1-5. Dot and Bubble.

The Doctor and Ruby try to rescue spoiled Lindy Pepper-Bean (Callie Cooke).

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 43 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies. Directed by: Dylan Holmes Williams. Produced by: Vicki Delow.


THE PLOT:

"We come here from the Homeworld. No stinky old folk, just people ages 17 to 27. I mean, no, not just anyone. If you can afford it, obviously."

Lindy Pepper-Bean (Callie Cooke) is a resident of Finetime, a carefree luxury city for the children of the elite. These teens spend two hours per day working and the rest of their time partying. Lindy and her friends are constantly online inside their "bubbles," holographic social media spheres that encircles the users' heads.

Lindy lives completely inside her bubble, so much so that the Doctor and Ruby have to push her to look beyond it before she even notices one of her co-workers being literally eaten right next to her. Finetime has become infested with monsters: sluglike creatures that are consuming the population - and yet, for whatever reason, they are ignoring Lindy... at least, so far.

Finetime's security is too tight for even the Doctor to get in. If Lindy wants to survive, she'll need to follow his and Ruby's instructions in order to reach a place of safety. All the while, the Doctor tries to piece together what's happening based on the snippets of information available to him.


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: He tries to contact Lindy right at the start of the episode. When he appears on her screen, talking about monsters, she instantly blocks him. It's only after Ruby manages to gain a small degree of trust that the young woman is willing to listen to him. He shrugs off Lindy's wails that she hates him, doing his utmost to keep this frankly idiotic young woman to focus on her own survival. Gatwa delivers what I think is his best-acted scene of the series thus far at the very end: The Doctor, letting out a cry of pure frustration before he lapses into a deep, still silence.

Ruby: Gets the time-honored companion's role of acting as the Doctor's intermediary when he alienates Lindy. She alternately ignores or agrees with Lindy's complaints about how "stupid" she is for not knowing about Finetime and the bubble, showing impressive patience and compassion for the girl. She's still working class at heart, though; when she learns that the residents are "the rich kids," she can't help but snark about it.

Lindy Pepper-Bean: Lindy's bubble is her world far more than any actual physical space. It's where she has fun, where she interacts with her friends, and where she distracts herself from having to ever actually think. There's a wonderful little moment after she witnesses the monster eating her co-worker. She shuts down, unable to process it, retreating into her bubble and playing music to avoid engaging with reality. The importance of Callie Cooke's performance to this episode can't be understated. We experience the entire story through Lindy's eyes, making it critical that this fundamentally selfish and unlikable person still comes across as human enough to make us care about her fate.

Ricky September: The social media star idolized by Lindy, Ricky (Tom Rhys Harries) has a "star account." In defiance of the stereotype, he is probably the least narcissistic person in Finetime. When he sees Lindy struggling, he helps her immediately, and he is protective of her both physically and emotionally from that moment on. He's more capable than her, and we discover why: Despite owing his success to social media, he likes to turn the bubble off while walking around and reading. Some of his behavior is almost Doctorish, with him putting himself in harm's way to save Lindy.


THOUGHTS:

Dot and Bubble is the best episode so far this season - and following on the heels of two other excellent episodes, that's an impressive achievement.

The story is well constructed. We open on Lindy and stay with her for the entire running time. A lot of world building is achieved in the opening minutes, with her turning on her bubble as soon as she wakes, her head engulfed in social media "noise" even as she walks to the bathroom (following directional arrows) to brush her teeth. A couple of her friends are bizarrely "offline," and the Doctor appears to give a warning that she ignores. That warning aside, this opening mostly establishes her daily life, which is so consumed by her bubble that reality has become all but irrelevant.

Lindy's bubble isn't a metaphor or analogy for social media, because it explicitly is social media. It's not the only bubble that exists in the story, though. Lindy happily declares that Finetime is reserved for the young and rich. Poor people and "stinky old people" have no place, keeping her and her friends isolated from anyone belonging to a different social class or even generation. Finetime is itself a domed city, so thoroughly locked off from the outside world that even the Doctor can't get in. When you break it all down, Lindy and her peers: live inside their personal social media bubbles... inside a bubble of youth and privilege... all of which exists inside the bubble of Finetime itself.

