It is the lead-up to Christmas in 2023 and young Ruby Sunday is an orphan who was raised in care by her foster mother Carla and her now bed-ridden grandmother Cherry. Attempting to find the truth about where she came from proves fruitless. However, she and certain people around her begin to experience common bouts of bad luck. When a recently bi-regenerated Doctor arrives on the scene and begins investigating the phenomenon. He unravels a plot by a crew of alien Goblins to kidnap Lulabelle, the newly fostered baby girl taken in by Carla. Whom they plan on feeding to their mighty Goblin King, and whom the Doctor makes it his mission to rescue.
Essentially marking the first full-length debut story of Ncuti Gatwa, after his relatively brief introduction at the end of The Giggle just a couple of weeks previously. The Church on Ruby Road marks a welcome return to the Christmas Specials that Russell T. Davies, funnily enough, introduced along with David Tennant when he made his own debut back in 2005. Suffice to say Gatwa made something of a splash with what was a lenghier than normal initial introduction to his iteration of the Doctor. And with his first proper outing he continues to do so as he proves as he did in his role as Eric Effing in Netflix's Sex Education, that he is a charismatic force of nature. He has an instantaneous presence, and the rapport he has with Millie Gibson's Ruby Sunday couldn't be any more palpable. Although, as good as she is in the role, Gibson's personality traits and mannerisms seem oddly all to familiar to Jenna Louise Coleman who has previously played former companion Clara Oswald.
Putting those qalms to one side however, Ruby does have a very charming and endearing relationship with her foster mother Carla, as well as her foster grandmother Cherry. No doubt there may be those naysayers who complain that the interacial nature of Ruby having being raised by a black foster parent is Davies ladeling on "The Message". Although personally I found it to be overall very positive to see a youny girl having been brought up in a black family background, and having grown in to a healhty stable young woman.
Some may balk at the inclusion of a trans-woman being a member of a band that Ruby performs with, as with the inclusion of a middle aged man named Abdulah in a pre-credits sequence at the end. And they may or may not very well be right, but these are the least of some of the issues that Imay have had with this latest Christmas offering from Davies. For some of the positive aspects there were withThe Church on Ruby Road I did have several reservations. Not the least of all being the plot which is something of a mish-mash of Gremlins which incidentally was a Christmas horror movie, and the Jim Henson movie Labyrinth. Hell, the figurehead and leader of the motley crew of Goblins is himself called The Goblin King. Although he is far away from being the dashing, handome figure that David Bowie was in the 1986 fantasy movie. We even get a musical interlude just as the Goblins are preparing for their monstrous superior is about to feast on the helpless baby Lulabelle.
The story also feels all too camp, and frivioulous even by the series' own standards, while the way the Goblin threat is wrapped up is done so all too expediently and feels lazy and contrived. While I have further reservations in regards to Ruby's future story arc. One gets the feeling we're going to have another Rose, Girl who Waited, Impossible Child plot where the companion has some special connection to the Doctor that goes beyond them just essentially being a normal, average unassuming human being. Practically gone are the days where it seemed that the Doctor just had a connection with his companions which was puerely down to chemistry, and a mutual admiration, respect and affection for one another.
This however, is not to say that the story is awful. It's certainly far from the worst of the Christmas Specials that davies has himself written. The worst being Voyage of the Damned which featured the toe-curling sight of Queen Elizabeth II waving to the heavens and thanking David Tennant's Doctor. It's passable if you can get past Gatwa's Doctor proceeding to sing, and not that I am knocking his vocal talents because he certainly has them. However, this just felt a step too far in what is transparently be in the camp fun stakes. And if that doesn't make matters worse, Gibson who is passable enough in her vocals ends up joining in.
To round things off we have ex-Eastenders star Anita Dobson who is relable as ever playing Ruby's neighbour Mrs Flood who proves to be the first character to break the fourth wall in the series, since Willaim Hartnell did so in the Christmas episode of The Dalek Master Plan back in 1965. One wonders if she is going to prove to play some significant part in the series, and that she is nore than she appears to be. She most definitely knows what a TARDIS is which leads me to wonder if she is a Time Lady. Perhaps she's Romana or anothe rincarnation of the old woman we saw in The End of Time who had some connection to the Doctor. Or perhaps she's both.
Either way The Church on Ruby Road makes for a passable introductory story to the Doctors 15th personae. Although I must confess to having mixed feeling towards Gatwa. I don't doubt he is going to make an excellent and formidable Doctor. However, due to the fact that he seems to support the direction that Davies wants to take the series in, which includes the tiresome necessity to deliver "The Message", I am ill at ease as to its future. Considering it's drastic drop in ratings with the three 60th Anniversay specials having been the lowest for any series special in some time. If Davies doesn't get his act together, and concern himself with writing science-fiction/fantasy stories, rathet than hitting fans over the head with heavy handed woke politiking. There may soon not be a series ofr him to even be able to do so. Not that I would want him to do so in the first place. Anyway, I await 2024 and the latesr serious with some trepidation, as I don't doubt the majority of other fans.
