Geek Syndicate Issue 6 | Page 71

Geek Syndicate
apparant task is to ensure the Queen of Years is sacrificed to the Old God make only two appearances. The other Monster – what we are meant to think is the God serves even less purpose. I really hate when monsters are thrown in for the sake of having a monster. Like the “husks” in the otherwise fantastic Ghost Light. The waking, ranting “god” (who looks very much like a Sycorax) turns out to be … an Alarm Clock? Who puts an alarm clock by their slumbering soul-devouring god-being? That’s just asking for trouble. Also. The big-bad turns out to be a sentient sun. Which is fine. But in the end, the Doctor and Clara kill it by gorging it on the potential held in “the most important leaf in the world.” Which is a nice resolution. Until you take into account the fact that it’s a sentient star. Which you have killed. It’s light and heat fade to nothing. So in fact, Mr. Doctor and Miss Oswald – you have consigned the inhabitants of seven worlds to death. Go team. END SPOILERS Overall, I’m finding it difficult to rate this story. Ultimately it boils down to this. While it didn’t live up to its potential, the episode was not inherently bad. It was nice easy viewing for a Saturday tea time which made a nice change from a lot of the more timey-wimey or story-arc heavy episodes. I’m disposed to rate it somewhat higher than I otherwise might based on two factors:
Image © BBC, 2013 The Rings of Akhaten certainly has stunning visuals

translating all the languages, not just that of the more human inhabitants. This episode seemed light on action for the most part, but this is no bad thing. The right story with the right cast can hold the audience just as well and at no point did this episode seem to stall. Even the scenes that were essentially a child singing to a slumbering god held my attention. Speaking of the child, Emma Jones turns in quite a nice performance as the Queen of Years. Chosen as a baby to know all the songs and stories of the peoples of their system, Merry Gehelh has a more unfortunate fate in store than the single performance she fears to give. I think my favourite moment this episode came between Clara and Merry. Clara talks of her mother helping her to overcome her fear in order to do the same to the girl and both actresses truly shone in the little scene, in my opinion. SPOILER ALERT

The idea of keeping your “story devouring” and hence (apparently) soul devouring God-being asleep by ensuring one individual knows every single story and poem ever, then sacrificing them to feed said god-being and keep him / her / it asleep is a neat one, reminiscent of our ancestors making sacrifices to ensure the sun rose and so on. When the truth of poor Merry’s fate is realised and the pieces click one can’t help but think: well if it works, it saves a lot of lives doesn’t it? I have several issues with the episode but ultimately I think they boil down to one thing. The episode feels incomplete – especially when compared to it’s promising concept. Some of the action seems to have that Quantum of Solace feel to it wherein it’s co-incidence or out of the blue realizations that take us from one story point to the next. The “monsters” in the episode, three masked villains who’s

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