It struck me as odd that the Doctor (and by the extension, the writers) would go out of their way to point out that the solar flare hitting the Earth in Forest of the Night is just "like the one that destroyed the Bank of Karabraxos", rather than just hoping no-one would notice that they used the same plot device twice...

It further struck me as odd that the Earth's future (that they'd already seen) could be destroyed by what was, ostensibly, a natural phenomenon. Given that there was no obvious incursion - no time travellers, no aliens appearing where they shouldn't, no intervention from our heroes that made things worse, and the solution was to do nothing, how could this have happened? (I'm willing to accept artistic license!)

The final piece was Missy's sarcastic final statement, "Now, that was surprising. And I love surprises." as she watched it happen. Why was she happy in previous episodes but not with this one?

Forgive me if this has been posited before, but could Missy be the one with the ability to invoke the solar flares? Whether to wipe out the Doctor, or Clara, or humanity, or provoke a reaction from them, test their abilities? Was this an unexpected result for her, because she didn't anticipate the trees?

There are a couple of other jigsaw pieces that might fit into this - the Doctor makes a point of saying how hard it would be for the mysterious woman in the shop to get the Tardis phone number, in the very same episode that the Doctor gives it away to Karabraxos. And we know Missy can watch their actions. Did Missy set up the solar storm situation in order to get the number to give to Clara?

There's so many things that appear, from dialogue, to be tenuously related, but seem unlikely when actually written down...

I thought this would be a thread asking why the Fireflies and the Trees don't do the same thing in the year 3000 (or thereabouts) when Humanity and the Silurians have to abandon Earth due to Solar Flare activity (See The Ark in Space, The Beast Below)


I suppose it may just be that by that point in time Humanity has the ability to save itself by building spaceships and Arks so the Fireflies don't need to interfere.

A more cynical view would be that by then Humans have destroyed most of the Forests of the world and killed off the Fireflies in the process.




I may be mistaken but my initial interpretation of Missys surprise was that she was surprised about Clara being willing to let the Human race be wiped out.

I thought it was interesting that the solar storm looked like the Nethersphere logo / CyberEye. Same with GUS.

It could be rationalised as the trees being destroyed, or that the humans didn't know about the safety net and had to make their own plans, not knowing whether they'd be safe, or perhaps just that even the trees couldn't withstand an extended barrage of flares.


It might be, I don't think it's clear either way - the scene flashed past and I haven't rewatched, but I think she was watching the effect of the flare, wasn't she?

Yes I also thought Missy was expressing surprise at Clara, rather than the whole solar flare situation & resolution, but I agree, it's not terribly clear (deliberately so I suspect...)

Missy seems to be able to watch Clara whenever she wants - interestingly she's almost like us, the viewers, watching the action on a screen and commenting on it. Until now you could argue that she might not actually interact directly with Clara or the Doctor, but we've probably all seen the photos released from Dark Water where she's standing side by side with the Doctor on the streets of London, so, frankly, I've no idea what's going on!

Just as long as she's not the bloody Rani... please... anything but that.