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Millie Gibson this weekend offered her heartfelt thoughts on the Doctor Who episode that stirred opinions in fans of the long-running sci-fi franchise.
The “fifth” episode (including “The Church on Ruby Road”) of “Season 1” (or Season 14) opened with the Doctor (played by Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby Sunday (Gibson) setting foot in Wales, immediately after which the former accidentally stepped his foot on a fairy circle comprised of string, charms and notes. Witchcraft ensued, abruptly disappearing the Doctor and leaving Ruby tethered to a mysterious and spooky af old woman who always stood exactly 73 yards away.
Anyone attempting to approach said woman first glanced back at Ruby, then near-instantly ran away in horror.
After exerting considerable effort to shake this entity, Ruby eventually came to realize — decades later — that she was to use/strategically position this 73-yards-away woman to thwart the rise to power of a nukes-happy politician. More decades later, a senior, bed-ridden Ruby came face-to-face with the woman, who turned out to be… Ruby herself! We were then transported back to her and the Doctor’s arrival in Wales, where Ruby this time knew to make sure the fairy circle remained unbothered.
On Instagram, Gibson shared that “73 Yards” had been “the very first script I read for our series of Doctor Who. I remember closing it and re reading it again straight away. It has such a special place in my heart; I didn’t know Ruby, I didn’t know what her story was going to entail, and I didn’t know anyone at Doctor who either.
“During filming this episode, I experienced everything for the first time that Ruby was experiencing too,” she continued. In turn, “I grew and learnt so much as an actress and as a person. When I watch this episode, I feel such a sense of fulfillment and joy. This particular journey has been very nostalgic to see back and I am just so happy to have accomplished 73 Yards.”
Gibson then gave props to Dylan Holmes Williams “for directing such a beautiful story,” and to showrunner Russell T Davies “for giving me such a captivating script to bring to life.”
Gibson also shared a few BTS photos, including a close-up of her lanyard as a volunteer for the Roger ap Gwilliam campaign and a snapshot of the hair and makeup tests for Ruby as seen the passage of decades, from age 20 to 41. (Amanda Walker portrayed Ruby during her years as a senior adult.)
Doctor Who leading man Gatwa commented on Gibson’s post with a simple “My superstar 💫.”
What did you think of “73 Yards,” though? Instantly iconic or, as some have groused, too little Doctor? Vote in our poll and weigh in below!
This was the first Doctor Who episode in years I found myself actually paying complete attention to. Excellent story!
As much as I enjoyed the story, I felt that it should have aired later in the season. We still don’t know Ruby very well. And The Doctor was horribly missed…
The lack of the Doctor was sort of forced on the team, as Ncuti hadn’t quite finished work on Sex Education.
Matt said “aired later” not filmed later. We know it was filmed first before the previous eps with these characters. However besides what I said below, I’m not sure they could have held it off for much longer b/c the whole reason why they filmed an episode with only a day of Ncuti actually being there was to keep to the schedule. Shelving an episode throws the whole thing off just as much.
Well Ncuti had to film the finale to his series Sex Education, so this had to be early in the season. I think it gave us a pretty good look into Ruby, so I didn’t mind the placement.
It did feel out of place. But I don’t think they could have pushed it b/c it has Ruby moving past the Doctor “abandoning” her quite easily. And we don’t really know what the latter part of the season will be; it may not have fit there.
I mean, tbh, the whole episode is a remix of Turn Left, but without the level of talent that Catherine Tate brought (understandably, Millie is much newer to acting) and without the coherent writing that that episode had, so it was never going to “work” that well anywhere.
not the first time a story had not much of the Dr, ‘dr lite’ eps like ‘blink’ and ‘turn left’ have been DW classics too
It was great to have the first creepy episode in a looong time. Such a good episode that could’ve also set the stage for Ruby’s departure if it aired later.
This whole season has been the best “Doctor Who” has been in a while. Looking forward to the rest of the season as well as the next.
