History Recap / DoctorWhoNSS4E9ForestOfTheDead

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Forest_of_the_Dead_7907.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[-[[MadnessMantra "Hey! Who turned out the lights?]] [[BrokenRecord Hey! Who turned out the lights?]] [[RuleOfThree Hey! Who turned out the lights?"]]-] ]]

->'''Donna:''' How about you, are you all right?\\
'''The Doctor:''' I'm always all right.\\
'''Donna: '''Is "all right" special Time Lord code for... really not all right at all?\\
'''The Doctor: ''' Why?\\
'''Donna:''' Because I'm all right too.

Donna, our favourite stroppy Londoner, has been having some funny turns recently. As we all know, she was a bit confused and spent a few years in a mental institution. There, she met a nice man called Lee, and now she's happily married with two kids. But lately, she's been having "lost time", and Dr Moon says everything is ''fine'', and...

What?

But what about the ''library'' of the ''future'', and the people-eating shadows, and River Song and everything? And then we see a familiar person in Donna's world: Miss Evangelista, one of the {{Red Shirt}}s killed in the last episode. And she tells Donna that none of this is ''real''.

When Donna rips of Miss Evangelista's veil it reveals that her face has become glitched. The little girl, watching all this on her TV, ''screams''. So do you, because Creator/StevenMoffat.

Donna and everyone else aren't really in present-day London. They're in a LotusEaterMachine, and the computer is getting a little overloaded. Doing what? Saving all the people, of course... that's where they all went. They got saved... to disk. When the Vashta Nerada arrived, the library's computer tried to teleport 4022 people out ''all at once'', and the system overloaded. Even the neural echoes of people, briefly captured by their suits' comm systems, get included. Which is how Miss Evangelista now lives on.

The Vashta Nerada usually live in forests. They hatch in trees. Trees... that were made into a planet full of books.

The little girl really was a little girl: related to the founder of the library, she was merged with the library's computer as a gift to her when doctors couldn't save her life. Her therapist, Dr Moon, is quite literally the planet's moon, which stabilises the computer from above.

While the Doctor, back in the real world, works all this out, a couple more people get eaten by the shadows. The Doctor teaches the Vashta Nerada how to use the suits' comm systems to communicate, but it doesn't exactly help. He does, however, convince the creatures to give him one day, and after that, they can have the planet all to themselves.

The Doctor realises that he'll need to pull a HeroicSacrifice to rescue Donna and the rest of the saved people. River punches him square in the face, handcuffs him to a wall and decides to sacrifice herself instead. Because she knows that if the Doctor sacrificed himself this way he wouldn't be able to regenerate, as the machine's continuous shock would kill him permanently in the middle of regeneration. And now she knows that this is not only his first time meeting her, it's also her last time meeting him... and that from his perspective, their entire relationship will have been based on the moment the Doctor saw her ''die''. The Doctor is powerless to stop her, and asks her why she was able to whisper that one word into his ear -- his ''name''. His real name. Her only reply is a final "spoilers!", and with that, she dies.

All the not-dead people are transported back to the library. Donna desperately searches for her Matrix-world husband, whom she truly loves. But just when he sees her, he's teleported away to his own home, and she decides he must have been imaginary. The Doctor leaves River's diary and her version of the screwdriver behind in the library --

-- she knew his ''name''. He gave her his screwdriver. Why did he give her his screwdriver? Because the screwdriver has a neural relay with her mind's echo stored inside it. The Doctor races back to the little girl / computer and plugs in what's left of River. Her echo, and those of her loved ones who died today, can live on forever in the Matrix system. In a very bittersweet way, EverybodyLives.

