Doctor Who SE30E08: "Silence in the Library"

[El Moose Monstero]

Major complaints: the soundtrack - it might be excellent music, but they just keep blaring it out constantly so that you can't really hear whats being said. The scene with the books flying around was a prime example; the music was screaming 'OMG! Horror and tension', but the scene on its own was whispering 'minor action occurring'.

The scene with the books flying around was obviously not at all an example of music trying to scream 'horror and tension'. Listen to it again (iPlayer 00:21:45). It was obviously light-hearted music for an amusing 'wow look at what the kid is doing' scene. They even end on a DING!

That said, it was a brilliant episode, and the creepiest of the lot along with Blink. 5/5

Point taken, the music wasn't trying to convey the horror and terror in this case, I'd got a different feel from it on first viewing, but I believe the point still stands. The music was trying to sledgehammer an atmosphere that for me just wasn't there, even if it was a light hearted scene, the content didn't really seem to match the music for me, and the blaring music overwashing everything else (including the actors speaking) jolted me right out of the episode. It's not the first time it's happened this series.

[Vaporous]

Best episode this season. That's not saying much, but its a good one. nonetheless

[NecronLord]

Deleted Crown's misposts at his request.

Well, that's like saying a radio transciever can partially control my car so don't give anyone a radio. Without foreknowledge of the signals required, it's hardly dangerous (hilariously insecure central locking signals aside). It'd be more serious if it could open the door, but it can't, and I believe he's let people leave while taking a key before.

I think you're missing the point.

He doesn't give anyone his model which he claims that one is (somehow). Other people have built similar devices, but he can clearly recognise that he designed or made that one. Of course, he does give away other sonic screwdriver type things. Sarah Jane had one as a gift, remember. Liz Shaw also had one for a while in Inferno.

Right off the top of my head, it can send the TARDIS away with no means of the Doctor recalling it (Parting of the Ways) I'd be pretty worried about people I don't know showing up with them if I were him.

And what was the point of the creepy memory/personality devices in the collars of the spacesuits? Shouldn't they have acted more like Chelgrian Soulkeepers and properly downloaded the brain patterns safely to a ship mainframe, instead of merely giving spacesuit wearers a very lonely and needlessly prolonged death?

Yeah, but then, those spacesuits should have had a force field to stop air-pirahnas getting at you when you take the helmet off. Honestly, you can go on listing what they should have had on their future hazmat suits for days. While that system is very poorly designed, saying 'it should have done this' without knowing the in-universe feisability of it is another matter.

Of course, there's a possibility we might still get an 'everyone lives Rose' ending from this. What with all the talk of people being 'saved.'

[Stark]

I think you're missing the point.

He doesn't give anyone his model which he claims that one is (somehow). Other people have built similar devices, but he can clearly recognise that he designed or made that one. Of course, he does give away other sonic screwdriver type things. Sarah Jane had one as a gift, remember. Liz Shaw also had one for a while in Inferno.

Right off the top of my head, it can send the TARDIS away with no means of the Doctor recalling it (Parting of the Ways) I'd be pretty worried about people I don't know showing up with them if I were him.

How do you figure he has no way of calling it back? He didn't even SAY he couldn't call it back. Like I said, if he rigged his TARDIS to respond to a sonic signal, that isn't really related to 'his model' of sonic screwdriver. Without knowing more about the device, it's pretty hard to assess how serious a security threat it is; it's possible you can just spam sonic signals at his TARDIS and make it leave, lol. He may have just hung an IR reciever off his PC so he could use a remote with it, after all. I find it more likely he incorporated specific functionality into his, rather than using off the shelf sonic shit (after all, then 51st century people could do it! ). As much as I hate to say it, the TARDIS *is* telepathic.

Ugh, I have to go shower.

[Zixinus]

My head didn't hurt watching this episode. One up. I do somehow find the whole situation a bit silly though (a whole planet a library? seriously, get off the weed).

[NecronLord]

My head didn't hurt watching this episode. One up. I do somehow find the whole situation a bit silly though (a whole planet a library? seriously, get off the weed).

Why not? Fast enough FTL (and indeed, interstellar teleport) and it's not so unreasonable.

Hell, remember Star Trek's Memory Alpha? That was a whole colony devoted to data storage too.

[NecronLord]

How do you figure he has no way of calling it back?

Then he would simply have hit the call function in The Poison Sky to get it back off the Sontaran ship. Not to mention, the sixth doctor expressed envy at the second doctor having a summoning device in The Two Doctors.

Never mind the many, many other occasions when it would have been ultra useful to have a summoning device. Right off the top of my head, The Satan Pit, Girl in the Fireplace (A temporal example no less) or Blink (again).

Unless of course, emergency program one 'I'm probably dead, and there's an enemy who should never have this machine around' happens to incoporate a special remote control for the fast return switch.

[Zixinus]

Why not? Fast enough FTL (and indeed, interstellar teleport) and it's not so unreasonable.

