You’ve forgotten again that it was you who saved all those people. And then. You remembered.” “Shut Up! Dr. Moon,” Little Girl and I shout. Little Girl picks up the remote and with a button click Dr. Moon disappears…

…and the information kiosks in The Library go offline. “We’ve got to save CAL,” demands Mr. Lux. Well, what is CAL asks the Doctor. If they can get to the main computer in the core of the planet, Mr. Lux will show him. “Well, then, let’s go,” cheers River. Her screwdriver can create a gravity platform to help them travel down a giant hole in the floor that’s conveniently been hiding under a trap door this whole time. (Incredibly convenient poorly explained plot device? Yes. Go with it.) Whoah, the Doctor thanks River and actually flirts with her a little bit! The Doctor, River, Anita and Mr. Lux stand on the gravity platform which travels down, down, down through a tunnel of blue light.

Donna sits in her living room clutching her children as the sky continues to glow red outside the window and a siren alarm wails in the distance. “Is it bedtime?” asks fake girl kid. Seamless, quick camera cut. It is bedtime! Donna tucks the kiddies into a pair of twin beds. The kids really are catching on though. “Mummy,…we aren’t really real are we?” “’Course you are,” panics Donna. “But, Mummy, sometimes when you’re not here, it’s like we’re not here…even when you close your eyes.” Donna promises to never close her eyes again, but in the next instant the kids still disappear. Donna is panicked, heartbroken and sobbing as she tears at the unoccupied bed sheets. I think this motherhood gig will leave a lasting mark on our intrepid Donna.

Auto destruct in 15 minutes. Luckily, the Doctor and company have found the data core and the 4022 living minds (plus Donna!) trapped inside it.

In her apartment Little Girl is curled on the floor and crying for help. Patience, Little Girl, the Doctor is working on it. He finds a keyboard and monitor station, and now the group can hear Little Girl’s voice crying for help. The Doctor notices the computer is in sleep mode. He presses keys and tries to wake it up. In the apartment the toys strewn around Little Girl start moving and making noise. Papers blow across her body. Objects shake. She shelters her face and tries to ignore it all. The Doctor checks the readings on the computer screen. “You’d think it was dreaming,” he says.

“It is dreaming. Of a normal life, and of a lovely dad, and of every book ever written,” speechifies Mr. Lux. Mr. Lux pulls a lever and directs the group to an adjoining room where they find one last Node…with the face of Little Girl. “Please help me,” she asks. They recognize her as the girl they saw in the computer. “She’s not in the computer,” says Lux, “in a way she is the computer.” She’s the main Command Node and her name is CAL. Mr. Lux didn’t tell us because he was protecting CAL, not from industrial espionage, but because she is family. Charlotte Abigail Lux is his Great Aunt. She was dying so his Great-Grandfather built her a library and put her living mind inside with a moon to watch over her and a million books to read. “Hers is only half a life, but it lasts forever.” (Is that really a good thing? Living half a life forever. This episode isn’t going to answer that. It can’t. You’ll see why.)

“I have to, I have to save,” Charlotte explains about the shadows. She saved everyone in The Library by folding them into her dreams. Charlotte couldn’t tell them were the people went because she forgot. 4022 chatting, living minds (plus Donna!) are in her head. “It must be like being me,” realizes the Doctor. Awh, he found a new friend.

“So what do we do?” asks River. “Easy,” claims the Doctor. His brilliant plan is to wire his mind to Charlotte’s and create some extra hard drive space so Charlotte can stop self-destructing and start remembering how to keep her 4024 (I added Donna and Miss E) living minds safe. Tiny flaw in the plan. It will kill him. River flips out. “I’ll try my hardest not to die, honestly, it’s my main thing,” he assures her with sass. Hee. Your Doctor’s back River, get used to it. The Doctor keeps sassing and bossing her. He sends her and Mr. Lux on some (intentionally pointless) errand upstairs. Sending them away is also a plot device to get the Doctor alone with Anita.

“What about the Vashta Nerada?” Anita asks. The Doctor thinks he’ll just seal little Charlotte in her own world, take everybody else away and let the shadows swarm until their hearts’ content. He’ll make them an offer. And they better take it, because right now he’s finding making any offer at all very difficult seeing as how they just killed Anita. Anita’s Spacesuit only has one shadow. And the Doctor really liked her. (What, you’re surprised she died? She had an American accent. Doctor Who rule: Americans die or are evil or turn into pig-faces. Captain Jack? The exception that proves my rule: he dies repeatedly.) The Doctor makes the deal anyway. He will give the Vashta Nerada their forests if they give him a day’s time to evacuate the planet. No deal, say the Vashta Nerada. These are their forests and those 4024 people are their meat. Skeletal Suit Anita starts projecting deadly shadows towards the Doctor.

Oops. Skeletal Suit Anita missed the point in the episode where the Doctor remembered he’s a badass. He threatens the Vashta Nerada and then gives a helpful pointer. “I’m the Doctor, and you’re in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up.” The shadows do and start shrinking. Hee. We love you, awesome Doctor. The Vashta Nerada take the deal and disappear for the rest of the episode. (Question. Do you think nanogenes could combat Vashta Nerada spores?)

River’s back. She takes a moment to mourn over Anita’s no longer possessed skeleton. The Doctor sees her and reminds her to leave. You can’t manage without me, she says. And then she decks him. She hits him good. Tall skinny bit of nothing hits the floor cold. It’s pretty cool.

Auto destruct in two minutes. River calmly sits and wires herself to the computer. The Doctor awakes handcuffed to a pole, both screwdrivers lie beyond his reach. “Where do you even have handcuffs?” he asks. “Spoilers,” she sexy smiles. Oh my. The Doctor is flipping out, telling River to stop. This is going to kill her. He, at least has a chance of surviving. She doesn’t have any. “River, please, no,” he begs and uses her NAME for the first time. David is now playing it like he loves her, and it’s making me very sad.

“Funny,” River realizes. The Doctor, her Doctor, has always known how she was going to die. The last time she saw him he turned up with a new haircut and a suit (which I think means he turned up as Ten for the first time.) He took her to a planet with singing towers. The towers sang (singing, Jacob would be all over that) and he held her in his arms and cried. He must have known it was her time, time to come to The Library. And he even gave her his screwdriver.

