Doctor Who 7.8 "The Rings of Akhaten" Review

This time the Doctor (Matt Smith) is on the hunt for Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman) and who she really is.  He 'stalks' a man, Dave (Michael Dixon) who walks on the road and is accosted, well he was, by a leaf falling and sticking onto his face, the same leaf Clara had in her book last ep.  He walks onto the road and a woman, Ellie (Nicola Sian) saves him.  Thus love at first sight.  He saved the leaf cos they were destined to meet and before you know it they have a baby girl, Clara.  The Doctor reading a Beano Summer Special comic this time round, from 1981.  The book has Clara's ages in it as we saw last episode and then finally he follows them to the cemetery where they have buried her mother.

Clara waits for him as he promised to return the next day and didn't she remind you of Amy sitting there all packed and ready.  She doesn't know where to go and he takes her to somewhere 'awesome.'  The Rings of Akhaten.  It's a magnificent solar system where a ritual of sacrifice is about to take place, a "Festival of Offerings".  Interacting with the aliens she comes across many species.  Doesn't like the blue fruit and to hire a moped,  (last time it was a quad bike, anti-grav,) you have to give them something of sentimental value.  The only thing he has is his trusty screwdriver.  He also tells her he came here with his granddaughter, who was Susan, as we remember from William Hartwell's time.

He disappears leaving her alone and she sees some men in red robes searching for a girl.  The girl then appears, she's Merry, Queen of Years (Emilia Jones) and they run to the TARDIS but Clara can't get in as he hasn't given her a key.  Merry hides behind the TARDIS she's afraid she'll get the song wrong.  She is a vessel of her peoples' history.  No wonder she was the sacrifice since she was to feed the god with souls, as the Doctor explains, souls contain thoughts/memories not actions.  The men appear to get her and are known as The Vigil.  Clara reassures her she won't get the song wrong and recalls her mother.  First telling her she'll always be there for her and she says was afraid at first when she got lost once, but was found by her mother.

Merry is taken by the men into the 'arena' and the Doctor arrives, blue fruit in hand, whisking Clara off to the very same singing.  After a few lines, the god, also known as 'grandfather' is shown to awaken.  When the singing is done Merry is carried away to the distant pyramid.  Thus Clara wants the Doctor to help and thinks he's running away.  He tells her, "we never run away."  The only way to get to Merry is by the moped and Clara needs to pay Dor'een (Karl Greenwood) with something of sentimental value.  She gives her mother's ring to her.  He hasn't got anything even though he's been around for a thousand years, barring his screwdriver, as said.

There's no way in to the pyramid but hearing Merry scream makes them more desperate.  Doctor: "..a frequency modulated acoustic lock.  the key changes ten million zillion squillion times a second."
Clara: "Can you open it?"
Doctor; "Technically no, in reality no, but let's give it a stab." He finally uses the Sonic, as "it comes in handy" to hold the door open but it's a heavy door.  Clara enters to get Merry cos she won't leave, thinking she sang wrong.  Then holds Clara in a purple mist whilst the 'god' awakens.  The Doctor lets the door close and as the so called god wakens, Merry won't let Clara go since she is afraid and the Doctor convinces her he'll tell her a story and they will leave here, he promises to help her.  Letting Clara down, the Vigil appear and the Doctor manages to hold them off with his Sonic long enough for Clara to ask Merry if there's another way out and for the Doctor to get out too.

Returning to the planet they find that the so-called monster in the glass cage wasn't the 'god' or grandfather, but rather the god's clock (grandfather clock?) signalling the awakening, the god is a parasite in the form of a huge sun, thriving on memories.  The Doctor stays and tells the god to take his memories, he has plenty, such as the being Last Time Lord, the Time War, being at humanities end, the future etc.  The silhouette of he Doctor against the orange backdrop of the parasite god looked amazing, like it was him alone with this gigantic enemy.  Finally it's Clara who saves the day with her book of 101 Places to See and her leaf.  She sacrifices her leaf and all the memories it has until the parasite is finally consumed by the memories and disintegrates.  The Doctor saying there's more memories in the future.

Clara returns home, gets her ring back as a thank you from all the people she saved.  Then recalls she saw him at the cemetery.  Lots of Star Wars references or similarities with the aliens, which I won't mention, it'll get too long, but as I said in last week's review, this was more The Beast Below since Clara encounters aliens for her first trip out in the TARDIS, just as Amy did. But why did she say the TARDIS doesn't like her?

This was Doctor Who's musical episode.  There was the 2010 Christmas Special one a few years back with Katherine Jenkins, A Christmas Carol.  You could say aside from this being an episode where we learn more about Clara's background, the memorable performance of the Doctor as he once again mentions everything he's been through and survived, he also talks about secrets, that can never be shared and all the rest, that there wasn't much going on in terms of anything we hadn't seen before.  Aside from Clara being the companion the Doctor needs and that she really excels as one.

Another episode where the Doctor meets Clara as a little girl, just as he did Amy but doesn't talk to her this time, only secretly watches her.

http://mila255h.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/matt-smith.html