14 – New Series One – Ncuti Gatwa

Return of Russell T. Davies

Early reviews of Ncuti

The Church on Ruby Road

A new Doctor is always exciting, and Ncuti seems to be off to a good start. Ruby Sunday was a baby given up as a foundling left on a church doorstep on Christmas Eve, and gets named Ruby because the church is on Ruby Road. She gets placed with a foster mother who ends up adopting her. She is one of 33 children that this mother has fostered, which reminds me of my own Great-Aunt Sadie, who also fostered numerous children. This Ruby is now a young lady, and she is plagued by accidents and bad luck, but we can see little hands involved in causing all of this. And somehow the Doctor is following her like he knows something is up. Her mother receives another baby on Christmas Eve 2023, but it is suddenly snatched by what are revealed to be Goblins, and taken up to their wooden ship which is sailing in the sky. So we are definitely in fantasy territory with this story, but Davies has hinted that they are part of the Toymaker’s “Legions”. The baby is going to be eaten by the Goblins, and a musical number breaks out. I’m not going to claim that this is one of the best Doctor Who stories ever, but it is energetic and moves right along. And as always, Russell T. Davies plants a mystery that will eventually pay off later in the series, in the form of a neighbor of Ruby’s, Mrs. Flood, who obviously knows what a TARDIS is, but we have no idea why or how. And I loved when the Doctor mentioned that he was adopted and never knew his parents. RTD is clearly building on the elements that Chibnall brought to the canon of Doctor Who. They look at all of the photos on the fridge of the 33 children, and the Doctor says that Ruby has the largest family in the world. And then she asks about his family. I think this theme of family may continue since it came up with the 14th Doctor previously. And I love how when Ruby is erased from history her Mom completely changes character. It very graphically portrays how in this case having Ruby as a daughter made her a better person.

All in all, a good but not great episode, but I am interested in seeing more. Ncuti is a breath of fresh air, and I think that is what they were going for. Millie is so far for me OK, but not yet equal to the great companions of previous series. Still, no one liked Donna Noble the first time, and she turned out to be great. But now we wait for the next episode.

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Space Babies

The Doctor tells Ruby that they can travel in time to anywhere, and they start out by traveling millions of years into the past to the time of the dinosaurs, which serves as the excuse for trotting out the old gag about stepping on a butterfly and changing the future. In case you didn’t know what started this, it was a short story by Ray Bradbury called A Sound of Thunder, and it is considered a classic in science fiction. But after surviving that very brief trip, they go into the future and find themselves on a space station, where they are attacked by a scary monster. They get away and take an elevator to a higher floor, where they find a group of babies who all can talk and zoom around in strollers. They investigate, and it turns out the parents have left them. There is a political statement here, which seems aimed at both the Tories in England and the Republicans in the US. This station was set up to produce babies but then got shut down for lack of funds. The people who set it up are OK with more babies coming along, but once they are born they are left to their own devices. The monster downstairs is what the babies call the Bogeyman, and it turns out that it is literally a snot monster. At the end, the Doctor gets serious and tells Ruby that there is one thing he can never do, and that is to take her back to the time she was abandoned at the Church on Ruby Road. He doesn’t directly mention the Reapers from Father’s Day. but he emphasizes just how bad the consequences would be.

This is a silly and lightweight story. Ncuti and Millie are great in it, but it will never be ranked among the “must see” shows in the Doctor Who canon. But it is a good story.

Reviews and Extras

The Devil’s Chord

When the Doctor asks Ruby where she would like to go next, she says she would like to see the recording of the Beatles’ first album, so they go back to 1963, and go into what was then named the EMI studios, prior to becoming named Abbey Road. And they see the Beatles being recorded, but they are frankly awful. Then they go into another studio, where they see Cilla Black, and she is also awful. Finally they find an orchestra, and it is playing drivel. Something is clearly wrong with music, and when they go back to 2024, the world has been destroyed. This turns out to be the work of a character called Maestro, played by the drag queen Jinkx Monsoon, who now claims ownership of all music. They turn out to be the daughter of the Toymaker, and is one of the “legions” he promised would be coming. A musical battle commences, and the Maestro is finally defeated when two previously untalented musicians named John Lennon and Paul McCartney hit a specific chord that overcomes them. As they are taken away they warns about another from the legion who will be coming, so this will be the story arc for at least this season, if not for longer. Then a song and dance number ends the show.

