This is my first review here, so, sorry if I mess up the formatting or anything like that, still getting used to it all. Also, please don't expect this to be very formal or properly organised- I tend to go on tangents a lot! Spoilers only from the political section onwards.
So, first episode of the new season! I give it a 3/5- it was fun, it was entertaining, and it had some truly fascinating political ideas that RTD just failed to drive home. The dynamic between Ruby and 15 was well-developed and so much fun! So, let's talk about all this in more detail. First, a warning that in the 'politics' section, I'm going to be talking about some pretty dark themes like euthanasia of babies, so if you think that will upset you, please steer clear.

Overall
I saw a tumblr post refer to this episode as a "rent-lowering gunshot", and I think that's pretty accurate. It felt like RTD was so used to having to be implicit with his political ideas that now that he is able to be more explicit, he doesn't quite know how- something I'm sure will change as the season progresses, if TDC is any indication! But I also feel like it was almost there to scare off the people who aren't willing to stick with Who through it's lows as well as it's highs, or to keep with the show through it's genre change. It's a big shift, and so it's no surprise that there's some teething problems. I definitely don't think the new era should be judged on this episode, and again, I think it makes sense to have this out here to sort of scare away the people who the new era isn't made for. The people who are stuck in their ways, who think Who has "gone woke", and who don't want to see it become more fantastical. (More on that in my review of The Devil's Chord... I have a lot more to say with that one!). I liked it. I really did. It was fun, it was silly, it had it's heartwrenching moments, but it definitely wasn't carried through properly and there were a lot of themes that were just left dangling when they could have been driven home much more steadfastly. More on that in the next section...

Politics
One thing you cannot say about this episode is that it shied away from the big political debates. Abortion was the obvious one, though I also saw links with disability and anarchism. I am aware that the disability part of this especially seems to be grasping at straws, so I want to clarify: I don't believe RTD intended to explore this, but I think as a disabled person it is very difficult to ignore the implications.

Abortion. This one is pretty obvious- right from the beginning of meeting the babies, there was rage and a terrible kind of heartache. Who would do this to these children? Who would be so heartless as to allow this to happen, for children to be forced to become leaders and technicians and grow up so fast while still so young, all with only one adult to take care of so many? And the answer was, of course, the government. With the overturning of Roe vs Wade hanging over all our heads, I think the message being sent is clear: Not being allowed to turn off the baby farms is not being allowed to abort babies who will have no parents. The connection to our real-world issues around abortion continues to develop the more you think about it- the government, controlling the growth/birth of babies against the wishes of the population (those videos of the crew decrying this as cruel at the start); the babies who are produced like a commodity. The children, left with no supervision (ending up in care), because no support is provided for them to be looked after (by the parents/crew), forcing them to grow up too fast. A common pro-choice sentiment is expressed very explicitly upon meeting the real "Nan-E":

"Hang on, so the planet down below who refused to stop the babies being born... But once they're born, they don't look after them?"
"It's a very strange planet."
"It's not that strange."

I won't lie, I cried at that last line. It's not that strange. How much more clearly can you condemn the actions of a goverment who forces people to have children against their will (It's against the law to turn off the baby-making machine, just as there are places in our world where it is illegal to have an abortion), and then forces them to leave said children with no support, exactly as we do on Earth. And it's not that strange because that is what happens here. A heartbreaking moment of true, human emotion about what we are being forced through here in the real world. And, as much as this new season is all about the fantasy, we can see the show keeping it's sci-fi roots- sci-fi has always been there to criticise the present by showing it as a future dystopia, painting that issue in a clearly negative light. It has always been didactic, and always been political. I don't think we have to worry about Doctor Who stopping that any time soon.

And, if I may make one more connection on this issue- we saw that more babies were being grown. If those embryos had been born, and there were new, younger babies on that station, who do you think would have had to take care of them? Jocelyn wasn't supposed to stay behind. Logically, if no one was left to take care of the new babies, then the slightly older babies would have been forced into that role, despite being no more than children themselves. A sickening reminder of the fates of child sexual assault victims, forced to carry to term, despite this often leading to the victim's death. Again, RTD leaves no holds barred here; by making it clear that the babies are running out of food and oxygen, and so will die from lack of care and resources, he has once again presented a scathing indictment of the supreme court decision to overturn Roe vs Wade, and what this has led to.

However, here is where RTD fell short. He failed to drive his point home. He never showed us what happened- surely, the machines should have been turned off, aborting the embryos which would have killed the already living babies, if RTD is making a point about how SA victims are essentially sacrificed on the state's need to view a clump of cells as worth more than a living human being? By not actually addressing the issue of the baby machines still being up and running, despite this soon killing the babies, RTD has left a major plot thread dangling, and is failing his strongest theme. The issue of abortion deserves more than a question; it deserves RTD's full attention. It deserves to be tied up and resolved within the episode. And RTD failed to do this.

