195b – "Forest of the Dead" | |||
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Doctor Who episode | |||
![]() The Doctor lies in sadness after River Song's sacrifice, a moment which IGN stated "rivals any of the great emotional beats in this series" noting their plentifulness.[1] | |||
Cast | |||
Others
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Production | |||
Directed by | Euros Lyn | ||
Written by | Steven Moffat | ||
Script editor | Helen Raynor | ||
Produced by | Phil Collinson | ||
Executive producer(s) | Russell T Davies Julie Gardner | ||
Music by | Murray Gold | ||
Production code | 4.10 | ||
Series | Series 4 | ||
Running time | 2nd of 2-part story, 45 minutes | ||
First broadcast | 7 June 2008 | ||
Chronology | |||
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"Forest of the Dead" is the ninth episode of the fourth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast by BBC One on 7 June 2008.[2] It is the second of a two-part story; the first part, "Silence in the Library", aired on 31 May.
In the episode, the time-travelling temp Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) is trapped inside a virtual reality in a planet-sized library's hard drive in the 51st century and has false memories implanted of a married life. At the same time, another time traveller, the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant), seeks to rescue Donna, and thousands of other humans saved inside the library hard drive while being pursued by the microscopic swarm called Vashta Nerada. The episode also features the death of River Song (Alex Kingston), an archaeologist who has a close relationship with the Doctor, but because of the non-linearity of this partnership, the Doctor in the episode has only just met River.