Doctor Who - The Rings of Akhaten
Added 2023-08-05 14:00:04 +0000 UTC
Comments
You were actually able to go to one? That's so cool, I always wanted to go but I was pretty young unfortunately. Really sucks that they don't do all these things for Doctor Who anymore.
KrispyKrushems
2023-08-07 14:26:41 +0000 UTCThank you :) I have totally forgotten about her beeing the granddaughter.
Nicologik
2023-08-07 13:13:08 +0000 UTCOh wow thanks for the reminder. I have forgotten that she was his granddaughter. :)
Nicologik
2023-08-07 13:12:46 +0000 UTCI was confused about the Doctor knowing Clara, you´re right :D But I´m not anymore :) I just needed to rewatch everything during the edit and now I´m up to date. Thank you anyways though, for your explanation :) I agree with you about the episode. It feels slow and somehow not so interesting, but I don´t dislike it which is really odd to me :D I´m glad I´m not alone :)
Nicologik
2023-08-07 13:04:38 +0000 UTCIt´s so strange, I thought I was the only one feeling odd about the episodes rating. I also do love the seperate pieces of the episode, such as music, world building and cinematography, but I don´t rate the episode as a whole very high. Strange.... If he had given away Amys glasses I might have ripped Matt out of this screen just to shout at him :D :D Oh wow, that reference to the episode "Rose" is awesome. Do you know if this is an accident or if it is deliberate? Thank you for the link, I had no idea about that. :)
Nicologik
2023-08-07 13:02:29 +0000 UTCThe one I went to was a fairly early one and had Martha on stage. I think it is on YouTube.
Stephen Males
2023-08-07 10:50:38 +0000 UTCYou did react to the first ever episode of Doctor Who, An Unearthly Child, so you have met Susan. She was the unearthly child!
Stephen Males
2023-08-07 10:46:20 +0000 UTCSusan (the Granddaughter) was introduced in the first episode,An Unearthly Child. She was the First Doctors companion. Yeah,I get the 'leaf/Clara being the planets saviour'; but it's one of those problematic endings. Have the Doctor being the saviour makes Clara a bystander; have her be the saviour makes the Doctors speech redundant :/
Ian Smith
2023-08-07 10:37:04 +0000 UTCI agree with you, I would love to see more variety for alien planets and civilizations. But then again, I don´t know how big their budget really was, maybe the blew the whole thing for this one episode already :D :D Am I supposed to know the granddaughters name already? Did I forget that about her? The doctors speech was phenomenal, loved it so much. :) I´m actually glad they chose to let the leaf (and Clara) beeing the one saving the planet. Cause only the doctors speech doing that wouldn´t have fit for me, but that´s only my personal opinion :)
Nicologik
2023-08-07 08:36:40 +0000 UTCI agree with you about the speech and the soundtrack. Those were both great. :) I have no idea why people wouldn´t like Clara. I did like her from the very start. She is not my favorite companion, but then again I haven´t seen all of her yet. So it might change over time, who knows :) I would really like to watch those proms, but thanks for the spoiler warning. I think my mod will let me know as soon as it´s the right time to watch it :)
Nicologik
2023-08-07 08:32:41 +0000 UTCPlease don´t feel bad about recommending the minisode to me, and letting me know when to watch it. Maybe it makes you feel better, to know that Andrew did give me the OK as well. So you weren´t the one beeing "responsible" in the end. But even if, I had fun watching the minisode, and when editing the part where I´m confused, I had to laugh at myself because it was so funny :D :D So I had a great time, even when editing :) I can´t really decide wether to like or not like the episode. I´m somewhere in between. :) Thank you for thoughts about the episode :) I didn´t mind the mummy guy. Like you said he wasn´t the important one. I have to admit, that I´m glad they decided not to let the doctors speech defeat the alien god. I do admire his speeches, but I have the feeling that it needed a little more to be belivable, so I do like their decision to let Clara be the one who saves the day. :) Wow Emilia is 21 already? Now I feel old :D :D
Nicologik
2023-08-07 08:29:02 +0000 UTCOk, I'm not sure if you're getting confused about the Doctor knowing Clara he met her. He meets her in the previous story, the scenes we see at the start of this story is him going back in time to met her as a child and watching at her mum's funeral. So it's not that he knew her all this time, it he's gone back in time between the two episodes to try and learn more about her. And yes the person she reminds him of is the Clara we met in the Christmas episode. This story for me was below average, 2/5. It's ranked really low at 123/140. It just doesn't really do any thing for me. The effects are stunning and the Doctor's speech is great. The acting is all good. And the song hits an emotional beat (although some of the appreciation for it was because of it's use during lockdown, which highlighted you own comment about people coming together to face adversity) But at the end of the day despite all this it just feels to slow to me. And it's an odd one to me because despite ranking low it's not a story I dislike, there's nothing I can think to change that would make it better. It's just meh.
