Doctor Who Reviews: "The Church on Ruby Road"

The Doctor Who Christmas special was something Russell T. Davies started back in 2005 and became an annual tradition for the show for twelve years. In 2019, Chris Chibnall in his effort to change things up, moved it to New Year’s -something that was quite controversial for Doctor Who fans but didn’t bother me much at all. It was rare that a Doctor Who Christmas special felt all that connected to the holiday anyways, rarer still when they were much good. To the surprise of no one though, the sentimental Davies reversed this back with the start of his new regime. Christmas specials will be a Doctor Who staple once again.

Segregated from the rest of the show, they do occasionally serve a function for the series ahead or the series behind. Three Doctors have exited on holiday specials and three companions have entered. “The Church on Ruby Road” is a fourth, and much like what Davies did with “The Runaway Bride” back in 2006, he structures most of the episode around the introduction and establishment of the character Ruby Sunday, played by Millie Gibson.

And he crafts a fairly interesting backstory for her -a foundling left on the steps of the titular Church on Ruby Road in Manchester on Christmas Eve 2004. Eventually she was adopted and moved to London, but has always been curious about her real parents. As to who they are, we see only a figure cloaked entirely in black who, though he has the opportunity to, the Doctor doesn’t follow to learn more. It was always Davies’ thing to thread mysteries through his series, often revolving around the companion, and so it appears that has been revived as well.

Not that that discredits anything -it’s part of what made his original run so thrilling, and the mystery of Ruby’s heritage is compelling enough. Though it is Ruby herself who is more important, and the special does spend a lot of time developing her and her world without the Doctor in it. Aside from the teaser it’s a while before he even appears, hearkening back and probably deliberately so to “Rose”. Davies has spoken of the upcoming Doctor Who era as a reboot, that in spite of the implications of “The Giggle”, he has no intention of bringing back the Fourteenth Doctor or Donna again or drawing on nostalgia much in the future. And so it’s understandable that the approach to this episode is much the same as for that pilot back in 2005. It is a fresh start in every capacity.

But where “Rose” was an episode with some real intensity to it, especially in how it set up the Doctor, “The Church on Ruby Road” is more about charm and whimsy, even as it touches on emotional story beats. Because aside from setting the scene for Ruby and the Doctor, the pre-eminent idea seems to be a mixing of two holiday classics: Gremlins and It’s a Wonderful Life.

The Gremlins are Goblins (called such because they “gobble” things), surfing time drawn to coincidence and chance, and in their wake creating a lot of bad luck. Ruby is their target because on Christmas Eve nineteen years to the day she was abandoned, another baby abandoned in the same way on the same night is fostered by her adopted mother Carla (Michelle Greenidge); and so the goblins descend, creating a series of accidents in the days before, both for Ruby and amusingly Davina McCall (who Doctor Who fans might remember rather virally snogged David Tennant for Comic Relief back in the day) -interviewing her for an ancestry program- before kidnapping the baby outright.

And the goblins really are like gremlins for how spritely and mischievous and anachronistic they are, several wearing little Santa hats and at one point on their ship (which resembles an old sailing galleon -down to the ropes that tie everything together) even singing cabaret-style a jaunty song in English. The Doctor and Ruby get in on the singing too at one point as a distraction -just to emphasize how committed Davies is to keeping the show unexpected and weird and camp, albeit in a different way than the series was previously known for.

Indeed where we do see the Doctor, we see more of what was suggested by “The Giggle” -that he is a character of a Captain Jack Harkness variety who oozes sexual charisma and flirts with just about everyone (he even makes reference to a “hot summer with Houdini”). He first comes into contact with Ruby at a club where he dances brashly in gender non-conforming clothing and seems to hit her up as he also pries for information about her streak of bad luck. And she definitely seems a little taken with him, which I have mixed feelings on as I do any time the Doctor is romantically linked with one of their companions. The skirt looks fine on him, but we do get a look at his actual outfit here, dropped with surprising subtlety in the last few months: a light or off-brown leather coat over an orange tee, matching trousers, Gallifreyean tattoos on his fingernails, and (the Davies staple) trainers. He is also adorned with a few rings and necklaces and, as mentioned before, a heretofore unseen moustache for the Doctor. His sonic screwdriver is just as unconventional in its oval shape, looking a little more like a box-cutter. It’s a good look though, that contrasts against a lot -which is always better than the Doctor merely fading into the background. And it’s enough to really set him apart from any Doctor before.

He next meets Ruby on the rope ladder hanging down from the goblin ship that she latched onto in an effort to save the baby Lulu. And it’s a fun context to open their relationship and chemistry on, the Doctor introducing her to a special kind of glove that takes on all their body weight -a feature that cleverly comes with multiple uses as the episode goes along. This and the following sequences are a pretty solid showcase of how this new Doctor Who pair work together, and what this new Doctor’s personality is under pressure. Mostly he’s thrilled to be learning and seeing new things -a Doctor quite in love with life, in concert with that idea of the bi-generation shedding some of his long-held baggage. Of course he’s still incredibly clever but doesn’t make a show of it; though he is certainly a flamboyant showman, yet sweet and understanding as well -a favourite scene of mine is when he distracts a police officer after an incident involving a falling Christmas mascot with the reassurance that his girlfriend WILL accept his proposal the following day, due to a series of Sherlock Holmes-esque deduced details that speak to his character. And all of this stuff (as well as the open sexuality) really plays to Gatwa’s strengths as an actor and he is terribly charismatic all through the episode.

