Space Babies

Growing up with Doctor who in the 70s and 80s I always liked how it treated its viewers respectfully and credited them with intelligence. Even as a 50 something watching Tennant, Smith and Eccleston I still enjoyed the reboot and found them well written. This episode however is the poorest I have ever seen due mostly to plot and themes. Ncuti Gatwa needs better episodes written if he's going to stand the test of time. Massive budgets and charisma from Ncuti don't compensate for lame stories about space babies. Theres a paint drying video on YouTube that's more interesting. Let's see what the rest of the season brings!

The chemistry between Ruby and the Doctor was fantastic. They clearly feel off each other as actors and you can just feel the casual connection they have with each other. Gatwa and Gibson physical interaction was the feel of long time friends and shows genuine fun and warmth between the characters. I have a feeling that along with their superb acting will generate a lot of positivity towards this episode. I think after a couple of seasons (since 2 is confirmed with Gatwa) that this will be viewed as one of the weakest episodes.

On to the story, Davies has always had political or social undertones. None of them detracts from the story even though they were clearly complaints/comments. The writing was clearly meant to be juvenile. 6 years olds in onsies. Overall, but the overall poop, smell, and dirty diaper jokes throughout the story is classical low hanging fruit that Davies gets fixated on sometimes. Tarnished a story with a lot of energy and chemistry along with some really funny buts and some scary moments.

Space Babies is the most painful thing that I've forced myself to watch in a very long time. Appalling intellectualy insulting pun based concept, insulating terrible exposition and cringe worthy acting from the entire cast not that the babies were acting at all. It's shocking that in 2024 something this terrible could be commissioned - also the creature effects remained me of classic Who and not in a good way.

There was a time when Russell T Davies could write a good script and screenplay, I really don't know what happened here, but I'll take a guess that he literally pulled it out of his nose.

It's a day later and I'm still angry about how bad it was.

I was looking forward to the new Dr Who series, but the first episode is disappointing. The plot has no nuance or substance, a far cry from the intelligent stories of seasons past. The pacing is strange going from a frenetic beginning to slow and erratic finish. It feels like the writers ran out of ideas and needed to pad out the show to an hour.

The big problem however that will be difficult to fix in future episodes, is that the two main characters are just cringey and unlikeable. The show may have worked, with a little more substance to the characters. It feels like the Lego movie where, "everything is awesome" but without the comedy.

Give it a past, watch to older seasons, much better.

I really wanted to like the entry of the new Doctor. If theres definitely a positive thing to say, its the music. Murray Gold nailed it again. The new Theme is up there with "I am the Doctor", putting the adventurous character of the Doctor into a perfect piece of music.

BUT.....speaking "Space Babies"? This is a strong competition to some of the worst movies from the 90s and early 2000ths. You should never, ever let babies speak. Not mentioning the uncanny valley effect when looking at the voiceacted and animated babymouths.

It got better towards the end, even though its "We have to save everybody, no matter what" - message doesnt quite fit, but its understandable.

Really hope the next Episode will convince me more.