The epilogue takes the already existing ideas of social media isolation and separation according to class and adds a new wrinkle. This doesn't come out of nowhere, with hints dropped in character reactions throughout. However, unlike the "bubble" themes, this last is kept reasonably subtle and in the background, so that its full revelation comes as a shock to the Doctor and probably much of the audience, as well. The epilogue deals with this change-up well, with the final minutes particularly effective in not only the scripting, but also in Gatwa's performance and some outright beautiful closing shots.


OVERALL:

Dot and Bubble is my favorite episode so far this season. A good script provides an effective monster story while at the same time delivering plenty of social commentary. The performances are universally excellent. It's also extremely well-directed, with a wonderful contrast between Lindy's noisily cheerful bubble and the monsters chowing down on people outside of it.

This also marks the third standout in a row. At this point, not only has "Season One" (Series Fourteen, I mumble stubbornly) firmly recovered from its stumbling start - It seems on track to be one of the revived series' stronger seasons.


Overall Rating: 10/10.

Previous Story: 73 Yards
Next Story: Rogue (not yet reviewed)

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

1-4. 73 Yards.

Ruby Sunday is followed by a mysterious woman who is always exactly 73 yards away.

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 47 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies. Directed by: Dylan Holmes Williams. Produced by: Vicki Delow.


THE PLOT:

The TARDIS materializes in Wales, near the top of a cliff overlooking the sea. The Doctor exults in the view, waxing on about "the war between the land and the sea" - and gets so carried away with his own eloquence that he doesn't notice himself stepping on a fairy circle surrounding a makeshift shrine. Ruby pauses to read a couple of the prayers left by the locals, one of which references a "Mad Jack." When she looks up, the Doctor is gone, and a mysterious woman is watching Ruby from 73 yards away.

Ruby attempts to walk to her to ask where the Doctor went... but no matter what route she takes, the stranger remains 73 yards in the distance. After trying to get back into the TARDIS to no avail, Ruby starts walking to the local village. She asks a hiker to talk to the woman and the hiker agrees, only to flee as soon as she approaches. A man in the local pub also tries, with the same result.

Eventually, Ruby gives up and returns home. From the train, she sees the woman still watching her from 73 yards away, impossibly appearing in fields and towns every time she looks out the window. Her mother decides to put an end to this issue, striding forward to talk to her daughter's stalker... but she turns cold at once, abandoning Ruby.

Before the Doctor's disappearance, when he was nattering on about all things Welsh, he mentioned a future Prime Minister: Roger ap Gwilliam (Aneurin Barnard), whom he described as "terrifying." When Ruby sees ab Gwilliam giving a television interview, just beginning his political ascent, she decides that there's a purpose to what's happening after all. Whether it will solve her problem or not, she resolves to stop this man and "save the world."


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: He's barely in this episode. He drops a bit of exposition about Roger ap Gwilliam to set up later plot events. He's also instantly and deeply sorry about having broken the circle, with his first instinct to try to repair the damage he's done.

Ruby: By contrast, she doesn't care at all about breaking the circle, shrugging it off and proceeding to read some of the prayers left by the shrine. There's a running theme of abandonment, with every protector or potential protector deserting her: The Doctor, the woman who runs the pub, UNIT, even her mother. She feels these emotional wounds strongly, but she also pays close attention to the situation with the mysterious woman. She may not know what is happening or why, but she figures out some of the rules. By the second half, she learns to help herself - and when her lonely new fate intersects with the ascent of Roger ap Gwilliam, she uses her observations to greatest advantage.

Kate Lethbridge-Stewart: Briefly positioned as a potential savior for Ruby. She shows up with the offer a job, observing that UNIT has recently developed "a tradition of helping the Doctor's former companions." She also has UNIT's resources to bring to bear. Unfortunately, that's where it all goes wrong. Kate attempts to apprehend the mystery woman; and as soon as she and her soldiers approach, she turns cold and orders her forces to "disengage."