Hell, remember Star Trek's Memory Alpha? That was a whole colony devoted to data storage too.

An entire planet. Think. An entire fucking planet filled with nothing but books. I could easily buy a city-sized library, a continent even, but a planet? Can you even begin to imagine the size of it, an entire planet devoted to one, barely pragmatic, purpose?

That's not accounting for stuff like how the planet's weather works. The planet needs atmosphere circulation, it needs an ecosystem. Saying that an entire planet is a library is a typical case of the "every planet is an island" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlanetOfHats) brainbug or the more common "the author has absolutely no fucking sense of fucking scale".

Oh, and I do think that Star Trek is a poor gauge for realism in sci-fi shows, with the ass-pulling every couple of episodes or so.

[Bounty]

Can you even begin to imagine the size of it, an entire planet devoted to one, barely pragmatic, purpose?

So? That's the beauty of Whoverse. A planet-sized library is silly and implausible, but it's also a terrific storytelling idea. It's hardly SOD-breaking in a universe where planets get renovated by the National trust.

[Zac Naloen]

Why not? Fast enough FTL (and indeed, interstellar teleport) and it's not so unreasonable.

Hell, remember Star Trek's Memory Alpha? That was a whole colony devoted to data storage too.

An entire planet. Think. An entire fucking planet filled with nothing but books. I could easily buy a city-sized library, a continent even, but a planet? Can you even begin to imagine the size of it, an entire planet devoted to one, barely pragmatic, purpose?

That's not accounting for stuff like how the planet's weather works. The planet needs atmosphere circulation, it needs an ecosystem. Saying that an entire planet is a library is a typical case of the "every planet is an island" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlanetOfHats) brainbug or the more common "the author has absolutely no fucking sense of fucking scale".

Oh, and I do think that Star Trek is a poor gauge for realism in sci-fi shows, with the ass-pulling every couple of episodes or so.

I don't think you realise the kind of scale of technology that is regularly seen in whoverse...

A planet sized library is a drop in the hat compared to what some people can do.

[SylasGaunt]

An entire planet. Think. An entire fucking planet filled with nothing but books. I could easily buy a city-sized library, a continent even, but a planet? Can you even begin to imagine the size of it, an entire planet devoted to one, barely pragmatic, purpose?

That's not accounting for stuff like how the planet's weather works. The planet needs atmosphere circulation, it needs an ecosystem. Saying that an entire planet is a library is a typical case of the "every planet is an island" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlanetOfHats) brainbug or the more common "the author has absolutely no fucking sense of fucking scale".

Oh, and I do think that Star Trek is a poor gauge for realism in sci-fi shows, with the ass-pulling every couple of episodes or so.

The whole place had been altered just for that purpose so how the weather works I believe probably falls under 'however the people who ran the place wanted it to'.

After all they replaced the entire core with a computer to run the thing.

Also did anyone else get reminded of Rapture every time the Doctor and company went past one of the signs in that place?

[Plekhanov]

Great episode, I kind of got the impression that the people were 'saved' in a dual sense of being rescued from being eaten by the air piranhas and also stored as data in some way by the teleportation system. The giant hard drive in the planets core and ‘ghosting’ communicators being hints at this.

[NecronLord]

An entire planet. Think. An entire fucking planet filled with nothing but books. I could easily buy a city-sized library, a continent even, but a planet? Can you even begin to imagine the size of it, an entire planet devoted to one, barely pragmatic, purpose?

Yes. Frivilous, but empty rocks are probably easy to come by when you've the intergalactic FTL these guys likely have.

That's not accounting for stuff like how the planet's weather works. The planet needs atmosphere circulation, it needs an ecosystem.

No it doesn't. Ignoring that this is a universe where both Venus and Mars have populations (well, I don't think we've ever seen Venusians, so they might be dead or gone or in the future) these people can make the entire core into storage space; atmosphere processing isn't likely to be an issue.

Consider the speed at which the atmosphere was fixed in Doctor's Daughter set, IIRC, thousands of years before. Or hell, that stupid atmosphere burny thing in Poison Sky. Both hand held devices.

[Drooling Iguana]

A bit Worryingly Donna doesn't appear at all in the next week on Doctor Who segment.

She's probably off filming the episode in which the Doctor doesn't show up. They've had an episode like that ever since they started making Christmas specials, so it's to be expected.

[Manus Celer Dei]

"Donna Noble has left the building."
"Hey, who turned out the lights?"
"Donna Noble has left the building."
"Hey, who turned out the lights?"

Creepy stuff.

[Hillary]

Oh yeah, baby. Gripping, fantastic, Moffat.

This man is my God.

Any one else catch "The Tomb of the Cybermen" homage?

Stop teasing us, MFG - didn't spot it at all. I can only guess it must be the bit about hating archeologists. Pray tell.

[mr friendly guy]

Any one else catch "The Tomb of the Cybermen" homage?

