7X07 The Rings of Akhenaten (Grading/Discussion) (SPOILERS!)

[Nagisa Furukawa]

Oh, man, oh man.

Roommate and I were on the floor laughing, had to rewind the entire last Doctor/Clara scene, over them killing the star, going dark and then cutting to the modern day, as he and I simultaneously shouted, "THEY ALL DIED?!?!"

Enjoyment level: 8/10; actual worth: 3/10.

 

[Green Lantern]

Meh. It started off really well, was more like the RTD era than Moffat's. But then it turned into a musical for Christ's sake, and if you knew me well, you'd know there's one main thing I hate, and that's children singing. And I expected more from the mummy. I thought it would have been more like "The end of the world" in the Eccleston era. I thought that it'd be a space crew like in end of the world, then a mummy gets loose or something, and it goes round the base or whatever killing as much as it could. Instead, we got the mummy sitting in a box, then a sun with a face.

In general, a huge improvement over series 6, but this feels like a step backwards. However, I have more faith in next weeks episode.

A real shame, if not for the singing and there not really being any real evil again (we've not had any true evil in doctor who for a while now. Last episode didn't really have anyone evil in it, just a bunch of brainwashed people, the Xmas special Just had this old guy who had a bad life, the weeping angels are the closest thing to evil we've had his series in "the angels take Manhattan" or something, the power of three was just a load of black cubes, that stupid cowboy story was just a robot cyborg who was not evil at all, then dinosaurs on a spaceship was just, bizarre, and the daleks are not evil anymore. Face it, since Moffat's got in, they've lost their edge.), if not for those faults, I'd have probably given this episode a glistening review, but as it is, I voted two out of five.

 

[Green Lantern]

That's weird. I'm in the US, so I haven't seen it yet but when I saw the preview my first thought was "This looks like 'The Beast Below'."

Hmmm... and I liked "The Beast Below" from a character standpoint. Not sure I'll care for this one and it's distressing to know that patches of the dialogue are inaudible because of the mix. That's a constant complaint.

Oh this is nothing like the best bellow. It's like "the end of the world" if five year old opera fan wrote it.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Fabulous. My wife and I were both in tears, we both loved the association of souls and stories and memories... It was so much more literary and mythical than we expected.

Doubtless the majority will have hated it, but it was a favourite for us.

Yeah, I have to reserve critical opinion for more rewatches. This one is really in my wheelhouse, not just the subject matter, but I love alien world episodes and fantastic imagery. I can see objectively where it might have some issues but it hasn't gotten through my screens yet.

The moped prop deserves a few snickers though.

 

[Mister Fandango]

More clues about the bigger arc. The psychic "what if"ness of the leaf intermingling with all of the Doctor's memories, and the fact that the TARDIS doesn't like Clara, will be important things to remember.

 

[Green Lantern]

The tardis probably doesn't like Clara because she's "impossible" as the doctor says. Probably a paradox or something, and the tardis hates them.

 

[Konata Izumi]

Fabulous. My wife and I were both in tears, we both loved the association of souls and stories and memories... It was so much more literary and mythical than we expected.

Doubtless the majority will have hated it, but it was a favourite for us.

I was genuinely expecting it to be a real crowd pleaser with its very universal ideas. Plot had just a few problems near the end, I know, the star dying was unfathomably bizarre, but otherwise everything seemed to be better told than 97% of stories. Maybe it was a crowd pleaser with casuals?

I knew it has the director of TD,T,W,DT,,A,,DTY,A,WTDandtheYGFK aka dullness and the people seemed a bit far away in previews, so I got subtitles to make the picture prettier and to make hearing easier, when the characters' faces aren't 5 inches away from the screen like in the previous episode.

Relief that director knew what he was doing this time around... what is supposed to be wrong with Murray Gold's suspenseful atmosphere strings? Or the kinda scary massive *BAM*s or the alerting beats in some other episodes?

Oh and the glasses should have been sacrificed too for maximal catharsis.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

By chance, I happened to recently be looking at concept art from Nelvana's aborted Doctor Who cartoon. Nelvana's Doctor Who wants his glasses back!

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/File:Nelvana_Doctor_Who_6.jpg

 

[Avon]

^looks worryingly like max clifford cosplaying

the bit where the drs talking to the little girl, its all touching and heartfelt but the over the top 'ba-dada-dada'! trumpets and strings in the background absolutely ruined that moment.

they may as well bring back keff and his casiotone if thats the best murray gold can be arsed to do

 

[Konata Izumi]

the bit where the drs talking to the little girl, its all touching and heartfelt but the over the top 'ba-dada-dada'! trumpets and strings in the background absolutely ruined that moment.

they may as well bring back keff and his casiotone if thats the best murray gold can be arsed to do

Over-the-top's effective if the rest of the scene's just as over-the-top and effective too. Fitting tonally. Maybe it sounds too goofy? The scenes' meant to be a bit goofy too.