Carla Sunday: The Church on Ruby Road showed an alternate reality in which, without Ruby, generous and joyful Carla was instead selfish and bitter. We see that contrast again. When Ruby comes home, Carla is entirely supportive. She's the one who insists on confronting the woman, using walkie-talkies so that Ruby will be able to hear what the woman says. Then a switch is flipped. All at once, Carla stops seeing Ruby as her daughter, and Carla's manner transforms into... well, into the woman we saw in that one scene in The Church on Ruby Road.

Roger Ap Gwilliam: The closest this episode has to a villain, Gwylliam seems designed after modern populist figures. In the usual way of modern television, his actual politics are obscure. He is anti-NATO, however, and plans to buy a nuclear arsenal to keep the UK independent from the rest of the world. He's a nasty piece of work regardless, something the episode reinforces when he initiates an abusive relationship with Marti (Sophie Ablett), one of his campaign's young volunteers.


THOUGHTS:

"That's what we do, all of us. We see something inexplicable and invent the rules to make it work."
-Kate Lethbridge-Stewart drops a pretty big hint about the nature of this story.

73 Yards is deliberately ambiguous, providing questions and only ever giving partial answers.

That isn't to say that it isn't precisely structured. It sets up a problem for Ruby in the woman following her. It establishes rules: The woman is always 73 yards away, and anyone she speaks to is driven into an immediate panic and becomes particularly cold toward Ruby. It holds to both rules consistently and allows Ruby to use them to proactively to solve a problem. As a result, even with answers in short supply, there's still a feeling of completion. An end-of-episode twist provides sense of closure, even as questions are left to swirl around the viewer's mind.

The episode is a showcase for the character of Ruby in much the way Boom showcased the new Doctor. The result is, unsurprisingly, the strongest episode yet for the character. Ruby spends the first half trying to solve the immediate problem. She attempts to approach the woman. When that doesn't work, she enlists the aid of people she meets, hoping they can talk to her so that she can understand what's happening. Each attempt not only fails, but also leaves her more isolated than before. The second half then sees her fixating on a problem - Gwyllim - and relying only on herself to solve it.

I found the first half to be the stronger part, with plenty of atmosphere and a rising sense... not really of dread, but of something being "not right." The Gwyllim plot that dominates the second half is still well told, and it allows Ruby to firmly claim the "hero" role. But these scenes just don't have the same pull, and I think the script lifts a little too freely from Stephen King's The Dead Zone.

Millie Gibson impresses throughout. With Ncuti Gatwa gone save for a couple of minutes at the beginning and even less than that at the end, she has to carry the story, and she does so splendidly. There are moments of strong emotion, particularly in the scenes involving her mother's rejection of her, and she plays these in a way that makes them feel both effective and entirely natural. When she meets Kate, she shifts from relief at having found real help to dread when UNIT descends on the strange woman. Even as her isolation increases, she never loses her sense of humor or compassion.


OVERALL:

73 Yards is the second excellent episode in a row. It's atmospheric and mysterious, and it is further elevated by Millie Gibson's lead performance. I don't think the second half is quite as good as the first, which is why this falls just slightly short of full marks, but I'd still rank it among Russell T. Davies' best Doctor Who scripts. 

This season's stumbling start had me seriously worried. After Boom and this, however, I am back to eagerly awaiting the next installment.


Overall Rating: 9/10.

Previous Story: Boom
Next Story: Dot and Bubble

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

1-3. Boom.

The Doctor has to remain very still after stepping on a land mine.

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 44 minutes. Written by: Steven Moffat. Directed by: Julie Anne Robinson. Produced by: Vicki Delow.


THE PLOT:

The Doctor brings Ruby to her first alien planet. Unfortunately, the planet in question is Kastarion 3, which is in the midst of a devastating war between the Anglican Marines and an unseen enemy. The Doctor arrives just in time to hear the dying scream of marine John Francis Vater (Joe Anderson). He runs out to help - and steps on a land mine.

