Doctor Who (2023) - Christmas 2023: The Church on Ruby Road (Quick Review)

Episode:

875

|

Serial:

304

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Director:

Mark Tonderai

|

Air Date:

25-Dec-2023

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about The Church on Ruby Road. Because I said I would, and it'd be weird not to after covering the other three 2023 specials. Plus this is a big deal. It's the first episode of the Fifteenth Doctor's era of Doctor Who!

It's going to be hard for Ncuti Gatwa to follow David Tennant, one of the most beloved Doctors in the series' history, but Matt Smith has already proved that it can be done. I'm not worried, as there has never been a bad Doctor in the series' entire history. Though sometimes good Doctors get stuck in a string of mediocre stories that prevent them from really shining. I'm sure there's no way that's going to happen to Ncuti though. Probably.

There will be SPOILERS below, but nothing for stories that come after this.

---

I've never seen the movie Labyrinth, the one where a teenage girl goes into the realm of the Goblin King to rescue her baby sibling. It's just never had any appeal to me, not really my thing.

I have seen Return of the Jedi's Special Edition, however, with that musical number randomly thrown into a scene set in the slug-like villain's lair. The creator, George Lucas, had been away from the series for 14 years and I guess his tastes had changed in the meantime because he suddenly thought that this was a good idea. Or maybe he just didn't have the cash to add it into the movie the first time around. The important thing is, this is an episode all about coincidences, and I can't help but notice that Russell T Davies had been away from Doctor Who for 14 years as well.

These are the kinds of things I think about when an episode just isn't grabbing me. I was looking at the goblins, wondering if they were real people with CGI heads. I was watching characters going out of focus and wondering if they'd gotten one of the Chibnall-era directors back (yep, Mark Tonderai). I was filling a notepad with notes like "boring tedious intro" and "do I even like this?" In the scene with the cracks when the Doctor assumed the goblins had gone away I was half thinking "If they ended this episode here this would be the biggest anticlimax in Doctor Who history" and half thinking "I hope they end the episode here".

And defeating the goblins by impaling the ship with church spire would've been awesome if it wasn't so dumb. I can believe that the Doctor was able to calculate that the Goblin King was sitting in the exact right position to get stabbed and that stabbing him would save the baby (as he's the one that would eat her), but if he knew the boat would disintegrate afterwards then that's a real risky thing to do. Any plan which involves dropping a baby 20 metres with the assumption that you can catch them has serious flaws. Also wow, the Doctor just stabbed a goblin to death and disintegrated their entire crew, just murdered them all. I suppose it was the only way to break Davina McCall's string of bad luck.

The impression I get from the internet is that the episode's generally well-liked and I'm certainly not about to list reasons why everyone else is wrong and I'm right. Especially as I didn't even think it was a bad episode. I'd definitely rank it higher than Voyage of the Damned or The End of Time, Part One. Even though neither of them had a callback to that Isaac Newton teaser in Wild Blue Yonder that I despise.

In fact, here are some positives: Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson make a great team with some great outfits, even if the way she flawlessly joins in with his improvised song was perhaps the most implausible thing in an episode featuring a magic flying goblin ship. Also, the Doctor saved Davina's life, so that's good. I don't know how he knew she was in danger, but I'm glad he did. I'm going to count Ruby being eaten as a baby as a positive as well, just because of how crazy that is. This is a Doctor Who episode where the companion gets eaten as a baby. I guess the Doctor was allowed to change time to save her because the goblins changed time first.

Incidentally, it was a bit weird that we got an extended demonstration of just how much of a positive impact Ruby had on her mother's life, but Ruby herself didn't. In fact, she never finds out, and this has zero effect on anything. She'd be driven to learn where she came from either way. In fact, that's almost certainly her motivation for running into the Doctor's unlocked time machine.

Oh, also, I saw people talking about the mysterious woman who knows about the TARDIS at the end, which confused me because that never happened. So I investigated further and it turns out that there's a post-credits scene! I hope this mystery leads to something interesting, because I ain't interested yet. To be fair that may be a side effect of being so underwhelmed by the 54 minutes leading up to it.

I was warned in the comments about the Christmas special straying closer to fantasy and yep, 100% correct on that one. They've genre-shifted and I don't like it. But Doctor Who is always shifting tone, so I'm not writing the next season off yet.

---

Next time on Sci-Fi Adventures, I have no idea what I'm reviewing next! All I know is that I need a bit of a break after all the Doctor Who these last two months. Plus it'd be best if I redirected my attention to Super Adventures for a while, as it hasn't had anything new posted on it since September.

Thanks for reading! Leave your own thoughts on the episode if you've got any.