----
!!Tropes

* AskAStupidQuestion: "It's a screwdriver. It works in the dark."
* BadassBoast: Indirectly, and the more badass for it: "I'm The Doctor, and you're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up!"
* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: Miss Evangelista's reason for wanting to help Donna escape her false reality.
* BrainUploading
* BrokenRecord: "We have to go now. Doctor!"
* CallBack:
** River's end-of-episode speech has her quote the Ninth Doctor: "Everybody lives".
** Additionally, River quotes the First Doctor upon sacrificing herself, telling the Tenth Doctor that he [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E6TheAztecs "can't rewrite history. Not one line!"]]
** Also the "squareness gun" Captain Jack Harkness used on his [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS1E10TheDoctorDances first appearance]]. WordOfGod says it is the ''same'' gun -- pilfered by River from the TARDIS where Jack left it at the end of [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS1E13ThePartingOfTheWays "The Parting of the Ways"]].
* CallForward: Whole armies will turn and run from the Doctor. Just not yet.
* ChekhovsGun:
** The screwdriver. ''He gave her his screwdriver.''
** And ''she told the Doctor his own name.''
* ConspicuousCGI: PlayedForDrama. Miss Evangelista's face is literally glitched. She looks badly Photoshopped, which is exactly the point.
* CuckooNest: Dr Moon tells Donna she hallucinated the Doctor, but is now cured.
* {{Cyberspace}}
* DashedPlotLine: Donna's life inside CAL is a subversion. It looks like we're only being shown selected scenes that take place years apart, but then it turns out that ''Donna'' is only experiencing those scenes as well...
* ExplainExplainOhCrap: The Doctor's so busy thinking, he stops paying attention to Other Dave, who has suddenly started repeating himself a lot...
* EurekaMoment:
** And dear God, it is [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome GLORIOUS.]]
-->'''River:''' (''voiceover'') Everybody knows that everybody dies, and nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark (''the Doctor begins to run back'') if he ever, for one moment, accepts''\\
'''The Doctor:''' Why?! Why would I give her my screwdriver? Why would I do that?
** Also, "You don't say ''saved'', you say ''safe''!"
* EverybodyLives: Done a bit differently, in that the dead end up living in {{Cyberspace}} instead of the real world, but WordOfGod is that Moffat considers this to be as much being alive as most of us get. Their consciousnesses exist inside an electronic library containing the sum total knowledge of a huge slice of the Universe. They can virtually go anywhere, be anybody, experience anything...
* FaceDeathWithDignity: Anita, when she realizes she has two shadows.
* FamousLastWords: "We have to go now. Doctor!" are this for Other Dave.
** "Hush, now. Spoilers."
* {{Foreshadowing}}: ''Dr Moon'' seems to maintain the dream-world's integrity at several points, but it only then dawns on us what ''he'' represents when the Doctor is told that the moon that's rising in the sky isn't real, but an artificial ''doctor'' moon, which maintains the library database.
* FreudianSlip:
-->'''Donna:''' I made up the perfect man. Gorgeous, adores me, and hardly able to speak a word. What's that say about me?\\
'''The Doctor:''' Everything. *{{beat}}* Sorry. Did I say "Everything"? [[DiggingYourselfDeeper I meant to say "Nothing". I was aiming for "Nothing". I accidentally said "Everything"]].
* GreenAesop[=/=]SpaceWhaleAesop: You cut down a load of trees, make the trees into books, put the books in a library... ...and then get eaten by the shadows that hatch from the books! Also either a BrokenAesop or a FamilyUnfriendlyAesop. Books, reading and libraries are supposed to be ''good for you'', and certainly non-threatening. Apparently, though, making libraries too big is dangerous. No, not because knowledge is power or something like that, just because all that wood pulp contains the seeds of air piranhas.
* HeroicSacrifice: River Song.
* HolodeckMalfunction: Sort of.
* HopeSpot: Donna really loves her virtual husband, and promises to look for him in the real world as she's yanked out of the computer system. In the real world as everyone is restored, she asks after him, is told no one by that name was in the library, and unhappily concludes that -- like her children -- he was never real. However, ''he'' sees her and tries to call out her name, but is halted by his stutter and is teleported home before he can reach her.
* IKnowYourTrueName
* InformedAttribute: CAL loved books more than anything. That must be why we never see her reading any, instead always drawing or watching TV. Though to be fair, she's not in her right mind.
