Doctor Who/Recap/S30/E08 Silence in the Library: Difference between revisions

{{quote| '''The Doctor''': Daleks -- [[Attack Its Weak Point|aim for the eyestalk]]. Sontarans -- [[Weaksauce Weakness|back of the neck]]. Vashta Nerada... ''run''. [[Don't Ask, Just Run|Just run]].}}

This very scary two-part episode, written by [[Steven Moffat]], introduces a ''tremendously'' important character to the series: Professor Dr. River Song. Moffat wrote the story after being promoted to head writer of ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' from series 5 onwards. An early version of the library itself was introduced by Moffat in his 1996 short story "[[Continuity Errors (Literature)|Continuity Errors]]", the first ''Doctor Who'' story he ever wrote.

True to Moffat form, the episodes were nominated for a Hugo award, but they lost out to [[DoctorDr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (Web Video)|a certain sing-along blog]].

''Silence In The Library'' was broadcast with a special warning to parents: don't let your kids watch it late at night.

Somewhere in a very ordinary house, a little girl has schizophrenic visions of a library: huge and beautiful and -- bestand—best of all -- justall—just for her. That is, until the Doctor and Donna show up. The little girl's father and her therapist (Dr. Moon) try to make sense of it all.

The Doctor spots a security camera, and uses his sonic screwdriver to scan it. The little girl screams in agony at the sound. The Doctor realizes that the camera is sentient, and he and the girl have a rudimentary conversation through its display. Both are quite confused at this.

A team of 51st century archaeologists show up, one of whom, Professor River Song, knows the Doctor ''very'' well. Though what kind of connection they have is not revealed... [[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S31 E5/E05 Flesh and Stone|y]][[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S32 E8/E08 Let's Kill Hitler|e]][[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S32 /E13 The Wedding of River Song|t]]. She greets him with a loving "Hello, sweetie!", then appears a bit miffed when he doesn't return the sentiment. River is mysterious, but definitely not a [[Mysterious Waif]]: she's mature, snarky and able to take care of herself.

The little girl has watched much of that on her TV, even briefly talking with River and the Doctor through her screen.

River pulls the Doctor aside to catch up and compare diaries, to see how their personal timelines are at the moment. The Doctor just stares at her blankly. Actually, [[David Tennant]] just stares at her blankly, because [[Steven Moffat]] [[Enforced Method Acting|refused to tell him what was going on]]. River is appropriately horrified when she realizes that the Doctor has never met ''her''. To him, this is their very first meeting. To her, he looks too young, too inexperienced, too happy. He's not ''her'' Doctor yet.

No time to dwell on that, though, as the library is infested with flesh-eating shadows. Vashta Nerada. They're not every shadow... [[Primal Fear|but they're any shadow]]. They live on any planet that provides meat. Yes, [[Paranoia Fuel|including Earth]].

River Song turns out to have a sonic screwdriver -- butscrewdriver—but not just ''a'' sonic screwdriver, ''the'' sonic screwdriver!

The shadows kill one archaeologist, Evangelista, stripping her flesh and leaving only a skeleton. The sound system in her protective suit is linked to her neural pathways and echoes her voice long after she's died, which is appropriately terrifying. Another is killed, with the Vashta Nerada animating his suit and chasing everyone else through the blacked-out hallways.

{{quote| "The real world is a lie, and your nightmares are '''real'''."}}

The Doctor tries to teleport Donna back to the TARDIS, using the teleporter in the library's [[Running Gag|little shop]]. But she is yanked out of existence -- screamingexistence—screaming and mid-teleport -- toteleport—to take her place among the library's robot servants with real people faces.

* [[Adventurer Archaeologist]]: River Song and her crew.

* [[Apocalyptic Log]]: The messages on the computer at the beginning.

* [[Continuity Nod]]: "[[Doctor Who (TV)/NS/Recap/S1 E9S27/E09 The Empty Child|Squareness]] [[Doctor Who (TV)/NS/Recap/S1 S27/E10 The Doctor Dances|gun]]!"

** [[Steven Moffat]] has confirmed that it's Jack's gun, left in the TARDIS at the end of Series 2.

* [[Conversational Troping]]: The Doctor and Donna discuss how [[Time Travel]] can lead to [[Spoiler|Spoilers]]s about life.

{{quote| '''The Doctor''': Nice door skills, Donna. <br />

* [[Darkness Equals Death]]: Quite literally.

{{quote| '''Doctor''': Oh, ''I'm'' pretty boy!<br />

'''Donna''': YES! Oh... that came out a bit too quick...<br />

'''Doctor''': Pretty?<br />

* [[Don't Ask, Just Run]]: Several times.

* [[Foreshadowing]]: The [[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S31 /E04 The Time of Angels|crash of the]] ''[[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S31 /E05 Flesh and Stone|Byzantium]]'' is mentioned.

* [[Have We Met Yet?]]: River appears to know the Doctor very well, but the Doctor himself doesn't know who she is (yet).

* [[Late to Thethe Party]]: Both played straight and subverted. The Doctor arrives 100 years too late to the Library, but also arrives too early, since River had expected a later incarnation of the Doctor to show up.

* [[Leaning Onon the Fourth Wall]]: Spoilers!

* [[Locked Out of the Loop]]: Steven Moffat didn't tell any of the actors (and only very few of the crew) just who River Song is. [[David Tennant]] had ''no'' idea how to act opposite her, to great effect. On the DVD commentary, he says that he had the Doctor assume she's a future regeneration of him, because even though that made no sense, it made more sense than anything else he could come up with.

* [[Mind Screw]]: The whole girl in therapy / Doctor in the library flip-flopping.

* [[No Name Given]]: "The girl" and "Dad".

{{quote| '''The Doctor:''' Almost every species in the universe has an irrational fear of the dark. But they're wrong: it's not irrational. It's Vashta Nerada.<br />

'''Donna:''' What's Vashta Nerada?<br />

* [[San Dimas Time]]: Notably subverted, unusually enough for ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]].'' You could usually count on everyone the Doctor meets remembering events in the same order; this is one of the first episodes to play with that.

* [[Single Biome Planet]]: [[Justified Trope|Justified]] -- it—it's a purpose-built artificial planet, so the biome is "library."

* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: Miss Evangelista.

* [[Wham! Line]]:

{{quote| '''Doctor Moon''': "The real world is a ''lie'' and your nightmares are ''real.''"}}

* [[Whole-Plot Reference]]: Moffat is a big fan of ''[[The Time TravelersTraveler's Wife]]''. River meeting the Doctor in the library ''very'' much echoes Clare meeting Henry in a library in said novel.