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.

Whilst I really like the new doctor and Ruby this episode just felt off. I respect big creative swings which this episode is but it's largely a miss- so much happens but nothing happens? It just felt messy the musical elements were nice but detracted from the episode. The directing at point felt very amateur and cheap it definitely feels like this episode had a much smaller budget than the past three. On the grounds it's a campy Xmas special I'm more forgiving for this episodes downfalls but I will not revisit it any time soon and I desperately hope this isn't a forecast of what's to come and is more of a misguided accident.

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!

Nothing against the choice of actors.

It could have been great... but it was thoroughly disappointing.

Boring, non-engaging and uninspired writing created a boring cheap rip off of gremlins, they did not introduce characters properly including the doctor himself...

No real villain to set the tone of the new season and the special effects were sub-par to say they least leaving a bitter, cheap post 2000s George Lucas taste.

The story did not take flight and we did not get a taste of what the new doctor will be like. In fact, he was completely wasted but it still contains potential!

Hoping for better things to come.

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.