1.01 “Space Babies” – Review:
Space Babies heralds the arrival of Doctor Who for a new age by giving it something that it never has had before: a budget. And that’s very clear from the off, our first trip in the TARDIS takes Ruby and The Doctor, Millie Gibson and Ncuti Gatwa, instantly electric in their shared chemistry, to the ages of the dinosaurs following The Church on Ruby Road. Ruby steps on a butterfly and turns into an alien showing the consequences of time travel in a peak Simpsons way, and we’re off again like we never left. It feels weird watching Who this way – with a budget designed to appeal to the casual audience, it’s very newcomer friendly – the info-dumping The Doctor gives Ruby in the first 5 minutes has been handled better by Russell T. Davies in the past, but we don’t waste too long on this thankfully. I did like that this picks up on the callback between Twelve and Bill in Thin Ice, where The Doctor teases Bill saying that there was a third companion, Pete – who stepped on a butterfly and now Bill doesn’t even remember him. This isn’t new territory for Who – or sci-fi in general, and whilst I did prefer the Pete exchange, this is a fun way to explore the Butterfly Effect literally.
Within seconds, we’re in a spaceship, being chased by a bogeyman, something that even The Doctor is afraid of, and running into a beautiful view that calls back to The End of the World in style – The Doctor telling Ruby this is why he travels for days like this, and you’re reminded again as to why you stayed up to midnight to watch this thing when you have to be up at 7am the following morning. They immediately run into babies who can talk, which isn’t new territory for Doctor Who (remember Stormy?); but they’re facing a dilemma. They are trapped on their ship and can’t move after the adults evacuated; and they’re running out of time. It’s clever in the way that Davies finds a way to set up and raise the stakes immediately – there’s a way out – the TARDIS – but between them and their craft is the bogeyman. Davies is no stranger to camp; remember the Slitheen? And this is an interesting way to get to the hot-button topics of importance that Who has always discussed in the past, strong themes of abortion and immigration are now present, and The Doctor is a survivor of a genocide.
I really like how Doctor Who has found a way to tackle these head on – so much for the Disney-Who, this is peak Russell T Davies unfiltered with a budget. His idea of coming up with nappies with strong enough power to motivate a spaceship leans into the fantastical element of this all the more, and The Bogeyman being saved shows The Doctor’s need to be a pacificist and a humanist. It’s such an effective moment that captures the core effort of who The Doctor is – did he need to scare all those babies by bringing up the Bogeyman on the monitor though? I don’t think he did; but this is Gatwa’s Doctor, he revels in having fun. There’s a lot of nostalgia nods and callbacks here but at the same time Space Babies is fantastic – The Doctor and Ruby’s reactions to being mother and father of the babies is much like Donna and The Doctor’s husband/wife mistaken identity, and the chemistry comes close to rivalling Tenant and Tate from the off – it’s that good.
Space Babies does feel a tad middling for much of its runtime no matter how fun the baby flamethrower rescue attempt was; and leaning into the fairytale structure of the storyline sets up the approach for this era of Who – more fantasy – but whilst it doesn’t quite get going properly until the end, it feels like appealing to newcomers may not help get them fully on board. It feels like a bit of a shaky start in that sense – especially given how much of a nostalgia echo it was – The End of the World does it better, which isn’t exactly what you want to hear.
1.02 “The Devil’s Chord” – Review:
We cut to July 2024 this time, and Ruby suggests that The Doctor takes her back to see the Beatles. It’s an interesting time-jump and suggests that they’ve now been travelling for a while, primed for some exploration from Big Finish Audio Dramas in the future, but in reality it suggests that the episodes have probably been chopped and changed from their original order. To The Doctor, seeing the Beatles is a big brand new idea – and both of them arrive back in the 60s, paying a visit to Abbey Road, and we get a callback to Susan, The Third Doctor – and the Junkyard – The Doctor bringing his granddaughter out of the blue suggests an imminent return – but it’s a pleasant surprise to have her mentioned in the present tense. This is The Doctor learning not to move on and treat people living as they are – and it’s a beautiful moment that causes Ruby to acknowledge how old The Doctor really is. It’s a shame we didn’t quite get a multi-Doctor story with Three here; but we don’t need any more of those – and the recasting would’ve been quite fierce.
