Saturday, April 6, 2013

'Doctor Who' 707 Review - "The Rings of Akhaten"



BBC
Clara gets her first intergalactic spin in the TARDIS this week on Doctor Who, but not before the Doctor does a little digging in her past.
 We start the episode with the moment that started it all for Clara, when her father met her mother. It’s quite the meet-cute with him getting slapped in the face with a leaf and almost being run down by a car, but she saves him.  It’s good to see that the Doctor is actively trying to investigate what makes Clara so different that he’s met and watched her die twice before, instead of the answer just falling into his lap later in the series.  We also find out that Clara lost her mother at a young age and this is why she has such a need to care for children who have lost their own mothers.   Clearly, she’s going to be very important to the story  considering that Oswin was writing letters to her mother, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she keeps popping up.  I also wonder how many fans were bummed that she wasn’t Rose and Ten two’s daughter or Jack Harkness’ daughter, as they were popular theories circulating around.  However, I’m really glad to get more of Clara’s back story and see her grounded in her family, unlike former companion Amy Pond.


BBC
While I also appreciated that the Doctor brought her back home as promised after their first adventure, we need to not be wibbly wobbly timey wimey and start at the beginning of the adventure.  Clara asks to be taken “somewhere awesome” when given the choice of where to go, and honestly I’d probably say the same thing. When you could go anywhere in time and/or space where do you even begin?  I loved the Mos Eisley-like marketplace with it’s huge variety of aliens we’ve never seen before -- at least I don’t think we have. Classic Who watchers feel free to correct me here.  Speaking of Classic Who, the Doctor mentions that he’s been here before with his granddaughter Susan, and it’s the first time he’s mentioned her specifically in the new series.  You can really feel everything is just gearing up for the fiftieth anniversary from here.  


BBC
As much as Clara would probably like to have a relaxing time, she’s about to find out that you can never really just go sightseeing with the Doctor when she runs into the Queen of Years, Merry.  In eleven’s run there have really been a lot of stories involving children and that’s probably in no small part due to how amazing Matt Smith is with them.  The eleventh doctor has his own childishness to him, but there’s this genuine warmth there when he’s speaking to children.  A warmth he puts out because he’s witnessed so very much in his years, both the beginning and end of time and everything in between.  Watching the Doctor spill his soul to the living star, well it’s no wonder why he’s my favorite incarnation of the Doctor so far.  There’s so much sorrow there, but it’s well hidden behind a mask of whimsy and boyishness.  It was also great to see Clara take the Doctor’s words to heart about not walking away when she comes in to save his ass from the star offering up her most prized possession: the leaf that started it all. Since it was more than just an average leaf and held within it all the days that could have been with her mother--days that were taken away--it held the awesome power to prevent the force of the star from embarking on a path of destruction.


BBC
After all is well and good and the Doctor takes Clara home, it’s very obvious he hasn’t given up on her mystery.  When she remembers his Sherlockesque moment of him watching her at her mother’s grave several years in the past, he tells her a half truth. He says that she reminds him of someone he used to know.  He just neglects to mention that that someone stills seems to be her.  I also liked Clara’s reaction to that news by refusing to be the ghost of someone.  If she hadn’t already died twice she’d be the Martha Jones to Amy’s Rose.  This time the Doctor isn’t stuck mourning the loss of his best friend, he’s more wrapped up in all the mystery surrounding his new friend.  Because I’m damn sure he doesn’t want to be the death of Clara for a third time--one that might stick.

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