Doctor Who Recap: “The Rings of Akhaten”

by Sarabeth Pollock:

Doctor Who Recap: “The Rings of Akhaten”
Original Air Date (BBC/BBC America): Sunday April 6, 2013
Season 7 Episode 7

As the second half of Doctor Who Series 7 continues, I have to admit that I love where it’s going.  And it’s always fun to get to know the newest Companion.  Is it me, or is Clara refreshing addition to the show?  Clara is awesome.  She’s plucky and curious and bold.  Tonight we get to see why the leaf in her book “101 Places to See” is page one of her story.

A bloke is walking down the street in a wind storm.  The Doctor is watching him.  The wind catches a leaf and it sticks to his face as he’s crossing the street.  A woman saves him right before he gets his by a car.  “Oh my stars!” she exclaims.  It’s love at first sight.  We see the pair go out on dates, and we see that the man has kept the leaf because it was the leaf that brought them together.  If that particular gust hadn’t let loose that one leaf, it may never have been caught in the storm and they never would have met.  Was it fate or some cosmic coincidence?  Well, it might be a little bit of both.  He seems to think it’s “the most important leaf in human history.”  It turns out that this nice couple is Clara’s parents.  We see them with Baby Clara and we see Ellie reading “101 Places to See” to Clara.  Later, the family is at a playground and their soccer ball hits a man in the head.  This isn’t any ordinary man, mind you.  It’s the Doctor, who has journeyed back in time to learn more about the mysterious Clara Oswald.  He leans down and greets his future Companion, and though she’s very young, she doesn’t shy away from him.

The next time we see Clara, she’s standing at her mother’s grave.  She’s flipping through “101 Places to See” and inside the front cover we can see that the book once belonged to her mother.  The Doctor is there as well, watching from afar as Clara mourns her mother.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor scans one of the readings.  Clara’s picture is on the screen, but it’s Victorian Clara.  She’s not possible, he says.  I can’t wait to find out what that means.

Back in the present, Clara sits on the staircase waiting for the Doctor to return.  It must be close to seven, because soon the sounds of the TARDIS can be heard outside.  Soon the doorbell rings.  She rushes to the door with an enormous grin.

Clara spends her first few moments in the TARDIS pondering the fact that they’re moving through time and space.  It’s not quite like time and space are the same consistency as strawberry jam, but the concept works.  The Doctor asks where she’d like to go.  Suddenly, faced with the enormity of moving through the past and present, Clara is uncertain.  Her mind goes blank the way it does when someone asks your favorite book.  After a lot of consideration, she decides she wants to go somewhere “awesome.”

The Doctor leads her out of the TARDIS with her eyes closed.  When she opens them, she beholds a giant planet that is circles by tons of rocks.  Soon, at just the right moment, the great Pyramid of Akhaten becomes visible.  The Rings of Akhaten are made up of seven planets that share the same sun.  They believe that the sun was the foundation of life in the universe.  Clara asks if it’s true, to which the Doctor replies that it’s what they believe.  Ever the adventurous spirit, Clara asks to get closer.

The TARDIS lands on one of the planets.  They’re inside some kind of marketplace that resembles the Mos Eisley Cantina on Tattooine (thanks go to my future brother-in-law for that bit of trivia).  Aliens of all kinds meander throughout, and Clara’s eyes are wide with wonder.  The Doctor points out several of the alien races, and he tells Clara that he forgot how much he liked it there.  They should go more often.  She asks if he’s been before, and he replies that he went there a long time ago with his granddaughter…but he dashes away before she can get more details from him.  They enjoy some exotic fruit while the Doctor explains that everyone has gathered for the Festival of Offerings, a celebration that takes place every thousand years when the rings align (kind of like Pancake Tuesday).

A barking alien offers them a deal on a rocket scooter, and that’s when the Doctor tells Clara that the currency used is anything that has sentimental value.  She teases that he must have something of value given that he’s a thousand years old.  And then he disappears, leaving Clara on her own.