That’s saying almost nothing! I hope it improves, so we can call it truly good and not just “at least it’s not Chibnall or late stage Moffatt”. (And quite frankly I’m displeased they gave the latter another episode. It wasn’t that good, and I’m quite done with his grimdarkery and display of his…preferences. Even when he tries to move away from all that, he still makes terrible choices like how he wrote that child character.)
I am not impressed by the new Dr. Who series in the least. I think Russell Davies needs to turn the writing over to other people.This episode made no sense at all and left too many questions unanswered. Why was she locked out of the TARDIS? Where did the Dr go? Why was he completely unaware of what had happened in the alternative timeline? Why did the Tardis stay stuck in Wales? If she changed history by getting rid of the evil Prime Minister, why didn’t anything change in her life? Why did she have to live out her entire lifetime without the Dr before she could be reunited/reborn to go back to the first time line? Why didn’t she have the old lady take out the evil PM sooner? Why did everyone either go insane or abandon her after being in contact with the old lady? It was a very frustrating episode to watch due to all the logic gaps and questions.
I had all these same questions. I expected something along the lines of Blink. The episode was really great until the last few minutes, when we’re left with a ton of questions and absolutely no answers. The mysterious woman kept making the same movements, and I thought for sure it was important.
A lot of the episodes lack explanation. You’re just supposed to accept the storytelling and ignore the gaps in logic. The production value is higher but the stories are flat
Not everything needs to be answered for a story to be good. In fact, quite often, getting answers ruins the feel of it.
Nah, this episode was so devoid of answers it was bad. Some mystery is fine. Some ambiguity is fine. This was too much; it just falls apart in SO many places the more you think about it and I’ve yet to hear any explanations that make sense.
Even fantasy has to have some internal consistency–when the rules are broken it needs to be clear it’s deliberate, it needs to not just be a lazy or rushed writer handwaving something away when they got stuck. This felt like a rush job that tried to excuse poor plotting with big swings and flash and the kind of “*gasp* it was her all along!” sincere twist that to naive viewers feels like WOW but to anyone else feels completely dumb, not b/c it’s necessarily predictable but b/c it makes no more sense when you watch the story knowing it. Everything should work backwards and forwards. All the great twist stories work b/c you see them anew over and over and they just get better with every viewing. This one falls apart on the FIRST viewing, let alone later.
But I guess if you’re just watching for the “feeling” and don’t think about it even a little it’s probably fine, you’re right. I think it’s disrespectful, though, to expect all your audience to keep their brains quite *that* smooth for you.
Really well said. I think the most disappointing part of the story was that it was all just to eliminate a scary politician, but I gather that in the new timeline he’ll still appear without Ruby to stop him this time.
it was scary that it was a human who was the ‘monster’ and could not be stopped until ruby used ‘the old woman’ against him.
It’s just entertainment. It’s not that deep. I felt uneasy watching it and that was good for me. The previous didn’t give me that sense, so that is a win for me. I did call that it was her older self from the go but that’s okay. And knowing it was the first filmed does add a layer of wow to it because everyone has their characters down. I rather enjoy moving onto the next without it all answered. And maybe answers come later, or not. It’s fine in my opinion.
the whole point of the story was putting ruby through a real nightmare situation, cutting her off from all help and support and then seeing her adapt and able to live a life in adversity until she realised how she could stop the evil PM that the Dr mentioned at the start.
similar to ‘turn left’ and ‘last of the time lords’.
Yep. This episode was utter tosh and nonsense. I think they must have cobbled it together in a rush to have something when the production couldn’t wait for Ncuti’s availability.
I understand Ruby waited “to be sure” about him, but that was a bit odd b/c the Doctor DID tell her he was bad news, and he did say he was “Mad Jack” and she could tell he was “a monster” pretty quickly. I guess she thought he could have been another “Mad Jack”…? Plus, waiting until he’d be alone at the right distance.
But also why also did the fairy circle have enough power to cause this crazy time loop old Ruby haunting thing but not to actually “bind” Roger ap Gwilliam from becoming PM at all in the first place? If history had been so different before they broke it, why would the Doctor prior to that know ap Gwilliam as being so evil?
