The Legend of Ruby Sunday

The big end of series finale begins with this, as the two main themes of the overall arc come together.

The Doctor and Ruby return to the present day, to UNIT. They've been seeing the same woman throughout thier travels, each time as someone different and its time time to find out who she is. Also on the agenda is the mystery of Ruby's mum and why it snows when she thinks of her.

We're into more (new series) traditional Doctor Who here. Along with Kate Stewart, is Mel and Donna's daughter Rose, its like the gangs back together and we're on secure ground. The 'woman' is known to UNIT, as Susan Triad and the idea is floated that it could be the Doctors granddaughter. The suspense is there, after all this time are we going to get a reunion?

Suddenly switching between finding out about Susan Triad and investigating Ruby's mum and back seems a little odd, wouldn't you just deal with one issue at a time? But again this plot thread began with the Christmas episode, Ruby abandoned as a baby, the snow and why there's no trace of a relative. We're invested in what the outcome is, and on the edge of our seats in wanting the answers.

With Ruby's mum, grandmother and Mrs Flood all making appearences it quite packed. Kate mentioning her father telling stories of the Doctor - it has some nice moments.Though parts of this story feels a bit been there done that, Army of Ghosts springs to mind. The Doctor and Rose coming back from their travels to catch up on what they've missed, Torchwood with all the latest tech etc.

An emotional outburst by the Doctor, seems a bit out of place and as with the crying, out of character.

The reveal at the end wasn't expected by me and was a great surprise, but the cliffhanger was slightly drawn out.

On the whole pretty good.

Oh hey Sutekh, coo-

Why is UNIT employing children.

i miss the 70s special effects :(

I know why they brought Sutekh back, it's because RTD is apparently a huge Pyaramids of Mars fan and always wanted to do a sequel to it. Outside of that though, the main question The Legend of Ruby Sunday left me with was Why on Earth did they bring Sutekh back?? It seems such a specific choice to bring back This One Guy instead of another death god or even a new one.

I thought the episode was a good first half of a finale, there was pretty good build-up, but for me the big twist reveal got let down by the utter bafflement of What the f**k is he doing here

Russell T Davies' finales are often among the most epic. Stories like Utopia/The Sound Of Drums/Last Of The Time Lords and The Stolen Earth/Journey's End do an excellent job at raising the excitement levels before the plot is resolved. The Legend Of Ruby Sunday is the first part of this year's two-part finale, and it's more of a slow burner until the last five minutes. The Legend Of Ruby Sunday leaves you with far more questions than answers. Before going in, I was anticipating a reveal of who Ruby's biological Mum would be, for instance, as RTD including A Good Man Goes To War as an episode to watch in preparation for this one made me think the cliffhanger would be a familiar face revealed to be Ruby's mother. Instead, who her Mum is becomes more mysterious than it was before, as all we see is a hooded figure pointing northwest. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it makes it all the more fascinating a mystery, but it does mean that next week's episode has more to resolve (and the cliffhanger definitely seems to suggest we'll see who Ruby's Mum is next week).

There's some really lovely character moments in this one, particularly in relation to the Doctor's granddaughter. Kate's heart-to-heart with the Doctor over Susan Foreman, and whether he wants to see her, is easily the best scene Kate has ever had, as it gives her more personality than she has received in her other appearances. She has this real maternal quality to her when speaking to the Doctor about Susan that makes me wonder if she might be Ruby's Mum.

I also like the concept of UNIT's time window, which is very similar to The Girl In The Fireplace, although doesn't seem to be the same as that story's time windows. It's a brilliant idea to suggest that UNIT would have this kind of technology on hand, and makes sense that the organization would utilise it to view past times for their operations. Less convincing is the idea that UNIT would hire kids to work for them. Having 13 year olds like Morris working as scientific advisors suggests a morally grey side to UNIT that's not explored in the episode. They're essentially throwing 13 year olds into hugely dangerous extraterrestrial and supernatural situations, which seems a little problematic. It would probably have been better to have made Morris an alien, as it would have avoided the more ethically questionable side of kids working for UNIT. He could have just been an adult alien who looks like human child.

The Legend Of Ruby Sunday's highlight is undoubtedly the cliffhanger, which is suitably epic. It's a masterclass of building the tension and hinting at the absolute power that Sutekh holds, and harks back to past RTD cliffhangers like the YANA reveal in Utopia. Although I find Pyramids Of Mars a little overrated, I already find Sutekh much more superior to how he appears in Pyramids Of Mars. In those five minutes alone, he does a lot more to establish himself as a significant threat, possessing people, turning them to sand, and having already taken over the TARDIS. The moment where Susan Triad turns demonic and taunts the Doctor over how he thought she was his granddaughter is so chilling.

