(PORTED FROM TIME SCALES)

2023 Christmas Special - "The Church on Ruby Road" by Russell T. Davies

A new era. The most popular showrunner of the most iconic era in recent memory is back, we have two electric new actors on screen, there was a massive build up of hype on the Doctor Who side of twitter and what we got was more of the same illogical soulless plotting and unnatural lazy dialogue - at least in the second half. I can see where this era is going and I stand by my opinion that the revival ended in 2017 and everything after that has been a weird fever dream.

Ruby Sunday was abandoned outside a church when she was just a newborn and nineteen years later lives with her foster mother and grandmother, happy. But recently her luck has been terrible and now, on Christmas Eve, she finds the root of all her problems along with a strange man who calls himself The Doctor.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

I loved everything but the plot. Ncuti's acting talent is electric and Ruby seems to be an incredibly promising companion I already really like, all the bits of her living her normal life before the actual story kicked in was my absolute favourite part of the episode. The first half of the episode is great: funny, fast, charming. It all really does feel like we're back in classic RTD Doctor Who. Apart from the main cast, our side characters (the companion's family) were really well written and likable quickly, unlike previous miscellaneous parents who took a couple episodes to become interesting. The first of two musical numbers, the Goblin Song as it has been dubbed, was a really enjoyable moment of the episode even if the lyrics were bullshit. Also, I think the hinted at story arc is going to be interesting and I'd like to see where its going, hopefully it's going to be some long game, Machiavellian stuff with somebody placing Ruby in the Doctor's arms for a reason. I just hope it won't just be the Master again or some variation there of.

However, immediately following the introduction of the main plot, the entire episode falls apart. Ruby really doesn't seem to be phased by the actual existence of actual goblins, there's barely even one line of her trying to process what essentially is her entire world view being changed; she's immediately competent and capable despite just being a woman from London who definitely would have misgivings about this situation. It's also not fun to see the irrational and unbelievable dialogue from the Chibnall era has carried over. There's so many forced lines of dialogue that feel like bits of a script and not a human being saying something coming to mind, which should be how dialogue sounds. I also happen to find that the episode doesn't know how to treat itself, one second it's serious and character driven and the next it's a goofy runaround with goblins. One second you have normal illogical/logical reasoning of Doctor Who, where things that don't make sense suddenly sound absolutely reasonable within the confines of the show, and the next you have the Doctor and Ruby perfectly coming up with a musical number on the spot - a scene that is not only cringe inducing but makes absolutely no sense. Russell T. Davies seems to forget who the Doctor is. My main gripe with the Tenth Doctor - an incarnation I do adore none the less - is that he's far too human, at least at the start of his run and here, Fifteen is just an eccentric guy rather than a 3000 year old time immortal, a detail that's clearly slipped Russell's mind. How you go from Twelve's space grandad aesthetic to the Doctor dancing to rave music in a nightclub within six years is beyond me; they managed to backtrack characterisation.

5/10

Pros:
+ Great first half that juggles excellent characterisation
+ Brilliant performances from our main duo
+ Ruby Sunday feels like a companion I'm going to love, Millie Gibson plays the role perfectly and all they need to do is make her actions feel a little more natural
+ The most immediately likable companion family we've seen yet
+ Intriguing set up for a series arc
+ The Goblin Song is admittedly a great scene despite the fact RTD can't write lyrics
+ Everything outside the actual story line (the characterisation, the world buildings, the build up) was really good peak RTD

Cons:
- The second half is complete nonsense
- People don't act like actual humans, completely shrugging off life changing events with a smile and a witty comeback
- Russell T Davies completely forgot the Doctor's meant to be a 3000 year old alien and instead just wrote a quirky guy
- Complete leaps in logic, even for Doctor Who
- I can't describe how much I hate the scene where Ruby and the Doctor just come up with a musical number on the spot and then don't address the fact that that's impossible (a single throw-away line about coincidences or some bollocks would've been fine)
- The dialogue is on the nose and unrealistic
- Ruby being written out of existence for all of two scenes was unneeded and felt like padding
- The goblins (our main villains) were barely the focus of the episode and show up for basically a couple scenes
- They addressed the Timeless Child and it made me sad