The Fifteenth Doctor’s companion Ruby Sunday was one of the most mysterious and intriguing yet in Doctor Who. Ruby was abandoned as a baby at the Church on Ruby Road. The circumstances of her birth are shrouded in secrecy. As the Doctor and Ruby embark on their travels together in the TARDIS, the legend of Ruby Sunday unfolds.

The Church on Ruby Road

★★★★☆

TX: 25/12/2023

Written by Russell T Davies    Directed by Mark Tonderai

The Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) met his new companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) after he visited a church where she was abandoned as a baby. The young Ruby was adopted by her foster mother and lived with her in an apartment in London. The Doctor later tells Ruby and her foster mother that he is adopted as well, as he was found abandoned in The Timeless Children. Ruby’s mother also fostered a baby called Lulubelle, who was later kidnapped by some goblins. The goblins had been causing mayhem in Ruby’s life for some time. But thankfully, the Doctor came to Ruby’s aid. The two of them boarded the Goblin Ship and they rescued the baby Lulubelle from being eaten by the disgusting Goblin King. However, the goblins then went back in time and as revenge, they kidnapped Ruby as a baby. The Doctor returned to the Church on Ruby Road and saved the baby Ruby by destroying the Goblin ship and impaling the Goblin King on the spire of the church. Having put history back on track, the Doctor returned to the present day, where his new companion Ruby Sunday decides to join him for further adventures in time and space. The two depart in the Doctor’s TARDIS, which is noticed by Ruby’s mysterious neighbour Mrs Flood…

Space Babies

★★☆☆☆

TX: 11/05/2024

Written by Russell T Davies    Directed by Julie Anne Robinson

The Doctor takes Ruby Sunday in her first trip in the TARDIS. After briefly visiting the time of the dinosaurs, the TARDIS team arrives on a space station in the far future. However, the space station is crewed by babies! The babies are looked after by an automated nanny system, which does everything from changing their nappies to blowing their noses. But, their used tissues are sent to the bottom of the ship and the mucus has accidentally been galvanised to form a sentient mucus creature known as the Bogeyman. The babies live in fear of the Bogeyman. But when the nanny decides to eject the Bogeyman into space, the Doctor saves the creature from destruction. The Doctor finds that the babies’ nappies have been put into the waste disposal of the space station and that the build up of waste material will give them enough energy to propel their ship to their new home. The Doctor and Ruby leave the station, content that they have saved the space babies. “That’s why I keep moving on, to see the next thing, and the next, and the next. And sometimes… It looks even better through your eyes.”

The Devil’s Chord

★★★★★

TX: 11/05/2024

Written by Russell T Davies    Directed by Ben Chessell

The Fifteenth Doctor takes his new companion Ruby Sunday to see the Beatles recording their first album in London 1963. However, something is wrong! Everywhere music has begun to go stale and flat. This is because the notes are being drained by an all-powerful being called Maestro, who is the God of Music. After playing a piano, Ruby accidentally summons Maestro, who pursues her and the terrified Doctor. In a reference to Pyramids of Mars, the Doctor shows Ruby a future Earth devastated by Maestro, showing that there will be terrible consequences unless Maestro is stopped. Maestro claims to be the child of the Toymaker, however he was not a good father according to Maestro.

The Doctor and Ruby return to 1963 to find the musical notation needed to banish Maestro. However, before they can, Maestro appears and uses her powers over music to capture Ruby and the Doctor. Thankfully, John Lennon and Paul McCartney find the crucial final chord needed to banish Maestro. Maestro gives the Doctor a final warning about “the one who waits” as she is defeated. The Doctor and Ruby are released from the instruments they were trapped in by Maestro. The two enjoy a fun dance and a musical number before leaving in the TARDIS.

Boom

★★★★★

TX: 18/05/2024

Written by Steven Moffat   Directed by Julie Anne Robinson

In this elite episode, the Doctor accidentally steps on a landmine in a battlefield on a distant planet in the far future. Ruby comes to the Doctor’s aid but immediately realises that he cannot move at all otherwise he will set off the sophisticated landmine, which is triggered by affecting the DNA of whoever steps on it and turns them into an explosive. The time travellers have arrived in the middle of a war on Kastarion III, and that the sophisticated weapons are supplied by the Villengard weapons manufacturing company, first mentioned in The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. An injured soldier, John Francis Vater, a member of the Anglican Army, has been captured by a robotic ambulance, killed by it and turned into a cylinder containing an AI with his personality.