* InsaneTrollLogic: "If he dies, I'll kill him!"
* JerkassFacade: Strackman Lux, set up as a paranoid, un-co-operative type obsessed with patents and IP, but it's all a front to keep CAL safe -- he's actually quite nice.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall:
** The scenes appearing on CAL's TV, complete with music. She, like many of the viewers, spends a good part of the episode clutching a pillow and trying not to scream.
** Time in the computer progresses "like a dream" -- people just mention where they're going to be, and then they're there. In other words, it's like television. Cutting between scenes in a conventional way, and then revealing that that's how the ''characters'' are experiencing it, adds a meta level to the are-you-sure-you-know-what-is-and-isn't-real theme.
* LeParkour: In one scene the Doctor essentially follows the Parkour principle of "Getting from point A to point B ASAP" as he runs, jumps over carts and shelves and even just jumps into a hole instead of using the mobile transport to save River.
* LivingShadow: Invisible air piranhas, who are very light-sensitive (or maybe just appear as shadows, and are very slow-moving) but can strip the flesh from a chicken leg in the time it takes to fall to the ground. And they learn quickly...
* LotusEaterMachine: The imaginary world created by CAL.
* MeaningfulName:
** CAL is an acronym of the girl's full name.
** And there's Dr Moon, the doctor moon.
* MediumAwareness: Donna starts noticing the episode's editing when she's in the computer. This is because [[PaintingTheMedium the cuts represent the computer basically teleporting her and giving her fake memories]].
* MoreExpendableThanYou: River takes out the Doctor to do a HeroicSacrifice in his place.
* NoSympathy: The Vastha Narada don't really care that Anita was scared, Doctor.
* OhCrap: The Doctor, when he finally realises Other Dave's been eaten.
* OrpheanRescue: Getting Donna back out of the computer.
* PapaWolf: Though technically the little girl for whom Strackman Lux is willing to go to such lengths to protect is his ''aunt''.
* PlatonicCave
* PoweredByAForsakenChild: The Library exists for the sole purpose of keeping CAL occupied, which makes this an inversion. The library itself is an inversion -- there is a child with a terminal, incurable illness, but her family is rich, so [[BrainUploading her brain is uploaded]] and she is given a library the size of a planet to keep her entertained. However, when something threatened the people in the library, they all tried to [[TeleporterAccident teleport away at once]] and ended up getting stored in the computer. That was causing problems for the child, so in a way the lifeboats were PoweredByAForsakenChild.
* SelfDestructMechanism
* SmashCut: Lots of them while Donna is in the virtual world.
* ShipTease:
** The Doctor and River.
--->'''The Doctor:''' Oh, I ''like'' you.\\
'''River:''' Yeah, you do.
** Also an echo to all her earlier/later mutual exchanges of "I ''hate you''" / "No, you don't" with the Eleventh Doctor.
** Even the fact that River is going to die in a few moments doesn't stop her from dropping one last DoubleEntendre.
--->'''Doctor:''' Why am I handcuffed... [[FetishFuel why do you even have handcuffs?!]]\\
'''River:''' (''smirking'') Spoilers...
** Watching Donna's husband try to call out to her at the end, but caught in a stutter.
* SpookySilentLibrary
* StableTimeLoop: The Sonic Screwdriver, among others. Many of River Song's mannerisms and rules, including "spoilers!" and the blue diary, she initially got from the Doctor, who in turn got them from her. We see one "end" of their time loop here, and another end (although there are [[TimeyWimeyBall at least three]]) in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler Let's Kill Hitler]]". Another example is opening the TARDIS with a click of the fingers; the Doctor hadn't even thought of doing that until River mentioned it.
* StaringDownCthulhu: The "look me up" scene.
* SwissArmyWeapon: The Doctor's got his screwdriver, and River's got ''hers''.
* TooDumbToLive: The metric that "Other Dave" was told to pull The Doctor out of his first talk with the Vashta Nerada.
* TrustPassword: River manages to convince the Doctor to trust her by telling him his real name.
* TheUnReveal: River Song knows the Doctor's real name, but only whispers it to the Doctor. We never hear it in "Forest of the Dead", and have still yet to as of series 7.
* VirtualGhost: The final fate of River and her crew.
* WhamLine:
** "River, you know my name."
** "You know what? I really liked Anita."
* WrongGenreSavvy: The Doctor just lets Other Dave stand there while he's talking to the Vashta Nerada! [[IdiotBall You're better than that, Doctor!]]
* TheXOfY

