What’s the Show? The first Gatwa-starring Doctor Who, the first Christmas special in quite a few years, and the last of the 60th anniversary specials.
What’s It All About, JG? A baby is left at a church door on Christmas Eve, who turns out to be Our Companion, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), who’s fostered to a loving mum and associated family but has been having a string of bad luck. The bad luck is because some goblins – no further explanation given – have been picking on her. They feed on coincidence and accident – no further explanation given – and abduct a newly-fostered baby, Lulubelle. The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) turns up and is taken on board the goblin ship with Ruby to try and rescue Lulubelle with the help of some overly-explained intelligent gloves. There is then a song-and-dance number while the Doctor rescues Lulubelle from being eaten by the Goblin King. Meanwhile, David Bowie turns in his grave. The goblins go back in time and snatch Ruby as a baby, turning her foster mum from a loving parent into a cold, hard woman. The Doctor realises the goblins have gone back in time so follows them in the TARDIS and pulls their ship down on to the church spire, defeating them and fixing the flow of time. Returning to the present, the Doctor sees that everything is back the way it should and Ruby, having worked out the Doctor is a time-traveller, joins him in the TARDIS. And then the neighbour, Mrs Flood, interrupts the credits to ask directly to camera if we’ve never seen a TARDIS before.
Is It Any Good? Surprisingly, not especially. I mean, it’s not bad, as such but there’s a real feeling of something missing here. For one, it’s simply too long. There isn’t enough plot or character work to sustain an hour’s worth of television. If this has been cut back to the standard episode length of 45 minutes, say by losing most of the Davina McCall material and losing some of the repetition out of the script, this would be… well, not “pacy”, as such, but a lot less flabby at the very least. There are long acres of this where just not a lot really happens.
What “The Church on Ruby Road” is doing is mimicking the structure of “Rose” back in 2005. Which is to say, we spend a long time introducing the new companion, then once their world has been established, collide it with the Doctor and see what happens. In “Rose” this was a thrillingly inventive approach that launched the revived series in the best way possible. In “The Church on Ruby Road” it… isn’t. That’s partly because we’ve seen this approach before so simply replicating it can’t possibly have the same impact as it did the first time round. But also, and sorry about this, but Rose was simply a better character than Ruby.
Because Ruby just doesn’t come across as terribly interesting. She’s very Clara-reminiscent – spunky and up for adventure and terribly enthusiastic and whatnot. Which is nice and all but yeah… we’ve seen it before and not all that long ago. Another slightly bland, white, young, spunky girl from contemporary Earth isn’t really what the show needs and Millie Gibson isn’t investing her with anything that makes Ruby stand out. She’s not bad but she never really rises above functional either. Having just been reminded of arguably the best Doctor-companion pairing with the Doctor and Donna probably doesn’t help but still – Ruby really doesn’t amount to much here. Except – oh great – there’s a puzzle-box element to her and her origins. Fab. Just was the show needs. Sigh.
Does the plot help? Na, not really. It’s some bollocks about a goblin ship about London and a fat King wanting to eat a baby. It’s pretty unformed even by Doctor Who standards. There’s nothing wrong with the show taking an overt step towards fantasy, the problem here is that it just doesn’t do it very well. It feels a bit lazy – the goblin stuff is a Christmas-panto-level threat at best but it never really connects with the “Christmas” aspect of the episode. Doctor Who plus panto makes intrinsic sense – Doctor Who and panto have a great overlap – but there’s nothing done with it. The goblins’ early introduction is very Gremlins, which is fine, but again doesn’t amount to much of anything. It’s not especially amusing, it’s not especially threatening, it’s just… there.
Which, unfortunately, is true of much of this episode. It’s not the worst Christmas special there’s ever been, but it’s a very long way from the best too. As a launch for Gatwa’s 15th Doctor (we’ll get there in a minute) it’s pretty weak sauce. Thankfully the man himself is the exception that proves the rule but certainly what he’s surrounded by just never gets beyond “necessary”.
The new sonic screwdriver’s rubbish too.
Would You Recommend It? Only to see Gawta because he’s really the only compelling presence here. It’s not a perfect launch vehicle for him but he works wonders with what he’s given. Moments like him running along the roofing of a terraced house, keeping pace with Ruby as she dangles from a ladder, are great and highlight a physicality to the Doctor that’s been largely absent since Matt Smith hung up his fez. It’s dynamic and interesting and well shot in a way that gives us an insight into this Doctor without simply expositing or going for the gratuitous kilt-in-the-club scene earlier on. At once we get a sense of the dynamism and fun this Doctor is having, the speed at which he is thinking, and the sense that anything could happen. That’s great.
Then there’s the musical number. It’s shit.*
(* OK full disclosure. I loathe musicals and this does nothing to change my mind about that. Nothing could persuade me to like this and nothing has. To be clear, the problem isn’t a musical number in Doctor Who – that’s a perfectly defensible aesthetic choice and certainly one unique to the 15th Doctor (unless you want to count “Business Is Business” from the stage play, but let’s not). It’s just not one that I will ever, ever approve of or like. Your mileage may, and probably does, vary.)
Anyway, Gatwa really works overtime to make any of this cohere. His scenes with Millie Gibson are fine – not Tennant and Tate fine, probably not even Whittaker and Gill fine – but while the two characters obviously enjoy being in each other’s company there’s a certain something that isn’t quite there. That lack isn’t coming from Gatwa but the writing isn’t doing either many favours. The scene where Ruby has been collected in the past so her foster mother never experienced life with her and grew up bitter and selfish rather than loving or kind is supposed to give us an insight into Ruby’s importance but it mostly looks like standard-issue here-comes-the-time-paradox stuff. It’s unusual for RTD because it’s just so rote and he’s normally much better at putting this kind of thing together but it doesn’t work here.
As for the 15th Doctor himself… I really want to love him but I don’t quite yet. There’s plenty of potential there but again the episode just lets him down. That’s partly because the script just Tries! So! Hard! to get the audience to love him that it almost becomes hard to do so. There’s a weird tension at the heart of “The Church on Ruby Road” – Gatwa has scads of on-screen presence but the script seems to have a bit of anxiety about him (or, to be fair, the 15th Doctor) so keeps pushing situation after situation to endear him to the audience rather than trusting Gatwa to manage that by himself. The musical number falls into this category but it’s not the only moment – there are so many like-me! moments here that the cumulative effect is exactly the opposite. Davies really needs to unclench and just let the 15th Doctor get on with the business of being the 15th Doctor. Don’t worry, you’ve cast Ncuti Gatwa – this isn’t going to be a struggle!
So, for a Christmas special, there’s not that much Christmassy about it and not that much special. I’m glad RTD didn’t go for the usual EVERYTHING-CHRISTMAS-ALL-THE-TIME!! approach, and having been away from Christmas specials in favour of general festive specials during the Chibnall era has been quite refreshing – it was nice to have a break, the break makes coming back to a Christmas special a worthwhile thing to do and, let’s be honest, people were pretty burned out on Christmas specials by the end of the Capaldi era. But there’s not much done with it beyond, “Well, it’s set at Christmas”. This special feels like a misfire – for all the flaws in both “The Giggle” and “The Star Beast,” there was a sense of RTD actually getting his teeth into things again. This just feels a bit… well, lazy really. It’s not a disaster but it’s very far from a triumph too. A wobbly start to the 15th Doctor’s era.
Oh, and Mrs Flood (Anita Dobson!) knows what a TARDIS is. There’s a mystery, then.
Scores On The Doors: 6/10, which is a whole half point more than I gave “Legend of the Sea Devils”. ‘Nuff said.
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