Rather than having to continue standing on one leg, the Doctor takes Vater’s cylinder to counterbalance himself. Vater’s daughter Splice arrives, looking for her father. Ruby is forced to keep Splice away from the Doctor and the cylinder so she won’t trigger the landmine. The trio are then joined by soldier, Mundy Flynn (Varada Sethu), also a part of the Anglican Army, who explains they are fighting Kastarions, aliens thought to live underground. Mundy shoots the Doctor, which attracts another ambulance. Ruby and Mundy are forced to distract it with combat so that it doesn’t “treat” the Doctor. Before Ruby can shoot Mundy in the arm, soldier Canterbury James Olliphant (known as Canto), who harbours a crush on Mundy, arrives. Unaware of their plan, Canto shoots Ruby instead, leaving her severely injured.

The Doctor knows that his Time Lord DNA would cause an explosion that would destroy half the planet. The Doctor realises that there are no Kastarions and that the capitalist Villengard is making money simply off the soldiers’ presence there. Boom is one of a number of Doctor Who episodes that contains an anti-capitalist message, other examples include Oxygen and Vengeance on Varos. Capitalism is completely unfair and exploitative. To stop the landmine, as well as the ambulances arriving en masse, the Anglican Army need to surrender. As neither Mundy nor Canto have the authority to do so, the Doctor convinces Vater’s AI to go into Villengard’s databases to find proof that there are no Kastarions in order to convince the Anglicans to surrender. While trying to reconfigure an ambulance treating Ruby, Canto is killed. In his cylinder, Canto admits to Mundy how much he loves her. Villengard’s ambulances attempt to stop Vater, but he succeeds in shutting off the landmine, thus allowing the Doctor to step off it. This also shuts down all of Villengard, ending the war, and allowing the ambulance to actually treat Ruby. Mundy takes Splice in, having previously promised Vater she would, as a relieved Doctor and Ruby depart, little knowing that they will Sethu her later as Belinda Chandra. Steven Moffat revealed that the inspiration for Boom was from a scene in Genesis of the Daleks where the Fourth Doctor is standing on a landmine and he can’t move without Harry’s help.

73 Yards 

★★★★★

TX: 25/05/2024

Written by Russell T Davies    Directed by Dylan Holmes Williams

In this elite episode, the Doctor and Ruby arrive on the Welsh coast. The Doctor steps on an enchanted “fairy circle” and Ruby reads aloud a message written on a scroll placed within it which says “Rest in Peace, Mad Jack”. The Doctor vanishes and Ruby is cursed by an ancient spell from Welsh folklore as a result. Ruby sees a woman who is exactly 73 yards away from her and this remains the case for the rest of her life. Anyone who goes up and talks to the woman is immediately scared away from Ruby because the woman says something to them about Ruby (presumably the horrifying revelation that Ruby likes pineapple on pizza). This includes some dwellers of a nearby Welsh pub, her own adopted mother, Kate Stewart and U.N.I.T. and ultimately, a fascist Welsh Prime Minister (although the latter was a deliberate action by Ruby in her 40s). Roger ap Gwilliam takes the world to the brink of nuclear war, until Ruby scares him off using the woman in the distance. In her 80s, the old Ruby returns to the TARDIS on the Welsh coast and wonders why the woman in the distance was cursed upon her. In her final moments of life, the woman reveals herself to Ruby as an old version of herself. The old Ruby returns to the moment that the Doctor and Ruby arrived and warns her younger self to tell the Doctor not to step on the enchanted “fairy circle”. The Doctor avoids stepping on the circle and the dystopian timeline that Ruby experienced is aborted.

Dot and Bubble

★★☆☆☆

TX: 01/06/2024

Written by Russell T Davies    Directed by Dylan Holmes Williams

On the human colony of Finetime, the super rich send their privileged kids to live a life of lethargy, vanity and narcissism. The young and entitled inhabitants of this Black Mirror-esque world are entirely dependent on the Bubble, a sophisticated form of social media technology. However, this makes them oblivious to the fact that the population is being picked off in alphabetical order by giant slugs, in a story that bears similarities to The Macra Terror. The Doctor and Ruby make contact with Finetime inhabitant Lindy Pepper-Bean through her bubble and they help her to navigate her way past the slugs. Like all Russell Group university undergraduates, Lindy is arrogant, stuck-up and patronising, making it hard for the Doctor and Ruby to like her. The Doctor deduces that the Bubble’s dot, which activates the Bubble on voice command, has grown to hate the inhabitants of Finetime and it therefore created the slugs to destroy them in their vulnerable, child-like state. 

