DOCTOR WHO-THE LEGEND OF RUBY SUNDAY

 

DOCTOR WHO-THE LEGEND OF RUBY SUNDAY

 

Gimme the loving. It needs it. It's not getting it from the show runner. spoilers

Sutek just needs a good dog bone and a cuddle!

Oh almost forgot, this episode will lose a point (from a 5/10 to a 4/10 JUST because the Doctor claims he can be a grandfather before a father THAT'S JUST STUPID). 

This isn’t terrible. It’s not very good either. It’s a kind of 5/10 story but perhaps it will be better judged as the first part of a really good two parter when the excellent ending starts next week. What? No? haha! See above: I just changed it to 4/10 for the STUPID jerk idea that the Doctor is not a father but IS a grandfather. F RTD.

 

In any case, this is not the mess I thought it would be. Mind you, it still has problems.

 

First: this is Millie’s episode to be…downright awful. And she is. Her slap happy Ruby as she meets scores of new characters, introduces her adoptive mum, and cries so sadly (no, that’s sarcasm)

had her overwhelmingly up and quirky and slap happy childlike (“Oh, I have the VHS in a box at ‘ome” she says in what can only heard in RTD’s voice”). She uses the word ya instead of you, a lot and the sub titles can prove it. She’s far too chipper in this and far too annoyingly so. Ruby does not work in this episode at all.

 

Speaking of all these new characters she meets. One: did I miss an episode or a whole spinoff? A robotic Vox or whatever that android being thing is in UNIT? A 13 year old who talks about another adventure that “they will get him” or it soon? As if we need another hanging thread throwaway line? A genius who isn’t very genius but provides the probability running clock that this is a trap?

Where’s Donna and the wheel chair lady? As if we need more women in this?

 

I will say Rose2 comes off best, more a person this time who interacts with everyone but why does UNIT need her? Compared to the slap happy Ruby, the robot, the kid 13 year old (anyone watch GALACTICA 1980? No? I can tell RTD probably didn’t catch Doctor Vee in that one and find out why this will not and does not work), and the outlandish dog faced cute villain, Rose2 is suitably more realistic this time.

 

Kate works. For once. Maybe the only time she works. And again maybe because she’s set against the most outlandish UNIT members. Why do they need Rose2? And Mel? Undercover? Okay, I can almost believe all of that, given that I must have missed a few episodes that were never made…or something…

 

And again the only white guy in UNIT gets, not possessed this time but killed. I guess RTD would say it’s white men’s turns to die? I don’t care either way.

 

The first 30 minutes do nothing. No, really. The Doctor and his slap happy child arrive and meet everyone and talk. They are using Mel to go undercover (she’s about as subtle as King Kong going undercover to fight Godzilla) which just about works. They have a Time Window (and Kate admitting this to the Doctor IS funny and played for laughs which works, too). The Doc and Ruby use it to see that time the Doctor was in that time and saw/didn’t see Ruby’s real mum deliver her. Did we find out who that was?

 

Too many women in too many mystery arcs. It doesn’t work at all. For 35 minutes or more, I found myself thinking, “I don’t care about any of this but they seem to so I’ll keep watching to find out…”

 

So, we have the events of 73 Yards just never happening so Ruby’s adoptive mum and gran still love her.

 

We have Ruby’s real mum’s ID unknown until maybe it’s this big bad? IDK (I don’t know).

 

We have Mrs. Flood who is a woman they leave Gran with and yes, I’m worried about the nasty old bat gran who seems at the mercy of Flood, who isn’t the big bad.

 

And we have the other mystery woman who is named Susan but isn’t. Do anagrams work the way they do in this episode? Is so, PLEASE whoever is in charge of DOCTOR WHO now and in the future, NEVER use this anagram shit again ever. It’s stupid, boring and does NOT work.

 

Nor does the dog faced cartoon we call Sutek in this. No, really. The jackal doggie is so cute I just wanna pet him.

 

Sutek’s plan is to make the Doctor go through a list of pantheon gods so we’re reminded of the villains we will not see while using old woman and the granddaughter of the Doctor, Susan as bait for a trap and ANOTHER UNIT woman with another gimmicky name (Harbinger?) to hide at UNIT, too? And he’s part of the TARDIS now, too?

 

Another mess. Maybe this episode is more a 1/10. It’s really too packed with nonsense. Again.

 

Three old women we don’t know who they are. A fourth younger woman (and black) that’s also Sutek. Sutek in the TARDIS part of it?