The Doctor lunges, painfully for that screwdriver. It’s too far away. David Tennant’s performance is KILLING me here. “You can let me do this!” Let the angel do it? No, we humans have to do the regular stuff ourselves. Save the angels for miracles. River isn’t willing to live a life without the Doctor. If he dies today, she’ll never meet him. “Time can be rewritten!” he pleads. “Not those times,” her voice almost breaking and then ringing clear “not one line, don’t you dare.” Here’s where I think about crying. “It’s okay, it’s okay. You’ll see me again. It’s not over for you. You’ve got all of that to come. You and me. Time and space. You watch us run!” Alex Kingston, now you are KILLING me.

One important bit before River kicks it. “River, you know my name,” says the Doctor. “There’s only one reason I would ever tell anyone my name. There’s only one time I could.” The Doctor’s face shows pain at the thought of this future certainty. (And I really want to know what stage direction David Tennant got for those lines. Also, this name deal, I don’t think we’ll ever know it, but it’s gonna be a really, really good story.) “Spoilers,” she soothes as she regretfully smiles and plugs herself in to death. The Doctor turns away from the flash of light, but tries to watch River’s final moments.

In Donna Noble world, Lee runs in the door to the house. Donna is on the stairs at the end of a long cry. She runs to his arms. She doesn’t know what’s happening but she knows the world isn’t real. “Am I real?” asks Lee. “Of course you’re real,” says Donna as she grasps his face. And he might be because everything except them is burning away in the bright light of River’s sacrifice. They are solid and real amid the storm. But they get pulled apart. “I know you’re real. I hope you’re real,” cries Donna. “D-d-d-donna,” stutters Lee. “I’ll find you!” promises Donna.

In The Library atrium Mr. Lux watches in joyful awe as a crowd of people appear. He hugs and feels them up. Really, he does. He runs to a balcony and sees a world full of people. “4022 saved!” 4023. Why do they keep forgetting Donna?

No joy in the core though. Sad, sad Doctor sits there staring mournfully at the last place River lived. He’s so sad. He is breaking my heart.

In a different Library room, the reanimated people quickly assemble on the teleports, trying to make it out before the shadow deadline. Donna wanders among them searching and hoping for Lee. “Any luck?” asks a still sad Doctor. “No, there wasn’t even anybody named Lee in The Library that day.” Donna accepts the likelihood that Lee wasn’t real. “I made up the perfect man: gorgeous, adores me, and hardly ever speaks a word,” she laments, “What does that say about me?” “Everything,” says the Doctor without missing a beat. Donna gives him a hey-you’re-supposed-to-lie-to-me look. He’s accidentally speaking the truth because most of his frontal cortex is occupied still thinking about River. “Sorry, Did I say ‘everything’? I meant nothing. I was aiming for nothing. I accidentally said ‘everything.’” He takes a deep breath. They share a moment. They’re both not alright, but they’ll keep going together. The Doctor takes her hand and they leave the room.

As they leave, Lee McAvoy steps into the teleport. He sees Donna leaving. He goes to shout her name: “D-d-d-.” He can’t get out her name, and both he and she are gone before he can say it.

On The Library balcony, the Doctor rests River’s blue diary on the railing. Donna is there. She brings up how River didn’t know her in the future. “What happens to me?” The Doctor offers to look Donna up in the diary. “Shall we peek at the end?” He knows she’ll say no, because he’s gonna say no too. No spoilers folks. Isn’t it enough that we know Rose Tyler is around the corner? The Doctor lays River’s screwdriver on top of the diary. And they leave.

Tag: Push-in on the diary and screwdriver. Voiceover of River reading a diary entry. When you run with the Doctor it feels like it will never end, and however hard you try, you can’t run forever. Everybody knows that everybody dies, and nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark if he ever, for one moment…

The Doctor comes running back, wildly, breathless.

…accepted….

Why, why would he give her his screwdriver? He grabs it. His future self had all those years to think. He must have thought of a way to save her. Yet all he did was give her a screwdriver. Why? Why? He opens a panel on the screwdriver. Inside is a ghosting communicator. Hope. It’s a good emotion, and here. it. comes.

He saved her. Literally. The screwdriver downloaded River’s data ghost. The Doctor runs toward the data core. One last run with River, quickly, before the ghost fades away. He takes a shortcut ignoring the gravity platform and opting to fly down solo stretching the screwdriver before him, hopefully to soften the landing. (probably using those newly installed dampers) It looks exhilarating, and the Doctor looks dashing and fantastic. But also, during this flying bit through the blue lit tunnel of light, he sort of looks like Harry Potter playing quidditch.

…Everybody knows that everyone dies. But not every day…

The Doctor runs to the computer, plugs in the screwdriver and uploads River’s data ghost.

…not today…

The Doctor, out of breath but happy, looks at the CAL Node. Little Charlotte Abigail Lux smiles back at him. And on a stretch of green, green grass River appears in a white flowing dress. Charlotte, accompanied by her doctor, Dr. Moon, greets River and tells her she is safe and will always be safe because the Doctor fixed the data core. Charlotte thought River might be lonely, so she brought River some friends. Across the lawn walk Anita, the Daves and a complete Miss Evangelista. They welcome River. “That man, that impossible man,” marvels River, “he just can’t give in.” River runs to greet and embrace her arisen friends. (You know, I made fun about Donna being saved by Jesus. But this scene feels a lot like a concept of heaven. And the Doctor and Charlotte, together, have secured River, Anita, Dave, Dave and Miss E a place in this heaven where they will live for all eternity. This plot sounds relatively familiar. And this is how I like my religious allegories, slightly subtle. (I’m looking at you Tinkerbell Jesus doctor)).

…some days are special, some days are so, so blessed…

The Doctor strides, no, swaggers into The Library atrium.

…some days nobody dies at all…

The Doctor stands before his TARDIS. He holds his hand forward. Waits. And snaps his fingers. The TARDIS doors creak open. He smiles, beautifully. And strides inside.

…Now and then, every once in a very long while, every day in a million days…

He walks up and joins Donna inside. They stand and look back through the open doors and into the camera, into our eyes and past our eyes to the shadowed planet to which they will never return.