Mel gets quite a bit to do in this episode, and it's great seeing Bonnie Langford getting stronger material than she did in the 80s. It's much more enjoyable seeing a Mel who doesn't scream, and instead throws herself into action, as a spy for UNIT. It's also nice to see the return of Rose Noble too, who works well alongside 15 and Ruby. Hopefully Rose's inclusion means we may get to see Donna Noble come back sooner rather than later.

Overall, I would give The Legend Of Ruby Sunday a solid 8/10. It's a bit of a slow burner, and UNIT hiring children doesn't make a ton of sense, but those last five minutes are magnificent, and reflect Russell T Davies's knack for producing excellent cliffhangers. The constant references to Susan definitely make me believe we will see her return before long also, as it would seem a little strange for the Doctor to not return to his granddaughter again after spending so long talking about her to Ruby and Kate.

Sutekh is back, baby!

Looking forwards to how next week's episode wraps this up, this has a lot of potential right now.

Random thoughts:

RTD bring back Susan already you coward!

Mel is an absolute delight

A camera 66 Metres away? Or, 73 Yards.

Season One (Series 14); Episode Seven - “The Legend of Ruby Sunday” by Russell T. Davies

Well, Russell stepped up his game out of nowhere. This far into the series, I was convinced 73 Yards would be a one off in terms of RTD flexing his writing muscles properly but I am so very glad I was proved immensely wrong. The Legend of Ruby Sunday doesn't seem to be the instant hit I thought it would be online but personally I thought it was a magnificent finale brought down by the recurring trappings of the season but elevated to glorious heights by a masterclass in building tension and an all time great twist.

The Doctor’s back on Earth. A face has been following him throughout the vortex, the same woman, in different times and places and bodies. He’s traced it back to the company S. Triad Technologies and a snowy night in 2004, but a great evil is waiting for him. One that has been waiting a very long time.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

So let’s get the elephant in the room out the way: Sutekh is back! Unfortunately, my involvement in Doctor Who fandom has meant that every single twist in this episode was spoiled for me before it even aired but that final ten minutes is still the best ten minutes in this season so far. Some people might think that replacing the very streamlined Sutekh design with a big CG dog was a massive misstep but personally, I think the CGI is impressive enough and the design scary enough for me to really not care. This whole episode feels like a slowly building pressure, every scene feels like it's introducing a new thing that could explode, helped along by another glorious score from Murray Gold. The Doctor’s really shining here, he’s still not written as alien as I’d like him to be but his general delight at the primitive time travel technology and his genuine affection for Ruby is just delightful. As I hinted at before with the Sutekh effect, this episode is just beautiful. You can tell a pretty substantial amount of the budget went into this episode in particular and it really shows, the whole time window set and the particle effects on the Sutekh cloud is gorgeous to look at and makes the whole episode a treat to the eyes.

However, I don’t have as much to say on this episode as others as it is really the first part to a bigger story. A very large junk of it is set in one location and a lot of the time it can feel drawn out, its scale lands a little short of how big it could’ve been, with only UNIT tower really mattering as a set. UNIT itself is actually pretty dire this time around; I miss the days of old where UNIT was a genuine military outfit with realistic but likeable characters inhabiting its walls and not zany concepts RTD came up with like the wunderkind of the segway. UNIT feels more capable here than ever before and I still can’t take them seriously. Plus, why do they have so many children working there? And why does Ruby so quickly become best friends with Rose after a minute of knowing her? Quickly, I’ll note that a lot of people are unhappy with the retcon of Sutekh now being part of this Pantheon of Gods rather than the Osirian seen in the 70s but frankly, I don’t really care. The change isn’t that big, Sutekh was already a god-like figure before, some of the words in his description just got swapped around and I find the concept of this race of superbeings residing beyond space just really damn cool as an idea, although I think I might be alone on that opinion. Honestly, my biggest problem with the reveal is why would Sutekh hide his name in the Susan Triad Technologies? What is it with world ending deities and the like creating scavenger hunts for the Doctor to find?

The Legend of Ruby Sunday is very much the first part to a bigger story, but I think it’s as brilliant a setup as you can get. Fun, scary, high-octane and fascinating, those final ten minutes alone should sell you on this episode; it’s not exactly the Yana reveal but in terms of wordplay based twists, it’s a contender in my eyes. Anyway, see you all next week in the cinema.

9/10

Pros:

+ Tense as all hell throughout, builds gradually but masterfully

+ The Sutekh reveal is by far the best scene in this season and should go down as an all time great moment

+ Utterly beautiful effects throughout, both practical and visual

+ The Doctor’s genuinely quite fun here and the best execution of him so far that doesn’t stray from his main persona

+ Love the detail that the CCTV camera that caught Ruby’s mother was 66 metres away (or 73 yards).