 

[Photoman15]

You have to forgive the singing. They have to have something for the Doctor Who at the Proms for this year.

 

[diankra]

Ok, pretty poor. Trying to work out why, but definitely in contention with Fear Her, Next Doctor, Planet of the Dead and the Rise of the Cybermen pair for weakest episode since the revival.
In part, I think it's that it was the modern day version of the bolting-together-Who-cliches stories approoach that produced Timelash and Warriors of the Deep. Then it was an old friend of the Doctor's who been mutated and become vengeful, or a magic chemical that could kill the monsters and gets mentioned in the first scene; now it's a child, some sort of appeal to the threat, and so on.
Not a Time and the Rani, Threshold, etc, level of bad, but also... only a few steps above TOWIE as a waste of airtime.

 

[Konata Izumi]

I think the little girl doctor scene as part of a larger sequence was meant to feel victorious, as the normally more fitting tender tone would have been too ill-fitting to the larger sequence, not necessarily if the pace was different, but it was what it was, and that part was done a bit differently to accommodate the pace, so no major tonal change, just a bit less suspense for that bit, this tone makes sense too, if just slightly worse than if it wasn't made to accommodate the sequence.

 

[Konata Izumi]

the bit where the drs talking to the little girl, its all touching and heartfelt but the over the top 'ba-dada-dada'! trumpets and strings in the background absolutely ruined that moment.

they may as well bring back keff and his casiotone if thats the best murray gold can be arsed to do

Over-the-top's effective if the rest of the scene's just as over-the-top and effective too. Fitting tonally. Maybe it sounds too goofy? The scenes' meant to be a bit goofy too.

It happened a bit suddenly so there was especially much air of weirdness, so purposefully making that bit of the music the most over-the-top, so the slight goofiness of the music's also the most there, helps avoid a wtf kind of tonal dissonance, that could emerge from the weirdly optimistic sudden storytime.

 

[Mister Fandango]

Or the door was locked.

Or someone just doesn't understand how writer's work.

 

[Nightowl1701]

More clues about the bigger arc. The psychic "what if"ness of the leaf intermingling with all of the Doctor's memories, and the fact that the TARDIS doesn't like Clara, will be important things to remember.

Another thing: The Doctor's sonic screwdriver. He was treating it this episode like Linus' security blanket or Indiana Jones' bullwhip (or Four's scarf, for that matter)! Again and again he acted like a dick when it came to holding on to it - making Clara give up her ring to get that Flash Gordon airbike instead of the sonic, for instance. For a while I figured 'Grandfather' was waking up, not because the little girl got the song wrong, but because the Doctor was the only one not giving up a gift (meaning the sonic)! At the end I was certain he was going to have to give it up to feed the parasite, but again Clara comes to his rescue with the leaf.

What was with that?? I mean come on, he's lost the sonic before and built a new one to replace it (or Sexy provides him with one). What was Moffat doing there?

 

[Venardhi]

They seem to have skipped the part where they normally put the plot. They had a good setup, and an okay climax. . . but no actual plot. The space moped just shoots them straight through from A to Z like throwing Frodo on the back of an Eagle at Rivendell and taking him straight to Mt. Doom.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

More clues about the bigger arc. The psychic "what if"ness of the leaf intermingling with all of the Doctor's memories, and the fact that the TARDIS doesn't like Clara, will be important things to remember.

Another thing: The Doctor's sonic screwdriver. He was treating it this episode like Linus' security blanket or Indiana Jones' bullwhip (or Four's scarf, for that matter)! Again and again he acted like a dick when it came to holding on to it - making Clara give up her ring to get that Flash Gordon airbike instead of the sonic, for instance. For a while I figured 'Grandfather' was waking up, not because the little girl got the song wrong, but because the Doctor was the only one not giving up a gift (meaning the sonic)! At the end I was certain he was going to have to give it up to feed the parasite, but again Clara comes to his rescue with the leaf.

What was with that?? I mean come on, he's lost the sonic before and built a new one to replace it (or Sexy provides him with one). What was Moffat doing there?

Here's a rationalization. The Doctor presumably could've offered his bowtie or the glasses (I'm assuming they're Amy's though the frames looked different to me). We also see him rooting through Clara's lifeline trying to figure her out along with the TARDIS rejection bit. So maybe he was seeing if she had something with sentimental value as a test to see if she was the real McCoy or maybe as a character test?

 

[Mr Light]

That was a very solid episode!

My only complaint is the mummy bit... if the girl knows everything how did she not know that the mummy was a fake-out? or that the god was the huge freakin' sun?

What episode was the Doctor referencing when he said he's seen a universe created at the whims of a madman? The only thing I can think of is "Castrovalva", something about the Master creating a new reality and trapping the Doctor in it, something like that?

 

[Tom]

Why didn't the Doctor just take the Tardis to the temple and get the girl when she got there instead of buying the Moped etc..?