The Church on Ruby Road

Having decided to review these episodes of the quasi-rebooted "Doctor Who" as they air, I realised I needed to jump back an episode to review the Christmas special, which was the full debut of Ncuti Gatwa as The Doctor. So, last night, I rewatched it - the night after watching the "Space Babies" episode. It feels quite similar, in that I like the character and the overall arc building but am a little less enamoured with the creature element.

Beset by a run of bad luck, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) attracts the attention of The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa). Ruby is the adopted daughter of Carla (Michelle Greenridge) who has fostered dozens of other children and receives another baby on Christmas Eve 2023. Ruby is in charge of the baby for only a few minutes before she's kidnapped by Goblins, who intend to eat her. Ruby engages in a rooftop pursuit, where she's joined by The Doctor and they climb aboard the Goblin ship.

As with the next episode I like the mythology building that Russel T Davies was always so good at. We establish the mystery of who is Ruby's mother, when she is left on a church doorstep on Christmas Eve. The adopted daughter angle plays alongside The Doctor still coming to terms with the fact he was also adopted by Gallifrey (Interesting that Davies intends to keep that bit of lore and work with it, rather than ignore that controversial Chibnall idea).

The Goblin's themselves weren't a bad effect, as much as an uninteresting design. Everything about them felt a bit haphazard though, for example, they're feeding the baby to the Goblin King, but he's so unfeasibly large the Baby wouldn't even make a snack for him. Why does the female Goblin have a perfect human singing voice whereas none of the rest do? Everything to do with tying Ruby into the days with the accidents and co-incidences didn't really make much logically sense either. (The less said about the song the better).

As with the episode that follows, the good news is that I like the continuing elements, though felt underwhelmed by the episodic elements. Hopefully the series will get those right soon too.

Our intro into the age of the fifteenth doctor is jumbled at best. Now I'm not one of the trolls that have been review bombing Doctor Who lately because of its LGBTQ+ inclusion, a big part of why I love the show is that it's bringing us the future in more way's than one but it's the Christmas special's storyline I'm having trouble with. Starting with the goblins, I just don't understand them, so they enjoy coincidence and use knots as science. It's not the first time DW has tried to use sci fi rules to explain fantasy but apart from their catchy singing, the whole Goblin concept doesn't feel very thought out.

I was really taken in by the mystery of where Ruby comes from, I'm already coming up with ideas of who her parents are. However her relationship with the doctor seems to be developing too quickly to form any investment in their friendship. Her dynamic with the doctor is instant and they already begin talking to each other like they've been friends for a while. It Just doesn't feel natural

While I think Millie Gibson's character has potential, I don't know if Ncuti Gatwa's doctor has truly found his footing yet. This is a shaky start but Russel T Davies is the man who brought the doctor back to our screens and breathed new life into him. I have faith that he'll be able to do it again, even if it takes a little longer this time.

Fairly predictable writing and characters. London, family, a mystery, weird (baby Yoda) type people, nasty mean ghoulish monster.

Had to turn the subtitles on - so we could hear the dialogue. There was a crucial scene when the Doctor and Ruby ascend to a goblin spaceship via a rope ladder... who, without subtitles would ever know what the chat on the ladder was about?

Why, oh why, is it necessary to have music over critical dialogue? Spoilt the entire episode. I can't emphasise this enough... just tone it down! We need the words.

On the plus side- The Doctor is gorgeous and beautifully attired.... loved the kilt.

I just wanted to preface this by saying: I actually like Jodie. I think she's a great actor, but was let down by terrible writing, boring stories and most of all awful direction.

From the first scene Ncuti commands the screen. He's charismatic, cool, funny and fun. The spotlight is on him, because he IS the Doctor. I never bought Jodie as the Doctor. Ncuti, it was instant.

Between the barmy story and the brilliant acting on show from Ncuti, Millie and the rest, this is honestly off to a fantastic start.

It's been so long since I've been genuinely excited for the next episode of Doctor Who to come out.

RTD is back and Doctor Who is campy and fun again!

I feel like Russell T. Davies is weaving an ingeniously inventive tapestry of fascinating tales that are being adapted to the screen by a bunch of people who (frustratingly) just continuously don't seem to understand the complexity of the narrative he's already established, after only four episodes?

