Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead
This is a two part story which is one of my all time top 10 Doctor Who TV stories. It is absolutely superb in every way. It also introduces a main character, River Song, who would go on to be very important in the whole Doctor Who universe.
Alex Kingston is an excellent actress who portrays River to perfection. The character is a strong, intelligent and interesting female character who adds a lot of quality. In this two parter she is completely mysterious and adds huge interest as a result.
River is a fantastic character for this story and when Steven Moffatt who wrote this wonderful two parter took over as Showrunner he went on to use River in repeated appearances which continued to be in a non-chronological order and maintained the mystery before finally revealing her back story. That back story is hugely problematic for me to be honest but that has no impact thankfully on this two parter and she is just a tremendous guest character here adding great mystery.
The rest of the guest characters are fun and interesting whilst Catherine Tate puts in an awesome performance with Donna at her peak of brilliance as a top companion.
Tennant is also at the peak of his excellence as the Doctor and the whole story with the little girl and the library is clever, entertaining and ultimately logical.
There are exciting thrills, moving scenes of touching drama as well as intelligent dialogue and witty humour. The scenes in Forest of the Dead where Donna faces up to reality and the loss of her 'children' is heartbreaking. This is top notch Doctor Who.
The Vashta Nerada are a fantastically menacing alien threat and the skeletons in space suits are a cool aspect.
Overall this is basically as good as it gets. Russell T. Davies in charge brings the best out of Steven Moffatt. As showrunner I felt Moffatt often let his ideas and enthusiasm go a bit over the top but when assigned a writing job by RTD with boundaries nobody is better than Moffatt.
Euros Lyn directs perfectly and both episodes are utterly iconic Doctor Who classics. Incredibly this amazing standard would continue right through the rest of Series 4, lifting it to be my favourite series of the modern era of the show.
My Rating for both episodes: 10/10.