The Church on Ruby Road: Beginning the New Era of Doctor Who

With the 60th anniversary now behind us, it’s time to stop celebrating the past and look to the future. We’ve got a brand new Doctor and a decently new TARDIS. Now we just need a new companion and the ride can begin!

Enter the Church on Ruby Road. The beginning of Doctor Who’s next big outing. So, does it hit the ground running? Or are we stumbling out the gate?

On a snowy Christmas eve, a cloaked figure leaves a baby at the door of a church before vanishing into the night. This is overlaid by narration from the Doctor, culminating in the man himself arriving on the scene, tears streaking down his face. It’s a simple but effective hook. Who was this woman? Why was the Doctor crying? What brought him and the TARDIS here? I was excited to find out!

Unfortunately, that excitement quickly waned with the next few scenes. Flash forward a few decades, and that baby, Ruby Sunday, is all grown up. She’s on some kinda talk show all about tracking down the parents of orphaned children. But something is interfering with the show, putting both Ruby and the host in danger.

*Also, this bit is driving me crazy: Davina McCall is in this episode, playing said host… Davina McCall. She’s not even playing a character, she’s just playing herself. And she’s got a surprisingly substantial role in the story. This felt like one of those awful Modern Simpsons ‘cameos’, where it’s just some random celebrity hanging out with the Simpsons. Just replace yellow cartoon characters with the Doctor. Maybe I’m missing something here, but I really didn’t like this.

My boredom spread like mold in the next scene. While performing with her band, a little wicked hand pulls a plug and shuts their show down. Something is following Ruby around, making her life a wreck of accidents and bad luck. All the while, the Doctor stands just out of view, watching her.

Why don’t I like these scenes? Simple: they’re a whole bunch of telling instead of showing. Ruby exposits her backstory of having grown up an orphan and exposits how she’s had so much bad luck recently. Not only is it dreadfully dull, it’s also unnecessary. Why not just show us these things?

You know. Like the episode already was doing. Why are they telling us that Ruby is having bad luck when we can literally see it with our eyeballs?!

Thankfully, my frustrations quickly end when our titular character steps into the spotlight. How does he do it? By dancing in the middle of a night club in a kilt without a care in the world. When another accident springs up around Ruby, he is there in a flash. But this mysterious stranger seems to think there’s something more to Ruby’s clumsiness than bad luck.

And then the goblins try to drop a big snowman balloon on them. Oh yeah, the villains are goblins, by the way. Not space goblins or anything like that. Just goblins.

But forget that! Let’s talk about our leading man!

Ncuti Gatwa is incredible as the Doctor! He’s like a more wholesome iteration of the 9th Doctor; sassy and serious, yet kind and uplifting, with an infectious care-free confidence and a song in his soul. The scene where he casually blows off a police officer, then helps boost said officer’s confidence for his upcoming marriage proposal, dispelled any remaining doubts I harbored for his run. Whatever other issues this episode and the coming era may have, there can be no doubt that we have an excellent Doctor.

*Side note: there’s a scene later on in this episode where the Doctor breaks out into song to buy time for his and Ruby’s escape. That shit is hilarious to me. The Doctor singing like a Disney character to screw with evil monsters is so fitting for that character that I’m honestly amazed we haven’t seen it happen before now.

Ruby is also a ton of fun in this episode! Millie Gibson matches Ncuti’s energy beat for beat! She’s got this unbeatable optimism, despite her clumsy demeanor and her struggles in finding her biological family. Yet she doesn’t take shit from anyone; when an actual in fact goblin hisses at her, she doesn’t run away screaming or stand gaping like an idiot, she bites back and shows that she’s not a girl to be fucked with.

Getting back to the episode: Ruby returns home the next day to learn that her family is fostering another baby: little Lulubelle. But when Ruby’s foster mother steps out, the little creatures haunting Ruby’s steps swoop in and kidnap the baby! Following after them, she quickly bumps into the Doctor once again. Together, the two climb up to the goblin ship to save Lulubelle from becoming goblin Christmas dinner.

The dynamic between the Doctor and Ruby is a ton of fun! They have a great back and forth in every scene. When one is being an idiot, the other snaps them back into focus. When the Doctor breaks out into song, Ruby literally doesn’t miss a beat! Their friendship is super fun! I can’t wait to see more of them in the new season come Spring!

The actual plot of this episode is just kinda… meh. Not awful, but not incredible. It’s your standard Doctor Who plot. Goblins are bad, the Doctor and Ruby stop them. Nothing all that impressive.

Excluding the visual effects. The goblins themselves look pretty good.

Now, to be clear: that’s fine. Simple stories allow the writer to focus more on the characters. How they tick, how they feel, and how they interact with each other; that’s the center focus of the episode, not the goblins and their evil schemes. Doctor Who has done this same thing tons of times before, and it works really well here!

*Another quick aside: the humor in this episode from anyone other than the Doctor and Ruby is really bad. It feels like Facebook boomer humor. I blame the script; the jokes are so awkward and stiff that even the actors can’t make them feel natural!

Just please, God, don’t do another Rose Tyler romance plot. Don’t you ruin them, Russell!

The Church on Ruby Road is a decent start to the new era. While the plot itself is just okay, it sets the stage for our leads brilliantly! Despite it’s flaws, it’s gotten me decently excited for the new season to come. There’s a ton of potential here. I just hope those little seeds grow into something strong.

If nothing else, it’s nice to see Doctor Who return to Christmas specials. The holidays became so much worse without my favorite time traveler.