Doctor Who (2023 – 20XX)

#1.01. Space Babies ~ 8/10

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◆ An Introduction

A companion’s first adventure through time and space should always be a special one – unless your name is Hex or C’rizz, then you get lumbered with something experimental which does nothing for their character development – so here’s hoping Ruby has better luck.

On an unrelated note, I hope you’ve got some tissues to deal with the walking snot monster.

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◆ Publisher’s Summary

Ruby learns the Doctor’s amazing secrets when he takes her to the far future. There, they find a baby farm run by babies. But can they be saved from the terrifying bogeyman?

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◆ The Fifteenth Doctor

His parents abandoned him and he became the foundling of the Time Lords, so he can empathise with the inhabitants of Baby Station Delta and their worries that they “grew up wrong”. But he assures them that nobody grows up wrong: you are what you are, and that is magnificent. This episode does an excellent job of tying the Doctor’s backstory into the narrative.

Considering the Doctor is the only member of his species in the whole universe, it’s not surprising the horror on his face when Jocelyn tries to blast the Bogeyman out of an airlock! ‘Space Babies’ featured an amazing performance from Ncuti Gatwa.

Because he was adopted, and the planet that took him in, they were kind of posh. They’d use titles like the Doctor, or the Bishop, or the Rani, or the Conquistador: say Doctor for a thousand years and it becomes his name. His world was called Gallifrey, and it’s gone. There was a genocide, and they died, so the one that was adopted was the only one left. He is the last of the Time Lords. And he is so, so glad to be alive. The Doctor claims that most of the universe is knackered. He believes that there is no such thing as monsters, there’s just creatures you haven’t met yet. The Doctor doesn’t have a people. He doesn’t have a home. But he doesn’t have a job, either. He doesn’t have a boss, or taxes or rent or bills to pay. He doesn’t have a purpose or a cause, or a mission, but he has freedom. And so he keeps moving on, to see the next thing, and the next, and the next. And sometimes, it looks even better through his companion’s eyes. The Doctor’s parents left him, and he was found by the Time Lords, but it doesn’t matter where he comes from, because he is absolutely lovely. There’s no-one like him in the whole, wide universe. No-one like him exists, and that’s true of everyone. It’s not a problem, it’s a superpower. He’s met a million ugly bugs – he is an ugly bug! – but that thing made him run, and he wonders why.

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◆ Ruby Sunday

A companion’s first adventure through the fourth dimension always features a great deal of culture shock, and Ruby is clearly struggling with the idea that a bunch of babies are running a space station, and somewhat horrified that their parents / guardians decided to just up and leave. This episode also kick-starts a series of weird occurrences surrounding Ruby, including having the ability to summon snow when in danger…

Millie Gibson put on an excellent performance in ‘Space Babies’, really connected with the material.

Ruby worried about how safe seeing dinosaurs would be: what if she changed history by stepping on a butterfly or something? Lo and behold, she ends up doing exactly that… briefly transforming into Rubathon Blue of the 57th Hemisphere Hatchlings!

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◆ Walking Sneeze

Speaking as someone who is severely germaphobic, this week’s monster genuinely made me wretch when it was revealed to be made from actual snot, but I’ll admit that the lore behind it is actually quite interesting.

The parthenogenesis machine had inbuilt education software which started going haywire and taking things literally: babies need fiction, so it created a genuine nightmare creature so they had something to be afraid of! It was designed to have a roar with a frequency of 17Hz to instil fear in anyone who heard it, which even made the Doctor recoil when he first encountered it.

Certainly a fascinating concept, but one which I don’t find myself relating to in the slightest, because my nightmares as a child weren’t of unreal creatures like the Bogeyman. One nightmare from childhood has actually been lodged in my brain ever since I was three years old: being trapped in the Metrocentre ASDA and attacked by an evil swan! Considering I’ve never been frightened of birds, that nightmare still feels very random.

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◆ Set Design & Visuals

Our first destination is 150 million years in the past, and this is where production really start flexing their Disney budget; huge mountains surround a lush green valley, with a river and waterfall cutting right through the middle. Dinosaurs of several varieties are roaming around the plains below, while pterodactyls soar across the skyline. Rubes then steps on a butterfly and briefly becomes some form of avian-Silurian hybrid! It definitely makes sense to open on such a grandiose image, considering the majority of this episode falls into the traditional Doctor Who category of running round a load of cramped corridors.

We get this absolutely glorious shot of the TARDIS emerging from the time vortex, hurtling towards Baby Station Beta and shifting through the walls. The space station corridors are dark and cramped, hiding a slimy creature that immediately starts chasing the Doctor and Rubes. I particularly like how we get to see these corridors through the station’s onboard CCTV systems: it’s very reminiscent of ‘Sleep No More’.

As our dynamic duo explore the upper levels of Baby Station Beta, you can see drawings made on the wall in crayon, and various children’s toys being used to operate control panels. It’s more like a branch of Mothercare than a space station!

The constant switching camera angles make the Bogeyman absolutely horrifying, especially since it’s skulking around in those dark corridors. We never actually get a proper look at it until Cpt. Poppy attacks it with a flamethrower!

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◆ Conclusion

“You’ve literally got a monster living down below. It’s a children’s story! Come to life.”

Encountering a real-life bogeyman, our dynamic duo must uncover its surprising origins, and decide if it really poses a danger to the inhabitants of Baby Station Beta.

When the episode names were unveiled across social media, I immediately started cringing at this one, but the adventure itself turned out pretty good. Considering both the Doctor and Ruby are foundlings, it seems more than coincidence that they should find themselves on a space station inhabited by babies, where all the parents have just upped and left; the former also develops a connection to our antagonist, because they’re both the only member of their species in existence.

Ignoring the atrocious title for a moment, ‘Space Babies’ was genuinely a great episode to kick off the series with, though I was surprised just how many moments in the story were ripped wholesale from Rose Tyler’s first outing in the TARDIS.