The Rings of Akhaten (TV story)

Stand well clear, Jo!

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The Rings of Akhaten
Doctor:	Eleventh Doctor
Companion(s):	Clara
Featuring:	Merry Gejelh
Main enemy:	Akhaten, the Mummy, the Vigil
Main setting:	Tiaanamat, Akhaten
Key crew
Writer:	Neil Cross
Director:	Farren Blackburn
Producer:	Marcus Wilson Denise Paul
Release details
Story number:	232
Premiere broadcast:	6 April 2013
Format:	1x45 minute episode
Production code:	3.7
Official trailer
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Doctor Who television stories
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The Rings of Akhaten was the seventh regular episode of the seventh series of Doctor Who produced by BBC Wales. In it, the Eleventh Doctor's new companion, Clara Oswald, took her first trip in the TARDIS to an alien planet.

Synopsis

Clara Oswald wants to see something awesome, so the Doctor whisks her off to the inhabited rings of the planet Akhaten, where the Festival of Offerings is in full swing. Clara meets the young Queen of Years as the pilgrims and natives ready for the ceremony. But something is stirring in the pyramid, and a sacrifice will be demanded.

Plot

The wind blows autumn leaves and a wooden gate closes. One large reddish orange leaf rattles on the tree. A young man with dark hair, dressed in a suit, fumbles with an unfolded map as he walks down a sidewalk. The Doctor peers out from behind a copy of The Beano Summer Special 1981. The young man looks around in confusion when suddenly the leaf falls from the tree into his face. He stumbles into the street and the path of an oncoming car, but is pulled aside by a beautiful young woman. She asks if he is all right and he smiles.

Ellie first meets Clara's father.

Some time later, the two are sharing an umbrella and stumble up to a doorway in laughter. He pulls out the leaf and she asks why he kept it. He explains that, "this exact leaf had to grow in that exact way, in that exact place, so that precise wind could tear it from that precise branch, and make it fly into this exact face at that exact moment. And if just one of those tiny little things had never happened, I'd never have met you. Which makes this the most important leaf in human history." They kiss, and we see the Doctor frown and walk away in the rain.

We see Clara's father holding baby Clara, Clara playing as a toddler, and her mother showing her 101 Places to See. The Doctor is hit in the face by a football. He pops up with his hands in a defensive gesture as Clara's mother asks if he's all right. Among other things, he says that's he's possibly a touch embarrassed and seriously asks if that's dangerous. Clara's father brings her over and she's introduced.

We see that the 101 Places to See book, property of Clara Oswald age 9, had previously been property of Ellie Ravenwood, age 11, as tears cried by a teenaged Clara fall on the book. She closes the book, and is standing in a cemetary. Her father awkwardly reaches over. They are looking at a gravestone for "Ellie Oswald, beloved wife and mother, born 11th September 1960, died 5th March 2005". The Doctor watches and returns to the TARDIS. He reviews her file on the scanner; he's been investigating her past to make sure she's just a human girl. He declares, "She's not possible."

Clara is sitting on the stairway with her book. She hears the TARDIS land, the door open, and she smiles and jumps up as the doorbell rings. In the TARDIS console room,

Cast

• The Doctor - Matt Smith
• Clara Oswald - Jenna-Louise Coleman
• Merry - Emilia Jones
• Dave Oswald - Michael Dixon
• Ellie Oswald - Nicola Sian
• Rezh Baphix - Chris Anderson
• The Mummy - Adrian Cook
• Dor'een - Karl Greenwood

References

Alien species

• At the market, the Doctor recognizes some alien species: Pan-babylonians, a Lugal-Irra-Kush, Lucanians, a Hooloovoo, Qom VoTivig, a Terraberserker of the Kodion Belt and an Ultramancer.
• One of the alien species at the market appears to be related to the Hoix; it also has a bubbling breathing contraption like a Hath and fronds like an Ood.

Food

• Clara tries out an "exotic fruit of some description", and does not like it.

Cultural references from the real world

• The Doctor references The Walrus and The Carpenter by Lewis Carroll.
• The Doctor says, "Home again, home again, jiggedy jig" when they return home, which is part of a famous nursery rhyme known as "To market, to market". It's also spoken repeatedly by two of J.F. Sebastian's replicant toys in the acclaimed sci-fi film Blade Runner.
• Akh-en-aten was an Egyptian pharaoh (and husband of Nefertiti) whose name means "incarnation of the sun god".
• The Hooloovoo is a species in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
• The Doctor slides under a closing door, and then reaches for his sonic screwdriver, which he'd dropped on the other side, very much like the trademark move of Indiana Jones.

Individuals

• Clara tells Merry that she hated history.

The Doctor

• The Doctor tells Clara that he's been to Akhaten with his granddaughter before.
• The Doctor tells Clara that the one thing she needs to know about him, "aside from the blue box and the two hearts", is that he doesn't walk away.
• Clara mentions the Doctor being 1,000 years old.
• The Doctor mentions that his sonic screwdriver has sentimental value to him, and wished not to give it up as currency as it "comes in handy".

Story notes

• Unlike the previous episodes of Series 7, this episode does not introduce a new variation of the Doctor Who logo.

Filming locations

to be added

Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.

• The crack on the glass case containing the mummy disappears and reappears between shots.
• The leaf that Clara has in this episode is different to the one shown in the previous episode. In fact, they come from different trees; the one from The Bells of Saint John is from a maple and this one's from a birch.

Continuity

• The Doctor wears Amy's reading glasses. (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan, The Snowmen, The Bells of Saint John)
• Clara's leaf is featured and the story behind it is explained. (TV: The Bells of Saint John)
• Clara's book, 101 Places to See, used to belong to her mother. (WC: The Bells of Saint John: A Prequel, TV: The Bells of Saint John)
• The Doctor has faced a sentient star before, although he implied that he'd never faced one so big. (TV: 42)
• The Doctor mentions the Last Great Time War and the destruction of the Time Lords. (TV: The End of Time)
• The Doctor mentions bringing his granddaughter to Akhaten at some point in time, though she is not mentioned by name. This is the first explicit mention of Susan Foreman in the revived series.
• Clara notices that the TARDIS doesn't seem to like her, an issue that former companions Jack Harkness and Charlotte Pollard had. (TV: Utopia, AUDIO: The Condemned)
• The Doctor talks about seeing the beginning of time (TV: Castrovalva, The Big Bang), living to see time run out (TV: Utopia, The Big Bang)), and being in a dimension where the laws of physics were devised by a madman. (TV: The Celestial Toymaker, The Mind Robber, The Three Doctors) He also mentions knowing knowledge that must never be told. (TV: The Wedding of River Song)
• A native of the City State of Binding Light is seen among the crowd at the Festival of Offerings. (TV: The End of the World)

Home video releases

to be added

External links

to be added