Cons:

- Very much setup, held back by its status as a first part

- UNIT feels too cartoonish for a clandestine military branch

- Paced weirdly, spends far too long on things that don’t need that long spent on them and zips over the characters

As a 2-parter, I think it is hard to review this episode stand-alone. It’s not a complete story so I think it will only be fair to form a full opinion once we’ve seen part 2. However, this is a pretty good first part. At first, I found it quite messy with multiple plots happening at once without much connection but I feel that this improved over the course of the episode. It could even be argued that this was intentional, representing how the Doctor was being pulled between multiple crises.

As a part 1, it is the job of this episode to build tension without resolving much of it in order to create a satisfying cliffhanger and I feel that that goal was achieved quite well here. I was not expecting the cliffhanger at all and it will be on my mind all week. It’s a very small thing, but the music at the end reminded me somewhat of the music in Classic Who. I don’t know if it was intentional, but I like it.

This paragraph is deliberately vague to keep this review spoiler-free. The main bit of technology in the episode felt a bit contrived and convenient. I guess that the plot had to be advanced somehow, but I feel that it could have been done a bit more naturally. Also, and I hate to say it, but I found the character of Morris quite annoying. His whole thing about probability doesn’t really work in my opinion. The other characters were good, though.

All in all, this episode has done its job in getting me invested into the story and I can’t wait for part 2. I will be seeing it in the cinema, making it all the more exciting!

Really enjoyed this! Love that for 70% of it it’s just a character drama built on emotion with slowly ramping up tension that escalates and suffocates for the last 30%. Outstanding acting from all of the main cast too.

I laughed when within the first 5 minutes they lampshaded all the Susan and TARDIS theories lmaaaaoooo

And that ending when the tension finally all comes together… I haven’t felt such chills with a reveal since Utopia I think?? Banger stuff.

I’m also feeling VERY smug because I predicted Sutekh all the way back in The Giggle when The One Who Waits was first mentioned. Before it even became the most popular online theory! I, like most, also called that Susan Twist, playing Susan Triad was too obvious to be Susan Foreman.

Though now I’m wondering about Mrs Flood cause she was scary there… And I thought she’d be Susan Foreman…

Can’t wait to see Empire of Death in cinema and see if this sticks the landing!

I feel like the first episode of two-part finales like this are really hard to review.
I don't fully know how I feel about the first episode's quality until the second part airs, as the quality of the setup is very reliant on the quality of the resolution.

But I did enjoy watching it. I loved all of the interactions between the characters, the rollercoaster of emotions that the Doctor goes on and Ncuti's performance. I thought the episode was visually really nice - I loved Sutekh's design and how they did the time window stuff. I think the episode's tension builds up nicely, as the Doctor is lured into a false sense of security almost, confident in his hope that Susan is his granddaughter, and confident that he can easily find out who Ruby's birth mum is, only for things to become more and more mysterious.

But this episode basically is all setup, and presents us with more questions than answers. We still don't know: who Ruby's birth mum is, who Susan Triad is (other than being connected with Sutekh), why Susan Triad was everywhere, who Mrs Flood is (which we might not find out next week), what Sutekh's plan is and, most importantly, whether or not Cherry Sunday is safe. This gives the last part a heap of stuff to resolve, which is something that I am a little nervous about, as I feel a lot of Doctor Who stories struggle to tie up all of their loose ends, despite starting with some interesting setups.

But yeah, I really think that I will only know how I feel about this episode until next week and I definitely need to rewatch Pyramids of Mars in preparation.

first watched 15/6/24

yeah idk how to feel yet i was hoping to be properly surprised in some way but none of that really veered from my expectations. very much felt like the first part of a finale. and thats fine!!! maybe got my hopes too high, and have def spent too much time looking at theories. sutekh looks so f**king cool though im excited for goth dr who. is susan happening?? i feel like a susan cameo at the very least must be happening???????

rewatched 21/6/24

liked this a hell of a lot more on rewatch, especially in the cinema, the way it builds up tension is SO COOL

Warning: I'm so excited so I'm just babbling word that comes from my heart!

SUTEKH LIVES!!!

FFS that was AMAZING! I'm shaking! I was seeing all this theories about him but WOAW! CANNOT BELIVE IT!

Well, first thing first, the episode by itselft is so good, I love UNIT being brought back with such glorious shape, Kate is badass (and is finally having good episodes!), Mel! Oh I love you and I didn't even catch with series 24 yet. Rose is back and is great to see her around. Hearing and Seeing Susan being mentioned and being a plot point is such a win, wishing for Carole to return during this era.

OH THE DOCTOR! Ncuti is fenomenal, he's The Doctor and next week I'm 1000% sure as sugar he'll deliver a powerful finale for us!

AND GOSH! S TRIAD, i was hoping it would be something entirely new, for sure some callbacks, but the way they fooled us in the end AH! (Well, some people were quite sure it was HIM, but well)

ANYWAY! CANNOT WAIT FOR NEXT WEEK!