Is The Church on Ruby Road Already Overrated?

Ncuti Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor is suave and charming, but Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday might be the best thing about his first full episode, which is far from perfect.

Plot Summary

The Doctor befriends a young woman with a mysterious past to save her and her family from monstrous fantasy creatures in a flying pirate ship.

Notable for:

• First full episode starring Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, following his first appearance in The Giggle.

• First appearance of Millie Gibson as companion Ruby Sunday.

Pete commentary:

• The Church on Ruby Road has a lot to do — establish Gatwa can be a leading man, introduce Ruby and make us care about her, kick off an arc plot for the season, celebrate Christmas, and generally set a tone for this new era of Doctor Who. It also has an advantage, however: we WANT to like this. Fans have been served up very little actual Doctor Who the last few years, and RTD and the new cast represent a wiping clean of the slate. We know the potential of this show, and we want it to succeed. Unfortunately the story squanders this.

• Choosing to have Gatwa narrate the cold open and set up a mystery feels like a mistake, given all the things they could have done. The mystery is very conventional, and since we don’t know Ruby, her story, or what she may or may not end up doing, we don’t really care yet. Also, the central mystery — who the woman is and why she left the baby — isn’t revealed in this episode, so there’s no payoff. We can’t judge the storyline yet since the world won’t know those answers until, presumably, the end of the season, but it’s a big knock against The Church on Ruby Road as a standalone.

• Thankfully, Ncuti Gatwa has a magnetic presence onscreen. His smile and energy are his best assets, and the story is crafted to play these up repeatedly. Gatwa is a departure from most previous Doctors in that he’s more cool dude than odd dork. He’s got style and is comfortable enough with himself to dance with abandon. People around him aren’t thinking, “what a weirdo,” but “This guy is awesome.” Just look at how Ruby looks at him in the club — she’s clearly impressed, and not because he’s doing anything incredible.

• Structurally, it’s a great choice to spend so much time with Ruby before the Doctor’s first real scene (where he saves her and the pram from the falling snowman). We get to know she’s a mature young woman who doesn’t have the best life, but has a great family and a head on her shoulders. In other words, we’re convinced in act one to like Ruby and care about her.

• It helps that Millie Gibson is quite good: When she gets the phone call from Davina McCall, she plays her emotions so well. She’s clearly crushed but is putting on a brave face. It’s also her birthday, the day before Christmas, and she has responsibilities to her family, which now includes Lulubelle. It’s a wonder she doesn’t have a complete breakdown. I like to think the Doctor recognizes this resilience and selflessness in her, and is a big reason he invites her to travel with him.

• As I’ve said before, one of the best scenes in the story is when the Doctor channels Sherlock Holmes to predict that the cop is going to propose to his girlfriend on Christmas Day. It’s a very grounding scene, underscoring what the Doctor can and can’t do — perfect for a new audience. You might be fooled into thinking that RTD is putting together a brilliant clockwork of a mystery, where all the pieces will fit together, as long as you’re paying attention. But you’d be dead wrong.

• Ruby’s family. I don’t not like them, but on a meta level I have a bit of resentment toward RTD for forcing me to like them with contrived bits like her grandmother being named Cherry Sunday, and the general, “We’re working class, but we’re still giving back dammit, and our hearts are solid gold,” complete with the fridge photos and quirky comments about tea getting cold. It feels a bit too stage-managed — like we needed an applause sign to care about these people.

• That said, points to RTD for showing the darker side of this in the “It’s a Wonderful Life” interlude, revealing that Ruby was the catalyst for her mother Carla to find the love within herself to be a foster mother for so many kids. That’s a fabulous message.

• Let’s talk goblins. As monsters go, they are one of the worst. The idea that they’re sneaky, and they primary way they stalk/kill their prey is to orchestrate accidents around them is actually not bad. In fact, this was exactly the plot of Gremlins. The thing is, Gremlins was a good horror movie in its own right, with the Gremlins doing truly horrible things to actually murder people. The goblins here are nerfed: While the act of eating live babies is horrific on paper, the script makes every attempt to ensure we never see or feel what that means in any way. They don’t hurt anyone (why take the Doctor and Ruby prisoner at all?), don’t score a single kill (apart from Davina McCall, but even that is reversed), and they just look too cute to take seriously.

• Speaking of, I never understood why they were trying to kill or hurt Ruby at all. Or Davina for that matter. What is the point? Just mischief and chaos? Sorry, that’s not enough. It’s basically the definition of poor motivation and lazy writing.

• Rope technology was a good idea. I think, with some thought, you could do a whole story that uses that as a plot device, not just to unlock a door. Sadly it’s mentioned, used once, then forgotten.

• Bad idea: ventilation shafts on the ship. I guess it’s a joke about how shafts are a cliche in action/adventure stories, but — just like pointing to your pub quiz silliness — saying it doesn’t mean that you’re not doing it. And in this case it’s not just using a cliche — it makes absolutely zero sense, maybe negative sense, that a flying sailing ship would have ventilation shafts. Cite the Toymaker or in-jokes all you want: it doesn’t change the fact that it's stupid. If your story requires me to buy into stupidity for it to work, you’ve lost the game.

