Doctor Who: The Rings of Akhaten (2013)
So, The Rings of Akhaten by Neil Cross, a mix of The End of the World, 42 and A Christmas Carol (only a hell of a lot better than those episodes, although The End of the World was average).
Neil Cross has surpassed himself as a Doctor Who writer, but this is his second script for the show. His first is yet to be seen in Hide. There are nice little references to the Classic Era as well as a tantalising hint at where the Doctor and Susan went before going to Earth.
Matt Smith seemed to be barely in this episode, and not the main focus, which made a nice contrast after last weeks' episode seemed to be all about the Doctor, and not Clara. He is not rendered useless, although I find it hard to believe that it takes Clara as well to help stop the Old God. He has seen all of time and space as well as parallel dimensions, E-Space and the birth and death of the cosmos!
Oh well.
The actress playing Merry Gejelh, Emilia Jones, was fantastic, and struck a nice balance between having a character but not some annoying little girl who just screamed all the time. She was a great singer, which leads me to...
The singing! As you may or may not know, I hated the singing in A Christmas Carol. I found it distracting and it really pulled me out of the show completely. Its relevance to the story was practically zero and it was only there because Katherine Jenkins guest-starred! I understand that it was her first acting role but it felt far too fake to me, as if it had been re-dubbed. However, this episode had more of a relevance as a lullaby for the Old God, and gave a nice insight to this alien culture.
The alien culture of Akhaten was well realised, even if it did make me think of Star Wars, it was very original and gave the audience a fantastic insight into these people. The singing, the currency, the language...it was all done fantastically and drew the audience into this fictional world. The aliens looked realistic for the most part, unlike The End of the World, and were all new. The visual effects of Akhaten were great, as was the hover car that the Doctor and Clara used.
However, this episode felt almost as if it was three stories in one - the Doctor takes Clara to an alien culture, but something is going wrong and a sacrifice is needed; an emotional arc for Clara explaining her past and character and "page one"; and the third is an emotional arc for the Doctor showing how Clara proves herself and how he [almost] conquers the Old God.
This is not a problem, not are the similarities to previous stories, such as the enemy being the Sun (42).
There are some really nice touches in this story which show just how different but at the same time similar aliens can be to us. For instance, Merry Gejelh asks Clara to help her hide, but not because of some elaborate conspiracy, but because she is scared of getting her song wrong. Another fantastic moment (also in the same scene) is the scene where Clara talks to Merry and tells her of how she got lost at Blackpool beach. This scene is easily a highlight of the episode, with fantastic performances from both Jenna-Louise Coleman and Emilia Jones. It was great to hear about Susan and when the Doctor was hit by Clara's ball, you can see a bit of Jon Pertwee in Matt Smith as he raises his hands in the typical Pertwee self-defence. There are so many fantastic moments in this episode but the highlight of them all has to be when the Doctor and Clara stop the Old God. Both Smith and Coleman are fantastic here, with Matt Smith not being too dramatic or crying his eyes out like a baby (or David Tennant in The End Of Time) and Jenna-Louise Coleman giving her best performance in the series so far (Smith's is probably the end of The Angels Take Manhattan).
Now, speaking of Jenna-Louise Coleman, onto Clara. Jenna-Louise Coleman proved herself to be an even better actress than first thought, and I hope to see her in a lot of other films and TV programmes as she really is great. Her character arc was fantastically realised and it was nice to see her past and her reasons for why she is the way she is. The whole episode seemed to be focussed on her (and not necessarily for the same reasons as previous stories, which hi-lighted that she was clever and hot, which to be fair she is both).
Overall, I can't find many flaws in this story, so another 9/10 from me.
Neil Cross has surpassed himself as a Doctor Who writer, but this is his second script for the show. His first is yet to be seen in Hide. There are nice little references to the Classic Era as well as a tantalising hint at where the Doctor and Susan went before going to Earth.
Matt Smith seemed to be barely in this episode, and not the main focus, which made a nice contrast after last weeks' episode seemed to be all about the Doctor, and not Clara. He is not rendered useless, although I find it hard to believe that it takes Clara as well to help stop the Old God. He has seen all of time and space as well as parallel dimensions, E-Space and the birth and death of the cosmos!
Oh well.
The actress playing Merry Gejelh, Emilia Jones, was fantastic, and struck a nice balance between having a character but not some annoying little girl who just screamed all the time. She was a great singer, which leads me to...
The singing! As you may or may not know, I hated the singing in A Christmas Carol. I found it distracting and it really pulled me out of the show completely. Its relevance to the story was practically zero and it was only there because Katherine Jenkins guest-starred! I understand that it was her first acting role but it felt far too fake to me, as if it had been re-dubbed. However, this episode had more of a relevance as a lullaby for the Old God, and gave a nice insight to this alien culture.
The alien culture of Akhaten was well realised, even if it did make me think of Star Wars, it was very original and gave the audience a fantastic insight into these people. The singing, the currency, the language...it was all done fantastically and drew the audience into this fictional world. The aliens looked realistic for the most part, unlike The End of the World, and were all new. The visual effects of Akhaten were great, as was the hover car that the Doctor and Clara used.
However, this episode felt almost as if it was three stories in one - the Doctor takes Clara to an alien culture, but something is going wrong and a sacrifice is needed; an emotional arc for Clara explaining her past and character and "page one"; and the third is an emotional arc for the Doctor showing how Clara proves herself and how he [almost] conquers the Old God.
This is not a problem, not are the similarities to previous stories, such as the enemy being the Sun (42).
There are some really nice touches in this story which show just how different but at the same time similar aliens can be to us. For instance, Merry Gejelh asks Clara to help her hide, but not because of some elaborate conspiracy, but because she is scared of getting her song wrong. Another fantastic moment (also in the same scene) is the scene where Clara talks to Merry and tells her of how she got lost at Blackpool beach. This scene is easily a highlight of the episode, with fantastic performances from both Jenna-Louise Coleman and Emilia Jones. It was great to hear about Susan and when the Doctor was hit by Clara's ball, you can see a bit of Jon Pertwee in Matt Smith as he raises his hands in the typical Pertwee self-defence. There are so many fantastic moments in this episode but the highlight of them all has to be when the Doctor and Clara stop the Old God. Both Smith and Coleman are fantastic here, with Matt Smith not being too dramatic or crying his eyes out like a baby (or David Tennant in The End Of Time) and Jenna-Louise Coleman giving her best performance in the series so far (Smith's is probably the end of The Angels Take Manhattan).
Now, speaking of Jenna-Louise Coleman, onto Clara. Jenna-Louise Coleman proved herself to be an even better actress than first thought, and I hope to see her in a lot of other films and TV programmes as she really is great. Her character arc was fantastically realised and it was nice to see her past and her reasons for why she is the way she is. The whole episode seemed to be focussed on her (and not necessarily for the same reasons as previous stories, which hi-lighted that she was clever and hot, which to be fair she is both).
Overall, I can't find many flaws in this story, so another 9/10 from me.
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