…when the wind stands fair and the Doctor comes to call…

The Doctor snaps his fingers again, and the doors shut us out.

…everybody lives.

That’s right. Everybody lives, River. Just this once my ass! One more time, everybody lives, but this time with consequences. (I gotta say though, that I’m being kind. The data ghosting and ability to save a complete sentient being after someone dies…well, even within the logic of the story, it seems a stretch. But the emotions and character development are good, so I forgive). River closes the cover on her now virtual blue diary. She’s been reading it as a bedtime story to Charlotte whom she tucks into bed next to the sleeping figures of Donna’s fake children. “Sweet dreams, everyone,” she says as she turns out the light. You too River. I’ll be seeing you in 2010.

Next Time: Donna goes on vacation and the Doctor gets trapped in the movie Speed.

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Doctor Who: Silence In The Library

Recap for the eighth episode in series 4 of Doctor Who.

“Close your eyes and tell me what you see?” says a soothing, strong, handsome voice. What we and the camera see is ourselves moving through an alleyway of books. We’re outside and floating. There is no road beneath us, and the walls alongside us are bookshelves with a small sidewalk running along their base. Music box music plays on the soundtrack as the camera floats us up, up, up above the alley of shelves.

“The Library,” answers a little girl 9 or 10 years of age with big eyes and straight brown hair. She’s floating above a city of bookshelves and it is through her eyes that the camera has been panning.

“Open your eyes again,” commands the soothing, strong handsome voice, and the screen cuts to Little Girl’s face. She is no longer floating, and she blinks open her eyes. (I wonder if that blink was on purpose). “Where are you now?” asks the voice. “My living room, Dr. Moon,” answers Little Girl as the camera pulls away from the close-up of her face to reveal a white, modern looking apartment that could belong in this time period or in a future one. She’s there with Dr. Moon, a suave, impressive black man, whom I recognize from Tomorrow Never Dies, Prime Suspect and Keen Eddie (and Hex, but I hate to admit I watched that drivel). A man sitting in the background appears to be Little Girl’s father, and Little Girl appears to be in the middle of a therapy session.

Dr. Moon exposits that when Little Girl closes her eyes she goes to the library. Dr. Moon asks her to pull the trick again. She does. She’s back in a different part of the library, and she explains to Dr. Moon that every trip is different because the library goes on forever. As she explains, we see her float down through a circular sky light hole into a large round room below. How does she move about the library in this awesome manner? “By wishing.” (So cool!)

Suddenly, Little Girl is startled and scared by the rattling and banging of the double doors behind her. “What’s wrong?” asks Dr. Moon. Little Girl is freaked: “Something’s here. Someone’s got in. No one’s supposed to get in.” Father is concerned: “She’s never mentioned anyone else, she’s always been alone.” Dr. Moon looks even more concerned…and excited…and the way the camera focuses on his face tells me he knows some extra information, we, Father and Little Girl don’t.

Back in the library, the door is rattling harder and harder. Little Girl is begging whatever it is to get out of her library, “it’s not allowed!”

“Listen to me,” soothes Dr. Moon, “the Library is in your mind.” “I know it’s in my mind but something’s got inside,” worries a scared Little Girl.

In the library the doors are still rattling and the music still rising…until the Doctor and Donna force open the door, bang it shut behind them and jam a handy book between the door handles to lock it shut. The pair breath a sigh, turn around and the Doctor politely greets Little Girl: “Oh, hello, sorry to burst in on you like this, okay if we stop here for a bit?” Little Girl gasps and opens her eyes. The library is gone.

Opening titles: Steven Moffat wrote this episode, so if you couldn’t tell by the fantastic, snark-free, detailed cold open this episode is going to be AWESOME!!!! And a bitch to recap, because I want to tell you about every little thing that’s happening.

“Books!” shouts the Doctor. He is inside the TARDIS with Donna telling her about how people will never stop loving books, real books, the kind with paper and ink. The Doctor escorts Donna outside the TARDIS which is parked inside a shadowy hall and flanked by a pair of library book carts. “Welcome to the 51^st century,” he tells Donna as he walks her out onto a sunny balcony. He has flown her and the TARDIS into The Library “so big it doesn’t need a name, just a great big “THE.” (like you Doctor?) The Library is literally a world of books. The whole core of the planet is a card catalog (biggest hard drive in the universe), and the planet contains brand new, specially printed editions of every book ever written. (Which makes me sad; I like libraries because they have old, first editions).

The Doctor gets extremely enthusiastic about browsing through the biography section. “Yeah, very you,” grumbles Donna, “always a death at the end.” “You need a good death,” insists the Doctor, “without death there’d only be comedies.” Oh my, the Doctor has come a long way if he can talk so casually about death.

Donna starts to open a nearby book. The Doctor snags it out of her hand. “Oi there. Spoilers! These books are from your future. You don’t want to read ahead and spoil all the surprises. It’s like peeking at the end.” (I feel he is channeling the wrath of all science fiction television showrunners with that line. Is that supposed to make me feel bad Doctor? Because I’m recapping something that won’t air in the U.S. for two weeks and spoiling my three friends who read this blog? Well, I don't feel bad :p.) Donna makes a valid point: “Isn’t traveling with you one big spoiler?” “I try to keep you away from major plot developments.” Which, he admits he’s very bad at. Case in point: here they are in the biggest library in the universe and there’s no one around. It’s silent: The Library and the planet.

The Doctor finds an information kiosk and starts using his sonic screwdriver to fiddle with it. Donna follows and suggests that “maybe it’s a Sunday?” “No, I never land on Sundays. Sundays are boring.” Like libraries, thinks Donna. “Maybe everyone’s really, really quiet,” she mocks. Yep, Donna’s being a brat. “Doctor, why are we here, really?” she whines. “Just passing through.” Donna recognizes the lie and asks, seriously, why are they in a boring library? (Donna wanted to go to universe’s biggest beach planet before the Doctor took this little side trip).