This episode makes clear that the show is going in a very different direction yet again, and this will probably annoy a lot of people, and might be attractive to many others. As the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) said at the very end of his run, change has to happen. But in a rooftop scene, the Doctor points out that he is also on Totter’s Lane with his granddaughter Susan at this very moment, which makes sense since they are in 1963, and that is when Doctor Who first hit the air with the first Doctor and Susan. So we still have continuity here. Also, Maestro is literally Master in Italian.

BTW, the Devil’s Chord of the title is called technically a tri-tone, which is a pair of stacked thirds. The show says it was outlawed by the Church, but that is complete mythology, though many people will repeat it as Gospel. The Church didn’t go into musical analysis much.

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Boom

The Doctor and Ruby land in the middle of a war. The soldiers we see are all the holy soldiers we saw previously in The Time Of Angels, which makes sense since this story was written by Steven Moffat and he is using the people he created in that story, which he also wrote. The Doctor leaves the TARDIS to check out a cry he heard from one of the soldiers, who was injured and had the misfortune to be found by an ambulance, which in this case means a robot wandering the battlefield. Why is that a misfortune? Because these ambulances are controlled by a computer algorithm that evaluates injuries and decides if it is cost-effective to attempt treatment. If they decide it isn’t, they just kill you on the spot. Definitely a commentary on modern healthcare when in the hands of the budget-conscious executives out to build the bottom line. This should tick off the people who are complaining that Doctor Who is “too woke”, except I am not at all sure they will even notice. Another call-out is that the “ambulances, after killing you, sanctimoniously off “Thoughts and Prayers”, which is approximately as sincere as when a Republican says it after the latest mass shooting.

But the real kicker here is that this is all being managed by a corporation to ensure ongoing business. They manage the casualty rate to keep it acceptable while hyping up the danger of the “enemy”. It is not a big stretch to see this as a commentary on our own “Masters of War.” Anything to keep the profits rolling in.

The other interesting feature of this battlefield is the land mines. The Doctor steps on one, and has to remain motionless to prevent it from going off. This builds the tension throughout the story, and then Ruby gets killed by one of the soldiers. And this triggers another snow effect in a place that doesn’t ever have snow. I’m guessing this is somehow related to the snow falling the night Ruby was abandoned at the church. All in all, a pretty good story.

Note: The cast includes Varada Sethu as the Anglican Marine Mundy Flynn. Sethu will become a second companion next season, but she was filmed in this episode before they decided to make her a new companion, so kind of like Colin Baker and Peter Capaldi.

Reviews and Extras

73 Yards

This is the “Doctor-lite” episode as the Doctor only appears for a few minutes at the beginning and the end. The reason is that Ncuti was finishing filming on Sex Education, but they wanted to get a jump on Doctor Who production. So this was actually the first episode of this series to be filmed, and Millie Gibson pretty much carried it all herself. The setup is that the Doctor and Ruby land on a promontory overlooking the ocean in Wales. As they leave the TARDIS the Doctor makes what looks like a throwaway line about a future Prime Minister, Roger ap Gwilliam, who comes from Wales and gets elected in 2046, and apparently endangers the entire world. Then he steps on a fairy circle and breaks the string. Ruby goes back to the TARDIS, but her key doesn’t work, and the Doctor is nowhere to be seen. But a mysterious woman stands in the distance watching, and Ruby figures out she is exactly 73 yards away, hence the title.