 

WHO IS RUBY? Do I care? Nope. Not a bit.

 

In what Irwin Allen, Gene Roddenberry, and Gerry Anderson would have done in five minutes just took 46 plus to do and sets up the second part of this. And it’s boring. The entire thing is just a prelude, a prolog to the battle with Sutek. And while parts of it work (this time Rose2 and Kate are parts that do work, the first time for both), most of this does not (the Time Window thing which feels like boring filler and nothing consequential though the direction really, really tries).

 

On the plus side there’s less goof than in say SPACE BABIES and DEVIL’S CHORD but that’s not saying much. There’s no Moffat bullshit about the Doctor being a time space event and giving Ncuti thrilling “I’m a tough bastard not to be messed with” dialog that NEVER worked for Matt and Capaldi. There ARE, thankfully, explanations that are lacking 73 YARDS (is it 72 YARDS< I keep wanting to get further away from that episode) and none of the awful endless preaching from a one sided POV as in the horrid BOOM (maybe the worst episode this season). And no snot monsters and shit driven spaceships.

 

There’s little else really. This “plot” can fill a five minute or seven minute teaser. It basically said, “There are four mysteries going on and a few things we don’t know about with some five women: old lady Susan, old lady Flood, young lady Harbinger, Ruby (yawn), and Ruby’s real mum (let’s also bring in Ruby’s adoptive mum to UNIT, too, only to kick her out when things get rough). It’s a trap, did we mention that some ten times?

 

Okay. Now onto the hardest part of this: Ncuti. I’m afraid the detractors are right about him. No, he’s a good to great actor and he makes a lot of this work when it shouldn’t. But he doesn’t have the gravitas or hard/harsh side of the Doctor at all and when he tries, he kind of fails. He’s not commanding in the least. He’s no David, Tom, Davison even, no Colin, no McCoy, no Pertwee, Hartnell, Troughton, Chris and/or Paul, or any of the others. Even Jodie and the Fug It Doctor and the War Doctor had that certain something to command and order a room around. Don’t get me wrong, something about that always annoyed me as in many stories, the Doctor didn’t need to do that, ever.

 

But in RTD’s times and in Moffat scripts (even the good ones), at times, the Doc needs to command a room. Ncuti is at his most insecure as an actor in those scenes. And he doesn’t cut it.

 

To be fair, he does not cry in this episode, not real tears. But he seems to have two or three modes: he wants to cry in wide eyed terror or sadly sad sympathetic scenes and nothing wrong with that really only that’s almost only half of what we see. The other half is this slap happy go to guy, too. “Gimme the lovin!” and “come in for  a hug” kind of smiling stuff. He introduces a lot of new people that he seems to know already and some he does not. 

This is a direct contrast to Capaldi’s Doctor, which…while insulting everyone, makes me almost long for the season 8 and 9 Doctor doing such things because Ncuti’s Doctor doesn’t do any of that. 

Even Jodie was oft seen to give a cutting bite in some of her lines toward fools. But no, I kind of don’t like the Cutting Insulting Doctor trait so it’s best Ncuti does not do that. He has a sort of or can have a sort of softer, quieter “beat down” but I’ve only seem glimpsers of it like how he stares at Kate when she lies about not having a Time Window (think Time Tunnel only cheaper than that brilliant 1960s set and superior historical time travel show).

 

So, I’m not being fair. I can’t have Ncuti insulting others and then saying I don’t want that and yet miss some of when Capaldi used to do that. 

Of course, no one can be insulted in this day and age and no one can be imperfect and have an arc where they learn about their errant ways (it is one of the many, many things wrong the live action Netflix AVATAR THE LAST AIRBENDER when Sokka isn’t the misogynistic jerk that grows into why he’s wrong and changes due to learning; character arcs are supposed to be like that; characters are supposed to change and grow from their encounters with others; here and in other places, everyone starts out as the best form of themselves and…it’s boring). 

Instead, the arcs are about outside things and frankly, that’s boring, too.

 

If no one has to grow or learn, it’s dull and this is, even better than the first four garbage eps this mini season, dull. It’s 46 minutes stretched out from what could have been maybe ten.

 

It IS exciting to have Sutek back. Innit? Well, it might be if he was a surprise but on line has been touting that for months and months now, maybe even a full year. I don’t care if I was spoiled. It would have been exciting.

 

But does his “trap” make sense? It seems he could have sprung this on the Earth at any time. Why all the games?

