I'm Not Going to Compete With a Ghost (The Black Archive #42: The Rings of Akhaten)

Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun, kill my enemies!

Will Shaw is an interesting critic. He's not as structurally daring as, say, Elizabeth Sandifer or Sam Keeper, but he, much like Richard Jones or Sam Maleski, has a knack for keeping a reader engaged with the criticism he is writing, even if the reader has no familiarity with the subject and the length is in the six digits in terms of word count. No where is this more apparent than in his recently released entry into The Black Archive: The Rings of Akhaten.

For those unaware, The Black Archive is a series of book length analysis centered around the television series Doctor Who. They are quite good, ranging from deep dives into the history that the episode is exploring to examinations of the racial politics inherent to a story riffing Hammer Horror films, to an overview of all the clever, interesting things an episode is doing. While Shaw's book is very much of the third variety, it's a damn good one for the simple fact that there are a lot of clever, interesting things about the marmite episode.

Perhaps the crown jewel of the book is its opening chapter, wherein Shaw deftly juggles the interrelated deconstructed concepts of New Atheism and Orientalism within the episode. While the latter aspect is certainly without critique (and Shaw is willing to provide it), his analysis highlights the ways in which the episode often subverts and critiques these aspects as well as their history within Doctor Who. And what they show is a tendency for the Doctor to assume he know what the world is, even as it repeatedly surprises him in how wrong he is. It highlights, though not necessarily leads, a path forward. The Rings of Akhaten, much like the companion who stars in it, for all the criticism laid upon it, might just be one of the most important things to happen to Doctor Who, its implications still being explored.

That's not to say that the remaining chapters and appendixes aren't without merit. The follow-up chapter, focusing on the role of Clara in the episode and the concluding chapter about the episode's role within the 50th anniversary year are both delightful. And while the chapter focusing on the flaws within the episode is probably the weakest of the four, it is nonetheless a fascinating read. And, of course, the behind the scenes material provided both by the interview with Farren Blackburn as well as his Director's Statement are quite interesting.

There are certainly flaws within the book. In the ebook edition I read from, some of the footnotes were seemingly not included (one notable one being an entire quote from Neil Cross' adaptation of MR James' Whistle and I'll Come to You without a citation). There are points that are tantalizingly brought up (such as Akhaten being a patriarchal figure or a more in-depth look at the line "I walked in universes where the laws of physics were devised by the mind of a mad man") only not to be explored with much depth. Equally, the book assumes a reader more familiar with the New Series than the classic one and as such leaves out several interesting threads such as the history of the Doctor interacting with God like figures, the similarly deconstructive implications of Carnival of Monsters, or Lalla Ward.

But perhaps most galling of all is the lack of discussion of the final confrontation between Clara and the Doctor. While the conclusion of that scene is discussed at length, what led up to it is surprisingly absent. In it, Clara confronts the Doctor with his, shall we say, less than ethical actions. When he tries to justify his actions as being because she reminds him of someone he knew (who died), she rebukes him, saying she's her own person and won't be treated as secondary to someone else. It both establishes Clara as a figure with agency in a story that assumes she's an object and acts as meta commentary given the previous time a beloved companion left (without a gap year full of specials), her successor was coldly received by the fandom and treated somewhat poorly by the show. It feels like a noticeable gap that the implications of this brief conversation (for good and ill [note the focus on Clara not being her echoes and not the Doctor being at her mother's grave]) are absent from Shaw's analysis.

Still, the book (as well as the series it's a part of) is a must read for anyone interested in Doctor Who, quality criticism, and arguments you can make against that guy you know from the internet who won't shut up about how all religions are inherently barbaric. I look forward to whatever Will Shaw has planned for the future. I'm sure it will be something awesome.

🍁

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