His lie didn’t work, so the Doctor distracts Donna with what he has found through the kiosk. He did a scan looking for humanoids (“your basic book readers, a few limbs and a face” [hee!]). All the computer recognizes is two: the Doctor and Donna. But if the Doctor searches for all life forms, the computer tells him: 1,000,000,000,000. "A million, million life forms and silence in The Library." (Episode title incorporated into script. Check!). Is it the books, wonders Donna. “Books can’t be alive,” she protests. Donna dear, you’ve seen giant spiders, living sentient fat, stone limbs, hand-held brains, toad-faced aliens, fish-faced aliens, and a giant wasp love child. Surely, by now you realize that travel with the Doctor means ANYTHING is possible. The Doctor and Donna hesitatingly reach for a book to see if it is indeed, alive. Thankfully to them, there is a noise back in the shadowy hall, and they gladly ignore the potentially living book to go investigate. (What if the key to solving this episode’s mystery lies in just opening up and reading a book? They are in a library and no one has bothered to do much reading yet. What if the Doctor’s no spoiler policy is the reason he can’t solve this episode faster? And why wouldn’t you be excited to read a living book?! A living book! That sounds fantastic.)

What’s making noise in the hall? What is disrupting the silence in The Library? It’s a Node. A Node looks like a standard piece of modern art. The base is tall, white and in the vague curvy shape of a human body. A metal pole extends where a “neck” would be and on it rotates a round, white slab with a human face sticking out of it, literally, a human face. (Sadly, it sort of reminds me of the faces sticking out of the Abzorbaloff and concrete slab in season 2, which is a memory I don’t enjoy revisiting).

The “courtesy” Node asks them to “please enjoy The Library and respect the personal access codes of all your fellow readers regardless of species or hygiene taboo.” Donna is completely grossed out that the Node has a moving, talking human face. (Good thing she doesn’t know about Elton and Ursula’s “special” sexual relationship). The Node gives them an additional, urgent message from the head librarian, edited for content by the Feldman-Lux decency filter. (Ooh, censorship. By a hyphenated corporation. That’s BAD). The message: “Run! For God’s sake run! Nowhere is safe. The Library has sealed itself.” (The message also says some stuff that sounds like: ark, slug, snake. I don’t know if I’m hearing it wrong. But since this is a two-parter, I can’t be sure of its significance. So I’m telling you about it). “Any other messages [with the] same date stamp?” the Doctor asks the Node. Yes: “Count the shadows. For God’s sake remember, if you want to live, count the shadows.” The camera pans wide, giving us a full view of the shadowy hall, which is so shadowy I can only count the sunrays, all four of them. “Donna, stay out of the shadows,” instructs the Doctor.

Donna and the Doctor walk from the shadowy hall into a warehouse type room with long aisles of bookshelves reaching at least three stories high. “So, we weren’t just in the neighborhood,” confronts Donna. The Doctor admits he lied. He got a message on his psychic paper. He shows the message to Donna: “The Library. Come as soon as you can. X” Donna focuses on the X, “with a kiss!” she teases, “who’s it from?” The Doctor doesn’t know.

Uh. Oh. The lights are going out. One by one, the track lights are going out above each consecutive section of the bookshelves. Darkness is encroaching. “Run!” yells the Doctor as he goes to grab Donna’s hand. She doesn’t take it, but does run. (Is that crazy significant? The companion always runs away from danger hand-in-hand with the Doctor. It’s their thing.) They find a door. It’s jammed. The wood is warped. The Doctor bangs and pushes on it. “Sonic it,” screams Donna, “use the thingy!” “I can’t it’s wood.” “What? It doesn’t do wood!” Donna and I are both flabbergasted. “Hang on,” the Doctor claims he can “vibrate the molecules,” blah, blah, something “bindings,” blah, blah “separate the interface.” Donna shoves him aside and kicks the door open. Donna, once again = awesome.

Here we are, back to the beginning of the episode in the circular room with the large, round skylight. The Doctor wedges the door shut, turns and gives his greeting, but he doesn’t see Little Girl. He’s talking to a floating basketball shaped security camera that crashes to the ground as soon as Little Girl opens her eyes. The Doctor examines the security camera ball which has switched itself off.

In the apartment, Little Girl is very upset and angry. “How can they be in my Library?” “Who were they?” asks Dr. Moon. A sonic buzzing sound loudly fills the room and Little Girl clutches her head in pain at the noise. Dr. Moon and Father don’t hear the noise.

In The Library, the Doctor is using the sonic screwdriver to fiddle with the security camera. He complements Donna on her “nice door skills.” Donna wants to know what they were running away from, and if they are safe in this room. “Of course it’s safe,” insists the Doctor, “it’s a little shop.” Donna and I look around for the first time and notice that it is indeed The Shop, a gift shop. The Doctor, meanwhile, has managed to get the flap on the security camera to open. He stares into the lens.

As he does that, Little Girl falls to the floor in the apartment, in pain, begging: “No, stop it, stop it, No…”

In The Library, the security ball shows a small screen that scrolls in red letters: STOP IT, STOP IT. “Oooh, I’m sorry…so sorry,” apologizes the Doctor. “It’s alive,” says the Doctor. (My guess: everything in The Library is alive.)

In the apartment a concerned Father and Dr. Moon lean over Little Girl who is still on the floor. She’s not writhing in pain anymore, but she gives a blank stare and says ““The Library is breached. Others are coming.”

The security ball scroll also tells the Doctor and Donna that: “OTHERS ARE COMING.” What others Donna wonders? She asks the nearest Node, and all she learns is that the Nodes have real faces donated by dead Library patrons, and will display a different face depending on the likes and dislikes of the question-asker. (This Node has a different face from the “courtesy” Node as well as an American accent. So the Node thought Donna would be pleased by a bald American?) Donna is, instead, displeased and very disturbed with the face donation revelation. Donna keeps freaking out and nearly backs up into a shadow. The Doctor grabs and stops her. He directs her attention to a pointy triangular shadow cast on the floor underneath the round skylight. “What about it?” asks Donna. “What’s casting it?” asks the Doctor. They look up. Nothing. Nothing is casting it.

The Doctor jumps! He’s had a brilliant thought. He knows what this episode’s big bad is. He stares at a dimming light bulb; he knows what’s dimming it. Now if only he’d tell us what’s dimming it. Donna looks back behind them. The pointy shadow is gone. “We need to get back to the TARDIS,” says the Doctor, “because that shadow hasn’t gone it’s moved.”