 

It is not like him at all to care about revenge or insulting the Doctor with family or pretending to be Susan. It’s almost as if RTD2 possessed Sutek in the DW “universe” that Sutek even states is the Doc’s universe (sigh) and made him do a long range gimmick ala the Master is Saxon, Rose as Bad Wolf, DonnaDoctor bullshit and something on her back, and You Are Not Alone (not the controversial gay coming out movie but season three of Modern DW). 

But at least in those seasons, we have other things to latch onto in each individual episode. Moffat and sometimes Chibs after him have turned those gimmick arcs into the MAIN story of DW minus all the individual wonders of each separate story.

 

So, next week will be the weak Doctor (he even stops in mid adventure to punch an elevator alcove and sit down) vs doggie cutie Sutek!

 

Mel sorts the sulking, angry Doc out. Mel…this is MEL we’re talking about (!) has to sort him out and get him moving again. MEL!? Surprised she didn’t offer him carrot juice.

 

So, Ncuti comes off as a weak Doctor which as the first black and first outwardly gay Doctor (they’ve all been gay if you look, listen and think) is NOT GOOD.

 

Ncuti still has to, after nine episodes and a first one (that’s ten) that introduced him (horribly in the bi generation shite), prove something: whether nor not he IS the Doctor. Nothing before or during has indicated he has that special something all of the others (except maybe Matt Smith) had.

 

To be fair, even Smith could take over (badly sometimes as in the smug Doctor committing war crimes and insulting enemies to run and forgetting women that loved him while ignoring the gay comic relief villain victims but that’s another awful story).

 

The whole thing is a build up for the exciting cliffhanger. Sutek wouldn’t really need revenge. Or have to face the Doctor while destroying him and everything and everyone. He’d just do it. He’s not spiteful just very, very evil and would care less about gloating. This is RTD writing him though and his villains need to ALL gloat. And frankly, it’s boring. Sadly, this is NOT the way to bring Sutek back.

 

It’s still hard to believe that cute cuddly dog thing is Sutek. I just want to pet it. Scooch it under the chin.

 

I have to admit I am looking forward to next week to figure out how they will cheat us once again as the wide eyed in shock Doctor will pull a rabbit (RABBITS! As Tegan might say and no Australian ever would) out of his sleeve and knew all along how to defeat Sutek, that this was Sutek and that he has a deux ex whatever to stop Sutek and his many allies (old women mostly?) and/or how the Rani/Mrs. Flood (it can’t be anyone nice with how she turned Gran’s room dark, can she be?). Gran might die so she’s got the best cliffhanger.

 

An old woman and a cute giant dog don’t really seem to threaten the Doctor. Mel, I’m a bit worried about as if she died, it could be the last we’d see of her but who cares?

 

I’m still waiting for the 12 part THE ADRIC MASTER PLAN where the Doctor has a chance, spurred on by some villain trap, to save Adric.

 

No, RTD. No. Not the ratings you want, indeed. Maybe that might inform you about something but as you’ve already written (and shot?) season 2 or 15 or whatever fans are arguing about rather than arguing about the scripts (diversity, homophobia, transphobia, racial Doctors, white men evils, Doc being gay---he is and always was so get over it). Maybe after the next season, which his already set to be awful if you’ve patterned it on this shitty one, you’ll learn your lesson if you’re still in charge and if it is still on Disney Plus (predicting a cancellation any day now or maybe after they air season two/season 15/season 43 IF they air another season after this fiasco).

 

Maybe someone else or maybe a more sedate, sensible RTD3 will change DW utterly and make it a long form storytelling like most NEW shows are now. Maybe he will interlace it with one or two sub plots that are just one episode. Maybe he will cast a stronger Doctor. Maybe he will cast the companion against the grain (a gay male or better yet, two gay males, or maybe an alien of some kind but please no more females or at least no more Earth females). Or not.

 

Either way, we’ll have the comics, the audios, and the books, probably stuck with Ncuti as the Doctor (as we were with Paul for a long time) for the next 20 years while they work out how to bring DW back as the medium it should never leave: TV.

 

5/10 and that’s being generous. Kate gets a 7/10. Ruby gets a 1/10. Mel gets a 6/10. Ncuti gets a 4/10. RTD gets a better 5/10. UNIT: 1/10. Drop UNIT forever please. Let Sutek kill them ALL off.

 

DW must do better and could be and should be a 9/10 or a 10/10 every time. DW is a stunning premise and should be 10/10 every time, every episode, every story. Clearly nothing this season is a 9/10.