Jade Ellis
2023-08-06 16:59:20 +0000 UTC"The elements came together and burst apart, forming shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings.", The Doctor, "The Rings of Akhaten" This is an odd one for me to rate. I love the world-building and I don't mind it being slow world-building at all. I also love the singing - the solos and the choir - the soundtrack album is really nice. I appreciate the themes of sacrifice - of Clara giving up the leaf (I'm glad she got the ring back). But the story as a whole doesn't do anything for me. I probably rate it a bit higher than the IMDB people - similar to your rating, I guess. I do like the catalogue of aliens - it reminded me of "The End of the World" as it did for you (and also the "Star Wars" cantina as mentioned above). A "Hooloovoo" is mentioned as one of the aliens. That happens to be the same name as an alien mentioned in "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Although this has to be a reference, it can't be the same alien at all. In Hitch-Hikers a Hooloovoo was a super-intelligent shade of the colour blue (it's a comedy book). These Doctor Who Hooloovoo as humanoid (someone in an alien costume). Ok, the Doctor doesn't want to give up his sonic screwdriver (because it is useful) so he asks Clara to give up something and she offers her mother's ring. But, the Doctor *does* have something of sentimental value he could have offered - he has Amy's glasses! But that would have shattered Nicole's heart. Clara's mother is shown to have died on 5 March 2005. That's the same date as the episode "Rose". Keen-eyed viewers noticed the date (the 6th) on Rose's Missing Person poster that we saw in "Aliens of London". BTW The "shoes and ships and sealing wax ..." line is taken from Lewis Carroll's poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter" in "Through the Looking-Glass". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC0iSaJCqYc&t=1143s
Andrew Vignaux
2023-08-06 11:26:48 +0000 UTCNewWho has oddly shied away from depicting alien planets and civilizations. Odd - because with a decent budget and CGI, you'd think they would give it a go quite often; but no. This episode, therefore,is something of a breath of fresh air. I like that the storyline sits snugly within it's running time; that we get to see a variety of aliens; that the story is a pleasing slice of science fiction; that Susan (Granddaughter )is mentioned; and that the Doctor gives an absolutely terrific speech. It's a pity much of his speech is undone,because the planets saviour was ....a leaf. An interesting and quirkily different story,though. I'd rate it slightly higher,just because.
Ian Smith
2023-08-05 19:54:10 +0000 UTCThis is one of the episodes I have been waiting for, the speech at the end is one of the BEST speeches in Doctor Who and never fails to make me emotional. Not to mention the soundtrack "The Long Song", its such a good OST. Me personally I love this episode, this is THE episode that gave me the proper "Oh I like this version of the Doctor" moment. Like you said, the cinematography is INCREDIBLE. I will always applaud Doctor Who for its incredible and beautiful shots. I'm so happy that you like Clara! For some reason not a lot of people like her and I have no idea why, I REALLY love her. She's my second favourite companion behind Donna. The little girl who sings the songs, she does actually sing the songs. There used to be this event that went on here in England called the "Doctor Who Proms" that went on from 2008-2013. Its where the composers etc would play all the music from Doctor Who. There would be Cybermen, Daleks, Ood's, Sontaren's and many more monsters everywhere in the audience, and just sometimes there would be an appearance of a Doctor and a few companions. Like I mean the actual actors, not cosplayers. It was a HUGE event back then because Doctor Who was so massive. Anyways my point is, the girl who sings the songs was singing this live at the Proms and it was amazing. If you ever wanted to watch the proms on your own, they're all on YouTube, though I recommend catching up on Doctor Who episodes first before watching because of spoilers.
KrispyKrushems
2023-08-05 16:49:01 +0000 UTCFirst up - I kind of regret not saying watch the minisode after this episode because you might have recognised Clara's mother that way. Although it would have spoiled the surprise because then you might have realised slightly too soon that the little girl was Clara. Oh well, it's hard to get these things right sometimes. Anyway, I really enjoy re-watching this episode. I actually like the slow scene-setting beginning because the visuals are so beautiful, because the scenes in the market place with all the different aliens remind me of the bar scene in the first Star Wars film, because the girl who plays Merry is so good in the role and works so well with Clara, Also I love Clara's story about getting lost at the beach and of course the music is sublime. Some of these reasons are more to do with the casting and the production than the actual scripted story I know but they still make it work for me. Some of the critics at the time said that the alien creature (the mummy) who they all encounter before the big one appears was a bit of an anti-climax. Ugly, but not impressive enough. But I tend to think that this was the point. He wasn't really the important one. And the important one was very impressive. I did read btw that the original version of the script was going to be that the Doctor's great speech about his life and experiences does actually defeat the alien "god". But Steven Moffat liked the idea of Clara saving the day and so the scriptwriter decided to incorporate the leaf into the ending. Emilia Jones (Merry) really did sing in the episode. She is the daughter of the Welsh singer Aled Jones who had also been a child star in the UK. Emilia is 21 now and has appeared in a lot of TV and films. She sings a Joni Mitchel song in one of them.
Stephen Males
2023-08-05 15:59:55 +0000 UTC
