The Church on Ruby Road

This Story: 2023 Christmas Special. Production code 14.3
Overall: Story 304, Episode 881
Airdate: 25 Dec 2023
Written by Russell T Davies
Directed by Mark Tonderai

My Thoughts

Here we go again.  A new Doctor – a new era.  To sum it up, this isn’t the strongest “first story” (that still remains Matt Smith’s first, IMO). But in no way should that be interpreted as this being bad.  It is not.  There’s a lot to like, and I like the story.  But as a “first story”, it doesn’t do anything really to set up the 15th Doctor.  He’s just “there”.  I like a bit of confusion for the start of a new Doctor’s era, and he’s kind of fully formed here.  That’s about the only thing that really bugged me.  Except the fact that his Tardis and title sequence was also “there” – we got to see both with David Tennant’s 14th Doctor.  We also didn’t get Ruby saying “It’s bigger on the inside” when first entering the Tardis.   That’s about the end of what I didn’t like about this – the rest will be positive.  But I couldn’t be true to my feelings without saying that stuff. :)

There is a lot of time spent early on with Ruby being a “foundling” – a term that was new to me, but I quickly figured out from context.  My generation would call that abandoned I suppose?  I loved that this companion trait further tied into the Timeless Child stuff from Jodie Whittaker’s era.  I absolutely adore that RTD is digging in deeper to that mythos, that most fans assumed he would just ignore or wipe away.  They’ve spent more time with Gatwa and Tennant’s 14th talking about Timeless Child stuff than they actually did at any time in Whittaker’s era, and that included the actual Timeless Children episode itself!

It took some time before the Doctor and Ruby get paired together.  In the interim, we spend a bunch of time with Ruby and Davina McCall (a real life person), as well as Ruby’s adopted family.  We get to meet her Grandma (Cherry), who is all kinds of fun – get this woman a cuppa, would someone?  We get scenes of the Doctor following Ruby around, but we don’t know why.   There’s a lot made out of “accidents”, which we find out are the work of goblins, the main “enemy” of this story.  I did really like that the main bad guy wasn’t this universe donating thing, just a small time character that causes problems for a baby adopted by Ruby’s own foster/adopted mother.  It’s at this point that the two leads get together, as Ruby chases the goblins when they take the baby.  The Doctor ends up jumping on a ladder that Ruby is on.  I loved their introduction, just felt it was a bit long before they did get together.

During the scenes of him following her around we get one at a club where the Doctor is out dancing by himself in the middle of the dance floor, with Ruby seemingly well, “enjoying the view”.  It definitely sets the tone for Gatwa’s Doctor.  Historically, every Doctor has bits of the actor in them, but this one feels more like Gatwa in some ways.  I couldn’t see any prior Doctor truing to pull of the club dancing bit.  Although it does now make me want to see 15 attempt that dance that 11 did at Amy & Rory’s wedding.  He’d probably make it look cool.

Once we get to the goblin ship, The Doctor & Ruby are captured, which leads to some fun exposition – including a great line about the Doctor being annoyed that Ruby called the goblins time travelers.   However, the main thing on the goblin ship is the goblin song.  Need to take a few mins to write about that.

A couple of weeks before the episode aired, the BBC released a music video (which was basically just that scene from the episode) on Youtube.  It was “The Goblin song”, and well, it’s weird.  VERY weird.  Taken out of context, it’s even weirder.  I watched this before the episode, and when my wife sat down to watch the entire episode with me, I warned her up front..  “Be aware that no babies are harmed in this episode.”  Which she gave me a strange look for, but then we got to the goblin song.  She had a weird expression on her face the entire time, and when it was over said “I never want to see that song again”.

Anyway, the entire reason the goblins kidnapped the baby was to eat it.  The lyrics of the song are all about that.   In this scene there’s a ton of dancing goblins.  About a dozen of them are real people, and the rest are all CGI’ed.  It’s a nice effect for sure.   I did like the way that they escaped from the ship with the baby.

However..  I don’t understand the logic of the goblin plan.  They took one small baby.  Normal human size infant.  In the lyrics of the song they say “We can dine three days at least”.  Then they make it look like the baby will just be eaten by the goblin king.  The goblin king is huge, and the baby is tiny.  Even if he did eat it, it would be at most a quick snack.  Not something the rest of the goblins would take any benefit from – especially for “dining three days at least”.  So I don’t understand that at all.  One would think you’d need many babies for what seemed like their plan.

I’ve embedded the video they released on 11 Dec of the Goblin Song below if you want to experience the out of context fun like I did.  :)

When the Doctor & Ruby get back, the goblins decide to take a different tact and go back in time to when Ruby was dropped off as an abandoned child and take her instead.  This of course changes the timeline.  It gives us a great scene with the Doctor and Ruby’s adopted mother which made him realize things are altered.  We get the Doctor going back there too, and defeating the goblin king by using his new “intelligent gloves” to bring the goblin ship down onto the spire of the church which causes the goblin king to be impaled, and they all disappeared.  Ruby (the baby) is saved, and dropped off at the church like she should have been, resetting everything back to the way it was.

From this point, it’s all happy stuff, and includes the Doctor going back in time again to save Davina McCall, who earlier in the story got imapled by a Christmas Tree.  Ruby puts two and two together and figures out that the Doctor has been following her, and makes her way into the Tardis as the episode ends, setting up the new series in May of 2024.

Speaking of setting up, there’s a few big things that will get followed up on in the new series.  The biggest one is who is Ruby’s mother?  Any female character from the past has been talked about, but it feels like for me it’s Ruby herself as an adult.  It would be so RTD to do that (and a bit Red Dwarf as well).  The other is who is Mrs. Flood?  She knows what a Tardis is (hello fourth wall), and is just kind of “there” observing things.  Once again, same characters from the past are rumored (Susan, The Rani), but it could be Ruby herself as an older woman.  We’ll find out.

To summarize, it is a great story with some goofy stuff (goblin song).  While not the best “first” story for a new Doctor, it’s still a great story, and Ncuti Gatwa himself is brilliant.  His Doctor has arrived on screen fully formed, and I adore his performance so far.  Can’t wait to see the new stuff in a few months.

Links

[ Wikipedia | Tardis Data Core | SPS Historium | UK DVD | UK Blu-Ray | US Kindle Book ]