As Clara wanders, she runs into a little girl dressed in a red gown and robes.  She looks frightened, but she runs off before Clara can find out who she is.  Two men with similar robes approach and ask if she has seen “her,” the “Queen of Years.”  When Clara doesn’t respond, they walk away, but now Clara’s curiosity has been piqued.  She goes into a dark storage area and encounters the girl once again.  The girl doesn’t believe that Clara has no idea who she is, but Clara insists that she’s never been anywhere like this before.  She just saw a little girl who was frightened and wanted to help.  Clara’s warm demeanor with children (a possible holdover from her Victorian nanny days and present day au pair job, perhaps) calms the little girl, who wants to know if Clara will help her.  That’s why she’s still there, Clara points out.  Unbeknownst to them, a trio of nasty-looking aliens materialize nearby.  “Mary, where are you,” they whisper.  It’s a very menacing sound.  Soon Clara and Mary hear them, so Clara decides that the safest place to hide is the TARDIS.  The only problem is that she doesn’t have a key.  And she doesn’t think the TARDIS likes her.

Mary hides behind the blue police box and explains to Clara that she’s the Queen of Years and she’s hiding because she’s afraid of getting the song wrong.  She has been raised to know every legend, story, poem, and song of their people, and today she has to sing a song in front of everyone.  She’s scared.  Clara tells her that she got lost once, but she remembered that her mother once told her that no matter what, she’d “always come and find .  Always.”  Clara asks why she’d be so worried about getting the song wrong, and Mary explains that she doesn’t want to make Grandfather angry.  Clara reassures her that she will get the song right, so Mary goes out to the attendants looking for her.  They place flowers around her neck and lead her away.

Meanwhile, at the Pyramid, two monks switch places in front of an altar.  They are singing.

Mary is led into an arena that opens to the Pyramid across the rings.  The giant sun is in the background.  After looking back at Clara and the Doctor in the audience, Mary begins to sing.  Soon, the door of the pyramid opens and the monk there rises to his feet and starts singing.  The people in the audience offer up mementos as offerings to the god, and they start singing as well.  The Doctor explains that the song has been sung for thousands of years to pacify the god.  Suddenly, the song breaks off and a beam of light shoots from the pyramid, capturing Mary and dragging her toward the temple.

As they rush back inside the marketplace, Clara demands to know why they’re walking away when Clara was the one who convinced her to sing.  The Doctor tells Clara that the one thing she needs to know about traveling with him is that they never walk away.  They go to Dory the barking alien and broker a deal for the rocket scooter.  The only thing of value that Clara can come up with is her mother’s ring.

Soon they’re flying through space toward the pyramid.  When they arrive, the sonic screwdriver alerts them to the fact that they door is modulated by sound.  As they try to open it, Mary is trapped inside with the monk who keeps singing for the god not to wake from slumber.  She’s upset because she doesn’t know what to do.  Up on the altar, a horrible looking god sleeps in a chair that is enclosed in a glass box.

Eventually, the Doctor figures out how to open the door.  Clara rushes in while he holds it open.  Mary, though frightened, is more upset that they put themselves at risk.  The old god in the chair is stirring, and soon he uses some kind of psychic power to pin Clara to his glass enclosure.  Mary explains that he’s not there to eat them; rather he eats peoples’ souls.  Only he doesn’t want Clara’s soul.  He wants Mary.  The Doctor can’t hold the door open any longer so he rolls inside, trapping all of them.

The Doctor approaches the monk who is still on his knees, singing to the god to remain asleep.  The god is waking up anyway, the Doctor tells him.  The monk rises to his feet and states his name and the fact that the song ended with him, then he uses some kind of teleporter on his wrist to escape.  The Doctor whips out his sonic and points it at the figure in the box, who springs to life and roars uncontrollably.  Poor Clara is stuck to the box and can’t see what’s going on inside.  The Doctor tells Mary that she didn’t cause the god to wake up.  He was set to wake up already.  And he won’t stop even if he devours her stories.  Clara corrects him and points out that the god feeds on souls, not stories, but the Doctor reminds her that they’re the same thing.  And he says Mary should be scared because she needs to understand what she’s sacrificing herself for.

In a tender moment, the Doctor tells Mary the story of how the universe was created, and how all of the particles came together over time and created planets and ships and “Shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings” (Thanks, Lewis Carroll)…. and her.  She’s unique, and being unique she shouldn’t be wasted.  However, once the decision not to be an offering to the god has been made, so commences “the vigil.”  The nasty trio of aliens appear and take Mary into their custody.  The fling the Doctor and Clara across the room like rag dolls, but once Clara recovers, she gives the sonic back to the Doctor and he is able to distract them so that Mary can return to Clara.

