Ncuti Gatwa is terrific, and I want to lead with that because most of what follows is about the episode around him. He’s charming and quick, physically loose in a way none of the recent Doctors have been, and he holds the screen from his first proper scene. On the casting, the show got it exactly right. “The Church on Ruby Road” itself is a Christmas special about goblins who eat babies, a foundling called Ruby Sunday and a plot that runs on coincidence by design. It’s likeable and it’s thin, and it points the show somewhere I’m not sure I want it to go.
As a Christmas special aimed at a big family crowd on the day, it does its job perfectly well, and I don’t want to be sniffy about that. It’s bright, it moves, the goblins are memorable and a lot of people met a new Doctor and liked him. Those are real achievements. My reservations are about what it signals for the run ahead, more than about an hour of Christmas telly.
Gatwa lands immediately
The best thing here is how quickly he establishes a distinct Doctor. He dances, badly and enthusiastically, in the middle of a packed nightclub, and the show holds on it long enough to establish that this Doctor is comfortable in his own skin. Capaldi’s Doctor was awkward on purpose and Whittaker’s was permanently busy, but this one is having a nice time, and that’s a real change. He talks to Ruby like a friend instead of a project, and when the episode gives him a moment to go still, the change of gear works. The scene where he tells her he’s a foundling too is the one bit of real character writing in the hour, and Gatwa plays it without pushing.
Millie Gibson is good as well, and Ruby is set up efficiently as a musician and a foster daughter in a household that keeps taking children in. Michelle Greenidge makes a real impression in very little time, and the Sunday flat feels like somewhere people live instead of a set built for a plot. Carla has fostered dozens of children, her mother Cherry is sharp and very funny about it, and the family scenes have real warmth. The stretch where Ruby is erased from her own family, and Carla answers the door to a stranger with no idea who she is, is the one properly affecting part of the hour. It works because the episode built the household first.
The goblins, and the song
The goblins are a decent design, all sinew and teeth and rope, and their flying ship is a nice bit of storybook imagery. The rope-ladder chase over the rooftops is well staged. Then they sing, with a full musical number about eating a baby performed by the goblin king. That’s the moment the special’s approach becomes obvious, because this isn’t a science fiction story with fantasy trimmings. It’s a fantasy story that says the word “goblin” without flinching, and Davies is signalling a change in what this show is allowed to be in the most-watched slot of the year.
I’m not against a musical number on principle. What bothers me is what it replaces. The goblins have no explanation and don’t want one: they feed on coincidence, they travel by rope, and they’re simply goblins. For six decades this programme’s basic move has been to take something that looks like magic and show you the machinery behind it. Removing the machinery isn’t a small change, and this episode is where it starts.
Coincidence as a plot engine
The mechanics are the weakest part. Because the goblins feed on coincidence, the episode is licensed to have things happen for no reason, and it uses that licence constantly. A ladder falls where it’s needed, a slip on ice arrives on cue, and a baby is saved by a chain of accidents the story has excused in advance. That’s a clever get-out, and it’s also a way of writing a plot without consequences, because nothing has to follow from anything. When the Doctor and Ruby go back in time and change one small thing at the end, it works on its own terms but lands softly, since an hour of engineered luck has already taught me that outcomes here are negotiable.
A Christmas special being light and silly is completely fine, and some of the show’s best have been exactly that. What’s different is the rule change underneath. When the goblins are simply goblins and coincidence is simply a force, the Doctor stops being someone who explains the universe and becomes someone who bargains with it. I can see the case for it as a deliberate reset, and I follow the argument. I just prefer the version of this show where the Doctor works out how the trick is done.
The mystery box, again
Ruby was left at a church as a baby by a hooded figure, her origins are unknown, snow falls around her at key moments, and Mrs Flood turns to camera at the end knowing what a TARDIS is. That’s four hooks planted in one episode. I spent the whole Chibnall run complaining about arcs that withhold instead of build, so I’ll say now that I hope this one pays off. The signs aren’t encouraging, because the questions are all about identity and parentage, which is exactly where The Timeless Children went. A mystery works when the character at the centre is chasing it, the way Clara kept turning up and being useful while hers ran, and so far Ruby is mostly reacting to other people finding her interesting.
Rating: 2.5/5. Not my favourite, and that’s despite a new Doctor I’m properly enthusiastic about. Gatwa is excellent and Gibson is a good foil, but the episode around them is a thin, coincidence-powered runaround with a musical number where a plot should be. It also quietly commits the show to a fantasy direction I’m wary of. Watch it for him.