Now, disability. As I said before, I do not believe RTD was intending to explore disability, but once you've seen it, it's difficult to ignore. Let's start with the part of this that most closely connects to the last point- the aborting of embryos who are likely to become disabled children, and the euthanasia of disabled babies. There are some disabilities that you can detect in the womb, such as spina bifida, and sometimes down syndrome. In the UK, down syndrome can be seen as "justification for termination" up until birth, and there are all-too-many stories of pregnant people with a down syndrome embryo being pressured into having an abortion when they want to keep the embryo and have their baby.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-51658631

The reason I bring up aborting disabled embrbyos, and the related issue of withdrawing care from disabled newborns or euthanising disabled newborns against parental wishes, is because of the Bogeyman. When Jocelyn attempted to kill the Bogeyman against the wishes of the other children, given the new knowledge that this was "one of the children", and the previous focus on the horror of not allowing the baby machines to be stopped even when it meant the babies would surely die, this felt to me like a statement about disabled newborns. The Bogeyman was made of boogers; seen as disgusting, as scary, as a nightmare. I've heard the same words applied to disabled infants, which is perhaps why I made this connection so readily. As I said before, I doubt other people will have/that it was intentional, but this is definitely what struck me.

Something about the fear of the Other, of the different, even though this was still a child, hits me especially hard as an autistic person. I am used to being ostracised and ignored on the playground because I'm "too weird", "too different"; because the other children see my difference as "scary". And, with the episode's theme of teaching children that "Nobody grows up wrong"- not the babies who developed physically and mentally different from what was expected, not the autistic and other neurodivergent children watching behind the sofa- how could I not apply the same statement to the Bogeyman? Nobody grows up wrong is perhaps the most powerful thing you can hear when you have have been told all your life that you are wrong. The Bogeyman has, for six years, been told that they are scary, that their difference means they shouldn't be around the other children. They don't communicate like the others or look like the others or play the same role in the story-game as the others, so they are different. But that does not mean that they are wrong, or that they deserve to die. In today's day and age's focus on neurodiversity, maybe that seems obvious to most adults reading this, but I know so many people who have hurt themselves because they were taught by all the other children around them- and by the adults who were supposed to protect them (hi Jocelyn)- that their difference made them wrong, and so they didn't deserve to play and be loved and live like the other children. The dehumanisation- being treated like a "doggo", not a child, also hits especially hard with this neurodiverse lens. However, I think again I felt let down by the way RTD never really showed the Bogeyman being given a chance to communicate in their own way, to play with the other children, the point about difference not being wrong simply wasn't driven home. It's one thing to be told that you aren't broken; it's entirely another to actually be accepted by those who rejected you in the first place. The Bogeyman deserved a hug too.

Let's move on to something a bit less heavy: Anarchism! All the Doctor's talk of freedom interested me in light of other very political episodes like 'Oxygen' or 'The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances', as in these, the Doctor has always been presented as a socialist. While this was definitely an anti-capitalist episode, what with it's condemning of "the government clos[ing] the Baby Station to save money", and this leading to the deaths of the children, I would argue that the Doctor seemed to be taking on a more anarchist stance than a socialist one. He was consistently anti-capitalist, with the consolation for him having no home being no boss, no taxes, no rent (so true. go off babes), and the focus on "freedom" is especially linked to anarchism, as anarchism vies for freedom from authority. However, the talk of having "no cause" or purpose is where this starts to fall down, as anarchists definitely do have a cause... though, that could simply be a reflection of a poor understanding of anarchism. Though I can see a link, I definitely don't think the anarchism thread is a main theme, but it is worth mentioning.

Fantasy
The new genre is here, and it's off to a swinging start- the focus on stories, fantasy bleeding through, now that there's no more anchoring... It all just fits beautifully. I have a lot more thoughts on this that I'm saving for my Devil's Chord review, but I just wanted to note that the fantasy genre in a sci-fi setting struck a neat balance, and helped the episode feel more fun!

15 and Ruby: The Relationship
Their dynamic is everything to me. That's it. That's all. They're perfect and amazing and I would die for them.

Other/Final Thoughts
I think it's also worth congratulating the episode on it's foreshadowing. The way the butterfly effect was shown at the beginning (Obsessed, by the way, with the implications of the Doctor bringing that butterfly back to life. I saw no regeneration energy, so, was it some psychic trick rather than regenerative healing? Can he do this with people? So many possibilities...), and then undone so Ruby never knew it happened, and then how in the next episode she doesn't understand when the butterfly effect does occur... Beautiful. Well done.

Fun visuals, a lot of unanswered questions (How were the babies talking and yet not talking? Why didn't they grow up physically and yet did somewhat grow up mentally? RTD, I swear, I just want to talk-) that really brought it down for me, and the themes msot rich in exploration left dangling. Plot-wise, this made the episode a bit of a let-down, but it was still entertaining and worth a watch! Unlikely to rewatch, but still a good time.