It’s hard to imagine that Russell T. Davies’ victorious return to the Doctor Who chair has been gone for over six months. Davies’ revival of the longest-running science fiction series in history got off to a great start with three massive 60th anniversary episodes and a fantastic Christmas special, the latter of which introduced Millie Gibson’s new companion Ruby Sunday and Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor to the Whoniverse. And when RTD’s first full season under Who’s direction begins, that regeneration keeps going strong, with Gibson and Gatwa’s electrifying chemistry propelling a promising if subpar two-episode premiere.
The TARDIS debut for The Doctor and Ruby, “Space Babies,” is a wonderfully ridiculous adventure that serves as their first official outing. This first episode is a cosmic fairy tale that takes place on a far-off space station manned by twelve space babies, yes, just like in Alien. That is, alien if the xenomorph was a 90% more mucal monster with fangs like anglerfish and the crew of the Nostromo were still in diapers. Despite being a low-key and perhaps overly intense event, Gatwa and Gibson’s unstoppable charm and youthful enthusiasm allow it to flow smoothly. Additionally, there are heartfelt reminders of how deeply Davies understands Who when RTD chooses to tone down the puerile toilet humor and Look Who’s Talking uncanny valleyness of it all. These include a sobering commentary on the refugee crisis, the Doctor telling a scared child that our uniqueness is our superpower, and the deftly handled reintroduction of the mystery surrounding Ruby Sunday’s parentage.
Without a doubt, Doctor Who’s future is brighter than it has ever been.
If “Space Babies” isn’t quite your speed, though, don’t worry—Davies’ highly awaited Beatles episode, “The Devil’s Chord,” is a doozy. The Devil’s Chord is a lavishly designed and brilliantly executed tribute to the power of music from the 1960s, riffing on everything from Yesterday to Davies’ own David Tennant and Billie Piper era outing ‘The Idiot’s Lantern’ to that one musical moment in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness. Very little of the episode’s plot can be revealed, but it is enough to tell that Davies is still very much interested in delving deeper into superstitious and supernatural realms with Doctor Who’s most recent reboot.
Jinkx Monsoon’s evil, musical, and utterly insane Maestro is an operatic villain who sings very much in the Celestial Toymaker’s key. He serves as the antagonistic force at the center of the Doctor and Ruby’s journey into an alternate history where the Fab Four—and seemingly the entire world—have lost their music. In an episode that sees Gatwa and Gibson’s Doctor and Ruby put through a range of emotions, including euphoria, grief, love, and fear, all while rocking the sharpest threads in Who history (kudos to the costume department), she is an operatic force of nature. When “The Devil’s Chord” reaches its surreal finale, the Monsoon effect has RTD, Gatwa, and Gibson going all out, pushing Who into new frontiers while the larger image of the series comes ever so slightly into view.
Now, as RTD goes through the motions of a reboot, there’s an unavoidable comedown involved in these early episodes as Who goes through the euphoric highs of its 60th anniversary festivities – especially in the series opener. The fourth or fifth exclamation of “Space babies!” may make the unrepentant goofiness a little less giddy excused; the mystery box building may seem a little laborious at times as episode two handles the majority of the expositional heavy lifting; and some glaringly obvious allusions to early Eccleston era adventures don’t completely erase Ruby Sunday’s Rose 2.0 persona. But there’s no denying that Doctor Who has a brighter future than ever. This legendary show is back, and there’s an unquenchable buzz around it thanks to the presence of real megawatt actors, Disney funding, and RTD at the helm. Based on current data, it appears that the best is still to come.