tenlittlebullets | The Rings of Akhaten

Well, that... wanted to be a much better episode than it really was? It was cute. Eleven and Clara are adorbs. It also didn't even try to have a plot that made sense, which would be more forgivable if it didn't try to shove forward into a big melodramatic climax that I guess was supposed to give us lots of feelings, but it felt cheap and not earned at all and I was still too busy trying to figure out basic elements of the plot and what things were even supposed to mean. Most of which were never made clear at all. Not earning your big emotional climax is a bit of a stupid error to fall into when you have an entire subplot about using objects of personal value as currency, but then again maybe that's what Neil Cross was trying to do, cash in on our feelings about the show's history in a cheap and exploitative manner.

Also, Who fandom seems completely divided between "Murray Gold is awesome" and "Murray Gold should be dragged out back and shot for crimes against good taste," and I think this is the only time I've jumped ship into the latter camp since the choirs of angels sang Ten to his angsty drawn-out rest.

Perhaps I am being overly mean. It's just that I very very rarely outright dislike an episode of Who right after it airs, normally I am all over defending them and pointing out their redeeming qualities even if the execution was botched, and this time I just... can't. It's making me cranky.

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It also didn't even try to have a plot that made sense, which would be more forgivable if it didn't try to shove forward into a big melodramatic climax that I guess was supposed to give us lots of feelings, but it felt cheap and not earned at all and I was still too busy trying to figure out basic elements of the plot and what things were even supposed to mean. Most of which were never made clear at all.

a_phoenixdragon linked to your review, which I have to say I liked a lot and mirrors my reaction really well. I loved most of the setup of the episode, but the last 10 minutes or so just lost me. The music was wonderful, but I would have liked to see it attached to a better script. Part of the problem for me was that the mummy and the weird robot henchmen were more scary than the Big Bad itself, which was a rather silly CGI effect. Eleven's big emo moment (how many of them has he had now?) fell kind of flat.

LOL about your notes on the music. I love most of the season five soundtrack and some of the season six as well, but until this episode I couldn't honestly remember one memorable piece of music since "The Wedding of River Song."

Yeah, half of it was a pretty good first-trip-offworld episode, and a great alien planet episode, but the meaty parts of it failed Plot Coherence 101. And dropped Pacing And Development 204 halfway through the semester because it was too difficult. And the thing is I wanted Eleven's emo moment to work, because it's a good place in the multi-season arc for it and I'm a total sucker for New Who Doctors angsting, but within the episode itself? It came out of nowhere and went down like a lead balloon.

Heh, I wasn't a fan of the music for this one, but I don't think I'd be quite as irritated by it if it had been better-integrated into a better episode.

the meaty parts of it failed Plot Coherence 101. And dropped Pacing And Development 204 halfway through the semester because it was too difficult.

LOL! Well-said. Actually, I think Moff and his entire crew need a refresher course on Basic Plotting, all of them required to submit their final paper on the topic of "Bringing Your Plot to a Coherent, Satisfying Resolution," with a subsection titled, "EARN Your Angsty Ending!"

Also, I'm getting tired of Big, Emo Moments. They've been so overused in New Who that they're getting trite and cheap, and I'm especially tired of the Doctor yelling in every episode "I'm the Doctor and I'm a Time Lord and have two hearts and yadda yadda yadda yadda!" Because 1) we already know all that, and 2) it loses impact to have him bellow his pedigree even at the most (for him) routine moments (like saving the airplane in "Bells of St. John.") I could forgive this sort of thing when Ten was going to save the Titanic because they really were in deep shit at that moment, but for him to start yelling out his credentials during, say, "The Unicorn and the Wasp" would have been completely out of place.

I don't mind a moment of bombast when it's both well-time and earned, but when the Doctor starts bellowing out his credentials in every episode, it does start to lose something. Why doesn't he just carry around his resume and flash it at the other characters to confirm his bona fides? LOL. : )

The Rings of Akhaten

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