This is a smart mine. Not only can the Doctor not move without triggering it, he also needs to control his emotional responses. His attempts at forced calm are disrupted first by the arrival of the dead man's young daughter, Splice (Caoilinn Springhall) and then by another Anglican soldier, Mundy (Varada Sethu). Mundy brings him more bad news: The mine has a failsafe. Even if the Doctor is able to avoid setting it off, it will self-detonate after a certain period of time. Time that is rapidly running out.

"Thoughts and prayers!"


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: This episode absolutely depends on Ncuti Gatwa for its success, and he delivers a great performance. The Doctor spends the bulk of the episode frozen in place, leaving Gatwa to act with his voice, facial expressions, and eyes, and this allows him to finally show how good he can be. The Doctor is clearly scared - even more when he realizes the full stakes involved - but he maintains control. Every time the mine advances toward blowing, we see his struggle to keep his adrenaline and heart rate from triggering it. Most importantly, even though he's frozen in place for most of the episode, he's still the most powerful figure on screen.

Ruby: Early on, the Doctor sends her to search for a counterweight to allow him to safely lower one foot that's suspended in midair. When she returns, he tries to get her to throw the object to him from a safe distance. She refuses, knowing that he'll have a much better chance if she hands it to him, and she flatly ignores his pleas to stay back. Millie Gibson matches Gatwa, putting strong emotion into her voice as she attempts to act as his hands during this crisis. When the fog clears, she also catches her first glimpse of an alien sky, which allows a brief moment of wonder to interrupt the terror.


THOUGHTS:

YES!

After three episodes of being mostly cardboard characters, the 15th Doctor and Ruby finally, finally! feel like real people. Credit to Gatwa and Gibson who, given meaty material at last, deliver very good performances.

I'm going to give even more credit to writer Steven Moffat for crafting that material. Moffat's scripts have consistently ranked among my favorites since Doctor Who's 2005 return. Boom's premise is simple - the Doctor stuck on a landmine - but Moffat uses the situation to focus tightly on the two regulars. Despite liking the actors, I have been badly struggling with a lack of connection to this Doctor/companion team. Moffat's script gives me that missing connection within the first few minutes.

The teaser establishes the nature of both threats in a sequence following the doomed John and the equally doomed younger soldier trying to get him back to safety. We spend just enough time with John to get to like him... though anyone who has ever seen any form of war story knows that he's done for as soon as he calls up his young daughter, Splice. Then the younger soldier steps on a land mine, showing what will happen to the Doctor if he moves or reacts, and the first threat is established. Then the second threat - the one that truly represents the villain of the piece - is shown when John is killed by a more unexpected source.

From that moment, the tension just keeps rising. The Doctor follows John's scream and steps on a land mine. Just as his situation is temporarily stabilized, Splice shows up to learn about her father's death at the worst possible time. Then Mundy arrives, gun drawn, ready to shoot the Doctor if he doesn't get himself blown up first. And then... Well, suffice it to say that complications keep coming, and the stakes keep rising to encompass more lives than just the two regulars.

Moffat fills out bits of world-building from his own era. The Anglican soldiers were established in Series Five's The Time of Angels, and we learn more about them here. The episode also touches on themes similar to Series Ten's Oxygen, in which the real monster was an extreme form of capitalism. Cold capitalism is again the villain here, with the entire scenario caused by a privatized weapons industry and its business model: "The algorithm maintains a fighting force at just above the acceptable number of casualties... War is business, and business is booming."

I could argue that the resolution is reached a little too easily. Even that largely works, though, with the Doctor succeeding through a combination of cleverness and a direct and honest emotional appeal. If pressed, I think the ending is the weakest part of the episode, but it doesn't undercut the tension building up to it.


OVERALL:

Boom is the first great episode of showrunner Russell T. Davies' second tenure. It's tense and personal, while still finding room for future world/universe-building. It's unabashedly political, as Moffat's era tended to be, but its themes serve and arise from the story rather than distracting from it.

Most importantly, it makes the new Doctor and companion finally feel like fully formed people. I've been struggling to connect with the 15th Doctor and Ruby; this episode fixed that almost immediately without seeming to even try very hard to do it. Fingers crossed that the remaining episodes are able to sustain it!