Just then, the American Node decides to remind them “The Library has been breached. Others are coming.” And here they come......in a blinding flash that explodes from a newly opened door. Through the door, strides a white space-suited and helmeted Alex Kingston, whom we Americans know best as Dr. Elizabeth Corday from ER. Welcome to Doctor Who, Alex. Ooh, for effect, some needless smoke spills out behind her and her five advancing companions as she struts forth. And you know it’s a she because Ms. Kingston has well toned curves and a fitted space suit. She walks right up to the Doctor and greets him: “Hello Sweetie.” (Moffat, you couldn’t come up with a better endearment than that?)

The Doctor is like: well, that’s weird, and probably important, but if I ignore it, it will go away. So he tells Alex to “Get out,” steps around her and tells the rest of the white space-suited group following her to “turn around, get back in your rocket and fly away. Tell your grandchildren that you came to The Library and lived. They won’t believe you.” Alex ignores him and tells the group to take off their helmets, “we’ve got breathers,” “How do you know they’re not androids?” asks one of the group. “’Cause I’ve dated androids, they’re rubbish,” answers Alex with an implicating smile. The Doctor again ignores the weird vibe Alex is tossing his way. Another member of the group demands to know who the Doctor is. He is upset because this expedition he’s paid for is no longer exclusive. He asks his assistant, Miss Evangelista for a copy of the life experience contracts.

Alex is all business. She turns to the Doctor and asks how much damage he saw on his way in. The Doctor, sill ignoring the weird familiarity, (which is an entertaining role reversal), tells her to “Please just leave, I’m asking you seriously and properly, please just…hang on, did you say expedition?” That’s right, they are archaeologists. Huh. Turns out the Doctor loathes archaeologists: “I’m a time traveler. I point and laugh at archaeologists.” Unless he thinks all archaeologists are tomb robbers or clumsy show-offs like Indiana Jones, I don’t really see what his problem is. You know, now that I think of it, the Doctor has been very not-awesome this episode. Lying to Donna, harming Little Girl, uselessly sonicing wooden doors, and poking fun at archaeologists. Alex introduces her character: “Professor River Song, archaeologist.” “Lovely name,” the Doctor says. Taken name! I say. Fine. I’ll identify the character as River, but it’s under protest.

The Doctor wants River and the expedition to leave and quarantine the whole planet forever, which, to me, is the scariest moment of the episode so far. It means the Doctor knows the problem and doesn’t have a solution. One of the expeditioners, Anita, starts to wander into the shadows. The Doctor stops her and clarifies that everyone is to stay out of the shadows until they are safely back on their ship. “Stay in the light, find a nice bright sunny spot and just stand.” (They are all standing under the round sky light/hole: Donna, the Doctor, River, Anita, Mr. Exclusivity Contract, Miss Evangelista, and two other guys named Dave…we’ll get to them). “If you understand me,” says the Doctor, “look very, very scared.” They don’t, they look like they think he’s nuts. Except for River, she looks amused.

Fine. The Doctor will just have to take action himself. He grabs one of the expeditioners: Dave, well, Other Dave really because the other guy is Proper Dave, he was the pilot and first so….. The Doctor doesn’t care, but I do, because this actor’s line readings are hilarious, like he’s a bit bumbling, a bit high and a bit dopey all at once. The Doctor has Other Dave look down the hallway from which the expedition just came. “Does it look the same as before?” the Doctor asks. “Yeah. Oh. It’s a bit darker.” Again, hilarious line delivery. “Seal up this door,” directs the Doctor, “we’ll find another way out.”

“We’re not looking for another way out,” says Mr. Exclusivity Contract, whose real name is Mr. Lux, of the afore-discovered Feldman-Lux censoring corporation, I presume. He wants the Doctor and Donna to sign contracts assigning their life experiences in The Library to the Feldman-Lux corporation. The Doctor and Donna each take a contract and tear it in half. “My family built this library. I have rights,” insists Mr. Lux. River tells him to shut it, and the Doctor ignores him.

River wants to know more about this danger of which the Doctor speaks. The Library and the people who were in it went silent a hundred years ago. Isn’t whatever got them long dead? The Doctor doubts it. He takes Other Dave’s flashlight and shines it in a dark corner. Donna stands next to him. He explains: “Almost every species in the universe has an irrational fear of the dark. But they’re wrong, because it’s not irrational. It’s Vashta Nerada.” (Ooh, good name Seven Moffat). The Doctor, however, doesn’t explain more than that, which, I understand, builds suspense, but is also VERY ANNOYING. Instead, the Doctor tells everyone to form a safety area by moving flashlights and spotlights into a circle under the sky light and shining them outward. River orders her expedition members to obey the Doctor and she gives each one an assignment, lastly telling “Pretty Boy” to come with her.

The Doctor goes over to Proper Dave who is attempting to access the main computer through another kiosk. “Pretty Boy, with me I said,” shouts River. Donna looks with her mouth gaping at the Doctor. “Oh, I’m Pretty Boy,” he realizes. “Yes!” says Donna a little too quickly to her own liking. Me, “pretty?” the Doctor asks. “Meh,” answers Donna. On his way over to River, the Doctor orders the expeditioners to not let their shadows touch, “any of them could be infected.” Infected shadows? Other Dave is confused. He, like me, would for once, appreciate more exposition from the Doctor.

Miss Evangelista, who is young, pretty, earnest and ditsy, asks Anita and Other Dave if she can help hold something. They tell her no in a way that lets us and her know that they think she is useless and hampering. And then they basically call her that to Donna who asks why the pretty girl can’t help. Also, Anita has an annoying American accent. Annoying as in bad. Donna, moral compass of this episode, gives the pair a dirty look and walks away.

