The Doctor takes Clara to a market in the system of rings which surround the planet Akhaten. It is the gathering place for the people of many worlds, all of whom harbour a belief in the Grandfather, a godlike entity who must be appeased with song and story. Central to these rites is the Queen of Years, a role currently filled by a frightened young girl named Merry Gejelh whom Clara befriends. But when the Queen of Years' ceremony goes wrong, the Doctor's intervention reawakens an ancient power -- forcing both time travellers to risk the things they treasure most.

As had been the case for Doctor Who's thirty-second season, Season Thirty-Three was split into two segments. But whereas its predecessor aired on either side of the summer months, the new slate of episodes would experience a hiatus spanning half a year. Between the end of September 2012 and the end of March 2013, the only full-length Doctor Who adventure scheduled for broadcast was the 2012 Christmas special, The Snowmen. As a result, the production team had to effectively treat the Fall 2012 and Spring 2013 runs as if they were two separate seasons, even though they were being budgeted and recorded together. This provoked concern when it was observed that both of the year's overseas location shoots -- to Spain for A Town Called Mercy and Asylum Of The Daleks, and to the United States for The Angels Take Manhattan -- were for the Fall 2012 episodes. This would run the risk of depriving the Spring 2013 stories of the visual diversity that viewers had come to expect.

As a result, by the late summer of 2012, executive producer Steven Moffat had decided that the second of the Spring 2013 episodes would chronicle new companion Clara Oswald's first trip into outer space. It would be a big, colourful science-fiction spectacular filled to the brim with aliens and dazzling extra-terrestrial sights, providing an opportunity for Doctor Who's design and effects wizards to captivate viewers in a manner comparable to an excursion to an exotic foreign locale. To write the script, Moffat turned to Neil Cross; he had already contributed Hide, the fourth of the Spring 2013 adventures. Cross was initially doubtful that he had the time to accommodate Moffat's offer, but he was finally won over when he learned of the production team's ambition for the story. As such, his new script would actually precede Hide in the broadcast schedule by two weeks.

The space mopeds were inspired by the speeder bikes in the Star Wars sequel Return Of The Jedi

Cross completed an initial draft in early October, at which point it bore the functional title “Alien Planet”. This reflected the author's process of first conceiving the sentient planet Akhaten with its two concentric ring systems -- where the pyramid-like Apex Temple lay in the inner ring, and the market asteroid of Tiaanamaat lay in the outer -- and then developing its people and their religion, before building the plot around the setting. The bustling environment of Tiaanamaat drew upon the Mos Eisley cantina from the 1977 feature film Star Wars, while the space mopeds were inspired by the speeder bikes in its second sequel, 1983's Return Of The Jedi; the latter was an element suggested by producer Marcus Wilson.

Cross originally planned to spend some time at the Maitland household where Clara was working as a nanny, but Moffat instead encouraged him to focus on the story of Clara's parents. As a result, Artie Maitland was dropped from the cast list, while Akhaten's defeat would now result from Clara's sacrifice, rather than the Doctor's. The living planet was originally referred to as Akhet, a name which survived in references to the Sun Singers of Akhet. It was an homage to both the unknowable alien gods depicted in the macabre Cthulhu Mythos stories of HP Lovecraft, and the anthropomorphised moon in Georges Méliès' iconic 1902 movie Le voyage dans la lune (that is, A Trip To The Moon).

With production looming, Cross' episode gained the title The Rings Of Akhaten. It would be made on its own as Block Nine of the production calendar, and was assigned to director Farren Blackburn, who had been responsible for the 2011 Christmas special, The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe. It was the second of four episodes produced by Denise Paul, while Wilson turned his attention to Doctor Who's forthcoming fiftieth-anniversary special; he would instead be credited as series producer. Cast in the crucial role of Merry Gejelh was ten-year-old Emilia Jones, who had appeared in the juvenile mystery series House Of Anubis, movies such as One Day with Anne Hathaway, and West End productions like Shrek The Musical. She would go on to star in 2021's CODA, the first movie distributed by a streaming service to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Blackburn's initial order of business was the flashback material, all of which was filmed in Newport. On October 22nd, Clara's parents met in 1981 at Rupert Brooke Drive. Work on the 23rd saw the Doctor encountering the four-year-old Clara in a playground on Goldsmith Close, while Dave Oswald and the sixteen-year-old Clara visited Ellie's gravesite in St Woolos Cemetery. Blackburn's team then wrapped up the day on the standing TARDIS set at Doctor Who's regular home of Roath Lock Studios in Cardiff.

From this point on, virtually all of The Rings Of Akhaten was recorded at Roath Lock. Many of the alien costumes which appeared in these sequences had been accumulated by Neill Gorton of Millennium FX over the years in anticipation of being called upon to help realise a Mos Eisley-type setting. Filming on October 24th began with the effects shot of Clara seeing the Akhaten system for the first time, before moving on to the Tiaanamaat marketplace; the latter remained the focus on the 25th. On October 26th, attention turned to the abandoned building where Clara found Merry, plus an insert of Clara holding the travel book in the cemetery. The 27th offered an opportunity to head back out on location, with cast and crew returning to Rupert Brooke Drive -- this time, to a home which would pose as the Oswald household. Then it was back to Roath Lock for more material in the market streets and the abandoned building.

After a day off on Sunday the 28th, Blackburn spent the following week concentrating on scenes in and around the Apex Temple. Recording on the interior set spanned October 29th to November 1st, before the focus shifted to material outside the pyramid on both November 1st and 2nd. After the weekend, the remaining footage of the Apex Temple exterior was captured on November 5th. Work on this day also included effects sequences involving the space moped, plus the closing shots in the TARDIS console room. The last day of principal photography was November 6th, which was dedicated to the Tiaanamaat amphitheatre.

Some recording for The Rings of Akhaten remained outstanding, and was completed throughout November. The 12th saw a combination of green screen effects and wireworks employed for the sequence of Merry being pulled towards the Apex Temple. Inserts at the abandoned building were taped on the 15th. On the 26th, the shot of the TARDIS materialising at the Maitland residence was filmed on Beatty Avenue in Cardiff during the making of the season finale, The Name Of The Doctor. Finally, on the 30th, the shot of Clara waiting for the TARDIS was captured at Roath Lock.

• Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #37, Autumn 2014, “The Rings Of Akhaten” by Andrew Pixley, Panini UK Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Complete History #73, 2016, “Story 233: The Rings Of Akhaten”, edited by John Ainsworth, Hachette Partworks Ltd.