While the Doctor holds the trio in a détente, Clara asks Mary if there is another way out.  As it turns out, there is a secret tale about a secret doorway.  Clara tells her to sing it, and sure enough a new door opens.  The Doctor tells them to run, and once they’re outside the temple the Doctor joins them.  At that moment the god breaks open the glass enclosure and the trio disappears.  A bright light surrounds the god and shoots a beam into the sun.  That’s when the Doctor realizes that he made a bit of an error.  The alien in the box isn’t the god, who is also known as “Grandfather,” rather he was just Grandfather’s alarm clock.  The sun itself is Grandfather.  It even has a mean looking pumpkin face.

The Doctor tells Clara that she needs to get Mary out of there, that her safety is the number one priority.  Mary frantically tells the Doctor that he promised everything would be all right, but if Grandfather isn’t sated he will only continue to wreak havoc on other places in the universe until he’s full.  The Doctor tells them to take the rocket scooter to safety.  Straightening his bow tie, he says he’ll walk.

Once Clara and Mary are safe, Mary says she wants to help.  She starts singing, and across the asteroid belt the Doctor hears her song and smiles as the sun’s face turns into a scowl.  Inspiration hits and the Doctor decides to tell him a story.  Mary continues to sing, and the audience takes up the song with her.  The Doctor tells Grandfather that these people are singing to him after all the years of being afraid of him.  Now he’s not a god, he’s a parasite that feeds on their memories of joy and sorrow.  He offers his story and his memories…but cautions that he’s lived a long life.  Grandfather had better have a big appetite.  The Doctor has seen the Time War, the birth of the universe and the death of the universe, and he has seen things Grandfather has never seen, lost things he couldn’t understand, and knows secrets that should never be shared.  “Take it all, baby!” he yells.  Grandfather pulls away, leaving the Doctor sagging.

Mary smiles triumphantly as Clara’s smile turns to shock at the sight of the Doctor.  She recalls her mother’s words and the Doctor’s proclamation that they never walk away.  She flies back to the pyramid and offers her leaf, “the most important leaf in human history,” to Grandfather.  It’s full of stories, and days that should have been that never were, all of which were passed on to her.  It’s a past as well as a future that never happened.  They’re her mother’s memories.  Grandfather can’t deal with the vastness of the things that never were.  “Infinity is too much, even for your appetite,” the Doctor says.  They have saved the day.

Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor returns Clara to her house.  She opens the door and looks out, telling him that things look different.  No, it’s the same day, he tells her.  “Hole in one.”  And then it hits her that he was there at the graveyard the day her mother died.  He tells her that he was watching to “make sure”, and that she reminded him of someone who died.  Clara tells him that she has no problem traveling with him, but she isn’t the person from his past who died.  She won’t compete with a ghost.  He tells her that she alone saved the day, and as a token of gratitude the people of Akhaten wanted her to have her mother’s ring back.  She kisses it lovingly and gives him a smile before walking out of the TARDIS.

Another awesome episode.  Some observations.  At the end when the Doctor and Clara are watching the blazing light of the old god, was anyone else reminded of the Ninth Doctor and Rose in “The End of the World”?  In my opinion, while the Eleventh Doctor had an almost avuncular relationship with Amy Pond, the underlying tension between the Doctor and Clara is reminiscent of the relationship between Rose and the Ninth and Tenth Doctors.  At some point, the Doctor will have to explain that he’s married…won’t he?

It also seems as though this half of the series is concentrating on having one-off “adventure for the sake of adventure” episodes as opposed to overarching story arcs that take an entire season to unfold.  Granted, there is something mysterious about Clara, and this will need to be explored, but right now we get to enjoy watching her discover the joy of traveling with the Doctor in the TARDIS.

Sarabeth Pollock is a contributor for DarkMedia. She covers True Blood, Doctor Who, Fringe and American Horror Story, as well as the True Blood comics and whatever movies and books happen to catch her fancy.  She’s an avid writer, reader, and pop culture fan, with interest in everything from True Blood to Doctor Who to Anne Rice to Deborah Harkness.  Follow her on Twitter at @SarabethPollock and check out her blog at http://sarabethpollock.wordpress.com