• Even worse idea: the Goblin Song. It’s super cringe and, again, it’s never explained why:

  1. The Doctor and Ruby have lyrics at the ready

  2. The goblins all just stand there while they sing

  3. Why there’s a single goblin who can sing

• If you’re going to do this, it has to make some logical sense. You can do it like Adventures in Babysitting, where the characters believably transition from awkward stuttering of lyrics to bring-down-the-house performing, or you can create some supernatural reason for it, like Buffy did for its musical episode. This seems to want it both ways, and the result is it feels out of nowhere and you just want it to end.

• The whole set piece with the lame song and the big, disgusting Goblin King made me wonder why anyone would want to do Lapti Nek — the original song in Jabba’s court in Return of the Jedi — again? We cringed then, and we’re cringing even more now since it’s the main cast doing it.

• The whole time riders vs. time travelers line is kind of funny, but there’s something about Gatwa’s reaction that feels OTT given that Ruby was just wondering/asking, not in any way showing she was impressed. Yes, it’s a good moment for Gatwa’s Doctor, but it’s contrived. There’s that applause sign again.

• It’s a Wonderful Life is a great movie. There’s a reason it’s a classic, and I have to give The Church on Ruby Road points for aping the storyline in a way that emphasizes the specialness of our new companion. Gatwa and Michelle Greenidge as Carla are both excellent here, and you really feel their sadness, at least for a moment.

• The story is then resolved way too quickly. All the stuff with the goblins — the king, their sneaky lethalness, their rope tech — gets ignored, and the Doctor just defeats them with his mavity gloves, which he’s weaponized. I do like the mavity gloves, but this was just too easy. I would have welcomed a longer episode that would have given more meaning and depth to the goblins, tied it to some kind of new paradigm of how the universe works, and given the Doctor more opportunities to shine and show how clever it is. But that’s reduced to just pulling a ship down to wreck it.

• Speaking of, did the Doctor know there was going to be a reset? There are people in that church — how could he be sure they wouldn’t get hurt or killed by a falling sailing ship?

• Let’s also be sure to deduct points for the reset button in general. I know you love them, RTD, but pulling out your crutch in the first full episode of your new era doesn’t start you off on the right foot. Consequences give things meaning.

• So… Mrs. Flood. I repeat: I don’t care. She does nothing interesting or unusual that piques your interest in her, or makes you think, “That was weird — I want to know more about her,” which seems to be what the story wants me to walk away with. But it doesn’t earn it (cue applause sign).

• New home. New who. The Turn to camera moment. It’s like they were determined to end the episode in the worst, most infuriating way. I’m honestly baffled by this. Fandom would certainly be split on it, but did they really think this is the way to win new fans? Mrs. Flood is in no way the new Missy. They really need to reboot this storyline and start with the basics: Why should I care?

What did Pete’s family think?

• Both were not enthusiastic about the story, literally saying “enh” when I asked what they thought of it. They like the new cast. They did not like the singing and thought the Mrs. Flood line at the end was really bad — they reacted with revulsion in the moment.

Four Questions to Doomsday - Pete

1. Why did the Randomizer take us here? I mean, come on. Also, it’s the Church on Ruby Road, and people go to church on Sundays. Plus Ruby’s last name is Sunday. And we record the podcast on Sundays! It was inevitable.

2. What if the evil plot had succeeded? So the goblins either 1) eat Lulubelle, or 2) eat Ruby. In either case, it’s a horrible result, but in Lulubelle’s case it affects the future instead of the past. If the Doctor and Ruby fail to save her, it’s highly unlikely Ruby ends up journeying with the Doctor. I just can’t see her deciding to joyride with some Time Lord when her mom will clearly be hurting, and likely in big trouble, for losing the baby. Plus Ruby herself would likely be traumatized on some level. Would the Doctor decide to stop the goblins’ evil after that? You have to presume they do this a lot. Generally this outcome would make you think too hard about the goblins and would result in a different show.

   
   If they eat Ruby, we know what happens because we see it. You have to presume that the Doctor’s intervention in the past doesn’t succeed and we have a completely different Season 1. Maybe we get to Varada Sethu early?

3. Where's the Clara splinter? Phoning the Doctor after he leaves the church to let him know he forgot his scarf at ITV studios, so he can conveniently be there to rescue Davina McCall from a lethal Christmas tree.

4. Dalek, Ogron, Professor Hayter, Viscount Banger, Fixed Point in Time, or Lady Cassandra? This story is lazy. It pokes you over and over again, seemingly saying, “Isn’t this great? Don’t you love how crazy this universe is? Aren’t you happy/sad/intrigued?” without doing anywhere near the work it needs to do to invoke those feelings naturally. It’s a lame episode with an applause sign, almost saved by the very capable cast that hits the ground running. It’s a Professor Hayter, drunk on Christmas wine. At least we learned how NOT to do Doctor Who in this new era.

Four One Questions to Doomsday - Chris

1. Dalek, Ogron, Professor Hayter, Viscount Banger, Fixed Point in Time, or Lady Cassandra? Never seen a Dalek before?