“The Church on Ruby Road”
Posted by Kim
The Disney+ Era of Doctor Who is upon us at last, and for anyone wondering what exactly the Mouse House might bring to our beloved little weird sci-fi show, this is the most definitive answer we have so far: MARKETING. The past couple of weeks have seen an American publicity blitz we haven’t had the likes of since the heyday of Matt Smith’s tenure. (And maybe not even then!) We’ve got Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson appearing on Good Morning America. We’ve got Ncuti making the late night rounds. We have a whole ass subway train that travels between Times Square and Grand Central Station wrapped in Doctor Who promo materials. There are sponsored ads on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. The TARDIS fucking landed at Disneyland, y’all. The new era Doctor Who is here at last, and Disney wants everyone to know about it.
Of course, the real fans know that the new era of Doctor Who actually began five months ago and we’ve just been waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.
After eighty-four four years of “festive” specials that aired on New Year’s Day, Doctor Who finally returned to Christmas Day in 2023, and GOD, did that feel good or what? Seriously, what did we do on Christmas Day for four years with no appointment television as an excuse to duck out of a family gathering? A truly dark time indeed. “The Church on Ruby Road” is pretty much everything we’ve come to expect from a Doctor Who Christmas special. It’s entertaining and fun. It’s campy and chaotic and has bucket loads of charm. It’s…a bit of Monet when you really sit down and start to think about it. Or, to borrow one of the conceits of the episode, when you start tugging on the ropes of the script, it starts to fall apart.
Now to be fair, “The Church on Ruby Road” is the type of Monet that makes you say “Well, all of that paint actually makes some beautiful waterlilies” rather than making you say “That’s a just big ole mess.” The episode is big and boy, is it ambitious. Russell T. Davies packs a LOT of information and story into 55 minutes, which definitely results the feeling of messiness. It’s the first episode of the RTD2 era that doesn’t have the safety net of audience familiarity and nostalgia in David Tennant and Catherine Tate. It’s Ncuti Gatwa’s first real test in his new role as the Doctor. And it’s our introduction to Millie Gibson as our new companion Ruby Sunday. Like I said. It’s a LOT of set-up work for the new series which is possibly why, while I found the episode fun as hell, I also found it a bit lacking. But lacking doesn’t necessarily mean bad! It falls in the solid middle when it comes to Doctor Who specials and you know what? That’s pretty dang impressive for a debut episode. I’ll take “The Church on Ruby Road” over “The Next Doctor” or “Resolution” any day. Why? Because four years later I couldn’t tell you what “Resolution” was about (Daleks?) but I can guarantee that twenty years from now I will never forget that “The Church on Ruby Road” was the one with baby eating goblins.
Let’s get this out of the way first: Ncuti Gatwa passed the test of his first solo outing as the Doctor with flying colors. I was talking about this episode with our dear friend Graeme Burk for an episode of Reality Bomb and when he asked me how I felt about Fifteen’s debut, I had to stop and remind myself that technically, this WAS his debut episode. We got so much of him in “The Giggle,” you know? He made such a big impression there that it felt like Ncuti had been the Doctor for years when he popped out of the TARDIS in the opening moments of “Ruby Road.” To me, it’s just very clear that Ncuti knows exactly what he wants to do with the character and that confidence oozes from every single pore. He’s got that megawatt smile and that slightly wicked eye twinkle that effortlessly draws you in. He’s an absolutely star, a performer who demands your attention but doesn’t suck all the air out of the room. I can’t wait to see what else he does with this role when he’s SO GOOD already after one and a half episodes.
It already feels like Ncuti’s Doctor is the most emotionally intelligent and self-aware Doctor we’ve ever had. He is still driven by deep curiosity and compassion for the human race, but he also has a new zeal for living life (the sheer JOY he has dancing in the club!) and an openness that we haven’t seen from the character before, from the way he casually shares information about himself to the way he easily shows affection. But for all that talk about the Doctor fixing himself in “The Giggle,” we still get some flashes of darkness with Fifteen that show that all the self-actualization and therapy and processing Fourteen does is still a work in progress and I love that. I love that while we’re no longer having the Doctor defined by his trauma, we’re still acknowledging that it’s there and it still rears its ugly head on occasion. Time Lords! They’re just like us!
As for some of that trauma, I respect that RTD isn’t just handwaving away the canon that Chris Chibnall created during his tenure because he very much could have. However, I DO have some hesitation with RTD taking a story that was deeply personal to Chibnall and potentially expanding on it. I have no idea if he intends to do anything else with the Timeless Child other than have the Doctor occasionally mention it like he used to mention the Time War. But given that being a foundling is a part of the new bond that he shares with Ruby Sunday, I have a feeling we might be delving deeper into this part of their identities.
Ah, yes Ruby Sunday. Given that the centralization of the companion’s story in the narrative has always been the hallmark of RTD’s Doctor Who, naturally, I had high expectations for her first episode. I think Millie Gibson is cute as a button and she is definitely a compelling actress, easily hitting all the emotional beats of the episode. But I don’t know…something isn’t landing with me in regards to the character yet, and I can’t quite put my finger on the reason why. Ruby’s got everything we’ve come to expect from a classic RTD companion. She’s got a rich personal life with friends and quirky neighbors. Her mum and Gran are well defined characters in their own rights and she has strong relationships with them both. She’s a fresh-faced 19-year-old just waiting for her life to begin, much like another fresh-faced 19-year-old blonde we met back in 2005. By the way, if you want to feel OLD, do the math and realize that Ruby was BORN a WEEK before Rose Tyler unknowingly encountered the Tenth Doctor right before his regeneration.
