TL;DR – This did everything it needed to do for a penultimate episode, as well as remind us how short this season was.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this series.

Doctor Who Review –

Well, we are almost at the end of the first season already, and goodness, what a ride it has already been. Since we started in earnest with The Church on Ruby Road, back in Christmas, we have seen Space Babies, gone back in time with The Devil’s Chord, discovered that the Doctor needs to watch where he is walking in Boom & 73 Yards, tried to save naïve racists in Dot and Bubble, and went Rogue in Rogue. But it is time to get that Part 1 energy on and dive back into UNIT.


So to set the scene, we start with the TARDIS smashing through the atmosphere and slamming into the control room of UNIT headquarters in London, UK. As you can see, The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) has two problems. The first is everywhere he goes since Wild Blue Yonder, he sees the same lady (Susan Twist). But Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) can conger snow at will, which is a neat trick but also a harbinger of some powerful timey-wimey stuff. Well, it’s a good thing UNIT is monitoring the situation and has cobbled together a time window for just such an occasion. Now, from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

There is a lot to unpack this week, which is surprising as it is a Russell T Davies end-of-season special, so that means we get inundated with all the recurring guests from the season and the 2023 specials. We also have the secret seeded through the season (see Bad Wolf and Vote Saxon) that comes to fruition with a big reveal at the end of Part 1. While, on the one hand, this is all entirely predictable, it does mean that since he has had a lot of practice doing stories like this, you can see the experience on hand. It is hard to know where you will land with Russell T Davies’ because there is a fine line between genius and silliness, and he can fall into the latter.     

I say that there were two main plot threads that they pulled at in this episode, but while they both end up funnelling into the one revelation, that is who the actual big bad is for the season. It is unclear if we got any resolution to any of the questions posed throughout the season. They name-dropped The Doctor’s Granddaughter enough times, but there is a sort of resolution to that, which would have made more sense if Susan was the companion the last time we met the big bad in the Pyramids of Mars, but it was Sarah Jane Smith. Then, we still don’t know who Ruby’s mother is, but they make sure to be clear that it is someone important.

While I am usually not a fan of plot-point juggling, trying to keep everything in the air without resolution. I think this episode worked for three essential reasons. The first is that Ncuti Gatwa has so much inbuilt charisma that you naturally get sucked into his emotional vortex and get brought along with every choice he makes. I don’t think we can understate just how good the casting of Ncuti was because even when he is emoting to some foolish things, you feel it because Ncuti is bringing you with him in his performance. The next is making the TARDIS part of the danger, which closes off even the chance of escape, which always heightens the threat. Stories tend to become more interesting once you start stripping away some of the tech that can lead to a magical resolution.  

Finally, the whole build-up to the reveal of Sutekh (Gabriel Woolf) was incredibly well crafted. You had this feeling of the coming dread, thanks in part to the musical score from Murray Gold. You had speeches go awry, bold proclamations, evil undertones, and wild transformations. They seeded that building dreed with Mrs Flood (Anita Dobson) back at the start of the episode and let it go from there. Tension is a complicated emotion to pull off because it is easy to overdo it and disconnect your audience. However, I think they nailed it here as I slowly moved to the edge of my seat. Though, of course, they had to put a silly element in here that didn’t work, and they really, really, really had to force that anagram into working.  

In the end, do we recommend Doctor Who: The Legend of Ruby Sunday? Yes, yes, I do. But does this make me think they will stick the landing next week. Well? That is more of a concern. I do get a feeling that this could be all pomp and no circumstance. Also, I just don’t know if we have spent enough time with The Doctor and Ruby this season to make those emotional points land. Well, as the saying goes, only time can tell, and we will see if that is right next week.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Doctor Who yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Doctor Who
Directed by – Jamie Donoughue
Written by – Russell T Davies
Production/Distribution Companies – BBC Studios, Badwolf & Disney+
Starring – Ncuti Gatwa & Millie Gibson with Jemma Redgrave, Susan Twist, Yasmin Finney, Bonnie Langford, Alexander Devrient, Lenny Rush, Genesis Lynea, Michelle Greenidge, Anita Dobson & Angela Wynter and  Aidan Cook, Nicholas Briggs, Fela Lufadeju, Tachia Newall, Gabriel Woolf & Jasmine Bayes