Doctor Who: 10 Reasons Why The Rings Of Akhaten Sucks
1. A Monster The Size Of A Star Is Stopped By A Leaf
In the first draft of the script Neil Cross submitted to Steven Moffat, the story ends with the Doctor's oft-quoted monologue as he's trying to goad the planet-sized "god" into absorbing his memories - the Doctor's stratagem works.
Moffat felt this ending was too similar to denouements used in other episodes and Cross went back to the drawing board. In the rewrite, he found a way of tying the leaf from the opening scenes into the conclusion, which provided a sense of poetic closure to the story and gave Clara something heroic to do.
There's only one problem with the revised ending: it is clearly nonsense. Even a five year old watching the episode can tell that it makes not one iota of sense. A leaf cannot stop a creature so large people commonly mistake it for a planet. A leaf is a leaf, and nothing more.
If objects associated with dead people were full of some mystical power because of unfulfilled potential, then the inhabitants of the worlds near Akhaten could have used millions of similar objects to stop the monster long, long ago.
Also, the leaf is not the most important leaf in human history as Clara claims. At a pinch, it's the most important leaf in Clara's personal history, but that's it.
The solution: People who think fantasy stories can have any resolution they like because it's all made up anyway will have no problem with the ending to The Rings of Akhaten. Everyone else hates this ending.
To give the story a convincing conclusion, some means of stopping planet-sized monsters should have been introduced early in the episode and then used at the very last moment after the requisite amount of heart-stopping heroics.
At the risk of quoting the Doctor from this very scene, there's quite a difference "between what was and what should have been." That's a sentiment to consider when thinking about The Rings of Akhaten.
What did you think of this episode? Leave your thoughts in the comments section!