On paper, Ruby Sunday is an ideal companion, so I don’t know why she’s not hitting for me. Perhaps it’s the Moffat-esque mystery surrounding the identities the her birth parents, which Russell has confirmed we’re going to revisit? Listen, I love a good season-long mystery and RTD has done some great ones in the past. It’s just that his past mysteries have always revolved around events and circumstances rather than character identity. As good as the resolution of the Impossible Girl arc ended up being, the mystery of it all really hampered the development of Clara Oswald’s character in her first series (remember how she was a nanny and then was suddenly a teacher?) and I’m concerned about that happening to Ruby here.
Ruby isn’t done any favors by the plot of the episode either. I’ve rewatched this episode multiple times in the five months since it aired and I still can’t really nail down the point of the goblins. Are they just driven by hanger that can only be satisfied by consuming a wee baby? Is that it? To be fair, I’m capable of pretty irrational things when I’m hangry, so perhaps that is all the motivation the goblins need. Perhaps it’s not that deep! The Doctor and Ruby Sunday had to cross paths somehow, so why NOT because of baby-eating goblins with murky origins and motivations? Perhaps it’s silly fun and I should just sit back and enjoy the obvious homage to all those Jim Henson creature movies that both entertained and traumatized an entire generation. I was in the crowd that steadfastly ignored the early release of “The Goblin Song,” wanting to wait and hear it in the context of the episode, and GOD, I was so glad I did. What a sick and twisted BOP. I practically screamed with laughter while I was watching the episode and five months later, I’m still prone to humming “The Goblin King, oh the Goblin King” at any given moment. Clearly one well executed musical number is all I need to MOSTLY forgive a loosey-goosey plot.
The episode falls apart for me in the final act though. I don’t love the plot device of showing us what the world would have been like had the goblins eaten Ruby instead, especially when it comes to the characterization of Carla Sunday. You’re telling me that this warm and caring woman who has a seemingly boundless amount of love that she easily gives and who has fostered thirty-three children (IS SHE JESUS?) over the course of her lifetime would have been a cold and bitter woman who resents her elderly mother and only fosters children for the paycheck had Ruby not come into her life? I mean, I know that even the smallest person can change the course of the future, blah blah blah…but an entire personality transplant? I don’t buy it. Plus, I really don’t like that depiction of foster and adoptive parents. It’s icky and insensitive and cartoonish and just yikes. Russell should know better, honestly. I’m not saying Carla should be depicted as a saint and only a saint, but this kind of wild swing the other way is a choice. A bad one.
It feels like we’re destined to return to the night where Ruby’s mother left her at the church at least one more time, so I am going to reserve my judgement on that part of the story until we see it all in the grand scheme of whatever it is that Russell is planning. All I am going to ask right now is did the Doctor create a paradox by going back to that night and saving Ruby from the Goblins? Is she where she is today because of it? Has that always been part of her story and she just didn’t know? Or did the Doctor change the course of her life in some way and rewrite her history in ways that may seem insignificant until they suddenly aren’t? Time will certainly tell. For now, the whole going back to the day she was left at the church merely seems like a plot device that FINALLY makes Ruby realize her new friend is ACTUALLY a fucking time traveler which leads to a VERY sexy TARDIS reveal and Ncuti nailing his “I am the Doctor” moment with a smirk that had me reaching for my smelling salts. LET’S FUCKING GO.
Timey Wimey Observations
- I saw a post on Tumblr that said one of the first things Fifteen did was invent intelligent gloves that would have saved Rose Tyler in “Doomsday” and if I have to think about that, the rest of you do too.
- I really think Fifteen and Ruby will be in the running for best dressed Doctor/Companion duo of all time. I’m especially obsessed with Ruby’s ensemble for her band’s gig and I’m mad we didn’t get more of it. That red lip!! I’m obsessed.
- I am an ignorant American and had to google who Davina McCall was. The way I chortled when I realized she was the British equivalent of Julie Chen Moonves! (How I would love to see a Christmas Tree fall on HER.)
- The Doctor’s exhaustion with the predictability of straights (especially straight men) when he talked with the cop about his future engagement SENT ME.
- Ncuti just emanates BDE, y’all. I am here for a Doctor who knows EXACTLY how hot he is.
- I LOVE that they are keeping the Mavity gag going, though now I am starting to wonder if it will just be an inside joke or if, in typical RTD fashion, it will come back into play with some sort of devastating consequences a la Bad Wolf or Torchwood or Vote Saxon or “there is something on your back.” (Like I said, if I have to think about these things, so do you.)
- Millie’s delivery of “Was that a hiss?” felt VERY Lauren Cooper-esque. (Am-est I bother-ed?)
- I desperately need to know more about the one hot summer with Harry Houdini.
- I SCREAMED at “He can eat me, he makes me swoon.” because it’s totally the language of someone having a meltdown about their favorite blorbo on Tumblr.
- I love that Fifteen is a GIANT FLIRT, it’s like the polar opposite of how the Doctor used to interact with Jackie Tyler. (I KNOW Cherry is much older than Jackie, but the point stands!)
- When Fifteen had the nerve to say he had no one, I literally yelled at my television that another regeneration of him LITERALLY has a whole family that would welcome him at the dinner table ANY TIME, like they are probably having Christmas dinner in the garden at that very moment that you could go to, kindly shut the fuck up.
- Obviously there are an abundance of theories as to who Mrs. Flood might be given that tag where she breaks the fourth wall, looking dead ass in the camera and revealing that she knows what a TARDIS is. She says in the beginning of the episode that she hasn’t seen a police box like that in 50 years. Is she a Time Lady? The Master? The Rani? I can tell you she is absolutely not Susan. IT’S NEVER SUSAN.
What are your thoughts on “The Church on Ruby Road”? Are you excited for the two episode premiere on Friday night/Midnight Saturday in the UK? Let us know in the comments.
Share Your Feels