The Church on Ruby Road

Ruby Tuesday has been having a lot of bad luck, and that luck is getting worse, fortunately The Doctor is on hand to offer a helping hand.

Typical Christmas nonsense, it seemed to fit the bill for silly season, I just loved Ncuti and Ruby, he instantly won me over, I think he's going to be a great Doctor.

So this episode is mainly dedicated to introducing us to Ruby. Millie Gibson is going to be great, I'm sure we have lots to learn about her as the season progresses.

On the plus side, the acting was excellent, credit to all involved. The production values were excellent, and I'm getting vibes that Anita Dobson is going to play a part going forward, surely a villain in the making.

On the debit side, I wasn't crazy about the storyline, and I'm not sure the goblins worked. The goblin song, that was shocking, sorry Russell it was cringe, on par with The Toymaker's dance. Too many cheesy smiles, please can those be toned down a little.

It's going to get flack for ticking all of the boxes, but it is The BBC and Disney, that's not going to change anytime soon.

7/10.

I wrote a review last week and now it's no longer visible. I noticed that the number of reviews dropped by about 10, so maybe a bunch of others were also removed along with mine. I find this both strange and disappointing.

I can't remember what I said exactly, but I did say that I wasn't really impressed with this special. I thought there was zero chemistry between Gatwa and "Ruby" and I am not looking forward to seeing her again. But there was good interaction between the Doctor and the mother/daughter characters.

I thought the goblins story was a bad idea. So all in all I wasn't impressed, even though I watched it twice to check that I wasn't being unfair.

Let's see if this review vanishes or not.

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 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.

The new era has begun and I like where this cold go.

This doesn't of course change that I think this was a rather weak episode that I nearly forgot while I was watching it, as it wasn't that interesting of a story or concept, but what made me hopeful was the Doctor and the new companies chemistry and overall character. There is no doubt potential here, even though it was a bit of a rocky start for me.

The Doctor searches for an absurdly unlucky woman named Rose. The unlucky incidents turn out to be done by an army of goblins.

The overall concept and idea here is fun enough for a Christmas special, but it is a rather dull and uninteresting story for me. The only part that really spice it up is the first real performance of the new Doctor and the new companion.

I must say, I can't wait to see what Ncuti Gatwa does with his Doctor run. His charisma is absolutely insane, and I think he captures the Doctor really well. I also really liked Millie Gibson as Ruby. I think this will be a fun run, especially with the already set up twist and turns.

The effects are pretty fun here, but a bit too much green screen is used for my licking. Practical puppets and costumes though, sign me up.

As said, this isn't a bad episode, but an unfocused and underwhelming one. I wish it was a better introduction o the new Doctor, but while the episode didn't do him justice, the cast did, and I can't wait to see more!