The Doctor is with Professor River Song, wearing his glasses (the "brainy specs," he doesn't even need them, he just wants to look a bit clever in front of her!), and awaiting whatever information she has for Pretty Boy. River thanks him for coming when she called. “That was you [on the psychic paper],” realizes the Doctor. “You’re doing a very good job of acting like you don’t know me. I’m assuming there’s a reason.” “A fairly good one actually,” says a confused Doctor. River has pulled out a blue (blue like the TARDIS) book and is flipping through it. “Shall we do diaries then,” she asks, “where are we this time? Going by your face,” she peers at him, “I’d say it’s early days for you. Yeah? So, um…Crash of the Byzantium. Have we done that yet?” she asks while looking at a particular page. (OMG, the Doctor, future Doctor, has a girlfriend!, the Doctor has a girlfriend! He’s in a relationship!, with a woman who is actually over the age of thirty. David Tennant, you could learn a thing or two from the Doctor’s future dating habits). Byzantium rings no bells with the Doctor. She mentions the picnic at Asgard. No reaction. “Very early days then,” she decides. She keeps flipping through the diary. David Tennant is using that watery-eyed defiant, oh, no way in hell is this happening to me face. What has his future self gotten the Doctor into?

River starts to catch on. “Look at you. You’re young.” “I’m really not, you know,” he ruefully smiles. “You’re younger than I’ve ever seen you,” says River as she reaches up and cups his cheek. Also strokes his ear! “You’ve seen me before then?” “Doctor, please tell me you know who I am,” she begs. The Doctor looks perplexed at the arm she leaves on his shoulder and asks: “Who are you?” It breaks her heart a little. She takes her hand away. (And I think the Doctor is being purposely, defensively cruel.) Also, Donna’s been watching this whole conversation.

The Doctor lets himself get distracted by a ringing sound. (River still looks devastated in the background.) Proper Dave claims he set off the sound while trying to get into the computer system. Donna and the Doctor recognize it as the sound of a....

....Telephone rings in the apartment. Little Girl is drawing pictures in front of a TV blaring a cartoon. She asks Father to answer the phone. Father doesn’t hear it ringing.

In The Library, Proper Dave is at the kiosk trying to pull up the data core, but the only response he can get is that noise. The Doctor walks over and starts his fiddling.

In the apartment, the telephone is still ringing. And it’s a rotary phone. (Like in The Matrix? Hmm.) And only Little Girl can hear it. She gets up to answer, but it stops.

In The Library, the kiosk screen denies the Doctor access. He fiddles some more.

In the apartment, the cartoon on the TV behind Little Girl begins to flicker and the screen fills with the Doctor and entire expedition team behind him. “Hello,” he says. “Hello,” Little Girl answers back. She wants to know how he’s in her television. He’s more confused than she is. He was just trying to access the data core, now he's talking with Little Girl. Eventually, Little Girl recognizes him. “I know you, you’re in my library.” “Your library?” puzzles the Doctor. “The library’s never been on television before. What have you done?” “Um, um, I just re-routed the interface,” he explains. And then the picture of the Doctor cuts out and the cartoon resumes.

In The Library, the kiosk screen again denies access.

In the apartment, Little Girl grabs the remote and starts flipping channels looking for the Doctor.

In The Library, the Doctor starts running about and giving orders. River echoes (heh, I just wrote river and echo together. I love you Joss Whedon!) and enforces the orders like an XO. For no given reason, he starts fiddling with a different kiosk, next to which River’s little blue diary lies. The Doctor is tempted. He picks it up, but River takes it from him. “Sorry, you’re not allowed to see inside the book, it’s against the rules.” “What rules?” “Your rules.”

In the apartment, Little Girl is still flipping channels. She removes part of the remote’s casing and stares at the extra buttons she finds there. She pushes one…

…and a book flies off the shelf in The Library. And another book. And another. Attack of the flying books! The Doctor can’t figure out what’s going on. The kiosk screen only tells him: CAL access denied. (Maybe CAL is the British version of the SAP button and Little Girl just pressed it?)

Little Girl keeps pushing buttons.

Books still flying off the shelves. The Doctor looks around, completely baffled by the chaos. Miss Evangelista, on the other hand, is distraught by the flying books. Donna goes to comfort her and thank her for offering to help earlier. Miss E says they don’t want her help, “they think I’m stupid because I’m pretty.” “Nobody thinks that,” soothes Donna. “No they’re right I am, I’m a moron me,” Miss E self-pities. Books start flying again and Miss E. starts whimpering again. Donna is a nicer person than I am. This fidgety, ditsy girl is very annoying.

River wonders if Little Girl is causing the flying books. “Who is the Little Girl, what’s she got to do with this place?” ponders the Doctor.

In the apartment, Little Girl stops pushing buttons and contemplates the remote control.

In The Library, the book attack stops. The Doctor gathers everyone for a brainstorming session to figure out how the data core works and what CAL is. (Seriously, wouldn’t it be hilarious if it were the SAP button. No? My new guess: CAL is Little Girl’s name.) What happened to the Library in the first place, he asks, “on the actual day a hundred years ago what physically happened?”

The camera cuts to a shot of Little Girl. She looks very determined and punches a new button on the remote.

A door opens in The Library unnoticed by everyone except Miss Evangelista. River answers the Doctor’s question. She explains The Library sent one message: “the lights are going out,” and then the computer sealed the planet and there was nothing for a hundred years. Mr. Lux informs them it has taken three generations of his family to decode the seals and get back in. “Excuse me,” interrupts Miss Evangelista. She is ignored. River wants to tell the Doctor about one more thing that came with the message, but Mr. Lux protests the information is confidential. “I trust this man. with my life. with everything,” River affirms. “You’ve only just met him!” accuses Mr. Lux. “Nope. He’s only just met me.”

“Um, this might be important actually,” Miss E interrupts again. Everyone ignores her again, but Miss E moves towards the open door. River shows the Doctor the confidential information using a data extractor, it’s square and palm-sized with a video screen. The Doctor reads it: 4,022 saved no survivors. 4,022 is the exact number of people who were in the library when the planet was sealed, and so far no one has found any bodies.

Cue Miss Evangelista, who gives up on drawing the group’s attention and walks through the door alone. On the other side she follows a hallway into a reading room filled with more books, less sunlight and a lot of shadows. She screams.

Everybody hears and runs towards the scream into the reading room. They find a skeleton coated in white shreds, but no Miss Evangelista. “Stay in the light,” commands the Doctor. “You keep saying that, I don’t see the point,” grumbles Proper Dave. River calls for Miss E on a communicator attached to her white space suit. River’s voice echoes from the skeleton which has a similar communicator attached to a white shred of space suit. Anita wonders what could turn a person into a skeleton in only a few seconds. “It took a lot less than a few seconds,” says the Doctor. “What did?” asks Anita. He STILL doesn’t tell us.