----
->'''River:''' Sweet dreams, everyone.
----

* FridgeLogic: Several things.
** The Vashta Nerada are clearly voracious, and apparently everyone but the Librarian escaped... so what have they been eating for all this time?
** Why did Donna's face appear on the interface? She seemed too disgusted with the whole idea earlier to have donated it.
** Why ''does'' a library have a self destruct system? And why does the Doctor never use it as a bargaining tool? He could have used the 'look me up' speech to ensure cooperation, but gained a lot more in negotiation if he agreed to save the library for a price. The Vashta Nerada want meat so much, I'm sure an interstellar civilisation such as the humans that built the Library could teleport in sufficient quantities to keep the shadows happy without readers being fed on. Throwing chickenn bones into dark spots could become a game.

* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** ''Dr Moon'' seems to maintain the dream-world's integrity at several points, but it only then dawns on us what ''he'' represents when the Doctor is told that the moon that's rising in the sky isn't real but an artificial, ''doctor'' moon, which maintains the library database.

'''The Doctor:''' Everything. *{{beat}}* Sorry, did I say "Everything"? I meant to say "Nothing". I was aiming for "Nothing".

* GreenAesop / SpaceWhaleAesop: You cut down a load of trees, make the trees into books, put the books in a library… and then get eaten by the shadows that hatch from the books! Also either a BrokenAesop or a FamilyUnfriendlyAesop. Books, reading and libraries are supposed to be ''good for you'', and certainly non-threatening. Apparently, though, making libraries too big is dangerous. No, not because knowledge is power or something like that, just because all that wood pulp contains the seeds of air piranhas.

** River Song in both this and the previous episode makes many sly references to events and dialogue spoken in "The Eleventh Hour"... ''[[CatchPhrase Spoilers!]]''
** Another sneaky bit of foreshadowing for Season 5: [[ArcWords "Time can be rewritten!"]] "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong Don't you]] ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong dare.]]''"
** River says she trusts the Doctor to the end of the universe... and actually, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E12ThePandoricaOpens they've]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E13TheBigBang been]].
** She's seen [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E12ThePandoricaOpens whole]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E7AGoodManGoesToWar armies]] turn and run when the Doctor arrives, and we're starting to get an idea as to why.
** She also said that she's dated [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong androids]]. "They're rubbish."
** Something of a BookEnd: River knocks the Doctor unconscious and handcuffs him to a pole. Guess what her mother does in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E01TheEleventhHour "The Eleventh Hour"]].
** In fact, every member of the family has punched the Doctor out.
** Also, one that has yet to come full cycle, a reference to the Fall of the Eleventh at the Fields of Trenzalore, referenced again ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong four years later]]'':
--->'''The Doctor:''' There's only one reason I'd ever tell you my name. There's only one time I could.
** A subtle, but important:
--->'''Donna:''' I saw the Doctor!\\
'''Dr. Moon''' Yes. You did, Donna. And then [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E13JourneysEnd you forgot]].
** You want subtle? The kind of line from wife to husband...
--->'''Doctor:''' That's my job!\\
'''River:''' Oh, I'm not allowed to have a career, I suppose?
** River just before her HeroicSacrifice gives us this: "Watch us ''run''." Cue what may be ArcWords for series ''seven''.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[MadnessMantra "Hey! Who turned out the lights?]] [[BrokenRecord Hey! Who turned out the lights?]] [[RuleOfThree Hey! Who turned out the lights?"]]]]
->'''Donna:''' How about you, are you all right?
->'''The Doctor:''' I'm always all right.
->'''Donna: '''Is "all right" special Time Lord code for... really not all right at all?
->'''The Doctor: ''' Why?
->'''Donna:''' Because I'm all right too.

* BadassBoast: Indirectly, and the more badass for it: "I'm The Doctor, and you're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up!".

* CallBack: River's end-of-episode speech has her quote the Ninth Doctor: "Everybody lives".

** Also the "squareness gun" Captain Jack Harkness used on his [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS1E10TheDoctorDances first appearance]]. WordOfGod says it is the ''same'' gun -- pilfered by River from the TARDIS where Jack left it at the end of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS1E13ThePartingOfTheWays The Parting of the Ways]]".
* ChekhovsGun: The screwdriver. ''He gave her his screwdriver.''