She always stays 73 yards from Ruby, so Ruby can’t talk to her. When Ruby gets other people to talk to her, they do so and then run madly away. Ruby finally gives up and goes back to her Mom, but the woman still is stalking her. Then the scenes jump to Ruby 5, 10, 20 years older. And when she sees a TV program abut a politician named Roger ap Gwilliam who is coming up in the polls, she decides she has to act to save the world from him.

We never learn anything about why the mysterious woman always stays 73 yards away, or what it is she says to people that makes them run away madly, so this episode is spooky and mysterious, but remains a mystery, and that is what RTD wanted.

Reviews and Extras

Dot and Bubble

Finetime is apparently a place where rich, white people with age3 between 17 and 27 go to work two hours a day and then party the rest of the time. Then suddenly giant slugs start eating them, only no one notices because of the Dot and Bubble. The Dot is a small metal ball with anti-grav properties that projects a Bubble around your head where you are continuously in contact with all of your friends. Seriously, this is the Mark Zuckerberg wet dream. It is all social media all of the time, with no IRL component. On the surface this is all about “those damn kids with their phones”. But as the evidence starts to pile up you realize there is a deeper critique here. These are the children of the 1% and they are nearly all horrid people. Part of it is their helplessness without their Dot and Bubble to guide them. The central viewpoint character (and the actress is very clear to say it is a character, and she is not like this at all) is totally self-centered, possibly the least likeable character Doctor Who has produced. When the Doctor breaks into her Bubble to try and save her from the man-eating slugs, she immediately blocks him. Then Ruby breaks in, and she is willing to talk to Ruby. In the end, you realize the difference here is purely race.

Then there is the part where she meets Ricky September on the street. He helps her, and is guiding her to safety, but when she is in danger she throws him to his death without a moment’s thought as long as she is saved thereby. But one thing this scene makes very clear is that the killing of these pampered brats is being organized by the computer system which is apparently as sick of these people as we are. The first clue is that the people are being killed in alphabetical order. But if that went right by you, in this scene the Dot itself turns deadly as it attacks the people. Finally in the last scene the Doctor begs her to let him save her life, and she refuses because he is not like the lily-white people of Finetime. So in the end despite all of the Doctor’s efforts, no one is saved. And perhaps no one deserved to be saved, other than Ricky September, who is the only person to show even a glimpse of concern for another person.

And for the last, do not overlook that these people are literally “in a bubble”. But the bubble is not the thing that appears around their heads. It is the bubble of white supremacy, of their racial beliefs. I have to confess it took me way too long to see what was going on here, but then I live with privilege every day because I have the “right” skin color.

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Rogue

The Doctor and Ruby arrive in 1813 at a ball on the estate of a Duchess. There the Doctor spies a man standing on a balcony overlooking the ballroom, and goes to him. He observes that it is like the man is watching all the guests and the exits, which turns out to be true because the man is a bounty hunter. He is there because a shape-shifting alien is reported to be here. He initially takes the Doctor to be this alien, but eventually the Doctor persuades him that he is mistaken. And the man’s name is Rogue. Then the Doctor and Rogue join forces to go after the bad guy. Only it turns out to be a family of shape-shifters. The way they do their shape-shifting involves killing the person they impersonate. One of them impersonates the Duchess herself. And one of them appears to be an innocent young lady who then turns on Ruby. When Ruby then walks into the ballroom to participate in a wedding as the bride, the Doctor presumes that the real Ruby is dead, and traps all of the group of shape-shifters in a device to send them into another dimension. Only he has trapped the real Ruby in with them. She had actually fought off the shape-shifter and was playing for time. In the end, Rogue manages to knock her out of the device by replacing her with himself.

After three very unusual episodes, this is a normal Doctor Who episode: Historical setting, menacing aliens, and the Doctor and Ruby are safe at the end. But there is also a love story between the Doctor and Rogue, and it turns tragic when Rogue is sent away to another dimension. But his last words to the Doctor are “Come after me.”

