🙏🏼65% = Fine! = Skippable!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

THE ONE WITH THE MONSTER MADE OF SNOT!

They’ve improved the title sequence, fixing pretty much all the problems I had with the one from Church on Ruby Road! It's not perfect, but it's much better!

I quite like the opening scene, which is a traditional Doctor Who crash course meant to explain to the new companion and the audience what the show and the lead character are all about.

Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson feel like old mates already. Gatwa’s playful take on the Doctor is infectious, and Gibson is charming with her youthful energy and constant awe. They carry the episode very well, and Gatwa finally feels like the Doctor here, as he brings out a wide range of emotions, from happy energy to true fear and intense determination.

I don't find the first TARDIS trip, where Ruby steps on a butterfly and transforms into an alien, to be particularly funny. Additional jokes that fail to resonate include Gatwa's repetitive use of the episode's title and the snot and poop jokes (which feel so 2005! ), whereas the nanny filter gags are genuinely amusing.

It feels weird how quickly the Doctor and Ruby get into trouble after materialising onto the spaceship. They immediately begin exploring and encounter the monster, which is only glimpsed through quick cuts (a classic horror trope that is used rather effectively). This is the Bogeyman, a pretty traditional Doctor Who monster made effecively scary by the realistic rubber suit, the clever direction, and good editing whenever it appears on screen.

The entire idea of a spaceship run by babies and with a baby farm is equally creepy, bizarre, and silly, and somehow it feels a bit too weird, even for Doctor Who. These are also parts of RTD's political commentary on refugees and abortion that don't pop up too obtrusively.

The spaceship design is simple and effective (you can sense the scale and level of detail), and the visual effects are top notch (though the effect used for the babies' lip movements doesn't look right at all). The voice acting for the babies also feels a bit off, but that might be deliberate.

Space Babies has a simplistic plot that finds time to develop the mystery around Ruby's past while also developing the main narrative around the babies and the Bogeyman.

After a very rushed start, the middle of the episode takes some time to flesh out the setting and the reason for the space babies—a simple and logical reason. It then focuses on solving the monster's mystery, making good use of the characters and setting. I quite like the clever solution of why the Bogeyman exists, as it has been created by the spaceship computer, who has interpreted the Bogeyman fairytale literally (it’s a monster made of snot or bogies—only on Doctor Who!). It’s almost as silly as the Kandyman from The Happiness Patrol.

The climax and solution are pretty standard fare for Doctor Who.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

I love the new way the TARDIS materializes, sort of shooting onto the scene as if shot from a cannon, as it looks so cool!

The “phone your mom” scene is a wonderful hark back to The End of the World (2005).

So, we get new Time Lord names: the Bishop, the Conquistador, the Sag-ishi, and so on! Now we wait for the Big Finish spin-offs featuring these characters!

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Space Babies is silly, bizarre, and uneven; new viewers run the risk of being put off, while old fans are left wondering whether or not this is the weirdest season opener in Doctor Who history.