In 'Wild Blue Yonder', our protagonist (the Doctor) thoughtlessly invoked a superstition at the edge of creation where the barrier between worlds was thin; lines firmly establishing reality from fiction were therefore blurred & consequently, what shouldn't have been theoretically possible before (in this universe) suddenly became increasingly likely (intentionally pushing the boundaries of sci-fi until one could reasonably describe it as fantasy - blending the two genres); bi-regeneration (acknowledged previously as a myth) inexplicably occurred for the first time in the show's 60+ year history, 'The Toymaker' (a godlike being whose very existence challenges our own sense of coherent logic) broke through in to this plane & there, he playfully exacerbated the problem by "toying with supernovas, turning galaxies in to spinning tops" etc. He even "gambled with god & made him a jack-in-the-box, made a jigsaw out of (the Doctor's) history" (additionally explaining the convoluted 'Timeless Child' arc - made possible by a plausible ripple of his tampering in this current plotline, reverberating back through the Time Lord's own linear chronology) & "sealed the Master for all eternity inside his golden tooth". What I'm trying to articulate is everything we're seeing now is arguably a direct ramification of that fleeting encounter on the ominously vacant ship Tennant & Catherine Tate's characters found themselves stranded on (after she carelessly dropped coffee on the TARDIS console); not only is everything we've witnessed an expansion of that founding idea, but the showrunner continues to mine the brilliant concept for all it's worth by realising more of the resultant potential here, in his latest Christmas Special, 'The Church on Ruby Road'.

How?

Well, in short... Goblins. Magical creatures the show never previously featured (for good reason - it would've been silly) demonstrably inhabit the realm of "Who" in the same way "the Daleks" do, from 2023 onwards (like it or not, it's a bold creative decision - making a swift divergence from everything we're accustomed to since the identity of the programme has evolved in to something recognisable, though distinctively unlike any predecessors). There, these pesky monsters manifestly ride the waves of time aboard a wonderfully nonsensical vessel (held together by the "language of rope" - another new thought - defying scientific law - we've to rapidly acquaint ourselves with), weaponising chance retrospectively to embed themselves in events - enough to form a strong, tangible connection & eventually steal people's babies - so their "King" can gluttonously feast upon them whilst his minions simultaneously sing camp songs about their endeavours... I know, absurd (intentionally).

What makes this really interesting is - as acknowledged in a small line of dialogue spoken by Ncuti Gatwa - all the bad luck his soon-to-be companion suffers (at the hands of life-forms who plague her recent days) is furthermore because of him; her trials & tribulations occur from intentional coincidence, made possible with hindsight - culminating to deliberately form these orchestrated circumstances... Coincidentally, only due to his prior actions (with another face) - conducted with no foresight (permitting the implausible to coincide with the comprehensible). Now, if one is to perhaps be tediously philosophical, you could actually argue the retrospectively manufactured coincidence could have subsequently been responsible for the installation of itself (a self perpetuating causal loop / predestination paradox, accountable for its former origins), rationalising the Doctor's behaviours (everything he's coincidentally done is in service of their artificial construction of aforementioned coincidence; binding him & Millie Gibson's "Ruby" together like magnetism - changing the rules for the specific purpose of piecing them in the same space)... However, I feel that robs him of necessary autonomy & renders him a rather passive bystander in his own emotional journey - yet there's so much nuance to be had & outstandingly unique stuff to be realised (addressing this mind-bending whimsicality) which isn't being acknowledged in the context of the installments... And for me, that's a shame.

Don't get me wrong, the outing's good... The realisation merely gives the inaccurate impression of simplicity when beneath the surface, there's anything but.

Don't know if it's Mark Tonderai's poor direction (repeatedly capturing sequences in a consecutive series of claustrophobic close-up / handheld shots, failing to visualise vital information or convey it concisely; scenes seldom have a sense of geography & Ruby's room isn't depicted, preceding her sudden disappearance for instance - reaffirming the noticeable shift in her absence. Plus, verbose editing, needlessly showing her dragging a ladder after spotting it when we could've just quickly cut to her reaching the roof, inferring her response to seeing the solution to her problem - maintaining a more satisfying momentum), the restrictive run-time or Russell's reliable tendency to approach an introductory script with tentative caution (he normally takes a while to get to properly know the characters he's created - hence, I've found the latter half of his seasons are always stronger, simply because he's closer to being certain of who they are & can lean more heavily upon assured foundations, once they've set) or a culmination of all these issues... But despite the adequacy, it could've been better.