TW reviews Doctor Who S01E01 Space Babies

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

SPOILERS BEWARE!!! SPOILERS BEWARE!!!

So here we go. A brand new series of adventures featuring the 15th Doctor (technically the 16th) and Ruby Sunday in a disappointingly short 8 episode run. So will fans’ fears of woke changing what we love as the mouse watches from the background?

First thing that strikes me is the massive publicity drive this got in America with murals on trains and buses while the people that have kept this show going especially when it was down get a few snippets on social media. Well it isn’t the first time that has happened. Indeed there was no fanfare to announce tht Ncuti Gatwa was the new Doctor. Why not? Russell T Davies has said that the BBC is on its way out so is the attention being focused elsewhere in case the show needs a new home?

Well after this episode I wouldn’t be surprised that this marks the downward spiral leading to the end. I stayed up and watched the midnight showing on BBC iPlayer. The internet the following morning is divided about Space Babies but you can see the younger fans loved it while the RIP Doctor Who wave seems justified in shaking its collective head.

We start off right from the end of The Church on Ruby Road as Ruby boards the Tardis. We get a rundown of Doctor Who history before going back to meet the dinosaurs. To be fair that’s where I would go first. The fears of Martha Jones prove justified as Ruby steps on a butterfly and changes the future. Here comes my first problem.

The Doctor can now bring dead things back to life simply by blowing on them? This restores the timeline and Ruby is human again. Jumping the shark like this grates just like the 13th Doctor’s regeneration where even the clothes changed without explanation. All it would have taken was a line saying it was the Toymaker manipulating the game but no. But even the classic series was guilty of this with the Master’s multiple returns from death (Planet of Fire for example where he burned to death). Also Image of the Fendahl where a locked door mysteriously opens freeing the imprisoned Doctor for no reason. But this is cheating the audience. Don’t treat them like idiots. In my Time Warriors books I go out of my way to ensure plot holes and illogical events don’t happen for the sake of moving the story forward. Normal Joe will roll his eyes while fans will try to weave it all together in fanfiction.

Now the chemistry between the Doctor and Ruby is great. They get on so well and Millie Gibson effortlessly portrays the excitement of stepping aboard a time machine and having all of creation at your feet. But does she have a hidden agenda and does the Doctor really trust her? Not from his actions later on in the episode. As an aside I do like the new title sequence.

Then they land on a space station seemingly in need of repair and on the verge of destruction. There is a monster in the dark and Ruby’s initial awe quickly dissipates. Even the Doctor is uncharacteristically frightened of this creature. Escaping, they find themselves in a baby farm. It may offer a clue as to Ruby’s past as her DNA does not exist anywhere and the image of the babies suspended in liquid is a bit disturbing.

But all this falls apart when they find the bridge where talking babies in prams are running the station. They are scared of the Boogeyman and are delighted their mummy and daddy have come back for them. It is a ludicrous idea but the Doctor and Ruby’s reactions are enjoyable much likethe tenth Doctor and Donna being mistaken as husband and wife. The Doctor can speak baby as we saw with Matt Smith on multiple occasions but here the Doctor can have full blown conversations with them. But they have a secret guardian, Jocelyn, who knows the end is coming for all of them.

The story falls completely and becomes embarassing. When baby Eric goes after the Boogeyman, how does he get into the locker to hide and survive the attack? Again logic is thrown out the window for handiness sake. Nothing can save this episode as we discover the Boogeyman is made out of snot yet the Doctor risks all to save it from death because it is the last of its kind just like him. What? Given half of it is already been sucked into space I suppose the assumption is it will rebuild its legs from more baby snot. Not forgetting of course that the station could not move but then is able to thanks to years of nappies being stored and creating methane gas so the station literally farts its way to the nearest world where they can live.

Russell T Davies is a great writer but even at the Eccleston era there was dumb ideas, farting Slitheens and burping wheelie bins. Space Babies feels like the love child of something you would see on Disney, Rugrats and Look Who’s Talking. Snot monsters is like something from Eerie Indiana (though that was good show).

I sat at one o’clock in the morning and just stared like I’d been slapped in the face. Is this really what they class as new ways of story telling which apparently brought Davies back to the show. Never ever criticise The Twin Dilemma again folks. As a fan and a lifelong fan who knows what he is talking about, this is Doctor Who at the lowest level. Like the stockpiled dirty nappies, it was a pile of shit.

It baffles me that this would have been passed as a televised story never mind a season opener. This zany idea just does not work at all.

The only part that made me sit up was the Doctor being caught up in the memory of the night Ruby was left at the church. This time the mysterious woman has vivid red nails almost talon like. Now remember that the person that took the Toymaker’s gold tooth also had red nail varnish and in the Devil’s Chord the villain also has nails like this. Is there a connection? Gatwa keeps his Doctor fluid almost as if he has too many moods going on and he is almost mentally hyperventilating at this new life free from past guilts. When he tells Ruby he will never take her back to the night she was left at the church to find out who her mother is there is a real tension between them. I’m not altogether sure if Ruby isn’t annoyed at this and says she was going to ask him to take her back to her real mother, Carla, the only mother she has ever known.

The ghost of Matt Smith rears his head as the Doctor drops the fun loving facade and uses the Tardis to scan Ruby just as he once did with Clara, the Impossible Girl. There is the hint of fear in his performance at what she may be so is that why he invited her to travel with him? is this a case of keep your enemies close? Is this excitable Doctor not as happy and trusting as he seems?

Is the shadow of the seventh Doctor right in front of us as the master manipulator and keeping Ace close as he recognised she was part of a greater threat? While this is a new Doctor, he certainly has shades of his past selves.

Performance wise, a great Tardis team but mired in a script so bad that it needs to go into the bin. I bet in years to come the baby actors will be signing at conventions. On to the Devil’s Chord please and let’s hope things are on the up.