* EurekaMoment: And dear God, it is [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome GLORIOUS.]]
--> '''River (voiceover):''' ''Everybody knows that everybody dies, and nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark'' (the Doctor begins to run back) ''if he ever, for one moment, accepts —''
--> '''The Doctor:''' Why?! Why would I give her my screwdriver? Why would I do that?
** Also, "You don't say ''Saved'', you say ''safe''!"
* EverybodyLives: Done a bit differently, in that the dead end up living in {{Cyberspace}} instead of the real world, but WordOfGod is that Moffat considers this to be as much being alive as most of us get.
** Their consciousnesses exist inside an electronic library containing the sum total knowledge of a huge slice of the Universe. They can virtually go anywhere, be anybody, experience anything…
* {{Foreshadowing}}: ''Dr Moon'' seems to maintain the dream-world's integrity at several points, but it only then dawns on us what ''he'' represents when the Doctor is told that the moon that's rising in the sky isn't real but an artificial, ''doctor'' moon, which maintains the library database.
** River Song in both this and the previous episode makes many sly references to events and dialogue spoken in ''The Eleventh Hour''… ''[[CatchPhrase Spoilers!]]''
** Another sneaky bit of foreshadowing for Season 5: [[ArcWords "Time can be rewritten!"]]
*** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong Don't you]] ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong dare.]]''"

** Something of a BookEnd: River knocks the Doctor unconscious and handcuffs him to a pole. Guess what her mother does in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E01TheEleventhHour The Eleventh Hour]]".
*** In fact, every member of the family has punched the Doctor out.

--> '''The Doctor:''' There's only one reason I'd ever tell you my name. There's only one time I could.

--> '''Donna:''' I saw the Doctor!
--> '''Dr. Moon''' Yes. You did, Donna. And then [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E13JourneysEnd you forgot]].

--> '''Doctor:''' That's my job!
--> '''River:''' Oh, I'm not allowed to have a career, I suppose?

* GreenAesop: You cut down a load of trees, make the trees into books, put the books in a library… and then get eaten by the shadows that hatch from the books!
** SpaceWhaleAesop
** Also either a BrokenAesop or a FamilyUnfriendlyAesop. Books, reading and libraries are supposed to be ''good for you'', and certainly non-threatening. Apparently, though, making libraries too big is dangerous. No, not because knowledge is power or something like that, just because all that wood pulp contains the seeds of air piranhas.
*** Non-threatening? [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS2E2ToothAndClaw Oh, your father got all the brains, didn't he? (Being Rude again..) Good. I meant that one.]] [[ImprovisedWeapon You want weapons?]] [[ThrowTheBookAtThem We're in a library.]] [[WeaponOfChoice Books! Best weapons in the world.]] [[BrownNote This room's the greatest arsenal]] [[ImprobableWeaponUser we could have.]]
** Presumably the moral of the story is; Reading books can make you wise. Cutting down all the forests of an entire planet and converting a totally ''different'' planet into a library, is ''not''.
*** Are we sure there's even a moral?
**** When you cut down a whole planet worth of forests for your own personal benefit, be warned: those who dwell there might not take it well.

* HolodeckMalfunction: sort of.

* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: The scenes appearing on CAL's TV, complete with music. She, like many of the viewers, spends a good part of the episode clutching a pillow and trying not to scream.

* LivingShadow - Invisible air piranhas, who are very light-sensitive (or maybe just appear as shadows, and are very slow-moving) but can strip the flesh from a chicken leg in the time it takes to fall to the ground. And they learn quickly...

* MeaningfulName: CAL is an acronym of the girl's full name. Also, there's Dr Moon, the doctor moon.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: CAL. First she (inadvertently) "kills" her father after being upset at TheReveal. Then she tries to break the remote, triggering the self-destruct mechanism. ''Then'' she "kills" Doctor Moon, ''on purpose'', when he tries to stop her. Granted, she's been hit with the TomatoInTheMirror, and Dr Moon [[UnexplainedRecovery recovers]] but still.
** It isn't necessarily an unexplained recovery since all we know is that she removed them from her virtual reality; it isn't ever indicated that she deleted them.
** She just switched him off, exactly like you close software. He was restarted later.

