The wonderfully eccentric idea of a ‘library planet’, where the biography wing alone occupies a continent, could be seen either as a cheap way of shoe-horning a spooky setting into a science-fiction show in need of greater spectacle, or as a delightful Douglas Adams-style blast of invention, and in fact it works either way. The episode opens with a little girl in some kind of retro-present-future environment (the phones were out of fashion even in the late 70s) apparently undergoing psychotherapy with moody shrink Colin Salmon, and dreaming of floating over the astonishingly well-realised cityscape of the abandoned, 51st-century library-planet. But the planet is not make-believe; the Doctor and Donna are there too, along with something unspeakably dark and very hungry… The scene where our time-travellers are running from a darkening corridor is chilling, and Library goes on to layer intrigue after intrigue: a small band of hi-tech archaeologists have spent three generations trying to gain access to the planet, which was automatically locked when the Vashta Nerada wiped out the entire population a hundred years earlier. When they burst in and take their helmets off, leader Professor River Song (Alex Kingston) seems to have all the accoutrements of a time-traveller herself, from the sonic screwdriver to memories of the Doctor’s personal future. I’m not falling for the debatable romantic interpretation of Kingston’s affection for our Doc, or for Donna’s jealous looks. If this isn’t the regenerated ‘Jenny’, the ‘doctor’s daughter’ from a couple of episodes back, I will buy a hat and eat it. It’ll have to be a chocolate hat though – part of the delight of Moffat’s writing lies in the surprises. A ‘Donna-moment’ seems to be requisite for each episode now, as Catherine Tate has truly become the sensitive side of the Doctor, a configuration that goes back to the Hartnell days. Here her tender moment is with the spectacularly dumb and spectacularly doomed Miss Evangelista, a glorified secretary and passenger in the archaeological expedition who is self-conscious about her IQ and unregarded by her colleagues. Donna takes pity on her whilst the mad girl in some other world is using hidden buttons on a remote control to unwittingly fling books all over the library, poltergeist-style. Proving her stupidity – and an old-style horror movie convention – Miss Evangelista is dumb enough to go down a newly opened hallway that only she has noticed, only to be instantly pared down to a skeleton by the Vashta. The automated librarian-totems with real (donated!) faces are a deliciously gruesome little invention, but even that is not thrown away, as Donna is to become one of them by episode’s end. With so many unanswered questions, any ultimate judgement on the story must be deferred to Forest Of The Dead. The only bit I had trouble with was the notion of a swarm of insects getting together enough muscular cohesion to make the suit of their latest victim walk, zombie-like, towards the surviving protagonists in a great end-of-episode cliff-hanger. If Kingston is not the Doctor’s daughter, who is she? Are all the characters in Library living their reality inside some kind of program under the aegis of the little girl? Is the girl herself an intelligent program that has devised her faux-reality in an effort to resolve a conflict created by the global catastrophe that has emptied a planet-sized library? Has Professor River Song’s dark look about Donna’s future already manifested in Donna’s grisly transformation into a glorified speak-your-weight machine? There’s clearly more to Colin Salmon’s child-psychologist than meets the eye (seeing as he tells his patient that her dreams are real and her reality false), so who will he turn out to be? I’m glad I care. It’s been a while. It’s not actually Steven Moffat’s four self-penned episodes in series 5 that I am most looking forward to – it’s his rewrites of others’ scripts. In Library, the usual fast-forward-style dialogue is slowed to something that you can actually follow, while the pacing is expert and the humour issues far more from situation than self-parody. Nor can the improved pacing be ascribed to the extra-length given to the story (and I am guessing there may be fewer one-off stories under Moffat, who clearly loves cliff-hangers), as evidenced by the breakneck speed of the recent Sontaran two-parter. The SFX and production design in Silence In The Library were unfaultable, and the initial fly-by of the dead cityscape could comfortably stand amongst the very best work of ILM or Weta Digital. Thus Library constitutes a challenger to Fires Of Pompeii for sheer effort (and presumably money) expended in realising the unexpected environments of Doctor Who. There are many delightful little retro touches in the episode, such as the floating security globe through which the mysterious girl interfaces with the dead city, which seems to be made of mahogany. The library itself, apart from being genuinely scary, is a fantastic achievement for any television series. Logic tells me that many of the pans past endless dusty corridors are cloned from one instance, but it’s all seamless. Director Euros Lynn needn’t have worried too much about doing justice to Moffat’s work – the cinematography, sound and acting were all first class, Tennant toned down his shouting and Billie Piper was not in evidence (yet). Is it too much to hope that she crawled into a nice shady nook thereabouts for a nap? Silence In The Library guest star Colin Salmon had a chat with DoG not long ago. Check out our reviews of the previous episode, The Unicorn And The Wasp. Simon’s is here, and Martin’s is here.