It comes in handy in saving Lulu, rather horrifyingly put on a conveyor belt leading directly to the giant gaping mouth of the Goblin King -a Jabba the Hutt kind of monstrosity on board the ship. And it shows too in his tender reactions to the little apartment Ruby shares with Carla and housebound grandma Cherry (Angela Wynter), and especially to the fridge full of photos of all the foster kids who have become Ruby’s family over the years. The genuine sentiment he has for all of this couldn’t be more earnest, and I have a feeling Gatwa is going to make for a very warm Doctor as a result.

Davies hones in on this quaintness for the purpose of making the episode’s late conundrum more desperate. After it appears the goblins have come back to take Lulu again, the Doctor is relieved, until he discovers that Ruby is missing, and pieces together a little bit after the audience that the goblins went back in time and stole her as an infant. And though the world around him is not fundamentally different, the lives of Carla and Cherry are, the former having only taken in a few foster children and very much views it as just a job she’s stuck with over the holidays. There is a richness that Ruby brought to their lives, and implicitly those of all the children who have passed through; Davies, Gatwa, Murray Gold, director Mark Tonderai, and basically the entire production really making emphatic the gravity (sorry, mavity -that’s still what they’re going with) of Ruby’s life. She doesn’t have any kind of crisis of depression amounting to George Bailey, but she does hear from McCall that no trace of her family has been found even with all the resources at their disposal, which puts her in quite a funk. The Doctor commiserates as being in the same boat, and I wonder how much the two of them will be intentionally contrasted in the episodes to come.

It does take a while for the Doctor to clue into the situation, maybe out of the episode’s finale being somewhat underwritten, the Doctor using the same method he had earlier with the gloves to bring down the ship in 2004 just before the Goblin King could eat baby Ruby -although in a shocking bit of well-placed violence this ends with the Goblin King being impaled on the church steeple before the entire ship and goblins explode into nothing. Ever so slightly changing the past, it is the Doctor who deposits Ruby at the church steps before returning to a future with her in it. Her, and Davina McCall in fact, who it was earlier implied was impaled by her own Christmas tree after a string of accidents stemming from her interview with Ruby, but the Doctor shows up in the nick of time to save one of Britain’s most popular TV personalities.

Altogether, it’s a nicely wrapped resolution (appropriate for Christmastime), though I think it might have been a more interesting choice to tie Ruby’s bad luck back into her, as a neat character trait. Inasmuch as this doesn’t happen, Ruby is still neat regardless. She might be the youngest companion since Rose, but Gibson plays her with more mature stability and self-assuredness than that last blonde companion. She’s clever, and in her own way is able to work out some of the Doctor’s mystery via cues she picked up on around him. Of course the episode ends with her following him into the TARDIS, her reaction to its proportions illustrated nicely in an overhead shot, and the Doctor there fully expecting her, promising her fun new adventures to come.

And it pretty much is all new. The tone and general production quality may be pretty similar, especially to that earlier Davies era, but there’s nary a trace of continuity (save for a little bit of some that sectors of the fan-base still want retconned). It does the job well of presenting a clean slate, a good jumping-on point, at least as much as “The Eleventh Hour” or “The Woman Who Fell to Earth” did. You can tell that Davies is clearly thinking of that next generation of Doctor Who fans, much as he does still pull from his old toolbox. And that is fairly exciting. I may not have thought much of the Goblin musical number (or the Doctor’s response -which didn’t at all sound like it was spur of the moment), but that kind of spontaneity of form is perhaps a sign of some real freshness coming in, from episode to episode; which at the end of the day might be what Davies did best -and accounted for how memorable so many of his episodes still are.

“The Church on Ruby Road” has some artistic flare to it: the designs of the goblins, the somewhat quaint way it pictures London, and an atmosphere that does translate some good Christmas-y vibes. As a preview of the kind of thing that this next phase of Doctor Who will be, I’m also intrigued by its inklings of mystique and its charmed attitude. But it is probably the chemistry between Gatwa and Gibson that is most promising, and that I look forward to the show proper developing in 2024. Ruby is a spirited new character -this was a good debut. And Gatwa’s Doctor is more strongly affirmed in his identity -one that is perhaps designed to ruffle a few feathers, but is also just quite a new take on the Doctor that I remain very curious about.

A solid start to what I hope is an excellent story. Every few years the Doctor must get some new blood, and though I still have some reservations about Davies, it’s clear how much he understands that. This is going to be a wild new series. See you all in May.

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