our souls are made of stories

The characters' reactions are that it's pretty, which is why it doesn't ring true to me. I love neglected and ruinous landscapes, the ordinary world turned inside out, and usually an overgrown city symbolises age and neglect and most often some long-gone catastrophe. The presence of faerie and the underworld is usually inseparable from the history of a place. This forest is different. In this case, the forest is something magical, but a magic that feels benign no matter how much the dialogue insists it is not. 

Perhaps the failure of the aesthetic is as simple as there's not enough of the old world in it. The buildings are completely obscured, and the animals they encounter are clearly CGI. The world is both emptied of humans and threatened by them. Even the flamethrower people seem unreal, which isn't great as they symbolise the true threat. The forest could be a symbol of accelerated time, but instead it feels like the kind of story which ends with "it was all a dream". Unsurprisingly, that's how the Doctor says humankind will remember it. It's a story that works on dream logic, and could be seen as a bizarro episode like Amy's Choice or the Pandorica: but it doesn't fully commit to that, keeping its stakes and actions firmly global rather than personal.

Even the characters seem to barely care whether the forest is a miracle or threat, although this is used for some good humour: "it does not seem that the pitch will be ready." Danny, in particular, is written as the everyman. However, some of his lines overplay his everymannish nature so far they stretch credibility: "has he even been CRB checked?" Clara's reactions are the only ones in the early part of the episode which ring true for me; everyone else's reactions, especially Danny's, are bizarre.

Most of these reactions are pervaded by a studied done-ness at the prospect of anything strange: "There wasn't a forest, then there was a forest. Nothing surprises us anymore." I find it dulling to watch. We don't need to be told how to think as the audience. However, we need the show to help us explore how we feel. It's one of my pet hates in speculative fiction when something happens which is so overwhelming that the audience could never comprehend it, but there is no reaction from the characters. How often do you see cities and planets destroyed in the movies without giving it a second glance? These are huge, heartbreaking things. But when the heroes brush it off, so do we.

Doctor Who, usually, is different. Both RTD and Moffat, with all of their differences, do share a great care for the weight and consequences of their stories. Many of the most convoluted and bizarre episodes of Doctor Who use the characters' reactions to signpost how the audience should react to plot points and threats. Notice how The End of Time uses a fatalistic mood from the characters to illustrate to the audience that there will be no deus ex machina saving grace for Gallifrey. And notice how, in The Day of the Doctor, a pervasive mood of optimism from the supporting cast illustrates that this time around, there just might be. Given these events are ultimately defined not by technobabble or past canon but by the choices of our characters, it's no surprise that it's their feelings that guide the plot.

So here we've got a bizarre genre mish-mash episode which can be taken in multiple ways, and we look to the characters to work out how we should feel."Nothing" isn't a great answer. I know that Clara's character development in this episode relates to her cognitive dissonance between seeing the forest as "cool" and seeing it as a "disaster", which isn't how Danny thinks she should behave. But with the episode giving us so little signposting of how we're meant to react, who are we to judge whether Clara's reactions are acceptable? In this context Danny's criticisms of Clara, almost developed into something meaningful by the previous three episodes, seem childish again. The problem of Clara losing touch with the real world is mismatched to the episode, because the episode encourages us to lose touch with the real world with her.

There's a touching scene at the end in which Clara tells the Doctor she doesn't want to be the last of her kind. It's beautifully delivered by both Capaldi and Coleman, but I still don't believe it. Because it comes out of nowhere. Five minutes earlier we were walking through a dreamscape, and now, somehow, Clara's already deeply considered the extinction of humanity. The cold formality of "don't make me say it" might work in a bunker in an RTD two-parter, under siege by Daleks, with three or four failed attempts to save the world already behind them and no hope left. But here, in this forest of fairytale, Clara can't encompass the contradictions of being the Doctor, the hope and despair, the wonder and terror. It's perhaps the closest she's ever been to being the Doctor, and she looks like an empty shell.

Maebh's answer, her plea to the world, is to do nothing. Fear less, trust more. Stand back and watch the world turn. But if this is really what is needed, why did Maebh need to make that phone call? Because only they had managed to understand the trees. Reaching out, listening, considering, explaining, evangelising: these are emotions and actions. It's not fear that stops the TARDIS team from solving the mystery here, to the point where the Doctor - in a very out-of-character moment - gives up and flies away. It's their lack of curiosity, their muted, apathetic reactions, that mean it takes so long for them to work it out. 

All along, the story follows Danny Pink and his aesop-counterpart in Maebh's mum, who encourage us to focus only on what is right in front of us, to just get the kids home safe. It's a nice thought, but when it's on a government scale, that's why they used the defoliating agents. So I think Maebh's message to the world could be rewritten. No "be less scared, be more trusting". It should be "care more". Be like Maebh, and like Clara at her best. Listen, reach out, try to understand. Embrace fear, and embrace wonder. They're superpowers after all. They help you realise what's important.