How not to start off a series - a guide.

Doctor Who has plenty of episodes with a tone similar to Space Babies. The Slitheen two-parter, Aliens of London/World War Three, springs to mind. As does Love and Monsters. One of those is a masterpiece that I would recommend gladly, the other lands about as badly as this one does.

Firstly, I don't think they should be babies. Babies, including physically infants with the brains of six-year-olds, would not be able to survive and do what they do in this episode, I'm sorry. Space Kids would also solve the awful CGI mouth issues by having actual six-year-old child actors as both the bodies and voices of the characters. You could spend that Disney money on a Beatles' song for the next, possibly meant to be later in the series, episode. Secondly, what's with the repeated title drops? Especially the times when the Doctor says 'Babies - Space Babies'. Even writing that out, I had to roll my eyes.

I mentioned AoL/WW3 earlier, and I feel like this is actually RTD going 'Oh, a child-aimed episode worked out well in 2005. So did taking the companion to the far future to show her space the first time' and mashing together AoL/WW3 and The End of the World in a big way... Mess.

Saving the Bogeyman is also something that just doesn't make sense. It's made of bogeys and animated by a computer. It's not alive. It's snot being piloted by a machine. And why does it turn into a werewolf at the end? Actually, why are there so many jokes about bodily fluids? This is as juvenile as Torchwood series 1, just about different, kid-friendly fluids. To quote Sixie, 'yuck!'

Also, why do the babies suddenly care for the Bogeyman, they were scared of it earlier.

No wonder the viewing figures went down, all that new audience RTD wanted to bring in, hence restarting the series numbering, probably saw this juvenile drivel, went 'Oh. I guess Doctor Who isn't for me' and turned off.

AoL/WW3 worked because the fart jokes were in moderation, and the story has both a light-hearted, child aimed surface and dark undercurrent (which becomes more apparent in part 2). Additionally, time is wasted setting up a mystery that isn't a mystery, with the Doctor's memory of the night of Ruby's birth changing. From a post-Empire of Death perspective, this ruins one of the few interesting scenes from my first watch of the episode. Don't worry, there's no mystery here, she was just pointing at something that doesn't exist because she was naming her daughter.

There was good political commentary in one of the other intriguing scenes, when Ruby and Jocelyn talk about societies that force babies to be born but don't want to look after them once they exist. No matter your personal opinions on abortion, other people need to be free to make their own choices. But that's about it. I mean, there was a funny joke about the butterfly effect, and some of the Doctor's info dump about Time Lords and TARDISes and everything was good (though I don't think it should have all been in one scene)... But yeah. I don't particularly want to go sifting through shit for less nuggets of gold than I can count on the fingers of one hand. Especially when one turns out to be more shit.