* PoweredByAForsakenChild: The Library exists for the sole purpose of keeping CAL occupied, which makes this an inversion.
** The library itself is an inversion - there is a child with a terminal, incurable illness, but her family is rich, so [[BrainUploading her brain is uploaded]] and she is given a library the size of a planet to keep her entertained. However, when something threatened the people in the library, they all tried to [[TeleporterAccident teleport away at once]] and ended up getting stored in the computer. That was causing problems for the child, so in a way the lifeboats were PoweredByAForsakenChild.

* ShipTease: The Doctor and River.
-->'''The Doctor''': Oh, I ''like'' you.
-->'''River''': Yeah, you do.

-->'''Doctor:''' Why am I handcuffed...[[FetishFuel why do you even have handcuffs?!]]
-->'''River:''' ''(smirking)'' Spoilers...

-->'''River''': Sweet dreams, everyone.

* LeParkour: In one scene the Doctor essentially follows the Parkour principle of "Getting from point A to point B ASAP" as he runs, jumps over carts and shelves and even just jumps into a hole instead of using the mobile transport to literally save River.

** What's scary is, over two years later not only have we still not seen how either of these go down, and the latter is now a ''major'' plot point in the series, but they serve their purpose as a part of the ''[[TheNthDoctor next]]'' Doctor's story.

When Donna rips of Miss Evangelista's veil it reveals that her face has become glitched. The little girl, watching all this on her TV, ''screams''. So do you, because StevenMoffat.

** Watching Donna's husband try to call out to her at the end, but caught in a stutter.

* LeParkour: In one scene the Doctor essentially follows the Parkour principle of "Getting from point A to point B ASAP" as he runs, jumps over carts and shelves and even just jumps into a hole instead of using the mobile transport to literally save River.

** Something of a BookEnd: River knocks the Doctor unconscious and handcuffs him to a pole. Guess what [[spoiler:her mother does in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E01TheEleventhHour The Eleventh Hour]]]].
*** In fact, [[spoiler: every member of the family]] has punched the Doctor out.
** Also, one that has yet to come full cycle, a reference to [[spoiler: The Fall of the Eleventh at the Fields of Trenzalore]], referenced again ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong four years later]]'':

--> '''Donna:''' I [[spoiler: saw the Doctor!]]
--> '''Dr. Moon''' Yes. You did, Donna. And then[[spoiler: [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E13JourneysEnd you forgot]]]].
** You want subtle? [[spoiler:The kind of line from wife to husband...]]

** River just before her HeroicSacrifice gives us this: "Watch us ''run''." Cue what may be ArcWords [[spoiler: for series ''seven'']].

* LeParkour: In one scene the Doctor essentially follows the Parkour principle of "Getting from point A to point B ASAP" as he runs, jumps over carts and shelves and even just jumps into a hole instead of using the mobile transport [[spoiler: to literally save River]].

* TrustPassword: River manages to convince the Doctor to trust her by [[spoiler:telling him his real name]].
* TheUnReveal: [[spoiler:River Song knows the Doctor's real name, but only whispers it to the Doctor. We never hear it.]]
* VirtualGhost: [[spoiler: The final fate of River and her crew.]]
* WhamLine: [[spoiler:"River, you know my name."]]
** [[spoiler:"You know what? I really liked Anita."]]

->'''Donna: '''Is "all right" special Time Lord code for... not really all right at all?

Donna, our favourite stroppy Londoner, has been having some funny turns recently. As we all know, she was a bit confused and spent a few years in a mental institution. There, she met a nice man called Lee, and now she's happily married with two kids. But lately, she's been having "lost time", and Dr. Moon says everything is ''fine'', and...

Miss Evangelista takes off her veil and reveals that her face has become glitched. The little girl, watching all this on her TV, ''screams''. So do you, because, StevenMoffat.

The little girl really was a little girl: related to the founder of the library, she was merged with the library's computer as a gift to her when doctors couldn't save her life. Her therapist, Dr. Moon, is quite literally the planet's moon, which stabilizes the computer from above.

The Doctor realises that he'll need to pull a HeroicSacrifice to rescue Donna and the rest of the saved people. River punches him square in the face, handcuffs him to a wall and decides to sacrifice herself instead. Because she knows that if the Doctor would sacrifice himself this way, he wouldn't be able to regenerate, as the machine's continuous shock would kill him permanently in the middle of regeneration. And now she knows that this is not only his first time meeting her, it's also her last time meeting him... and that from his perspective, their entire relationship will have been based on the moment the Doctor saw her ''die''. The Doctor is helpless to stop her, and asks her why she was able to whisper that one word into his ear -- his ''name''. His real name. Her only reply is a final "spoilers!", and with that, she dies.

