Having decided to review these episodes of the quasi-rebooted "Doctor Who" as they air, I realised I needed to jump back an episode to review the Christmas special, which was the full debut of Ncuti Gatwa as The Doctor. So, last night, I rewatched it - the night after watching the "Space Babies" episode. It feels quite similar, in that I like the character and the overall arc building but am a little less enamoured with the creature element.
Beset by a run of bad luck, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) attracts the attention of The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa). Ruby is the adopted daughter of Carla (Michelle Greenridge) who has fostered dozens of other children and receives another baby on Christmas Eve 2023. Ruby is in charge of the baby for only a few minutes before she's kidnapped by Goblins, who intend to eat her. Ruby engages in a rooftop pursuit, where she's joined by The Doctor and they climb aboard the Goblin ship.
As with the next episode I like the mythology building that Russel T Davies was always so good at. We establish the mystery of who is Ruby's mother, when she is left on a church doorstep on Christmas Eve. The adopted daughter angle plays alongside The Doctor still coming to terms with the fact he was also adopted by Gallifrey (Interesting that Davies intends to keep that bit of lore and work with it, rather than ignore that controversial Chibnall idea).
The Goblin's themselves weren't a bad effect, as much as an uninteresting design. Everything about them felt a bit haphazard though, for example, they're feeding the baby to the Goblin King, but he's so unfeasibly large the Baby wouldn't even make a snack for him. Why does the female Goblin have a perfect human singing voice whereas none of the rest do? Everything to do with tying Ruby into the days with the accidents and co-incidences didn't really make much logically sense either. (The less said about the song the better).
As with the episode that follows, the good news is that I like the continuing elements, though felt underwhelmed by the episodic elements. Hopefully the series will get those right soon too.