Overall Rating: 10/10.

Previous Story: The Devil's Chord
Next Story: 73 Yards

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

1-2. The Devil's Chord.

Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon) intends to steal music from the world - and then the universe!

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 49 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies. Directed by: Ben Chessell. Produced by: Chris May.


THE PLOT:

Ruby asks the Doctor to take her to 1963 to see the Beatles' first recording. When they reach the studio, though, they are appalled to find the group recording a dull ditty about a dog. Investigating other recording booths, they discover that every contracted singer is singing similarly tepid tunes. Something has happened to music.

The Doctor realizes that this must be the work of some outside force, so he lays a trap. He sets up a piano on a rooftop and allows the musically inclined Ruby to play. This works, summoning "Maestro" (Jinkx Monsoon), whose arrival is heralded by a sound that chills the Doctor to the bone: the Toymaker's Giggle.

Maestro, a child of the Toymaker, plans to consume all music in the universe. The Doctor has no way of fighting through traditional means. But as a child of the Toymaker, Maestro is also bound by certain rules. It's a creature of music; with the right chord, a "genius" could banish it.

But while the Doctor is certainly a genius, he isn't necessarily a musical genius...


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: Visiting 1963 makes him briefly pensive. He reveals to Ruby that a version of him is already here, living in a junkyard with his granddaughter, Susan. He doesn't know whether Susan is alive or dead, and I'd speculate that he's been afraid to investigate and potentially reap even more pain from the answer. In his final confrontation with Maestro, he channels his sense of loss into a weapon, using it to guide him to play the right notes to bind the demon.

Ruby: Grew up listening to vinyl recordings of The Beatles, and she's delighted at the thought of seeing them in person. She has composed (rather good) music herself, and she summons Maestro by playing a piece she wrote for a heartbroken friend. There's a bit more development of Ruby's secrets. When Maestro goes after her, some sort of defense goes off, with Ruby singing "a secret chord" that keeps the entity at bay until the Doctor can act.

Maestro: "I heard music, and music is mine!" Drag queen Jinkx Monsoon plays the sinister Maestro, a casting choice that emphasizes the character as genderless while at the same time allowing Russell T. Davies to provoke outrage, which I'm pretty sure he sees as "bonus points." More importantly, Monsoon gives a good performance, chewing scenery with abandon while still conveying a sense of menace. Maestro is almost comical at a glance - right up until it becomes clear that they have the power to do everything they say they will. The Doctor's own terror helps to sell this being as a serious threat.

The Beatles (well, John and Paul at least): The Devil's Chord was, in large part, advertised as "The Beatles episode." It's not. No actual Beatles music is featured, and the only members of the group to receive any attention from the script are John Lennon (Chris Mason) and Paul McCartney (George Caple). In the 1963 created by Maestro, they and the other musicians no longer care about music, just planning to finish their dreary dog-and-nursery rhyme themed album before going to live everyday lives. When they start to reflect on music itself, an image of Maestro appears - and then both men become angry at the Doctor and Ruby, labeling them "disgusting" for making them think about music.


THOUGHTS:

Well, that was a step up from Space Babies!

The Devil's Chord is a good episode. The teaser grabbed me immediately, as music teacher Timothy Drake (Jeremy Limb) uses a piano to punctuate the points of a lecture. "First we have a note. Then we have a tune. Then we have a melody." He switches from Three Blind Mice to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, talking to his bored pupil about how the great composer wrote this when he was going deaf: "All that rage and fury, out of which... something beautiful."

It's a superb opening, even before Maestro enters the scene. It's also enough to make clear immediately that, unlike the previous two lightweight adventures, this story will have a hint of substance.

The scene in which Ruby plays the rooftop piano is beautiful. Even before she plays, there's a visual of her and the Doctor standing beneath a gray sky, with the Doctor remarking that without music, "the world is darkening." As Ruby plays, he stares out into the distance, eyes cast in the direction of his younger self and his granddaughter. The shot of him standing there would honestly make a pretty arresting image for a poster. Then we see the reactions of people hearing the music, some weeping at the temporary return of something they hadn't even realized they needed. It's a haunting moment, one which Russell T. Davies and director Ben Chessell allow to linger for maximum impact.

