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

[Mister Fandango]

I really don't know. To be honest, I don't know how or why people put so much emphasis on background music during a show. Sure, really, really bad music can slap you across the face if it's truly jarring, but the vast majority of the time it's exactly that; background music. I rarely even notice it because I'm usually paying attention to the story and what's going on, not desperately looking for any excuse to hate a show I keep trying to convince myself I like.

I've also noticed that the people who bitch about background music also tend to be the same people who miss all the blatantly obvious things that are going on, asking questions that were addressed by the episode itself. Last week it was about where the Doctor got his "magic motorbike," for example. So, yeah, I feel pretty confident about this mini-rant.

 

[RoJoHen]

I much prefer Clara to the Ponds. I was willing them to leave.

I tire of all the domestics. I don't care where they live, if they're dating, who their parents are or any of that nonsense.

Just pick up a companion and go and have some wacky adventures. I watch Doctor Who as an escape from real life so stop reminding me of it.

Which is funny to me, because while I definitely enjoy the whacky adventures, I watch Doctor Who for the people. The main reason I can forgive some of the nonsensical storytelling of Moffat's Silence/River/whatever arc is because I was so very moved by how those events affected the characters on an emotional level.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Oh and I really liked the "we don't walk away" bit.

I knew there was something I forgot to mention in my post. I loved that part. Maybe The First Doctor would have, but not anymore. This has become core for The doctor.

 

[RoJoHen]

Oh and I really liked the "we don't walk away" bit.

I knew there was something I forgot to mention in my post. I loved that part. Maybe The First Doctor would have, but not anymore. This has become core for The doctor.

I really enjoyed that as well, along with his follow up that they only run to protect something they care about.

All that running he does isn't for him. It's to get his friends out of harm's way.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

BTW, is the Doctor supposed to still be laying low?

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

The sonic's ability to battle the closing door and the 3 guards was a bit to convenient, but consistent in this case.

Technology in this society was sound based... hence all the singing.

So it makes sense that a sonic screwdriver was the ultimate tool here.

 

[davejames]

Overall I thought it was pretty charming and fun (especially the opening and seeing Clara's initial reaction to the world of Akhaten), but I agree all the stuff with the "Old God" on the asteroid didn't work as well, and felt decidedly cheap compared to the scope of the rest of the episode.

I mean, seriously, if this god can't break out of a glass prison how terrifying can he be? Although I will say the three enforcer-type dudes were a really cool and creepy design. It's too bad the writer didn't ditch the god stuff and have THOSE guys chasing the Doctor and Clara around for the whole episode.

 

[jbny67]

On the nitpick side of things, what were the Doctor and Clara breathing while flying on the hoverbike?

It was never mentioned in the episode, but I remember reading a plot synopsis, before it aired, that said the planet's rings had an atmosphere.

 

[Cutter John]

A spacegoing jetbike would be pretty damn useless without a force bubble of some sort to keep the air in.

 

[davejames]

Right now, unfortunately, Clara is just a nice girl. It's not a bad thing, but it's a little boring. I'm excited to see how she develops over the rest of the season. Her future Dalek self and her Victorian self had way more personality than her modern-day self, but it's possible that that's part of her mystery.

Yeah to me the other Clara's seemed much more vibrant and exciting as well, but I have to admit with this episode I'm slowly starting to warm to the new version.

There's something slightly mysterious and inscrutable about the way Coleman is playing her that I find kinda interesting. And I like that she actually regards the Doctor with a bit of healthy suspicion, and isn't immediately enchanted like most other companions.

 

[Captain_Amasov]

Oh dear.

Not much of this made sense, and even the bits that made sense didn't particulary interest.

Smith acted his socks off at the end to try and save it, but I'm not sure how the monster-thats-actually-a-sun was defeated by a leaf.

So the seven planets now have no sun?

I love Doctor Who but this was right down there with the worst.

I'm not quite remembering it all, so here goes:

The sun god creature was a parasitic lifeform that every thousand years wakes up and needs feeding with psychic energy. In particular that generated by negative emotions and memories; the aliens use a girl and implant all of the stories of their culture, which I then presume causes the appropriate mental conditions required to make this tasty sacrifice work, and offer her up to it so that their god will be sent back to sleep.

However thanks to his interference in this process, the Doctor himself instead offered it his thousand or so years of pent up negative psychic energy to feed on, and tried to gorge it to sleep again, if not, to death. The Doctor almost got it all the way there, but it needed just an extra push past the post, which Clara provided by offering up her family's life story, embodied by the leaf that allowed her parents to first meet.

I've probably got some of this horribly wrong.

No, you got it mostly right but left out a part: The reason why the leaf was so important it is because the leaf represents an infinite amount of potential stories and memories that could have happened.

Oh right, that's one damn impressive leaf. Maybe the Doctor should've had that as his companion this time round.

 

[Captain_Amasov]

I like Martha, or at least the idea of her. I just didn't like the character assassination that RTD performed on her throughout series 3.

 

[tomalak301]

I much prefer Clara to the Ponds. I was willing them to leave.

No one likes companions once they're gone, or so it seems.

That might be the most amazing part of Fandom. I do remember how popular Rose was, yet now it feels like revisionist history. Same thing is happening with the Ponds now.

 

[Aldo]

It is kind of annoying that all the companions nowadays have to have something spectacular happen to them for them to leave the Doctor. Whatever happened to the old days where they just got tired of it and wanted a change? Rose is off in another dimension, Martha joined Torchwood, Donna got her memory wiped clean and the Ponds got trapped in the past forced to live out their live (happily though).

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

What was the idea of her beyond hot chick who fancies the Doctor?

Are you really asking? Martha's story was about quite explicitly about unrequited love.

 

[Captain_Amasov]

I like Martha, or at least the idea of her.

What was the idea of her beyond hot chick who fancies the Doctor?

Admittedly I suppose 'potential' would have been a more fitting word. However what I saw in her first episode was an independant, smart medical student who was very much in control of her life and feelings. Who then got turned, throughout the run, into the exact character you just described.

I seem to remember RTD mentioning during one of the podcasts, that were released after the episodes aired, that Phil Collinson wasn't a fan of what he did to Martha, mostly the 'unrequited love' angle, that became the whole focus of her relationship with the Doctor.

 

[davejames]

I like Martha, or at least the idea of her. I just didn't like the character assassination that RTD performed on her throughout series 3.

I thought it was pretty clear from the start that Martha had the hots for him, so I never saw any inconsistency there. And while I agree it would have been better if they had never gone there in the first place, I thought Freema herself still had more than enough personality and charm to make up for it.

It was only later, when they tried to make her some kind of badass UNIT agent, that I thought the character felt really off.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

I find that puzzling. Surely unrequited love is a theme we can all sympathize with to some extant? What's the problem with that?

 

[Aldo]

Yeah I didn't care for her joining UNIT at all. I would have rather she just turned out to be a highly skilled Doctor who'm The Doctor turns to occasionally for help after she left.

 

[Worf2DS9]

I liked the episode for the most part (the early bits with Clara & Merry, the Doctor visiting points in Clara's past, the Hellboy II-esque alien bazaar, the visuals), but my mind started to wander with the god planet stuff, the operatic weirdness, and the Doctor's shouty storytelling to the planet. It'll definitely require a rewatch.

Oh, and in response to whoever mentioned Clara resembling Amy in the episode poster art, I thought that too the first time I saw it. I guess it's the orangey tinge the artist decided to give her hair.