Lindy makes it to the safety of the docks with the other survivors. The Doctor and Ruby offer them rescue in the TARDIS. But Lindy refuses their offer because she and the other inhabitants of Finetime are all racists and white supremacists and that the colony is committed to eugenics. The Doctor has witnessed racism many times before this episode, but this is the first time that he has experienced it. Lindy and the other Finetime colonists sail off to certain death by the slugs (the true heroes of the story) rather than be saved by a black Time Lord. It is important to remember that most people in real life who don’t like Ncuti Gatwa’s portrayal of the Doctor are racists, xenophobes and homophobes. These are the same people who therefore want Doctor Who to be cancelled again. Furthermore, everyone in the UK that voted for Brexit and everyone in the USA that voted for (racist rapist) Donald Trump was racist and xenophobic. The shocking 2024 US Presidential Election showed that sadly, America would rather re-elect a racist rapist and convicted criminal (Donald Trump) than a black woman and prosecutor (Kamala Harris). If someone has a criminal conviction then they shouldn’t be allowed to run for political office. Barack Obama was the best US President in my lifetime and it fills me with horror and disgust that America replaced its first black president with a racist, white supremacist (Donald Trump). Unfortunately, we live in a world where prejudice is everywhere. But thankfully, Doctor Who has responded to this by casting a woman Doctor (Jodie Whittaker), a black woman Doctor (Jo Martin) and now a black gay Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa). Doctor Who has always been liberal and progressive and the show has always been good for diversity and representation. Diversity is a strength. Doctor Who is diametrically opposed to everything that Donald Trump represents. Life would have been easier for us if Trump had been shot and killed this year. Like all rapists, Donald Trump deserves to die. Donald Trump should be in prison not the White House. Donald Trump is the worst president that America has ever had! Trump brings ONLY racism and misogyny. Nigel Farage brings ONLY racism and xenophobia. I am a straight white man and I support racial equality. I have many black friends and I have many gay friends! And I have had many black girlfriends, Asian girlfriends and Indian girlfriends. Love is colourblind! I have dated women from all over the world! If you have a true heart, there is no room in it for prejudice. It doesn’t matter whatsoever what the colour of someone’s skin is, you should only judge a person by the contents of their heart. Racism is just stupid and wrong!

Whilst I was at university, I spent two summers at Camp America (2015-2016). In the first summer, when I arrived in the USA I forgot an important immigration document. I was taken into a room by the security and I looked through my suitcase and still couldn’t find the document. The security said don’t worry, just get your parents to email it through when you arrive at the camp. However, a friend of mine at the camp called Jamal (who was from Torquay and had brown skin) also forgot the same document when he arrived at the American border. He was taken into a different room by the security, strip searched and had his suitcase tipped upside down. Only once the document was found, Jamal was allowed into the USA. Jamal was treated differently and he was treated like a terrorist and with suspicion just because of the colour of his skin. This is a prime example of institutional racism and white privilege that I have seen with my own eyes. You should always confront racism (or indeed any form of prejudice) when you witness it, rather than be indifferent and passive about it. I attended a talk by Russell T Davies at Cardiff University where he said that a lot of aspiring TV writers come up to him and say “Russell, I want to write about misogyny… I want to write about racism… I want to write about homophobia” and Russell said “Great! That’s like saying: I’ve got some paint. Because these things are so commonplace and they are so widespread that you can’t just start your script off with just that. You’ve got to start with something more specific”. Russell gave an example of a story about a woman who worked in an office and she sent an email containing racist abuse and she got fired for it (Black Mirror).

Rogue

★★★★☆

TX: 08/06/2024

Written by Kate Herron and Briony Redman    Directed by Ben Chessell

In this Bridgerton-inspired, Regency costume drama episode, the Doctor and Ruby spend an entertaining evening at a ball in Bath, 1813. However, something is afoot! Some of the guests, including the Duchess of Pemberton, are being replaced by alien imposters called Chuldurs, a race of shape-shifting bird-like humanoids. An intergalactic bounty hunter called Rogue captures the Doctor, believing him to be a Chuldur. A romance blossoms between the Doctor and Rogue in this groundbreaking episode of Doctor Who which depicts the Doctor’s first onscreen gay relationship. The two dance together as a ploy to get the Duchess and the other Chuldur on their own. Rogue proposes to the Doctor with a ring. Ruby’s new friend Emily reveals herself to be a Chuldur too and apparently kills and shapeshifts into Ruby. Upon discovering this, the Doctor interrupts the Chuldur’s mock wedding and uses Rogue’s sealing device on them. Ruby reveals that she is the real one and that she managed to fight off Emily. Rogue arrives, knocks Emily into the seal, kisses the Doctor and he replaces Ruby in the seal. Rogue asks the Doctor to find him again as he and the Chuldur are sent to an unknown alternate dimension. The Doctor sends Rogue’s disguised ship into an orbit around the moon. He tells Ruby that it wouldn’t be possible to find Rogue due to the infinite number of alternate dimensions. The Doctor and Ruby return to the TARDIS as he puts on Rogue’s ring. I am a straight white man and I support LGBT equality and women’s equality and female emancipation. If you have a true heart, there is no room in it for prejudice. I had two lesbian flatmates at university and I used to party with them in gay clubs and bars. I have many black friends and I have many gay friends! Love is love! And I have had many black girlfriends, Asian girlfriends and Indian girlfriends. Love is colourblind! I have dated women from all over the world! At university, I was on the committee of a diverse science fiction society, which included many LGBT members. 

