There are few things on TV that feel as good as meeting a new doctor and knowing they’re going to be great. Doctor WhoSuccess in the 21st century has taken time a lot There have been ups and downs so far, but casting the title role has never been one of them. Ncuti Gatwa, the Fifteenth Doctor, is no different: instantly charming, charismatic and strange. In his first full-length adventure, The Church on Ruby Road, Gatwa shows nuances of Doctors that have come before while also putting his own stamp on the role; At once inviting and enigmatic, he’s the kind of person you’d want to follow anywhere but who obviously won’t tell you everything.
And in “The Church on Ruby Road,” we finally meet Fifteen’s companion for the upcoming season: Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), an orphan on a bad streak. The episode that follows is a truly lovely piece of holiday fun that will have you hooked on both this new Doctor and Ruby Sunday in no time, a feat so tricky you might forget how easy it is screw up. Doctor Who
Modern Doctor Who has placed a lot of emphasis on the Doctor’s sidekick, often to the detriment of the series. The role is probably more important for Doctor Who To do it right, a good companion (or companion in some cases) must be both the surrogate for the audience and the support for the Doctor. Before showrunner Russell T. Davies left WHO For the first time in 2009, in his then-final special series, he emphasized that bad things happen when the Doctor is alone, stewing in his centuries-old mind as he travels through time and space and faces the horrors within.
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Image: Disney Plus
Where Doctor Who has run into trouble in the past when its writers decide to make its companion even more so. Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) became a love interest for the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant), which you may or may not agree with (I personally feel that the Doctor/companion relationship should always be platonic, but flirting is in Order). Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) almost ruined her tenure as companion because she decided to make her fall unrequitedly in love with the Doctor forever was
The worst mistake Doctor WhoHowever, the writers can do something with a companion if they turn it into a mystery for the Doctor to solve. This was the height of the Steven Moffat era WHO, where long-term plots about “The Girl Who Waited” (Karen Gillan as Amy Pond) or “The Impossible Girl” (Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald) take place. Again, it’s hard enough being the companion. Also
“The Church on Ruby Road” appears It seems like it’s heading in that direction, as “Ruby Sunday” seems to be the nexus of several unnatural coincidences that pile on top of each other as the special progresses. Luckily, Davies sidesteps this idea and simply uses it as a device to introduce the episode’s monster: little baby-eating goblins who move through the universe based on coincidence and also like to sing.
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Image: Disney Plus
In such a predicament, the audience learns what kind of companion Ruby Sunday will be: a young woman ready to take on the Doctor blow for blow, in whatever it takes to get out of a strange situation if that means singing and dancing in front of some baby-eating goblins. Ruby Sunday is an orphan who wishes she knew more about her past, but isn’t afraid to run into the future – a future that involves a time-traveling alien who loves adventure and desperately needs companionship. It sounds like the beginning of a fairy tale.
Which, to put it simply, is what Doctor Who feels like it’s at its best.
