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"CLARA OSWALD AND THE ENCHANTED FOREST – MEMORY, MAGIC, AND MISCHIEF"

Jasbinder Bilan’s Clara Oswald and the Enchanted Forest sets out to explore the teenage years of one of Doctor Who’s most complex companions—but ends up feeling more like a brief diversion than a meaningful origin story. While it captures the essence of young Clara’s spirited defiance, it struggles to justify the surreal adventure at its core.

A HALLOWEEN DETOUR INTO THE UNKNOWN

Clara, still a teenager and already showing signs of the boldness that would one day define her TARDIS journeys, defies her mother’s instructions and heads off to a Halloween party with a friend. But when a detour into the woods takes her to a strange, otherworldly version of the forest, her friend is swiftly written out of the narrative and never seen again—an odd choice that drains the early setup of any emotional weight.

This enchanted forest is home to a white wolf and a lion—mysterious symbols, perhaps, but without context or explanation, they serve more as vague atmosphere than meaningful metaphor. The setting is brimming with potential, but Bilan doesn’t take the time to explore it, leaving the reader with more questions than answers.

A DOCTOR IN SEARCH OF HIS CLARA

Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor makes a brief but welcome appearance, continuing his ongoing search for “the right” Clara—a neat tie-in to his arc in Series 7. He’s written very accurately, full of whimsical energy and cryptic compassion, and the scene in which he meets this “wrong” Clara is a highlight of the story. It feels like a genuine Eleventh Doctor moment, full of curious sadness and fleeting connection.

But this encounter is fleeting and mostly decorative, like the rest of the sideways reality. It’s all very dreamlike—but without enough clarity or purpose to make it emotionally resonant. The story seems unsure of what it wants the forest or the creatures within it to symbolise, and without a deeper metaphor or narrative payoff, it becomes style over substance.

YET ANOTHER MEMORY WIPE

And then, as if following a rulebook for Origin Stories, everything is neatly reset. A memory wipe sweeps away the events of the story, leaving Clara with only a faint trace of her forest adventure. It’s a trope that’s rapidly becoming tired across this collection, and here it feels especially unsatisfying, erasing what little emotional impact the story might have had.

📝THE BOTTOM LINE:

Clara Oswald and the Enchanted Forest is a curious, meandering little tale with a few bright spots—chiefly in its depiction of Clara’s youthful spark and a pitch-perfect cameo by the Eleventh Doctor. But its central mystery is too vague, its stakes too low, and its resolution too convenient. In the end, like the forest itself, the story vanishes into mist.

5/10