Doctor Who 7×07 “The Rings of Akhaten” just finished airing in the U.K. It featured music more heavily than any episode in a while and solved part of Clara’s mystery.
The episode opens with the Doctor having traveled to 1981. He spies a guy getting saved from getting hit by a car by a girl. A leaf had blown into the guy’s face and disoriented him and he walked into the street. It turns out it’s Clara’s mom and dad, and this is the day they met.
We then see the Doctor continue to stalk them in their timeline seeing many events including their proposal of marriage. Clara’s dad is an incredible romantic who brings the leaf to his proposal and talks about it being “the most important leaf in human history” because it brought them together.
The Doctor continues to stalk the young family through various life events. At one point a young Clara kicks a soccer ball and it smacks the Doctor forcing a meeting. “Oh my stars, are you all right?” declares Clara’s mom for the second time in the episode.
The Doctor eventually sees a 16-year-old Clara and her father in 2005 at the tombstone of her mother whose maiden name was Ellie Ravenwood. Her lifespan is indicated as 11 September 1960 to 5 March 2005. We also see that Clara’s book of places to see was once her mother’s. She had the book starting at age 11.
After this event the Doctor returns to his TARDIS and states over and over, “She can’t be, she is, she’s not possible!” as images of all versions of Clara flash on a TARDIS screen.
The next day as promised in the last episode Clara comes to visit the Doctor and he asks her to choose where she would like to go. Unusually, she wants to know what time is made. She then can’t decide where she wants to go. She says it’s like being asked what’s your favorite book and forgetting every book you’ve ever read. Finally, the Doctor takes her to Akhaten.
As they view The Rings of Akhaten from a distant meteoroid, Clara asks about the place’s history and a temple that has just been illuminated. The Doctor decides to take her to one of Akhaten’s seven planets for a closer look. He explains that they are just in time for a once every 1,000-year-old ceremony. The locals believe the god that created them is asleep in the rings and they have to sing to him to appease him so he stays asleep.
Upon arrival Clara discovers several things: 1) the Doctor is over 1,000-years-old, 2) he had a granddaughter, 3) the locals don’t use currency, rather you barter with something material that you have that is of value to you. The memories surrounding the object have value.
The Doctor and Clara get separated and Clara encounters a frightened young girl named The Queen of Years. Clara pursues her because she thinks she’s in trouble. She befriends the girl and discovers she goes by the name Merry, and she’s nervous about being the lead singer at the upcoming ceremony and messing up. Clara takes Merry back to the TARDIS, but the TARDIS won’t let them inside. Clara remarks that she doesn’t think the TARDIS likes her.
As they site behind the TARDIS, Clara convinces Merry that she is up to the task of singing for the old god, and that it’s natural to be nervous, and that she won’t let anyone down. Merry is from a long line of songsters/oral history keepers. Clara tells Merry a story of how her greatest fear was always that she would get lost and not know where she was. It came true one day when at age 6 she got lost at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, but her mother found her. Her mother told her, “It doesn’t matter if you are in the jungle, or in the dessert, or on the moon however lost you might feel you will never really be lost. I will always be here and I will always come and find you every single time.”
A newly confident Merry returns to play her role at the festival and the Doctor reunites with Clara to go watch. Things start well and then the male songster in the temple hits a sour note and a tractor beam comes and grabs Merry to the temple.
The Doctor runs out of the arena followed by Clara who doesn’t understand why no one is doing anything to help Merry. The Doctor says, “We don’t walk away!” He attempts to get a space scooter, but all he has of value on him is the sonic screwdriver. Clara gives up a ring that was her mother’s in payment for the scooter rental to save Merry.
When they finally get to the temple and inside after trouble with the door, Clara tries to convince Merry to come away, but she feels it’s her duty to sacrifice herself to the god. The Doctor then explains to Merry that it’s not really a god via a watered down Big Bang Theory explanation. It’s really a vampire/parasite that feeds on life memories.
Merry agrees not to sacrifice herself, and before they can leave, a squad in charge of forcing a reluctant sacrifice shows up. Eventually the Doctor manages to defeat the force after asking Clara to throw him his sonic screwdriver. The Doctor now realizes that the god wasn’t what he thought. It’s actually the actual Rings of Akhaten itself. Now that they are awake, they’ll consume the seven planets, their feelings, and memories. Then it will spread out among the stars to consume more.
The Doctor sends Clara and Merry back to the planet on the scooter. He tells Clara, who initially wanted to stay with him to fight, “We dont walk away, but when we are holding onto something precious [meaning Merry a helpless child] we run and run until out from under the shadow.” He then confronts the god which is not the alien in the box, but the actual Rings of Akhaten itself.
When Clara and Merry get back to the planet, Merry starts singing again in an attempt to help. Via her song the Doctor realizes “the god” feeds off the memories and feelings. It’s similar to the value the locals put on the memories surrounding objects the value for barter.
He states to the “god”, “You’re not a god, you’re a parasite. Feed on the energy of jealousy, and envy, and longing for others…of love, and loss and death…” He then tries to get the god to feed upon him because in his 1,000 years of life he has known more depth of feeling and tragedy than anyone, and he hopes it will satiate the god. He cries as he recalls the tragedies and loneliness and wonders of his life. He talks about how he “…has knowledge that must never be spoken and will make parasite gods blaze.”
As Clara witnesses the Doctor’s struggle from afar she remembers her mother’s words, “I will always come and find you” and the Doctor’s words, “We don’t walk away.” She arrives back at the temple and gives the god the leaf from her parent’s first meeting stating, “It’s the most important leaf in human history. It’s full of stories, full of history, and full of a future that never got lived. Days that should have been but never were, passed on to me. This leaf isn’t just the past. It’s a whole future that never happened…”
The Doctor states that as full as his memories were they wouldn’t satiate the god because they had a beginning and an end, but the memories of hope in Clara’s leaf and the potential of a life not fully lived were infinite, stating “There’s quite a difference between what was and what should have been. There’s an awful lot of one, but an infinity of the other.” The god dies out having been overwhelmed by infinity.
When they are back when they started, Clara confronts the Doctor who she realizes was at her mother’s burial. The Doctor tells Clara that he was there because she reminds him of someone who died. Clara firmly tells him, “Well, whoever she was…if you want me to travel with you that’s fine..but I’m not going to compete with a ghost.”
The episode concludes with the Doctor returning Clara’s ring to her. The people of Akhaten unanimously wanted her to have it back for what she had done for them.