title: “Doctor Who Series 4 Episode 8 Review Silence In The Library” ShowToc: true date: “2025-07-18” author: “Wesley Auld”
The grounding idea was very simple, and as with the likes of Blink and Girl In The Fireplace, Moffat starts with something very straightforward, and very day to day. But instead of weeping angels and ticking clocks, his choice here are the shadows that lie in the darkness. He then turns them into creatures themselves, transposes them to the quite brilliant setting of the universe’s biggest library (and didn’t the special effects for that look superb?), and begins to add the layers from there. And plenty of layers there are. We first meet the library, for instance, as a young girl dreams about it, relaying the story to what appears to be a psychologist, played by Colin Salmon. Yet by the end of the episode, it’s clear that there’s a lot more both to the dream and the shrink, and – as all good two-parters should – this throws up a good few questions to be answered, hopefully, next week (it ain’t Lost, after all). Is this little girl the central computer of the library, for instance? Are the people in ‘her’ world the people she has ‘saved’ from it? Is that how Salmon comes to know about it? Questions, questions, questions. Back at the library itself, a team of archaeologists throw up some further posers of their own. The character of River Song, in particular, is intriguing. Given her knowledge of the Doctor, and given the fact that he hasn’t got to the point in his timeline where he’s properly ‘met’ her yet, what are we supposed to conclude? Is this another Time Lord? Is she a future Mrs Doctor? Could she be some strange villain in disguise? Is she there to sacrifice herself at the end of the next episode? And didn’t the Ood tell the Doctor that his song would be ending soon? Is this what they meant? There was certainly tragedy about the first killing of the episode, though. In any other episode, a little bit of cannon fodder is just lined up and got out of the way. But the sudden way in which they killed the whining personal assistant established a brutality to the shadowy nemeses that underpinned the rest of the episode. But then, unexpectedly, we’re introduced to the concept of a ghost death, which turns a seemingly requisite death scene into something really quite wonderful and borderline moving. Not bad for something the equivalent of killing off a Star Trek extra. Donna talking to a woman who has already died, but not quite died (if, er, that makes sense) was brilliantly done, and all done with a crash-bang fanfare from Murray Gold either. The shadows themselves were genuinely a little unnerving, and the still, quiet scene where one of the crew was found to have two shadows was terrific. Directed with subtlety by Euros Lynn, it sent chills down the spine. Likewise, something as simple as lights being systematically shut off was as exciting and heart-pounding as two episodes of Sontarans and an episode of the Ood put together. I like Russell T Davies’ stuff, but there’s little doubt on this evidence that Mr Moffat is in a different class. It also had a cracking cliffhanger. Turning Donna into one of the eerily-faced pedestals in the library was one moment of genius, but to combine that with a good old-fashioned monster lurching towards you moment as well (with the skeletal face in the space suit) is the kind of cocktail that leaves you waiting for the ‘Next week’ trailer, scanning for clues. Clues that couldn’t be found, commendably. There were a few downsides. Catherine Tate, who I still maintain has been one of the heroes of this series, slipped into one or two of her easy Tate-isms, in an episode where they simply weren’t needed. Plus it seems more and more likely that she’s building up for some big sacrifice or something of that ilk. And I can’t decide if the haranguing about spoilers – presumably some kind of light dig at the show’s fanbase? – was a little too laboured (although, to be fair, it was integral to the plot). Read Martin Anderson’s take on the episode here.
