"Silence in the Library" was a nice episode of Doctor Who. I enjoyed it very much indeed.
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I'm glad this episode was properly good; I liked it, but don't know enough about Dr. Who (despite a few hours in the Blackpool museum) to have a very honed critical sense. It all seemed much like the usual thing that happens in libraries; lights going off and unexpected people talking to you. I used to sit under C. S. Lewis's photograph in the English faculty library and he was always fairly reassuring, though never actually vocal.
ReplyDeleteI do hope that a fuller discussion will follow! For me, that was everything that is good about Doctor Who. I am struggling to think of a negative. Maybe the only bad thing is that it really does show up The Unicorn and the Wasp for the poorly conceived and executed mess that it was.
ReplyDeleteAgree about it being good and am looking forward to your analysis of it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if I'm seeing more Lovecraft infuence in new Who than is really intended by the writers.
If the Ood made Great Cthulhu phone his copyright department then this episode had two familiar concepts. Libraries as scary places... hello is that Miskatonic U calling? And Abdul Alhazared was of course eaten alive by invisible creatures.
When the worst thing that you can say about an episode is that it makes others look bad, then the future under Mr Moffat looks very bright indeed; that wasn't a good episode of Doctor Who, that was good telelvision, pure and simple, no previous fandom required, no nasty little jibes at those who are fans (except perhaps the use of the word "spoilers" - not normal vernacular as far as I know), interesting characters, well scripted the works.
ReplyDeleteOkay, so fear of the dark is hardly a new idea, but good entertainment doesn't have to be new (Firefly and Deadwood were just westerns, a genre that has been done to death), only done well and this was. I am, for the first time since new Who started, counting the days until next Saturday.
Is it just me or didn't those space suits look rather like the suits in Ambassadors of Death?
ReplyDeleteI groaned inwardly when the Doctor expressed surprise that there were a billion (or whatever the number was) living organisms in the apparently empty library. It smacks of Star Trek science, and not in a good way. A clue: bacteria are living organisms.
ReplyDeleteOf course, that being the worst criticism I have of this episode speaks well for it.