The thing about everyone abandoning Ruby was supposed to be her punishment for disrespecting the circle (even though it was the Doctor who stepped on it first, humf!) and stopping “Mad Jack” AKA Roger ap Gwilliam was supposed to (per RTD in the bts video for this ep) her “redemption” yet that wasn’t clear at all in the ep, b/c she continued to be in forced isolation. She just learned to live with it. Womp womp. (And the Doctor wherever he was doesn’t remember it and so learned nothing, therefore wasn’t punished and learned no “lesson” against disrespecting fairy magic.)
Personally, I can live with SOME mystery and ambiguity. But it needs to feel like the writers have the answers, that the answers exist and make internal sense, yet are kept back. It needs to still be coherent enough for the audience to suspend disbelief or be able to speculate without coming up with whole cloth answers that can be pierced just as easily as the rest of the episode. This episode just decimates your suspension of disbelief the more you think about it. It’s not just a handwaved moment or two, it’s almost entirely handwaving.
RTD is a lot of fun and I like his sensibility about the series as a whole, and he oversaw a lot of great episodes, but he’s so confident in his scripts and so arrogant that I wonder if he even listens if there’s anyone telling him something goes too far beyond just “don’t worry about how airlocks actually work” or “it’s magic!!!’ and into “you need to rewrite this so it makes even a little sense” territory. I get that he wants to make the show “fun” and “silly” and I did hate the other two guys who ran things after him, but I feel like this could just come up a level without losing the adventurous fun tone.
no, it was all about ruby being put to the test and able to save the world without the Dr or UNIT’s help.
I’ve enjoyed your comments today, Jane. As for Davies and Moffat, we disagree a bit, though maybe not fundamentally.
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I find Davies hard to take. From his writing, including his Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale, he strikes me as smug, elitist, and arrogant, and there may be reason to believe that he is — recall the way that Christopher Eccleston slammed the door on his way out. The aimlessness and self-indulgence of his scripts for the current series come across as in character for him. In any case, it’s too much cuteness and leaden satire for me (the Adipose, for example).
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As for Moffat, yeah, there are some slimy things under that rock. But he does write much tighter scripts, and he can be very funny. I find it relatively easy in his case to compartmentalize and let myself be entertained, though I can see responding otherwise.
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Part of the difference is that I think that Who is “fun” and “silly” by nature, and you ought to underplay that, like good comedy, not camp it up. If you do overplay it, it begins to seem condescending, like lampooning a bedtime story for your own amusement, rather than solemnly sharing it with a child who understands perfectly well why it’s absurd. Moffat has a drier, more offhand approach that worked better for me. Though of course he did buy that dinosaurs on a space ship script, and there was the RAF shooting Daleks, and …
the show can also be heartfelt, thrilling, scary and witty, satirical.
I was thoroughly enthralled during the episode, but needed a bit more explanation at the end. So many unanswered questions. I get that some mystery is needed with this style of an episode, but they needed a few more details for the ending to have the emotional impact the rest of the episode did. If no further answers are coming in the rest of the season (I hope they do), it basically looks like Russell T. Davies took the lazy way out and didn’t bother to have this atmospheric episode make logical sense.
But even with those drawbacks, it was miles better than Space Babies. And fun to get another “Doctor-lite” story like they used to do in RTD’s first run as showrunner.
The first two episodes were simply bad.
The third one was a real “Doctor Who”.
“73 yards”, though lacking in some areas, was quite good.
Lots of potential but it didnt stick the landing as they say. Too much unanswered that was needed to enjoy the episode fully.
The biggest unanswered question was why folks ran away and her own mum took out a restraining order?
And why wait for that moment to take him out?
Without at least these two answers the delivery just fell so flat
we will never know what the ‘woman’ said….
Does that even matter? Did they freak out because of what she said OR just because they encountered another Ruby?
ruby was tested and came through with flying colors, end of.