Doctor Who: Space Babies/The Devil’s Chord pregame

The wait is almost over. We’re less than a week out from the big Disney+ premiere of the new season of DOCTOR WHO–Season One on this new broadcasting platform, of course. And so, as I usually do, I’m going to sketch down a bunch of pregame impressions and desires before we get to the episodes themselves, so we can see where my head is at as relates to the show before the series begins and then evaluate just how well my expectations were met. As always, this is all a bit slapdash, not any manner of organized review or opinion piece at all. More just a number of thoughts. So here we go.

I really am ready to love this new era of DOCTOR WHO. The show is back in the hands of showrunner Russell T. Davies, who helped to reinvent it back in 2005 and whose understanding of both what make the program tick and what audiences in 2024 want from their entertainment are pretty much impeccable. I never would have dared to believe that Russell would return for another go at the wheel, but here we are. My respect for and confidence in him is relatively absolute, and so the fact that he’s written the bulk of this year’s episodes is definitely a plus from where I’m sitting.

That said, I do have a few misgivings. Most tellingly, I didn’t really love the Christmas episode that introduced us to Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor and Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was off about it at first, and I gave it the benefit of the doubt due to the fact that it was a holiday episode, and those tend to err on being a bit daffier and sillier than a typical outing. But very tellingly, I haven’t gone back and watched the episode front-to-back since that initial airing (though I’ve watched plenty of scenes and moments from it again on YouTube and the like.) And that seems weird to me, especially where a new Doctor’s first story is concerned.

I don’t know that the problem really is the new cast per se. But I will say that at least so far, I haven’t clicked with Gatwa’s Doctor yet. There isn’t anything wrong with him per se, and it’s very early days. But the specific area that I find a bit lacking is perhaps in his gravitas as the character. I definitely like a Doctor who is silly and playful and charming, but the character also needs to be able to embody those moments where a turn is called for and the fact that this silly little fellow is a virtually-immortal God with a strong streak of morality and a righteous fury needs to be able to come to the fore. I don’t doubt that Gatwa can do that–and there have been some hints of it in the recent trailers, in particular in the “I will turn your battlefield into dust in a heartbeat” moment (a line, as pointed out by Dan Slott, that is absolutely from the third episode, written by Steven Moffat and which fits his conception of the character most closely.)

I also find myself slightly disquieted by the many outfits of the Doctor, including hairstyles. There isn’t anything wrong with this per se, but I do somehow have a more difficult time taking the Doctor seriously when he’s running around in a short-sleeve shirt. That’s shallow of me, I know, but it’s true, so I don’t want to run from it. I’m sure that this will ultimately be fine, and I’ll even feel silly for having brought this part up at all, but I’m so used to the notion of the Doctor having a look, even if it might vary in some ways from episode to episode, that this choice makes him come across as less iconic somehow. It almost feels like–and perhaps this is the intent–two companions rather than companion and Doctor.

I have read Russell speaking about his new approach to the character and the series as he’s been interviewed this past week on the press junket for the launch, and I can’t really find any fault with his analysis of what he’s trying to do. He spoke of wanting to do a contemporary hero, one that was in touch with his own feelings and comfortable in his own skin, one that didn’t bully or swagger (swaggering has been an almost essential part of the Doctor’s tool kit since the show came back) and so this is clearly a thing that he is doing deliberately. And I’m hoping that it connects with me. But that remains to be seen.

I also haven’t yet fallen in love with Ruby Sunday, largely because she isn’t yet a character in her own right. Again here, Millie Gibson was absolutely fine in the Christmas episode, but because that was an introductory story, a “companion meets the Doctor” adventure, her role in it was just a little bit generic, and so she didn’t make a huge impression as an individual. More screen time and more stories ought to change that.

I’m also just a little bit concerned about the overall change of tone. Russell has been talking a lot about opening up the doors to more fantasy elements rather than remaining within the Doctor’s typical science fiction fantasy ouvre. And in theory, I don’t mind that. it didn’t bother me in the slightest that there was a flying Goblin ship hovering above London in the Special. But the part that gives me pause a little bit is just this sense that the show is steering back a bit into the silly as its default tone. If you look back at that first 2005 season, you can see that it experimented a bit with tone before finding its level in a place where farting aliens wouldn’t quite so comfortably fit the paradigm any longer. And I feel as though we’re headed more back into the world of farting aliens somehow. Some of this comes from the bits and pieces of things I’ve been told about the specific stories by people who would know. I can see why level-setting there would make all the sense in the world for a Disney+ incarnation–but the thing that makes the show work is the way that it’s able to impact the audience emotionally, and I think that gets more difficult when the situations are more cartoonish and absurd. Still, we’ve been down a road like this one before and it’s all worked out, so we’ll see.

The full court press of previews and teasers and commercials have given me a bunch more moments and a bunch more lines that make me feel secure–moments such as the Doctor telling Ruby that he not only doesn’t have a people or a planet but also no job, no purpose, no mission, no cause, and a clearly later-in-that-episode exchange where the Doctor points out that for all that their adventure was almost fatal, “We lived so much, too.” That feels good, that feels right and proper.

And all of this said, I still enjoyed “The Church on Ruby Road” more than most of the episodes made during the Chris Chibnall era, most of which I found frustratingly miswritten. That, at least, should be improved-upon under Russell’s eye. And I’m ready for a new season–we’ve waited long enough. So bring in Friday (Friday at 7:00–what a weird time to be watching new DOCTOR WHO. it reminds me of the 1980s, when the show would often air on Fridays or Saturdays typically in an 11:30 slot and running a full serial that would play until between 1:00 am-2:00am.)