The Legend of Ruby Sunday/Empire of Death

★★★★☆

TX: 15/06/2024 – 22/06/2024

Written by Russell T Davies    Directed by Jamie Donoughue

The Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday return to U.N.I.T HQ on Earth where they are reunited with Kate Stewart, Melanie Bush, the Vlinx and Rose Noble. The Doctor wants to get to the bottom of the mystery of the woman who he and Ruby keep seeing throughout their adventures. Kate reveals that the woman is Kate Triad, an entrepreneur who is about to launch her revolutionary Triad Technology around the world. S. Triad is an anagram of TARDIS and Susan’s first name prompts the Doctor to theorise that she may be his granddaughter. The Doctor decides that the answers may lie at Ruby Sunday’s birth on Christmas Eve 2004. Ruby goes home and fetches a VHS tape of the CCTV of the Church on Ruby Road on the night of her birth. At U.N.I.T HQ, everyone gathers round a time window which helps to recreate the night of Ruby’s birth using the VHS. Once again, the Doctor and Ruby witness the mysterious cloaked woman. However, an elemental force engulfs the TARDIS in the video before vanishing. An ominous voice speaks from beyond, which chills the Doctor and his companions to the bone. The Doctor and Mel confront Susan Triad, who has dreams of herself in the Doctor’s adventures. As the TARDIS in the present day becomes engulfed in the same matter as back in 2004, it becomes clear that this a trap. The Doctor is horrified to discover that his old enemy Sutekh has returned and is about to wreak destruction and death upon the world… the one who waits, waits no more!

Sutekh and his servants release his dust of death which consumes the Earth and ultimately destroys all life in the universe. Sutekh abhors life and he tells the Doctor, Ruby and Mel that the destruction of all life in the universe satisfies him. Sutekh reveals that he survived the Doctor’s banishment of him at the end of Pyramids of Mars by clinging to the TARDIS in disguise and accompanying him on his adventures ever since. The Doctor vows to stop Sutekh before he, Ruby and Mel escape in a Remembered TARDIS. The Doctor is given a spoon by a kind woman on a distant planet before she disintegrates too. The Doctor realises that the key to saving the universe is to find the identity of Ruby’s biological mother. The Doctor, Ruby and Mel return to Earth so that the Doctor can perform a DNA test on Ruby and find her mother. The scan completes and the name is revealed to Ruby. Mel is revealed to be a dead servant of Sutekh and she brings the Doctor, Ruby and Ruby’s secret to Sutekh. Ruby is about to reveal the secret of her mother to Sutekh, but the Doctor and Ruby spring a trap on the ageless god. The Doctor and Ruby tie Sutekh to the TARDIS and drag him through the time vortex, restoring life to the universe in the process. The Doctor cuts the chord and Sutekh disintegrates in the time vortex. Back on Earth, U.N.I.T identify Ruby’s biological mother from her DNA: a nurse named Louise Miller, who abandoned Ruby at the Church on Ruby Road when she was a teenager. Ruby and her biological mother are reunited in a cafe in an emotional scene. With her family restored, Ruby apparently bids goodbye to the Doctor… but one question still remains, who is Mrs Flood? When I met Anita Dobson last year, I handed her the Doctor Who Season 1 DVD for her to sign and I said “Happy Christmas Ange” to her in a cockney accent, which she loved!

My Doctor Who, Season 1 Episode Ratings: ****

Christmas Special 2023 – The Church on Ruby Road *** 

1. Space Babies ** 

2. The Devil’s Chord ***** 

3. Boom  ELITE

4. 73 Yards  ELITE

5. Dot and Bubble ** 

6. Rogue ****

7. The Legend of Booby Sunday *****

8. Empire of Death **