But onto the main episode and this pits us against Maestro, played by a scene-stealing Jinkx Monsoon. She’s scenery-chewing, delightfully camp and fun in the best possible way, this is a lot more convincing camp than the first episode, and I only wish it’d had leaned into the musical moments and had more of them, but when Maestro is robbing the universe of music, it makes sense that the songs that The Beatles are singing are dull and boring. The magic is lost – it’s a plot straight out of a musical, and Ruby and The Doctor must rewrite time and space to prevent Ruby’s future time in 2024 being destroyed and London becoming a wasteland.
There are hints here, Russell T Davies is the master of foreshadowing, the TARDIS groans when Ruby walks away from it and Mrs Flood appears again as the Tea Lady, but that’s all they are for now, hints; enough to distract us from the awful casting of The Beatles, but I do love that they’re part of the solution in coming up with the cure to music in the final act – and even Russel T. Davies hates Ringo. A Yesterday it’s not, and thank goodness for that – there are complaints about the songwriting ability of RTD here and justifiably so, There’s Always A Twist At the End lacks to the spark to truly replace the songs that were there in the first place but the choreography is tons of fun.
There’s a lot of callbacks here about what could happen – even Maestro is afraid of The One Who Waits, who leaves a heavy shadow over Ruby – the callback to her past waiting to be explored in The Church on Ruby Road is something grand, and the mystery with the falling snowflakes creating a memory was a really nice moment. There’s a lot of connections to the Gods and the creatures of myth, legend and fantasy – potentially suggesting a callback to The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, and the years of Slyvester McCoy? Who’s still got a part to play in capturing the general audience feel – I was at a gig on the night the episode aired in the UK, When Rivers Meet, and witnessed my new favourite heckle: “Doctor Who’s back tonight” from the crowd, was followed by “Let’s not start a fight,” by the band – an indie blues rock duo, who then asked them what their favourite Doctor was. Now that will start a fight – one of them proclaimed. A good night was had by all.
Also – The Doctor’s aware he’s in a TV show! Fourth-wall breaking has happened before, with Capaldi explaining the Bootstrap Paradox to the viewer, but here he references a sound “I thought that was non-diegetic,” and the hangover from the Maestro has The Doctor and Ruby dancing on Abbey Road. It’s little moments like these that lean into the camp of this era, something that Russell is oh-so-good at, and create a real departure from what’s come before. But Who has always been camp – to a degree, even under Russell’s era, remember the Slitheen? This time, it’s camp with a budget.
At least until the dramatic shift in tone at the weekend when Moffat returns for Boom. I do feel like that should hopefully give Ruby a bit more to do – she hasn’t had a lot to do yet and I don’t think she’s had quite the same impact that people like Martha, Donna or Rose have had from the off. But it seems like Russell is setting up the whole series to revolve around her mystery – so expect more of that to come further down the line.
I do like that the core strength of this show so far has not only been the budget, but the chemistry of Millie Gibson and Ncuti Gatwa. They’re both excellent together and have so much passion, enthusiasm and energy for the role it’s the most fun the series has been in ages. Space Babies feels like best forgotten as a mid-tier episode best left behind in the middle of a would-be 13 episode run complete with its very shaky newcomer friendly start (but we all had to start somewhere) and The Devil’s Chord pushes the boat out a bit more with some fun, campier and OTT energy that makes it one of the better episodes of the current era. And as much of both Gibson and Gatwa steal the show; much of the heavy lifting in The Devil’s Chord is down to the sheer brilliance of Jinx Monsoon. There’s clearly an appetite for new villains – I’m just hoping we don’t get stuck with the same old Dalek/Cyberman/Master routine at the end of the series. So far – there’s none of that suggested. But we’ll see if Davies is capable of shaking up the format that won him his accolades in the first time!
