Doctor Who – Recap: A Leaf History of Time via Rickey.org
Recap video and review of Doctor Who – Series 7 Episode 7 – The Rings of Akhaten:
Showrunner Steven Moffat is a sentimental guy, so it’s no real surprise that his tenure with Doctor Who has been marked by dripping sentimentality. Yet Moffat’s dual-hearted sentimentality may have just reached its apotheosis, as “The Rings of Akhaten” packs a huge emotional wallop that is all the more effective for how it completely bowls the viewer over. In many points throughout the episode, it’s as if the show is reaching through the screen, grabbing the viewer by the lapel and shouting in their face to “Cry, dammit! You’re feeling this!”
And hell if it’s not exactly what happened.
Credit: BBC
“The Rings of Akhaten” marks the first alien world story that we’ve gotten in a long time, if I’m not mistaken. We’ve gotten plenty of episodes that took place in space stations or distant colonies, but it feels like we haven’t had a story set in a genuinely alien world since John McCain and Sarah Palin were working the campaign trail. And so the episode is already off to a unique start. Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman) takes off with The Doctor (Matt Smith) on what plays out like a bit of a date. She’s not all in yet on the companion gig, but she’s open to being courted, it would seem. And so she asks The Doctor to show her “something awesome”, leading the pair to the distant Rings of Akhaten, upon which sits a pyramid that is a site of worship for various civilizations across the galaxy, as it’s said that all life in the universe was forged in its crucible. The duo does some exploring in the markets, an intergalactic melting pot of increasingly weird-looking species. This is an environment that allows Matt Smith to do some terrific comedy, playing lighthearted in a story that will soon take a turn towards schmaltz — not that it didn’t already start out that way.
Credit: BBC
We learn the backstory of Clara’s parents, who met when a red leaf flew in the face of a young man walking down the street. The leaf obscured his vision and he wandered into the streets, where an oncoming car threatened to turn him into roadkill…until a beautiful young woman pulled him out of harm’s way at the last moment. The two fall in love, and their marriage results in an adventurous young daughter named Clara. It’s a beautiful and devastating little sequence, reminiscent of the first ten minutes of the movie “Up”, as we see Clara’s parents fall in love, share a life together, start a family — and then have it all snatched away. Clara’s mother dies in her 40s, leaving a nearly-adult Clara devastated. She keeps her mother’s 101 Places to Visit book, with “the most important leaf in human history” preserved in its folds. While I initially suspected that the sequence was simply to provide a little backstory for Clara (about whom we still know precious little), it turns out that this sequence is crucial to the conclusion.
Credit: BBC
While wandering the market, Clara comes across The Queen of Years (Emilia Jones), a young girl who is tasked with preserving the knowledge of all of history: every song, every detail, every single facet of an age. She is then given the immense responsibility of singing to “The Old God” (or “Grandfather”) a lullaby that will keep him in perpetual slumber, while the worshippers in attendance for the ceremony sacrifice items of sentimental value to the god, who feeds on memories for sustenance. Clara and the girl, who is frightened by the immensity of her task, strike up a friendship, with Clara convincing the girl that she’ll do fine. However, things go awry when The Old God awakens, and The Doctor is tasked with saving the day…
This is how you Sonic. (Credit: BBC)
Yes, it’s the return of “the action Doctor”, in a manner of speaking. I’ll never stop being amused by the use of the Sonic Screwdriver as an intergalactic Swiss Army Knife, and while I imagine some people will be irritated by its use as a tool that allows writers an easy shortcut past having to think up a clever solution for getting The Doctor out of any situation, I love that it can essentially be anything the story needs it to be. It helps The Doctor open the door to the sealed pyramid temple, it helps The Doctor neutralize the Vigils, or aliens tasked with feeding The Queen of Years to a vampire that serves as The Old God’s alarm clock (it’s a long story). Basically, the Sonic Screwdriver allows The Doctor to be more action-oriented without actually having to throw any punches like the kung-fu Third Doctor. Yet, for all the Sonic Screwdrivin’ he does this week, it’s sacrifice that wins the day, as The Doctor confronts The Old God, revealed to be Akhaten itself, and offers his thousand years of memories and knowledge to satisfy the deity’s insatiable hunger.
Credit: BBC
Matt Smith has done a tremendous job in recent episodes of embodying The Doctor’s weariness from over a thousand years of hard living, communicating the weight of his guilt and grief over the loss of companions and of entire civilizations, including his own. It’s a portrayal that could easily descend into caricature, yet Smith does more than simply hold it all together — with this week’s installment, you can actually see an evolution to his portrayal of The Doctor. He’s actively including elements of past Doctors into his performance, and it goes beyond simple shout-outs and callbacks (though I did like the reference to The Doctor’s granddaughter, Susan Foreman). It’s a more fully-realized portrayal, and it results in what is, for me, his best episode of his entire run. The story he recites to The Queen of Years about the creation of the universe is the perfect embodiment of Smith’s more avuncular portrayal of The Doctor, as he’s warm yet wise and reassuring. However, his climactic speech to The Old God is the polar opposite: raw, desperate, yet wrapped in bravado and tragic yearning. He sheds tears recounting the death of the Time Lords, and of his own guilt and burden — in many ways, it’s as if The Doctor is openly begging for death, as the weight of it all has just gotten to be too much. It’s an absolutely devastating scene that is fraught with emotional complexity. It’s one of the best scenes of Smith’s tenure.
Credit: BBC
Yet Jenna-Louise Coleman is also proving herself to be a formidable addition to the show. I know it would be easy to classify Clara Oswald as another Amy Pond or Rose Tyler, but there’s more of a proactive sensibility to her — sure, she asks questions, but she’s brave to an extent that borders on reckless, all in service of a moral code that’s very much in line with The Doctor’s. This is not to say that The Doctor’s previous companions weren’t brave, or even reckless in their courage, but Clara is a rare companion who both feels like a novice, yet also a fully-formed adventurer. This sensibility helps the story tremendously, particularly in an action-oriented story like this that doesn’t actually involve fisticuffs. She comes to The Doctor’s rescue after his memories prove to be insufficient to satisfy The Old God’s hunger. Clara comes up with a beautifully inventive solution: she offers The Old God the red leaf, “the most important leaf in human history”, containing all the memories of her parents’ love, of their lives, and of all the days they hadn’t gotten to live. This proves to be the key to The Old God’s defeat. Memories already-lived have a limit, yet the possibilities of days unlived are infinite. All the memories Clara’s mother might have forged, all the adventures she might have had, sights she might have seen, emotions she might have felt — it’s enough to destroy The Old God once he absorbs the leaf.
Credit: BBC
Maybe I’m just nakedly sentimental myself, but this was a gorgeous episode in so many ways: on a purely aesthetic level (the visuals make a hell of an impression) and also from an emotional perspective (because that climax…come on). Yet even without the visuals, it would still be a worthwhile story simply for how well-constructed the story proves to be, schmaltzy as it is. I’ll never begrudge Doctor Who its overt sentimentality, but it’s a lot easier to silence naysayers who might argue that the show has gotten too sentimental when an episode like this comes along that skillfully entwines adventurous fantasy with relatable emotional beats. The show has both its hearts in the right place.