Stop teasing us, MFG - didn't spot it at all. I can only guess it must be the bit about hating archeologists. Pray tell.[/quote]

Well there are several similarities, such as how a group of archaelogists meet the doctor, one member (the person funding it) assumes he is from a rival expedition, and to top it off the Doctor making a sarcastic comment about archaeologists, almost like he had problems with them before.

All in all, I thought that was a nice homage, one which didn't seem forced like Catherine Tate's reference to the Doctor meeting Dickens on Christmas or David Tennant's "Are you my mummy" line.

[Big Orange]

Of course, there's a possibility we might still get an 'everyone lives Rose' ending from this. What with all the talk of people being 'saved.'

I hope Proper Dave and that ditzy bimbo stay dead, otherwise the impact of their grisly deaths will be severely cheapened, while 4022 people is a vanishingly small number of vistitors for a building roughly the size of Earth, although people turned into 'info-nodes' have technically been saved from the Vashta Nerada's rampage (I just hope Moffat doesn't have an ongoing streak of having a relatively low to nonexistent bodycount in his episodes, although at least dozens were dismembered by the Clockwork Droids in "TGintF" off screen).

Anyhoo the Vashta Nerada are more scarier than the Gasmask Zombies and Clockwork Droids, but not as gothic, insidious and grisly as the Weeping Angels. The most scary scenes featuring them was when you see a swarm of them forming a "shadow" across the circular marble floor in full sunlight and the Doctor hinting about the Vashta Nerada being right in front of everybody since time began, always mistaken as dust seen drifting in the streams of light...

[Stark]

They weren't scary AT ALL, and it doesn't help that any impact they may have had was lessened by poor prop design (lol 120mm fan in helmet lol) and poor blocking (stay out of the shadows, oh except those shots where everyone's constantly walking through shadows).

It doesn't help that the description of them doesn't really make sense at this point (since they appear to actually BE the shadows, not a diffuse mass CASTING the shadows, and thus should be almost non-threatening to anyone with a torch), but between 'lulz spoilers' and 'here's some plot elements seen in previous Moffat stories' I was probably too busy being unimpressed to be scared. Easily the best episode of the season, but not up to the 'instant classic' level of his previous work, largely due to the 'Silence in the Blinkplace' nature of much of the plot. Mysterious place where people have disappeared! People in clothing that is evil! Fast, yet stealthy and unavoidable aliens that are ubiqutious! Fuzzy time! Worst of all, it has a fakeout for Donna's death, and that really hurts me because I hate her so much.

[NecronLord]

I hope Proper Dave and that ditzy bimbo stay dead, otherwise the impact of their grisly deaths will be severely cheapened,

Fft. People die all the time in who. It's not as if they shy away from it.

while 4022 people is a vanishingly small number of vistitors for a building roughly the size of Earth, although people turned into 'info-nodes' have technically been saved from the Vashta Nerada's rampage (I just hope Moffat doesn't have an ongoing streak of having a relatively low to nonexistent bodycount in his episodes, although at least dozens were dismembered by the Clockwork Droids in "TGintF" off screen).

I honestly wouldn't mind. Seriously now. There's been about four stories of Who were no-one dies. In as many decades...

And yes. 4022 is tiny. More to the point, the 'million million life forms' needed a bit of fixing. Why would that be creepy? Are there no rats? Bookworms? Pidgeons? Roaches?

But frankly, complaining about such things seems rather petulant.

Anyhoo the Vashta Nerada are more scarier than the Gasmask Zombies and Clockwork Droids, but not as gothic, insidious and grisly as the Weeping Angels. The most scary scenes featuring them was when you see a swarm of them forming a "shadow" across the circular marble floor in full sunlight and the Doctor hinting about the Vashta Nerada being right in front of everybody since time began, always mistaken as dust seen drifting in the streams of light...

They're not that scary at all. I found the epiosde lent itself more to sadness than fear. Even from a childish perspective.

[Stark]

Yeah, the early mood was very effective, much more so than the silly 'spooky Doctor exposition' stuff later.

[Ryushikaze]

It doesn't help that the description of them doesn't really make sense at this point (since they appear to actually BE the shadows, not a diffuse mass CASTING the shadows, and thus should be almost non-threatening to anyone with a torch),

Except they aren't shadows, they just look like them. Torches won't work. They'll let you figure out which is the Vashta, but not fight it. They were 'making' a shadow appear in broad daylight, after all. Hitting them with light makes them hedgy, but doesn't outright stop them cold.

[NecronLord]

I'm pretty sure the Doctor actually found some with a torch, didn't he?

[andrewgpaul]

They straight out said they were the dust motes you see in rays of sunlight, which tells you that they're not allergic to daylight or anything.

[NecronLord]

I don't think people are getting Stark's point. An ordinary shadow can be dispelled by a torch. Thus, locating them shouldn't be that hard. It's the shadow that doesn't go away when you shine a torch at it. You can then run away.