Essentially marking the first full-length debut story of Ncuti Gatwa, after his relatively brief introduction at the end of The Giggle just a couple of weeks previously. The Church on Ruby Road marks a welcome return to the Christmas Specials that Russell T. Davies, funnily enough, introduced along with David Tennant when he made his own debut back in 2005. Suffice to say Gatwa made something of a splash with what was a lenghier than normal initial introduction to his iteration of the Doctor. And with his first proper outing he continues to do so as he proves as he did in his role as Eric Effing in Netflix's Sex Education, that he is a charismatic force of nature. He has an instantaneous presence, and the rapport he has with Millie Gibson's Ruby Sunday couldn't be any more palpable. Although, as good as she is in the role, Gibson's personality traits and mannerisms seem oddly all to familiar to Jenna Louise Coleman who has previously played former companion Clara Oswald.
Putting those qalms to one side however, Ruby does have a very charming and endearing relationship with her foster mother Carla, as well as her foster grandmother Cherry. No doubt there may be those naysayers who complain that the interacial nature of Ruby having being raised by a black foster parent is Davies ladeling on "The Message". Although personally I found it to be overall very positive to see a youny girl having been brought up in a black family background, and having grown in to a healhty stable young woman.
Some may balk at the inclusion of a trans-woman being a member of a band that Ruby performs with, as with the inclusion of a middle aged man named Abdulah in a pre-credits sequence at the end. And they may or may not very well be right, but these are the least of some of the issues that Imay have had with this latest Christmas offering from Davies. For some of the positive aspects there were withThe Church on Ruby Road I did have several reservations. Not the least of all being the plot which is something of a mish-mash of Gremlins which incidentally was a Christmas horror movie, and the Jim Henson movie Labyrinth. Hell, the figurehead and leader of the motley crew of Goblins is himself called The Goblin King. Although he is far away from being the dashing, handome figure that David Bowie was in the 1986 fantasy movie. We even get a musical interlude just as the Goblins are preparing for their monstrous superior is about to feast on the helpless baby Lulabelle.
The story also feels all too camp, and frivioulous even by the series' own standards, while the way the Goblin threat is wrapped up is done so all too expediently and feels lazy and contrived. While I have further reservations in regards to Ruby's future story arc. One gets the feeling we're going to have another Rose, Girl who Waited, Impossible Child plot where the companion has some special connection to the Doctor that goes beyond them just essentially being a normal, average unassuming human being. Practically gone are the days where it seemed that the Doctor just had a connection with his companions which was puerely down to chemistry, and a mutual admiration, respect and affection for one another.
This however, is not to say that the story is awful. It's certainly far from the worst of the Christmas Specials that davies has himself written. The worst being Voyage of the Damned which featured the toe-curling sight of Queen Elizabeth II waving to the heavens and thanking David Tennant's Doctor. It's passable if you can get past Gatwa's Doctor proceeding to sing, and not that I am knocking his vocal talents because he certainly has them. However, this just felt a step too far in what is transparently be in the camp fun stakes. And if that doesn't make matters worse, Gibson who is passable enough in her vocals ends up joining in.
To round things off we have ex-Eastenders star Anita Dobson who is relable as ever playing Ruby's neighbour Mrs Flood who proves to be the first character to break the fourth wall in the series, since Willaim Hartnell did so in the Christmas episode of The Dalek Master Plan back in 1965. One wonders if she is going to prove to play some significant part in the series, and that she is nore than she appears to be. She most definitely knows what a TARDIS is which leads me to wonder if she is a Time Lady. Perhaps she's Romana or anothe rincarnation of the old woman we saw in The End of Time who had some connection to the Doctor. Or perhaps she's both.
Either way The Church on Ruby Road makes for a passable introductory story to the Doctors 15th personae. Although I must confess to having mixed feeling towards Gatwa. I don't doubt he is going to make an excellent and formidable Doctor. However, due to the fact that he seems to support the direction that Davies wants to take the series in, which includes the tiresome necessity to deliver "The Message", I am ill at ease as to its future. Considering it's drastic drop in ratings with the three 60th Anniversay specials having been the lowest for any series special in some time. If Davies doesn't get his act together, and concern himself with writing science-fiction/fantasy stories, rathet than hitting fans over the head with heavy handed woke politiking. There may soon not be a series ofr him to even be able to do so. Not that I would want him to do so in the first place. Anyway, I await 2024 and the latesr serious with some trepidation, as I don't doubt the majority of other fans.