* BadassBoast: Indirectly, and the more badass for it: "I'm The Doctor, and you're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up!"

* CallBack: River's end-of-episode speech has her quote the Ninth Doctor: "Everybody lives."

* ConspicuousCGI: PlayedForDrama. Evangelista's face is literally glitched. She looks badly Photoshopped, which is exactly the point.

** Their consciousnesses exist inside an electronic library containing the sum total knowledge of a huge slice of the Universe. They can virtually go anywhere, be anybody, experience anything… Sounds pretty good.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: ''Dr Moon'' seems to maintain the dream-world's integrity at several points, but it only then dawns on us what ''he'' represents when the Doctor is told that the moon that's rising in the sky isn't real, its an artificial ''doctor moon'' who maintains the library database.

--> '''The Doctor:''' There's only one reason I'd ever tell you my name. There's only one time ''[[CannotTellALie I could]]''.

--> '''Dr. Moon''' Yes. You did, Donna. And then[[spoiler: [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E13JourneysEnd you forgot]]]]

* HopeSpot: Donna really loves her virtual husband, and promises to look for him in the real world as she's yanked out of the computer system. In the real world as everyone is restored, she asks after him, is told no one by that name was in the library, and unhappily concludes that - like her virtual children - he was never real. However, ''he'' sees her and tries to call out her name, but is halted by his stutter and is teleported home before he can reach her.

* LeParkour: In one scene the Doctor essentially follows the Parkour principle of "Getting from point A to point B ASAP" as he runs, jumps over carts and shelves, and even just jumps into a hole instead of using the mobile transport [[spoiler: to literally save River]]

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: CAL. First she (inadvertently) "kills" her father after being upset at TheReveal. Then she tries to break the remote, triggering the self-destruct mechanism. ''Then'' she "kills" Doctor Moon, ''on purpose'', when he tries to stop her. Granted, she's been hit with the TomatoInTheMirror, and Doctor Moon [[UnexplainedRecovery recovers]] but still.

** The library itself is an inversion - there is a child with a terminal, incurable illness, but her family is rich, so [[BrainUploading her brain is uploaded]] and she is given a library the size of a planet to keep her entertained. However, when something threatened the people in the library, they all tried to [[TeleporterAccident teleport away at once]] and wound up getting stored in the computer. That was causing problems for the child, so in a way the lifeboats were PoweredByAForsakenChild.

** Also an echo to all her earlier/later mutual exchanges of "Oh, I ''hate you''" - "No, you don't" with the Eleventh Doctor.

** She also said that she's dated [[/Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong androids]]. "They're rubbish."

----

* EurekaMoment: "Why would I give her my screwdriver?" And dear God, it is [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome GLORIOUS.]]

* InformedAttribute: CAL loved books more than anything. That must be why we never see her reading any, instead always drawing or watching TV.

*** Non-threatening? [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS2E2ToothAndClaw Oh, your father got all the brains, didn't he? (Being Rude again..) Good. I meant that one.]] [[ImprovisedWeapon You want weapons?]] [[ThrowTheBookAtThem We're in a library.]] [[WeaponOfChoice Books! Best weapons in the world.]] [[BrownNote This room's the greatest arsenal [[ImprobableWeaponUser we could have.]]

*** Non-threatening? [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS2E2ToothAndClaw Oh, your father got all the brains, didn't he? (Being Rude again..) Good. I meant that one. You want weapons? We're in a library. Books! Best weapons in the world. This room's the greatest arsenal we could have. ]]

** Non-threatening? [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS2E2ToothAndClaw Oh, your father got all the brains, didn't he? (Being Rude again..) Good. I meant that one. You want weapons? We're in a library. Books! Best weapons in the world. This room's the greatest arsenal we could have. ]]

->'''The Doctor:''' Oh, I'm always all right.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[MadnessMantra Hey! Who turned out the lights?]] [[BrokenRecord Hey! Who turned out the lights?]] [[RuleOfThree Hey! Who turned out the lights?]]]]