We have Ncuti’s first episode, The Church on Ruby Road, for the first time since Eccleston, we have a new Doctor whose first episode doesn’t immediately take place following a regeneration, but rather sometime later. The Doctor’s enjoying his new lease on life and meets a young woman named Ruby Sunday. An adopted child helping her foster mother care for other abandoned children. On Christmas, she finds herself being followed by a gang of goblins who are keen to take the home’s new-born baby to be eaten by their Goblin King.

This premise is utterly ludicrous but it’s something I’ve come to expect from the Christmas specials, so it never really bothered me that much. I’ve said before, I’ve never cared for the Christmas specials, I was not sad to see them taken away when Chibnall took over and it filled me with dread when Russell announced their return. The Christmas specials are what they’ve always been, an excuse for some cheap meaningless fluff that’s guaranteed to get good viewing figures cos nothing else is on at Christmas Day. In fairness, this one does have a little more heart and creativity put into it than most Christmas Specials in the past. The idea of this wooden ship (as in pirate ship) floating in the sky, crewed by small goblins who sing songs about wanting to eat this baby they’ve kidnapped, it’s the kind of dark humour I wish these specials had more of, and I’m open to Doctor Who mixing with more fantasy elements. The story also plays about with time travel by having Ruby erased towards the climax and the Doctor sees how the people around her are affected by her never having existed. Also the Doctor pulling down a ship in the sky is a badass moment

As a Doctor intro story goes, it’s fairly average, as an episode, it’s another Christmas special. I’ve never cared for them, never will