“Hello? Excuse me.” says Miss Evangelista. Whoa! Creepy. Miss Evangelista is “ghosting.” The expeditioners’ communicators have a neural relay to “let you send thought-mails.” Miss E’s communicator is broadcasting the remnants of her final thoughts---an impression of her living consciousness. River says it will be difficult, but they should listen to her “data ghost” out of respect for the dead. River speaks into the communicator: “Miss Evangelista, you’re fine. Just Relax. We’ll be with you presently.” “I can’t see,” says Miss E. She’s “in there…she’s conscious, she’s thinking,” protests a grieved and troubled Donna. She’s “just brain waves now,” says Other Dave, “the pattern won’t hold for long.” Then Miss E asks for that nice woman. She means Donna. River and the Doctor encourage Donna to talk to Miss E. But she’s dead, protests Donna. “Yeah,” agrees the Doctor, “help her.”

Donna tells Miss E she hears her. Miss E asks Donna to not tell the others about calling herself stupid. Donna promises she won’t. Miss E asks again. Donna promises again. Miss E keeps repeating her request. “She’s looping,” explains River, and the fading green lights on the communicator correspond to her fading consciousness. “I can’t think. I don’t know. I. I. I,” repeats Miss E’s fading voice. The looping ends with the repetition of the words “I scream, I scream, I scream,” which is creepy, so River offers to turn the communicator off. No one stops her.

“That was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen,” says Donna. Donna, dear, I hope that truly is the worst thing you’ll ever see. River wants a word with whatever did this to Miss E. The Doctor says he’ll introduce it to her. He leads the group back into The Shop and asks for a packed lunch. River digs through a backpack to find him one. She pulls out the blue diary. “What’s in that book?” the Doctor asks as he kneels down by her. “Who are you to me?” he demands. No spoilers, she tells him. She hands him a lunch box full of chicken and salad. He takes it, and she looks sad.

“Right you lot,” the Doctor stands and twirls a flashlight in the air, “let’s all meet the Vashta Nerada.” Finally, Finally, FINE-ally, the Doctor is going to fully explain what’s going on! Took him long enough. I guess that’s what happens in the first episode of a two-parter.

Oh wait. No. First we have to check in with Little Girl and the apartment where she has thrown the remote control at the wall in frustration. Dr. Moon wants a word alone with her. He makes sure Little Girl recognizes there is a difference between the real world and the world of nightmares. Then Dr. Moon says one of the scariest things a child can be told: “The real world is a lie and your nightmares are real.” (Frick, it is The Matrix.) Moreover, “The Library is real. There are people trapped in there. People who need to be saved. The shadows are moving again. Those people are depending on you, only you can save them. Only you.” Little Girl’s eye’s get big and she literally takes a gulp.

In The Library, the Doctor is STILL not telling us about the Vashta Nerada. He’s on the floor messing about with a flashlight and his sonic screwdriver looking for something. He tells Proper Dave to move out of his way. Proper Dave does and goes to sit in the shadows. This won’t end well.

Donna and River are watching the Doctor and end up having a little chat. River identifies Donna as a companion. “What of it?” challenges a defensive Donna, but after a bit Donna voices what she’s slowly realizing, “you know him, don’t you?” Oh, River knows him. They go way back, just not this far back. The Doctor hasn’t met her yet, she explains. She tells Donna she sent him a message to come but it arrived too early. Then River describes her pain: “And he looks at me. He looks right through me, and it shouldn’t kill me, but it does.” “What are you talking about?...DO YOU KNOW HIM OR DON'T YOU?” shouts Donna in a loud, annoying voice that I through she abandoned back in the Runaway Bride episode.

The Doctor, as we know, can barely tolerate Donna’s Runaway Bride shouting-style and without looking snaps: “DONNA! Quiet! I’m working.”

“Donna! You’re Donna, Donna Noble?” says River. And she’s staring at Donna like she’s a glorious, walking, talking miracle. Which makes me sad, I love Donna. River confirms that she knows the Doctor in his personal future. “So why don’t you know me,” asks Donna, “where am I in the future?” It's a heart-wrenching question, and River’s face falls in answer, telegraphing a world of grief at the end of Donna’s journey. Thankfully for Donna, she doesn’t have time to dwell on it.

“Got a live one!” interrupts the Doctor. Finally, finally, finally, FINALLY, for real this time, the Doctor tells us the deal with the Vashta Nerada. “It’s not darkness down those tunnels. This is not a shadow, it’s a swarm. A man-eating swarm.” He picks up the lunch box. To demonstrate he tosses a chicken drumstick from the lunch box into the shadows. The darkness devours it in the air, and it lands on the floor as a dry bone. (I start thinking of a giant swarm of Midges devouring sheep in the Scottish Highlands, which is probably where Scotsman Moffat got the idea.) The Vashta Nerada are “piranhas of the air…literally, the shadows that melt the flesh. Most planets have them but usually in small clusters.” The Doctor’s never seen an infestation on this scale or this aggressive.

They exist on Earth too, assures the Doctor. “You can see them sometimes if you look. [They are] the dust in sunbeams.” (Uh, if they live in the shadows, how can you see them in a sunbeam?) “If they were on Earth we’d know,” claims Donna, the woman who up until Christmas 2006 remained remarkably ignorant of at least two Earth wide alien invasions. “Normally they live on road kill. Sometimes people go missing. Not everyone comes back out of the dark,” explains the Doctor.

“Every shadow?” questions River as she warily passes a flashlight beam over the dark corners of the room. “No,” says the Doctor, “but any shadow.” So what’s a frightened humanoid supposed to do? “Run,” says the Doctor. Did we really expect any other answer from him? The Doctor wants to run to the nearest exit teleport. Donna brilliantly points out The Shop will have an exit. “They always make you go through the little shop on the way out so they can sell you stuff.” “That’s why I love a little shop!” agrees the Doctor.

