Doctor Who Series Blog – The Rings of Akhaten

If you could go anywhere in time and space, where would you go? Tricky one isn’t it? It’s the same conundrum Jenna-Louise Coleman faces in this week’s alien bonanza of a Doctor Who episode. After some thought, Clara can only decide on this: “somewhere awesome!” And somewhere awesome is indeed what we get.

The first trip in the TARDIS for a new companion must achieve at least two things. Firstly, it must put the companion through their paces enough to prove their time-travelling mettle and secondly they must affirm the dynamic with Matt’s Smith’s wonderfully-eccentric Timelord. The Rings of Akhaten does both confidentially without ever feeling like a re-hash of past first-time episodes.

Doctor Who’s special FX team the Mill craft a beautiful aesthetic in the form of the star, Akhaten. The vista of Akhaten, which is orbited by seven worlds about to celebrate the Festival of Offerings, is incredible. With the show marking its 50th anniversary this year we are now a world away from the clunky sets and the virtually non-existent CGI of yester-year. However, it isn’t just CGI that has improved. Clara and the Doctor meet a vast of array of alien creatures – everything from a “Panbabyloonian” to a “Hooloovoo” as the Timelord merrily informs his awe-struck companion. To suggest the cliché that the prophetic team Millennium FX level themselves with the iconic cantina scene from George Lucas’ Star Wars feels entirely justified here.

The plot concerns the young Queen of Years, Merry, played with a pleasing amount of childish vulnerability and intriguing mystique by Emilia Jones. Merry is ‘blessed’ with all the knowledge, stories and beliefs of her civilization. The young Queen must sing at the Festival of Offerings to appease a God referred to as ‘Grandfather’. Her song is a gift of gratitude to the God that, these aliens believe, created the universe. I say believe because of course, in true Doctor Who-fashion, this is a trap. Grandpapa is no God but actually a soul-eating Mummy and he wants little Merry’s soul. Naturally.

Despite the sheer alien nature of the episode, Akhaten provides moments of great humanity. In what could have become a slight against religion amidst the sci-fi explanation of ‘creation’, what viewers are actually treated to maps out as a subtle yet poignant message about the nature of faith. When Clara tentatively asks if life did originate on Akhaten, the Doctor replies “Well…it’s what they believe…it’s a nice story”. Smith delivers this with enough of a respectful and delicate nuance to suggest that this story isn’t so much about the clash of religious and scientific ideologies but one of respect toward the faith of others. The scene when Clara and The Doctor attend the festival and attempt to sing bemusedly along to the alien anthem, touchingly reminds of when someone of no, or a different, religious belief dutifully might try to sing to an unfamiliar hymn out of respect at a particular religious ceremony.

Coleman injects into Clara the same sense of warmth and empathy that have made past companions so popular. Her frank openness about childish fears toward Jones’ Merry is particular touching without ever being overly sentimental. It also comes as quite a surprise that we learn so much of Clara’s past in the opening minutes of the episode. The decision for the Doctor to journey into Clara’s past is on reflection, a natural, if unexpected move. The beauty of the show’s use of time travel is that it allows audiences to glimpse most of a character’s history in a few fleeting but well-crafted moments. Rather than waiting for a whole series of exposition we can laugh at the unexpected meeting of Clara’s parents and then sombrely observe at the premature death of Clara’s mother. It is the use of this swiftly but succinctly-told narrative that allows us to empathise with Clara’s monologue at the episode’s climax about the memories that could have been with her mother. Nevertheless, the mystery of Clara is yet to be unravelled and I wouldn’t be too surprised the TARDIS’ refused entrance of Clara mid-adventure will play greater significance in future episodes.

Akahten also delivers some top-notch ‘behind-the-sofa’ moments. The distorted chants of “where are you?” from the ominously named monsters, the Vigil, I suspect will give younger viewers a few spooks at bedtime. It is a shame then that they are dispatched with rather too easily. The continued reliance on the Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver when battling his foes and particularly in this episode means the threat is somewhat muted. If the only thing you have to do to save the world from an alien invasion is wave a screwdriver, well then, I’m wondering why I’m not a Timelord. Nevertheless, the nightmarishly emaciated look of ‘Grandfather’ leering garishly through his glass prison is a suitably scary image.

What this episode accomplishes so well is its imagination to delve into an alien culture so far removed from our own. This isn’t the kind of episode that could be done every week, the human and ordinary turned otherworldly and threatening is usually one of the best gimmicks of the show. However, it is refreshing to see an un-ashamed, all-out, sci-fi extravaganza for a change. Who says sci-fi is a second-rate genre? When episode like Akhaten have all the expected thrills but plenty of heart and moral messages too, I certainly do not. Onwards to next week.