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The Legend of Ruby Sunday

This is part one of a two-part season finale, so it does more to set up a problem than to resolve anything. The Doctor and Ruby visit UNIT headquarters to find out about this woman who keeps showing up everywhere they go, only to discover that she is Susan Triad, head of Triad technologies, which has been telegraphed in previous episodes. UNIT thinks she is suspicious, and they have also noticed that S Triad is an anagram for TARDIS. But she seems completely human. Still they have managed to place Mel Bush undercover as a member of Susan’s team just to see what she can find out, which mostly comes down to Susan Triad is really nice.

The other mystery is of course Ruby Sunday. Ruby’s adoptive Mom conveniently has a videotape of the footage from a surveillance camera from the night Ruby was dropped off. UNIT uses this in a Time Window to go back and look at what happened to see if they can identify Ruby’s birth mother. But then things go terribly wrong, and a UNIT officer is suddenly dead in a way that suggests he has been dead for hundreds of years. The Doctor and Mel then go to Susan Triad, who is about to give a big speech about software she is releasing, only she gets possessed. The idea that S TRIAD was an anagram for TARDIS was a red herring. Susan Triad Technologies can also be shortened to SUE TECH, or Sutekh.

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Empire of Death

Sutekh has two acolytes now, the former Susan Triad and the former Harriet Arbinger. But he still hasn’t killed the Doctor and Ruby, which puzzles the Doctor. But Sutekh reveals that he has been somehow hidden in or around the TARDIS ever since the events of the Fourth Doctor, and this is important because he has been every place the Doctor has been. His acolytes start the process by blowing dust that keeps spreading and causing people to turn into dust and die. And this overtakes not only the Earth but every place the Doctor has been. The Doctor, Ruby, and Mel manage to get away in another TARDIS through some hocus-pocus involving memory. This is in fact the Memory TARDIS that has featured in the Tales of the TARDIS. But Kate and all of UNIT are dead, Ruby’s Mom and Grandmother are dead, as well as the rest of the Earth.

They travel a bit, and manage to get a look at Roger ap Gwilliam in memory Ruby has, though she says she never met him. But he did initiate the DNA registry of everyone in England in 2046 (so apparently he did get to be Prime Minister despite what happened in 73 yards), so they go to 2046 to check the Registry. Mel is reached by Sutekh and turned into another acolyte, and she brings the Doctor and Ruby to Sutekh, but they are able to trap Sutekh and drag him through the Time Vortex, which brings everyone back to life because when you bring Death to Death, you bring Life. So basically a giant Reset Button.

Then at the end we find out that Ruby and her Mom are just ordinary people. This whole ending I find very unsatisfying. We were built up that this was a great mystery, and suddenly it isn’t. RTD has said that Ruby’s Mom was special because we made her special, but it wasn’t us who built her up, it was RTD. And we still have no idea why an ordinary person causes it to snow wherever she goes .And Mrs. Flood is still a mystery, and we don’t know if the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan will ever feature. I don’t think this is a very good ending, despite the setup in The Legend of Ruby Sunday being pretty good. Possibly this is RTD’s weakest finale so far.

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Season 14 Overall

This has been a pretty good season. I would claim that for as few shows as it had, there were 3 outstanding episodes (Boom, 73 Years, and Dot and Bubble), 4 pretty good episodes (The Church on Ruby Road, The Devil’s Chord, Rogue, and The Legend of Ruby Sunday), 1 average silly episode (Space Babies), and 1 that just didn’t work for me (Empire of Death). That’s not a bad record. Ncuti is excellent, my only quibble being that he cries at the drop of a hat, but he brings an energy to the role that is fascinating, and I want to see more. Millie is also excellent, and it is amazing how good she is when you consider she was 20 when this series was filmed. I liked UNIT as well, and if they do a UNIT spin-off, about which there are rumors but nothing confirmed, I would definitely watch. I look forward to more from this team.

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