Doctor Who: Space Babies

 "Is vthat, like, a matter transporter, like in Star Trek?"

Here we are, at last, at the start of a proper full run of episodes with RTD at the helm and Ncuti Gatwa's new Doctor. So we begin, with the iconography of the new era in the shape of the Whoniverse logo and a nice little reprise for the new viewers.

This shows just how bloody good RTD is at the nuts and bolts of storytelling. After all, this is Ruby's introduction to the TARDIS and what it does, so why not use this as a pretext for a bit of exposition for viewers jumping on right here? So we get a nice, concise little precis of the premise of the show, but framed in a fascinating way: the Doctor, like Ruby, is a foundling, adopted by "posh people" on a fancy planet that is now gone because of "a genocide"- surely not an accidental choice of words to be spoken by an actor of Rwandan birth. There are non-diegetic hostorical echoes here.

The Timeless Child stuff is reframed here. It's not presented as a puzzle, but as part of the Doctor's background andhis depth of a character: he's alone, yet free, far more than just a Time Lord, and Gatwa plays the depth of the character superbly. I love the way he does comedy, too. Only RTD can give us a hugely expensive scene with CGI dinosaurs (thanks for the budget, Disney) just to make a fourth wall-brreaking little joke about the butterfly effect, but both actors play it superbly. And the joke is a statement of intent: that isn't how time travel works in Doctor Who. 

So we reach the main story, with space babies, a nanny, capitalism causing child abandonment and, er, a literal bogeyman. There's lots of nice, subtle political commentary here, not least with the fact that refugees can claim asylum, but only if they can find a legal route in, which they can't, because none has been providefd, Catch-22 by design. Quite. Small boats, anyone?

It's a delightfully weird, awfull clever story and, although RTD was criticised of old for his plots not quite working, this is like clockwork. The chemistry between the Doctor and Ruby is joyous. There are echoes of the Ninth Doctor and Rose, of coiurse. Instead of farting bins we get a snot monster and a space station which is lierally powered to move across space by baby poo. And the Doctor rejigs Ruby's phone to call her mum... and says "Tell your mum not to slap me".

This is all just there as a jumping on point, to introduce the show to new viewers, which it does superbly. But there's a deep orphan vibe here. The Doctor, Ruby and the space babies are all orphans. This is certainly pointiong somewhere... aspecially as the Doctor warns Ruby that they can't visit the time of her birt and do a Back to the Future, Part II, lest they cause a paradox.

In short, quite wonderful. I expected no less.

Doctor Who: The Church on Ruby Road

 "I've even been trampled by a moose..."

Well, that was enormous fun. I have to say, it's not a bad idea to debut a new Doctor on Christmas Day. Large casual audience, so no continuity to speak of other than "mavity" and the Doctor having recently realised he's an orphan, other than Mrs Flood's mid-credits line, whiuch we'll come to in due course. And, unlike The Christmas Invasion, the new Doctor is up and running in what looks like a great jumping on point. Despite the light continuity, this isn't a reboot as such, but it feels a lot like Rose.

Anyway... Ncuti Gatwa is outstanding. Charismatic, with charm, humour and gravitas. Interesring hints of queerness for this Doctor but, well, what's new? He is absolutely the Doctor. I say that without reservation. He's even overcome my prejudice against moustaches. That's saying a lot. Then there's the immediately relatable Ruby Sunday, whose mysterious past as a foundling, dumped by a mysterious hooded woman, is so a hook for future adventures.

She has a well-rounded family too, especially her adoptive mum, Carla. RTD uses timey-wimeyness to cleverly adddepth to her character by showing us, almost Pyramids of Mars-style, what her life would have been like without Ruby- bitter, unhappy, living without love.

The point of the episode is, of course, new beginnings, new characters. Not that I don't love the pirate goblins in the sky with their pirate ships and bizarre sciences of rope and coincifdence that are definitely not magic, nope, definitely not. The concepts on display here seem effortlessly brilliant. Loving the bad luck stuff… and the reveal of Davina. Then there's the songs. They're so wrong, yet so right. I love them. I am sooo using this episode to indoctrinate Little Miss Llamastrangler (happily in bed!) tomorrow.

But Mrs Flood... hmm. "Never seen a TARDIS before?" Not the Master, I assume. Let's not pretend the Rani is worth bringing back. The Meddling Monk? Not a bad idea, but probably too fannish a thought. Tecteun? Too Chibbers. Nope, someone else. But someone big enough to warrant casting Anita Dobson...

Anyway, that was fun, Which was precisely what it needed to be.

I May Destroy You: The Cause the Cure

 "You lot getting your Brady Bunch on?"

Like every other episode of I May Destroy You, this is devastatingly incredible telly. The sexual assault is not absent, of course; Bella finally tells her mum, and decides to discreetly forgive Terri after Simon lets slip what she did on that night.

But this episode, like all the others, ois really about memory, and how memory isn't necessarily the truth. There are many little flashbacks of Bella's childhood between two houses and two parents as the family, including her studious brother Nick, visit her mum for her birthday, Yet Bella's adolescent memories trn out to be a sanitised version of the truth. Her "auntie" was in fact her father's lover. And a terrible burglary, in which her hard-working father lost everything, was the result of teenage Arabella using the window to get in and out. Once again the past hurts Arabella.

And yet, for Kwame, there's hope.A man he meets on Grindr turns out to want something more meaningful than a quick shag. It's a contrastingly pleasant part of another episode of harsh truth and compromise.