The Rings of Akhaten - Season 7, Episode 7
The bookends of this episode push into The Companion Show featuring The Doctor territory, but the opening does set up the resolution rather well, so I can forgive it a bit. Overall the episode suffered from Go, go, go, Geronimo!, perhaps because we lost the entire pre-credits opening to Clara's background, which meant the build up and exposition in the markets were rushed as we barreled towards the epic confrontation that was more monologue than practical solution.
The concept of sentimental items as currency is interesting, and reminded me of the episode of Red Dwarf called Polymorph II - Emohawk, in which the GELFs are said to trade in emotions. Clearly this economy has developed due to the rituals to keep Grandfather asleep requiring lots of these objects, but the concept seemed a bit too ethereal for a science fiction show. The markets themselves were a nice touch, but much like the Mos Eisley Cantina in the original Star Wars, many of the denizens seemed rushed or poorly realised.
We have a nice use of Clara outside of the bookends using her mad child-rearing skills to calm a scared little girl called Merry. Clara doesn't seem to be falling for the Hunka hunka burning Doc, and I can't recall any In-Who-Endos, so that's a positive. The relationship between Doctor and Companion seems to be simply platonic for the time being (despite the kiss with Victorian Clara in The Snowmen).
Unfortunately the creatures that come for Merry, the Vigil, are grossly underutilised. They are quite reminiscent of the Spoonheads from The Bells of Saint John in that they turn up, act a bit creepy and don't really pose a threat. And then they just disappear. Then we have the mummy, which is thrown out there as a red herring appearing just to vaguely menace the characters without actually posing a real threat before simply being tossed aside from the narrative.
Grandfather itself was very poor. It looked like they couldn't be bothered to animate both sides of its face, so just mirrored it. And it was simply awful. CG is good and all, but I get the feeling a guy with some minor prosthetics and a bunch of light filters would have looked way better. Sometimes the old ways are best.
We had some significant Deus Ex Screwdriver in this episode. They seemed to be making a joke about it with The Doctor not wanting to give it up because "it's useful sometimes". That said, we end up in a situation where The Doctor can't open a door because its a special kind of... oh wait actually he can open it. What was with that? Then of course he uses it to hold off the Vigil just as they are looking like they could actually pose a threat. I can't work out whether it was better that it wasn't the Screwdriver that destroyed them or worse because they were never really defeated.
The ending was overly dramatic and slightly nonsensical. What was Grandfather eating from The Doctor? Was it his emotions? His memories? Either way it seemed to have consumed quite a bit of whatever it was, and yet The Doctor remained unchanged. Where was this sacrifice we heard all about? All up the ending felt a bit too "magical" which was slightly jarring.
I reckon a bit more science to that fiction would have been good.
3/10
Can we fix it?
There's a few things we need to do to get a decent story out of this, and most of them relate to exposition. We need to know more about how this sentimentality economy works, and more about the structure of the religion. Both are clearly relating to history, with the Queen of Years having to learn all the stories and songs and an item's provenance being of more worth than it's materials. The connection here is subtle, but it seems to imply that they are trying fatten the Queen up with history to make her a tasty morsel in case her sacrifice is required. I don't think this was made clear enough through all the singing and space bikes.
I would have liked to see something used in the markets to weigh the sentimentality of an item. A savvy space merchant isn't going to take your word on being attached to something and I can't believe that all of the species trading in the market have some kind of psychic ability to determine the value.
Some more interaction with other members of the religion would also have been good. We had a brief moment with the Chorister, but apart from singing, we get nothing. A bit of exposition from him, or someone else explaining the ultimate purpose of the Queen of Years would have helped keep things straight. They could even bee kind about it, telling her she's doing a great thing and other placations.
I'd have dropped either the mummy or Grandfather, as along with the Vigil there are too many monsters here. If the mummy is to be a red herring, it shouldn't come to life. We should be made to feel like it might right up to the point it's revealed the planet is the enemy. There's plenty of reasons a mummy would be interred in the holiest place of a religion.
The singing needed to be cut back too. It was quite out of place, and really only served to be a dramatic soundtrack to The Doctor's monologue at the end. The monologue also needed to go. It was way too much for anything other than a pre-regeneration season finale.
So ideally I'd have the episode run the same up until we get to the markets, where we get more of that explanation of the economy, perhaps with The Doctor showing the link between this form of trade and the big ceremony. Maybe we even have a member of the priesthood appear to tell them about it. Tourists clearly aren't unusual and the priests would be keen to get followers or at least participants. We learn from the priest that the ceremony is to commemorate their God defeating and imprisoning an evil and destructive enemy (Grandfather is a silly name, so something better should be used).
While the priest is putting the hard sell on The Doctor, Clara notices Merry and follows her. This gives a decent reason for The Doctor to disappear. The scenes with Clara, Merry and the Vigil were fine and would stay as is, with the addition of an explanation from Merry that the Vigil were her bodyguards. When Merry returns, it is to the Vigil, not to priests.
When we get to the ceremony, The Doctor reiterates the offering of psychically charged items and wonders where the pure psychic energy is going. We can keep the singing if they really want, if only to allow us to cut between Merry and the Chorister to imply the mummy is the enemy.
In the pyramid other priests are ritually monitoring archaic machines. One of them comments that the energy levels are low, and the offerings may not be enough. The high-priest sadly orders the Vigil to collect Merry in order to make up the difference.
The chase would play out the same except it is the Vigil who take Merry from the ceremony, rather than a beam of light.
While The Doctor and Clara are running off to get the space bike (I'll let them keep that one) the priests are explaining to Merry that her sacrifice is needed to stop the enemy ravaging the seven systems (let's keep it local for a change). The Doctor and Clara burst in (because the Sonic Screwdriver has no problems with the door) and The Doctor demands to know why they need to sacrifice her.
The priest reveals that the pyramid is a giant psychic syphon that powers an energy shield generator designed to keep the enemy imprisoned. Clara taps on the glass case with the mummy saying it looks like regular glass to her. The Doctor looks out of the window at the now raging planet and tells her that's not the enemy.
The priest goes on to say that the mummy is the creature who first imprisoned the enemy, now risen as a god for his sacrifice to power the shield generator. The Doctor refuses to let Merry die, offering himself in her place. Clara points out that the device killed the mummy, but The Doctor explains that it runs on history, and he's got a lot of history.
Clara takes Merry back on the bike as the pyramid begins syphoning The Doctor's energy. The end plays out in a similar way except without the epic monologue. When Clara returns with her leaf, weakly and tearfully trying to save The Doctor, her words about the potential futures missed by her mother spark The Doctor, who manages to rewire the pyramid to work on potentiality rather than history, possibly by reversing the polarity of the neutron flow. This allows them to power prison forever using just Clara's leaf.
Similar wrap up with some resolution on what the priesthood will do moving forward. Clara's epilogue could remain unchanged.
I know a lot of people didn't like this episode, so how'd I go at fixing it?
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