The Church on Ruby Road, promises and inconsistencies

And in an eight-headed monster, there are bound to be a few heads that are a bit daft. Which head is the dumbest? Let’s take a look. The episode tells the story of the Doctor’s interest in the accidents that pepper the life of Ruby Sunday, a young woman in her twenties who was adopted by her foster mother after being abandoned outside a church at birth. Ruby searches for her biological parents while goblins attack a baby that her mother, still a foster mum, takes in on Christmas Eve – just as she took in Ruby about twenty years earlier.

The episode is quite enjoyable to watch, very lively, and the characters are charming and bubbly. The plot, although perhaps a bit confusing, has the merit of introducing a new concept and sustaining it throughout. Altogether, it’s relatively successful despite the difficulties posed by its place in the series.

A few quick points on some elements of film analysis before diving into a deeper review.

Let’s start with the direction: it’s rather energetic and well thought out, showcasing environments that aren’t necessarily easy to film or make lively. On the other hand, the narrative direction and editing make some really tricky choices that are perhaps a bit too ambitious. There are lots of scenes in repeated locations, and since all the characters are new, it’s not always easy to keep them in perspective, which somewhat weighs down the action. The editing also takes directions that seem like questionable production decisions, most likely imposed, and that make several elements a bit confusing.

The concept, however, is really the strongest part of this episode, and it adds a new head to this chimera of an episode: magic, or more precisely, science that verges on magic. This was already something introduced in the era of the Fourteenth Doctor, but here it’s done with a bit more subtlety and opens up exciting potential. The science of coincidence is quite a brilliant idea and almost a meta commentary on the limits of fiction, where plausibility doesn’t mean truth and the two rarely make a good match.

The music is truly fitting and benefits from gorgeous orchestration. However, it perhaps gets a bit lost in the desire to drown all the action in constant layers, which sometimes feels a bit overwhelming. As the pace is brisk, it’s not really an issue that stands out.

The actors are all perfectly cast and give it their all, which brings a real sense of sincerity. You can tell everyone’s having fun and it’s infectious. The stakes are relatively well portrayed, but there are breaks due to characters’ reactions that are sometimes incoherent, particularly because scenes are edited in an order that makes the transitions feel odd.

So let’s move on to the many heads of The Church on Ruby Road.

Christmas special: this aspect works quite well but is lacking a bit in firmly anchoring everything in a Christmas atmosphere. Like the early Christmas specials of New Who, it’s clear it’s set at Christmas, but Christmas isn’t the focus of the episode. This is both a good thing and a limitation as there are all the warm feelings of a Christmas episode without really knowing why, since it’s barely a backdrop. On the other hand, it’s probably a wise decision, as introducing a Doctor in a too-Christmassy setting risks making him into a magical Santa Claus. And it could also give the impression that Doctor Who, for the first episode of a new series, is just a Christmas show.

First episode of a season: this actually works really well. There’s a proper storyline established with a mystery surrounding Ruby. It’s reminiscent of previous characters like Clara or Amy and the crack in the wall, but the whole mystery around Ruby is rather engaging. However, there’s a real issue in that it needed to be a new “Rose” without being the same thing. To address this, we don’t see Ruby’s everyday life like we did with Rose; instead, we jump straight into presenting her main problem – “who are her biological parents?”. It’s a smart choice to move away from the comparison. But as a result, she’s a somewhat disconnected character who exists mostly because of this mystery. Thankfully, the actress’s performance and a few scenes help kick things off, but her friends from the beginning are quickly forgotten, only there to show she has a social life and is good at music. It’s a shame compared to introductions like Bill’s, which was very effective. Still, the season starts at full speed with this episode, launching a new arc while presenting fresh themes and indulging in a new pop, musical, and colourful aesthetic.

First episode of the new series: well, not much to say about this. Everything is explained all over again in a rather tedious and frankly not very original way. The Doctor makes very long but clear expositions about who he is, what he does, how it works. It feels as if the series suddenly needs to highlight everything so everyone understands, even the youngest viewers. Fair enough, but it lacks subtlety. Especially as, once again, some tertiary characters are alarmed by the TARDIS, while others seem unfazed by seeing a blue telephone box vanish before their eyes. Newcomers might be a bit confused, wondering if “magic” exists in this world, as lots of characters appear to accept bizarre things.

First episode of the Fifteenth Doctor: it’s actually a good vehicle for the Fifteenth Doctor, although it doesn’t yet showcase his full potential – but that’s to be expected. We get to know him in a fairly fluid way.

First episode of Ruby: again, it works really well to introduce this new companion. But to go back to what I wrote earlier, her introduction is hampered by the story itself and the plot that surrounds her. The problem is she has to be the anchor point for an audience that broadcasters are targeting with bazookas. So she has to overplay quite a few things, explain and re-explain things through fairly heavy dialogue, and it’s a real testament to the actress’ talent that she manages to make it all feel almost natural and very endearing.

First episode presenting the “magical” dimension of the show: this is really successful. Doctor Who has always introduced amusing, absurd, zany and fantastic concepts – that’s the point. But it’s never really dared to go towards actual magic. Here, there’s much more fun, and proof of that is the antagonists are goblins. The whole idea of coincidence feeding these beings straight out of a terrifying storybook is really well brought in and suggests this Doctor is embarking on adventures we may never have seen before.

For those who have read this far, my analysis finally comes to an end. For fun, I’ll do a quick rundown of the episode in a humorous tone. I consider it a good episode, with weaknesses mainly due to everything it tries to accomplish. But let’s get into the details. COMPLETE ANALYSIS OF THE CHURCH ON RUBY ROAD