The visual element remains strong throughout. In a riff on Pyramids of Mars, the Doctor takes Ruby back to her own time, showing her the state of the world if Maestro isn't stopped. Then Maestro arrives, and the Doctor and the demon face each other with the ruins of London in the background. The climactic duel between them, near the end, is also well visualized, with musical notes swirling around them. For Maestro, the notes become both weapon and fuel, with parts of the confrontation playing like a sort of darkly twisted live action Looney Tunes. For the record, I mean that as a compliment.

The first half is generally better than the second. The back half of the episode often feels rushed, and even some very good scenes seem underdeveloped. As much as I enjoyed the Doctor's trip to the alternate future, I think more could have been done with that scene, and the transition from the Doctor fleeing Maestro to coming up with a plan to fight is extremely abrupt. Still, after what I found to be a woeful season premiere, this well-made and thematically ambitious episode is a welcome return to form.


OVERALL:

Though I enjoyed The Devil's Chord, I'm starting to get worried about how little connection I feel with the two leads. Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson remain appealing, but the Doctor and Ruby still only exist in broad strokes, with the scripts leaning too heavily on the actors' energy. I like them fine, but I don't know them.

I wasn't too worried about this in the previous two episodes. The Church on Ruby Road was an introduction, so broad strokes were to be expected, and I found Space Babies to be mostly awful. But this is actually a good episode, which makes this problem more concerning. By three episodes in, I was at least starting to feel some attachment to almost every previous TARDIS team. I sincerely hope the midseason corrects this and starts putting some actual detail into these character sketches. 


Overall Rating: 7/10. Despite my rising concerns about the regulars, this is a good episode.

Previous Story: Space Babies
Next Story: Boom

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

1-1. Space Babies.

The Doctor tries to save some talking space babies, while star Ncuti
Gatwa tries to save the episode. One of them is more successful than the other.

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 46 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies. Directed by: Julie Anne Robinson. Produced by: Vicki Delow.


THE PLOT:

The Doctor and Ruby arrive on the lower level of a space station in the distant future. They have just enough time to note that it's in poor repair before they find themselves fleeing from a monster who fills them with terror.

On the upper level, the Doctor discovers that this station is a "baby farm," designed to grow babies for colonization. The station has been abandoned, but the babies were left behind. Now the babies (who talk) are keeping the basic functions of the station going.

It's been enough to allow them to survive so far, but it's only a matter of time before the food runs out or the station falls apart. And that's not even mentioning the "Bogeyman" that stands between the time travelers and the TARDIS!


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: An early clue to the nature of the Bogeyman is the Doctor's own fear. After he runs from it, he wonders why he was so terrified. He relates the babies' situation to that of him and Ruby, two "foundlings," and he's determined to help the infants... though given that this is the second baby-themed adventure in a row, he does ask Ruby, "What is it with you and babies?"

Ruby: Once she realizes they have traveled in time, she's excited. She still has the presence of mind to stop herself from running out the door, though, pausing to ask if it's safe. She becomes instantly maternal toward the babies. When they discover that the children were birthed for legal reasons but then abandoned, the Doctor remarks on how strange that is; Ruby replies that "It's not that strange", a perfect fit for her background both as an abandoned baby and as someone who has helped her adopted mother look after many foster children.


THOUGHTS:

"Babies to the rescue!"
-the Doctor is saved by a baby with a flamethrower. Or possibly the pharmacy mixed hallucinogens into my blood pressure pills.

I always strive, in these reviews, to rationally look at the positives and negatives of any given episode. I like to parse what I think worked, what I think didn't work, and why.

And so, in the spirit of dispassionate evaluation, I have to ask...

WHAT THE F*** WAS THAT?

