The Church on Ruby Road
The Church on Ruby Road begins this Doctor Who Christmas Day special with a baby dropped off at a church and taken in to be raised as one of their own. They name her Ruby, after the place she was born. We see this, and then get some exposition confirming the same thing in the present. Interviewed by Davina McCall on a TV show looking to find her lost parents. They’re going to track down her genetic heritage and find her family members.
Ruby is adopted and she’s 19. She’s been struggling lately, and she confirms all of this on an interview. However, giggling erupts around the room as goblins pull the plug on a bunch of electrics and cause everything to fall.
Fast forward to December 22nd and the same thing happens again when the electrics die out. And fast forward one day and we get a music video of The Doctor on the dancefloor, twirling around in a kilt and dancing. Ruby is watching and marvelled by it but she’s stopped by The Doctor when he appears soon after, briefly mentioning her clumsiness. He has an inkling over what’s going on here but doesn’t let slip.
The Doctor keeps watch over Ruby, using his new sonic screwdriver to change the traffic lights and help Ruby escape from a falling Christmas decoration. This has also been tampered with by the goblins.
We then fast forward to Christmas Eve. Ruby has done a whole load of shopping and she returns home. However, the TARDIS is parked right outside her apartment. Her neighbour believes it’s one of the lads playing a trick and trying to wind her up. While Ruby listens, another of these goblins slices open her bag and drops the shopping on the floor.
Inside, things are buzzing when Ruby learns that her mum is bringing in a new baby to adopt, Lulubelle. And she’s having her immediately! She snaps a pic of the babe and leaves, with Ruby in charge of looking after Lulu for the time being. Davina McCall rings in the midst of this and apologizes – there’s no trace of her mum and dad. However, Davina admits that she’s been experiencing a lot of bad luck – and that seems to have stemmed from meeting Ruby. She’s worried it could happen again, but as they talk… a tree lands on top of her.
“Happy birthday,” One of the goblin croaks, as Ruby heads into the bedroom to find Lulu gone, the skylight open, and the goblins taking off with the baby. As Ruby starts to climb, the Doctor jumps in and shows off his new Super-gloves. When they climb up and head into the ship, they’re immediately captured and tied up.
The Doctor explains that the goblins feast on chance and coincidence – and Ruby’s life story is full of that. The goblins are time riders, and they surf the waves of time. With Lulu jumping in and Ruby’s bad luck compounding, that’s why the goblins have gone after her. Davina McCall was apparently just fun for them.
The Doctor breaks free from his binds and looks over the knots bound around the ship. Likening it to electric, he pulls the right rope and manages to open the way forward. On the way through the makeshift vents, the Doctor and Ruby hear a gong. It’s apparently dinner time… and then the singing starts. All of this rouses the Goblin King – and also the Doctor too. He takes off with Lulu and Ruby but before he does.. he encourages them to start the music again and sings once more on stage for them all to hear. That’s enough for the pair to leave, where Lulu is returned back home.
Unfortunately, they’re not completely safe right now. The Doctor realizes that the way these goblins are getting to Ruby is through causing accidents. The pair do well to explain away the goblin photo to Ruby’s mum, before she mentions herself that she’s fostered 33 children over the years.
Suddenly, a large crack emanates throughout the house, but the Doctor is convinced this is just the goblins’ way of saying goodbye. And in fact, the photo of the goblin disappears too. Unfortunately, so too does Ruby. It seems she’s been erased from history and her mum’ entire demeanour changes to bitter resentment. The Doctor starts crying when he hears, and decides to do something about it.
With the timeline cracked, the Doctor decides to fix everything. He races out, jumps back in time to that fateful Christmas Eve and notices the goblins taking Ruby away. In doing so, this destroys the original timeline. The Doctor uses his gloves to pull the goblin ship down. It’s impaled on the church spire and the goblins are defeated. The Doctor saves Ruby as the babe falls to the ground and the timeline is righted again.
The Doctor avoids temptation in discovering who Ruby’s mum is (a mystery for another time it seems!) and returns to the apartment in the present. The crack is still there, but Ruby remembers the Doctor. The Doctor also saves Davina from the falling Christmas tree to stop her being killed and prepares to leave.
When he does, Ruby realizes that she needs to come and find the Doctor. She’s excited given he’s a time traveller and everything he said makes sense. The TARDIS opens up and Ruby steps inside to see him. “Who are you?” Ruby asks. “I’m the Doctor!” He replies.
There is a brief epilogue too involving the neighbours but it’s pretty inconsequential save for Mrs Flood asking the audience by breaking the fourth wall if we’ve ever seen a TARDIS before.
The Episode Review
Quite how the timeline hasn’t completely fallen apart is a mystery. Surely the Doctor going back and stopping the goblins in the past before they arrive in the present would completely change the timeline? Without any bad luck for Ruby, she would never have met the Doctor. And if she does have bad luck, it’s established here that the goblins are responsible for it.
So without the goblins, the story would be completely different. Ordinarily I wouldn’t bring this up but given we know the timeline can be changed by the goblins taking Ruby away, it’s never explained here, which is rather frustrating.
The chemistry between Ruby and the Doctor is pretty good but honestly, the goblins feel like an afterthought in what’s otherwise set-up for a larger mystery on the way. This is way more of a drama than anything else, and Ruby’s mum’s flat issue isn’t even resolved. Given we get a lot of emphasis over how badly she’s struggling, the Doctor didn’t think to go back and help her out and put her house back together again?
Either way, this special doesn’t quite give us a great sense of who this Doctor is. There are bits of David Tennant thrown in and a few other quirks but in terms of a unique persona for the Doctor, that’s going to take a while for this one to establish himself.
The Christmas Special isn’t the worst episode of Who this year, but it’s also not a particularly great one either. It’s a rather middling and inoffensive chapter, all things considered, with a couple of subjective moments (like the singing) to keep things ticking along.
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Episode Rating