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Doctor Who kicked off its new season with a ship full of babies, a far-future cellphone data “plan,” and a literal booger monster. (Ewww.)
Last we saw the Fifteenth Doctor (Sex Education‘s Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby Sunday (Coronation Street‘s Millie Gibson), they battled goblins, endured a musical number courtesy of said creatures, and saved a child from temporal deletion. With the groundwork laid and a core dynamic established, “Space Babies” gets right to it: Aboard the TARDIS, Ruby and the Doctor travel 150 million years into the past. They arrive without a hitch, at which point Ruby, all giggles and grins, bolts off to drink in some prehistory. She stops just shy of the TARDIS exit and turns back to the Doctor with a question: “Is it safe?” The Doctor assures her that it’s safe and that her fear of stepping on a butterfly and altering history is outrageous, giving her the green light to explore.
A gobsmacked Ruby beholds dinosaurs, ventures away from the TARDIS …and immediately steps on a butterfly. Her appearance changes, and in the blink of an eye the young, excitable woman transforms into a confrontational alien. The Doctor, keen on avoiding alien-Ruby’s sudden wrath, gingerly cups the butterfly in his hands and coaxes it back into the air. The alien reverts to Ruby and they return to the TARDIS.
With one crisis averted, the pair travels to the far-future, where they find themselves aboard a seemingly vacant space station. The moment Ruby and the Doctor leave the TARDIS, though, a monster (Robert Strange) springs upon them. They evade the beast by ascending a few floors, but the Doctor is unsettled. For whatever reason, the monster terrifies him, and he vows to find out why.
The Doctor realizes they’ve stumbled onto a baby farm, segueing into a tender exchange in which he explains to Ruby that his greatest joy is witnessing their adventures through his companion’s eyes. He then uses the sonic screwdriver to “upgrade” Ruby’s phone so she can call home regardless of where she is in time or space. She calls her mom at the foster home, further confirming the screwdriver’s abilities and granting Ruby some much-needed comfort. They hear a voice around a nearby corner, and before they can guess its owner, a baby speeds around the corner in what appears to be a self-driving stroller. Despite his youth, the baby appears completely self-sufficient; he speaks full sentences and knows terms such as “pressure” and “temperature fluctuations.” The child notices Ruby and the Doctor, excitedly declares them mommy and daddy, and zooms off.
They follow the infant to a room teeming with baby-controlled strollers. The tot running the space station, a girl named Captain Poppy (voiced by Shola Olaitan-AjiBoye), reveals that they were abandoned there and have survived in part because of the ship’s nanny. The Doctor is still keen on finding the monster from earlier, so with Ruby close behind, he heads for another section of the station.
The Doctor suddenly remembers the night that newborn Ruby was left on a church’s doorstep, that fateful Christmas Eve we glimpsed throughout last year’s Doctor Who Christmas special. He shakes the scene out of his head only to find that the snow from the memory has joined them on the space station.
The ship’s nanny, formerly a disembodied voice tending to children, reveals herself to be a woman named Jocelyn (Golda Rosheuvel). She explains that the baby farm was shut down six years ago, leaving its “produce” to fend for themselves. Originally hired as an onsite accountant, she stayed aboard to watch over them, but could never care for them in person because she was afraid to watch them suffer.
Meanwhile, Eric (voiced by Sami Amber), one of the “space babies,” travels to the bottom floor to confront the monster. Ruby and the Doctor rush down to save Eric, only to find him gone and his stroller in smoking ruin. They find Eric hiding nearby, at which point NANI tells them to get out of there. Now dubbed The Bogeyman, the creature attacks them and corners them at a dead-end. Captain Poppy and her thumb-sucking, rattle-swinging brethren scare the Bogeyman off with a flamethrower, then scurry off to safety.
The Doctor and Ruby investigate the monster and discover that the farm’s technology created the Bogeyman to feed the children’s appetite for fiction, and that the creature itself is literally composed of “bogeys” — or boogers. Like the babies, the monster exists because of the ship. Unlike the babies, it was designed to be scary, explaining the Doctor’s mysterious phobia.
Desperate to keep the children safe, Jocelyn remotely traps the Bogeyman and attempts to blast it out of the ship’s airlock. The Doctor, recalling an earlier conversation in which he told Ruby he was the last of his kind in the universe, decides to save the Bogeyman. He understands what it means to be the only one of a kind and sees the monster as another child of the space station.
Having saved the children (and the Bogeyman) and sent them off to their home planet, the Doctor invites Ruby to be his full-time companion and travel across space-time to her heart’s content. The only condition? They can never use the TARDIS to stop Ruby’s birth mother from delivering her to the church on Ruby Road.
Initially hesitant to accept this stipulation, Ruby agrees and introduces the Doctor to her foster family. Before the Doctor gets re-acquainted with the family, he discreetly analyzes Ruby’s DNA inside the TARDIS, where it begins to snow….
It was Grade A Excellent, and fun, too. I think we’re all going to miss Ruby after this season…
she’s not leaving it was rumor they said there will be companions next season and one will be her
I wasn’t feeling these first two eps. Too weird. And the fourth-wall breaking in the second ep (the third) seemed out of place.
I appreciate them trying new things, though, to keep the show fresh.
hartnell and even tom baker broke 4th wall in classic DW era.
Absolutely fantastic. The perfect jumping on point for new fans.No prior knowledge necessary. This is the the heart of Doctor Who. A new generation gets to begin the adventure again as we did with Mr. Eccleston. It’s in very good hands. It was so much fun. well done!
Great to read this comment. Was thinking of starting it but wondered if I would follow without the historical contexts.
It’s specifically designed for brand new viewers. Yeah, there’s lots of backstory, but that’s the same with any franchise you grow to love as a new fan, long after other backstory episodes have aired, like Star Trek. You become a fan with new episodes, then go back later and watched what you’ve missed.
I’m sad there is no grade below F to give this expletive episode. Holy shizzle that was terrible.
My mom & I watched the premiere today & we loved it! Only “Doctor Who” could get away with something like talking babies in space & it was a delight.
Was this episode made for an audience of five-year-olds? Talking babies and over hyper doctor boring Ruby and a monster made of boogers for the season premiere? Seriously? Where is the geeky wonder and magic of the old Doctor Who seasons? If This was the first time I ever saw an episode of Doctor Who. I would never watch another one.
Reminded me a lot of the adipose (10th Doctor, season 4, episode 1). I loved it. Was just a bit of a good romp. Not a super serious one, but a good way to start with these characters.
I had a different impression of the ending. When the Doctor said they could never use the TARDIS to go back to that moment Ruby was dropped off as a baby at the church because it could potentially prevent them from meeting, Ruby actually said “I disagree”, and that then led to the Doctor meeting her adoptive mother and snow starting to fall inside the TARDIS. I got the veryRick distrinct impression we would eventually see them go back to that moment in the church.
I really REALLY hope the Disney Doctor gets better but these first two episodes do not give me any reason to be optimistic. Space Babies was just dumb but the Devils Chord with it’s grating truly unpleasant villain and it’s over long dance number was just awful. So far three of the last four episode have had big musical numbers that are not only not what Dr Who is but were simply awful in and of themselves. Many will disagree but IMO this is NOT the Doctor Who I grew up with. I’ve been a fan for 50 years and never truly hated an episode…until now. I’ll keep hoping but if the rest of the season is like these two episodes then I may have to finally give up on the Doctor.
The baby one I could take. The Devils Maestro was horrendous. Weird, heay overacting by the person playing the Maestro. And the Doctor seemed helpless. That is not even his way. I think that episode was Russell’s dream epi and indulgent. Doctor Who is not a musical.