This episode has talking babies, complete with creepy CGI lip sync for their dialogue, running a space station by pushing buttons and pulling cords. When the Doctor and Ruby get into trouble, the babies drive their strollers down to the dangerous section of the station to rescue them. From a monster that's made out of... well, I won't spoil that except to say that, much like Ruby, you really don't want to know. Oh, and the Doctor saves the day by getting the space station to fart at the end. Yes, really.

It's appropriate that this was made for international release on Disney Plus, because this feels like a Disney film. Not one of their big theatrical features, mind, but one of the direct-to-video titles they pumped out during the late 1990s.

A few good things manage to sneak in, keeping this from a rock bottom rating. An opening "butterfly effect" gag provides a great hook, and it even gets a small callback when the Doctor tells Ruby his reasons for not letting her go back to the church on Ruby Road. There's a terrific moment mid-episode in which the Doctor and Ruby are distracted by a memory of that church, complete with actual snow. The tag scene, as the Doctor goes from cheery in front of Ruby to secretive once her back is turned, strikes an effective chord to end the hour. I suspect it's not a coincidence that all of these are moments that have nothing to do with the standalone story.

Writer Russell T. Davies is quite good at story structure; and to give the episode its due, this is competently structured nonsense. Both the nature of the Bogeyman and the solution are planted early on, so that neither revelation comes out of nowhere. There's a refrain of the Doctor pushing buttons that pays off at the climax. There's a bit of social commentary about forcing babies to be born only to refuse to care for them that's a bit on-the-nose, but that at least has some substance to it. Too bad it's all surrounded by wacky baby shenanigans.

In my review of The Church on Ruby Road, I said that if you're going to be silly, you may as well go for it. But there's a fine line between "silly" and "stupid" - and to my tastes at least, this episode crosses that line. I didn't laugh at the comedy baby moments, but I did roll my eyes, sigh, and check the time. A lot.

Finally, to be a grumpy old man about it: Back in the day, original producer Verity Lambert got in trouble for having a teenager played by an adult actress menacingly wield a pair of scissors. This episode has babies in strollers literally playing with fire, and nobody so much as blinked. Um... progress?


OVERALL:

I suspect one's tolerance for this episode is going to be tied to how cute one finds the idea of talking babies ("SPACE babies," as the Doctor irritatingly keeps exclaiming). Personally, I had my fill of that by the end of the first Look Who's Talking film, so I was neither charmed nor amused.

Gatwa and Gibson remain a winning duo, even if their characters continue to exist in only the broadest of strokes, and there are some good bits around the edges. That's (just) enough to keep me from giving this a "1." But I truly hope the rest of the season is a whole lot better than this.


Overall Rating: 2/10.

Previous Story: The Church on Ruby Road
Next Story: The Devil's Chord

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

1-0. The Church on Ruby Road.

The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby (Millie Gibson) meet
on the ship of a band of infant-eating goblins!

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 55 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies. Directed by: Mark Tonderai. Produced by: Chris May.


THE PLOT:

Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) is having a run of bad luck. She's interviewed by Davina McCall while searching for her biological parents - only for the interview to end when the studio lights begin falling. Her band's club performance is disrupted by electrical problems, costing her a job. She can't even bring in the groceries without the bottom of the bag splitting open!

This isn't simple clumsiness. Ruby is being stalked by goblins, creatures that are powered by bad luck and coincidence. Coincidences such as Ruby's adoptive mother, Carla (Michelle Greenidge) fostering newborn baby Lulabelle at Christmas - exactly as happened with Ruby nineteen years earlier.

This is the key coincidence that brings the goblins to Ruby. They snatch Lulabelle right out of her crib. Ruby gives chase, and she finds herself pulled into their ship.

The good news is that she isn't alone. The Doctor has been tracking Ruby and the goblins as well. The bad news? The goblins plan to eat baby Lulabelle - and the time for their feast is at hand!


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: Ncuti Gatwa brings enormous energy to the role. He grins as he and Ruby are pulled into the goblin ship, seeming downright joyful as he tells her that if the creatures catch them they will eat them. An early scene (apparently, one requested by Disney) has the Doctor showing his intelligence by deducing, Sherlock Holmes-style, that the police officer he's just met is planning to propose to his girlfriend. The scene is a good addition, serving as a quick encapsulation of how quickly the Doctor's mind works and how what seems like "magic knowledge" is actually well reasoned.