Proper Dave starts to marshal the expeditioners to the exit. The Doctor asks him to stop. Why? Because he’s got two shadows. It’s how the Vashta Nerada hunt, they latch onto a food source and keep it fresh. The Doctor tells Proper Dave to stand still, to not even move for his helmet which he has Anita fetch. The Doctor takes the helmet and places it on Proper Dave while telling everyone else to do likewise and seal their space-suits-up. (Heh. hidden Barneyism…and How I Met Your Mother’s story structure is very reminiscent of Moffat’s manipulation of time/story structure on Coupling…oops. Mind wandering again.) “But Doctor, we haven’t got any helmets,” points out Donna. “Yeah, but we’re safe anyway.” “How are we safe?” “We’re not. That was just a clever line to shut you up.” Doctor, you’ll have to try harder than that to shut up Donna Noble.

The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to increase the density of Proper Dave’s suit, “make it a tougher meal to eat.” He goes to pass it along to River for use on her own suit, but she’s already got one! And it’s sonic, totally sonic. She is soniced up! The Doctor is shocked and freaked.

River gets busy sonicing everyone’s space suits, while the Doctor grabs Donna’s hand and drags her to the exit teleports. Donna sees the souvenirs and wants to take a moment to shop. (Ah, Ms. Noble, The Library’s not so boring after all.) No time for that, chastises the Doctor as he places her in the teleport to send her back to the TARDIS. He can’t send the others. The TARDIS won’t recognize them. And it’s not safe for Donna, she doesn’t have a suit. “You don’t either,” argues Donna, “and I’m not leaving you.” “Donna, let me explain,” he lies as he hits a magic button that teleports her away. That’s how you shut her up, thinks the Doctor. Oh, Doctor, if you only knew! Inside the TARDIS, Donna begins to materialize and then SCREAM IN TORTURED PAIN!!! She never fully materializes and just disappears. No skeleton. But still, things are still not looking good for Donna’s future.

The Doctor runs back to River and the others. He’s looking for Proper Dave’s second shadow. It’s gone. The Doctor doesn’t believe it. They’re never just gone, and they never give up. He does a sonic screwdriver scan of Proper Dave’s remaining shadow. It’s benign. “Who turned out the lights?” asks Proper Dave. No one. The lights are on. Proper Dave’s lights are out. The Vashta Nerada managed to sneak inside his suit before it was sealed. They gobble him up with a few violent jerks and now Proper Dave’s communicator starts ghosting: “I’m fine. I’m okay. I’m fine. I can’t… Why can’t I...” But the suit is still standing, and the communicator still glowing and now ghost looping: “Hey, who turned out the lights?” The Doctor moves toward the suit, asking if Dave can still hear him. Big mistake. The suit grabs his throat, pressing the Doctor to his knees, and Proper Dave’s sucked-dry skeleton face tilts forward in the visor as the swarm possessed suit leans over him. Yeah, it’s scary.

Sonic screwdriver to the rescue! River’s sonic screwdriver. She presses it against Proper Dave’s suit. The suit cowers at the sonic shock and releases the Doctor who stumbles away and gets everyone to move back. The skeletal suit recovers and lunges forward in jerky, deliberate steps. It’s moving slowly but starts casting multiple rapidly expanding shadows. “Where do we go, what do we do?” worries Mr. Lux. River has the answer. She pulls out a sonic blaster, (Hey, a friend of ours used to have one of those) to the Doctor’s amazed delight (he even calls it a squareness gun like Rose used to), and River sonics open a hole in the wall behind Mr. Lux. This lady really is soniced up! River shouts “Run!,” takes the Doctor’s hand and they all run through the opening and along a bookshelf aisle with the skeletal space suit and its shadows following.

In the apartment, Father sets the table and tells Little Girl dinner is ready. Little Girl turns to him and says: “Donna Noble has been saved.” What?! Donna found Jesus?

In The Library, the camera pans past several dark aisles of bookshelves. It stops in one where the Doctor is screwdrivering some overhanging lights. He’s already gotten three to turn back on. The lights won’t stop the Vashata Nerada, but it will slow them. “What’s the plan?” asks River as she holds up her screwdriver. The Doctor notices it looks exactly like his. “Yeah, you gave it to me.” “I don’t give my screwdriver to anyone.” (Technically true. I’ve only ever seen him lend it.) “I’m not anyone,” taunts River. This scene is where I like her best, probably because she’s taunting him. (I wonder how many regenerations of the Doctor she knows. She must know at least one because she kept mentioning how young he looks, and David Tennant isn’t going to stick around and play the Doctor until he’s 50. So I think she might mean “young” as in a younger generation, meaning she knows at least one older generation of him. And considering Steven Moffat is taking over this whole show in a couple years with, likely a new Doctor, I bet River meets up with Number 11 in 2010.)

River asks and the Doctor shares the plan with her. He has sent Donna back to the TARDIS. If the rest of them don’t get there within five hours Emergency Program One will activate, “and take her home, yeah,” adds River. She’s familiar with TARDIS protocol. The Doctor checks his screwdriver and terror spreads across his face. Donna’s not in the TARDIS, else he would have received a signal. “Maybe the coordinates slipped,” offers River, “the equipment is ancient.” The Doctor sprints for the nearest information Node. He asks it to locate Donna’s position in The Library. The Node face turns toward the Doctor…and it’s got Donna Noble’s face plastered onto it. Donna Noble is a dead, Node-faced donation, thinks the Doctor. The Donna Node repeats this message: “Donna Noble has left The Library. Donna Noble has been saved,” continuously for the next minute. The Doctor is crushed. Not quite Rose-is-dead crushed, but it’s close. River looks on in horror. The Doctor strokes Donna Node’s face. And I feel truly bad for Donna that she ended up this way, since she was so particularly skeeved out by the Node faces. Steven Moffat, you are a cruel, cruel man.

“Hey, who turned out the lights,” echoes the voice of skeletal suit. It’s found them. They need to run some more. River pulls the Doctor away from the Donna Node as the entire group runs past. They keep running but a shadow crosses their path boxing them between it and encroaching skeletal suit. “Doctor, what are we going to do?” asks River. The camera pushes in on skeletal suit which keeps repeating: “Hey, who turned out the lights.” The camera pushes in on Dead Donna Node which keeps repeating: “Donna Noble has been saved.” And……the episode ends.

Next Time: Mr. Lux does know who CAL is. Oh, and there will be spoilers.

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