Ruby: Millie Gibson matches Gatwa's energy with her own. The character is drawn in broad strokes at the moment, though there are traits that have potential for development. She has a positive attitude which she seems to try to force even when she's disappointed or anxious. She also has a lot of determination. Not only does she chase after Lulubelle when the goblins kidnap her, she doesn't hesitate in jumping onto the goblin ladder (a ladder in the sky) to keep up the pursuit... a degree of recklessness that even the Doctor comments on!

Carla Sunday: She was originally Ruby's foster mother, then ended up adopting her. Carla is a generous person who has made a difference in the lives of 33 foster children, many of whom she's remained in touch with. She isn't entirely without jealousy, however; when Ruby is unable to find her birth parents, Carla declares that she's glad of it, adding that she wonders what her life would have been without Ruby. This being a Christmas special, that prompts an It's a Wonderful Life scene in which we and the Doctor glimpse exactly that, transforming her into a bitter and selfish figure. Michelle Greenidge is very good as both versions of Carla, critically showing these as possibilities for the same person rather than making "alternate Carla" seem like a different character.


THOUGHTS:

So we have singing goblins who snatch a baby from a young girl watching it. The girl tries to recover the child, following it to the lair of a Goblin King, where she's treated to a full musical number. I think I know what movie Russell T. Davies was watching before he wrote this...

The Church on Ruby Road is not a particularly substantial story, but it's a lot of fun. It showcases the new Doctor and companion both individually and as a team. Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson have good screen chemistry, and there's just enough of the macabre in the episode's Grimm's Fairy Tale trappings to lend an edge to the silliness.

The high point comes midway through, when the Doctor and Ruby observe the goblins singing as they prepare to eat baby Lulabelle. The song is so catchy that it's all but guaranteed to live in your head for days after viewing, and the mix of comic lunacy and ghoulishness is a delight. The goblins begin throwing salt and seasonings on the baby as it runs on a conveyor belt directly to the open mouth of the waiting Goblin King - twisted, ridiculous, and wildly over-the-top all in the same instant.

Nothing else in the episode lives up to that scene, but it's smartly paced throughout. Unlike some of Davies' past scripts, some of which I thought turned into rushed jumbles, The Church on Ruby Road knows when to apply the brakes and slow down.

The first twenty minutes has plenty of incident, but it builds mystery as well. All we see of the goblins is their hands as they engineer the mischief surrounding Ruby's bad luck. At the same time, this opening Act gives us plenty of time with Ruby. She may be drawn mostly in broad strokes, but her backstory and relationships are parceled out nicely, and she's likable enough that it's easy to identify with her.

The mid-episode shifts into high gear, as the Doctor and Ruby properly meet and then rescue the baby from the goblins (I doubt it's a spoiler to reveal that no infant is eaten in a Doctor Who Christmas special). Then the final Act slows down again as it becomes the Doctor's turn to get some character moments, from him sharing the recent discovery that he's also a foundling who was "adopted" to his pondering whether he himself might be "the bad luck." I think this also a good choice for Gatwa's introductory story, showing him handling some dramatic and emotional beats as deftly as the comic ones.

Even at the end of the episode, I'm still left feeling that I don't yet know this new set of regulars. But they're an engaging duo, which is enough to have me looking forward to getting to know them.


OVERALL:

Like most of Doctor Who's Christmas specials, The Church on Ruby Road does not have the most complex of stories. The goblin tale is there mostly to support the introduction of the new regulars, both of whom make an excellent impression here, while also providing a couple of enjoyably bonkers set pieces.

I'd rate it toward the lower end of the new series' introductory tales. Even at the end, I'm left feeling like I don't know the new set of regulars, something that wasn't true of either The Eleventh Hour or The Woman Who Fell to Earth. Still, the episode shows a lot of promise for this new team. Most importantly, it's just plain fun to watch - and fun isn't something I'm inclined to argue against.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Story: The Giggle
Next Story: Space Babies

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads