At the very least, you’ll be happy to find that this will be a short one for obvious reasons. We’re four specials deep in several weeks so far, and I don’t think I’m the only one in that post-December haze. Written once again by the man Christopher Eccleston wants to be shot into the eye of the sun, and directed by Mark Tonderai, “The Church on Ruby Road” was certainly an episode of TV. Usually, I’d mention the director’s other shows, but we’ll not mention 12 Monkeys and instead point out Tonderai directed “Rosa.”

I’d like to say some will understand “The Church on Ruby Road” better than the Americans watching on Disney+, but I’m unsure. I’ve spoken about Davina McCall before and this wasn’t her first time in Doctor Who, but since her time presenting Big Brother on Channel 4 I couldn’t tell you the first thing she’s done. “Culturally” she’s tied to that, and in fact, the two mentions of her prior to Dead Set (a zombie spoof) and as the Davinadroid from “Bad Wolf” are Big Brother-related. Here she hosts Who Do You Think You Are in all but name.

The story itself follows our new companion Ruby Sunday, an orphan who is searching to find out who her mother is when a band of mischievous goblins try to basically kill her. Meanwhile, our new, young, carefree Doctor runs around waving the new “screwdriver” about getting to grips with the whole Doctory-work he’s got in store for us over the next two series, at least. To say “The Church On Ruby Road” is a plot-heavy episode would be a misrepresentation of how much plot there is. It was an episode after you’ve had your Christmas dinner and are in that coma state.

I enjoy “The Church on Ruby Road” but I also think it is the weakest special since Russell’s return overall. Unlike “Wild Blue Yonder” I’ve had time to think about it, and I have enjoyed “Wild Blue Yonder” more after the review. I don’t have the same feeling with this episode. I do have a bias, of course, as the Goblin-thing would normally put me off if this was 2005-2008, though I am more willing to let that pass as it was very camp and fun. That doesn’t mean everyone understands camp. Americans are more likely to be put off by it.

After three stellar specials, I’m probably feeling the same as Russell probably felt when it came to writing the episode, burnt out and ready for a breath of fresh air. We got an almost forgettable plot and almost nothing to get us invested in Ruby and our new Doctor. If you’ve spent any time on Twitter, more has been said about Mrs Flood than Ruby as a character. What do we know about Ruby? She’s an orphan, she’s young, and she lived with her step-mum and gran in a flat that would cost a liver and your kidneys each month.

Unfair? Possibly, but I need to make the comparison to Clara, as thus far Ruby is a mystery box we have to unravel. She has a mother with her face obscured and a neighbor who’s similarly mysterious that just so happens to have bad luck when a Doctor comes along. Rose wanted away from her humdrum life, adventure is what she sought. Amy was awestruck by this weird man who crashed into her shed at a young age, and Bill was inquisitive. I don’t have that same sense of purpose from Ruby, other than she wants to find her birth mother.

I’d probably think something a little different if there was some friction between Ruby and Carla, her adoptive mother. There isn’t, aside from the weird timestream (to use a Loki term) it is all clean and happy families, at least as far as Ruby knows. There isn’t a clear “this is why Ruby is seeking adventure” statement. Of all the episodes to come, this was the one that needed to do that reasoning. I’d have simply liked something more to give her that push to go on the adventures that await her in the coming series.

What about Ncuti in his first episode? I love him, I genuinely love everything about him so far, especially the bit with the 12-year-old cop who looks like he struggles to remember which shoe goes on which foot. I’d have probably liked a little bit about it being Henrik’s that the Snowman fell from, even if it was the cop writing it in the report. Most of us know it is Cardiff pretending to be London, but we could make that a little bit more, dare I say, obvious.

“The Church on Ruby Road” isn’t a very deep one and I’ll argue that’s fine for a Christmas special. What gets me, however, is that it is also a Doctor and companion’s first proper story. It should be an episode that highlights the positives of the characters while hiding the negatives. Again, to bring in other companions for comparison, Rose was “street smart,” Martha was actually smart, Donna was a little bit of a mix of the two without the PHD, and the less we talk about Moffat’s companions the better. For Ruby, it was bad luck and a love for family.

The outfits this time out were great. I didn’t know I wanted a Doctor in a kilt until now. Everything about Ncuti’s Doctor is “I am the focus of your attention.” Between him and Millie’s style, it is difficult to pull your eyes off of them, either in the same shot or in different shots. They are the fresh air that the writing lacks and I hope that doesn’t become a statement I have to repeat in May. I want to like “The Church on Ruby Road,” but there is just something lacking.

Musical episodes are usually an American trope, and while it isn’t “Subspace Rhapsody” there certainly is a song (or technically two) that is a little controversial. Not because of their subject, everyone’s held something “cute” and said “I just want to eat you up,“ but the time/pacing of it. Somehow I’ve written 1,000 words without much mention of the Goblins and how obscenely camp it all is. We have Ncuti stating the “’cause they like to gobble you up” line, again it isn’t an episode that stands up the scrutiny.

I like that we get a bit of time defined between episodes, though I think it might have been more effective if the specials weren’t so close to each other. The anti-Mavity gloves are a great bit of fun and a decent bit of tech to pull us away from the screwdriver. The screwdriver itself was something I was unsure about when I first saw it. It looks like something you’d keep in your car to open a garage, or other things I can’t say here. The more personal details of it that are known, the more I like it, but initially it was “I’m unsure about this change.”

“The Goblin Song,” as it is officially called, sung by Janis Goblin or Christina Rotondo is just something so left field in “The Church on Ruby Road.” I like it, I know, I am weird: It isn’t a great song and so far from it that I can see why people don’t like it. It has energy, it is big and bombastic, and more importantly, it doesn’t stay for too long or sound like dialog just put into a song. None of which was as surprising as the reprise by Ncuti and Millie, which by the nature of a surprise took me off guard. Again, I liked it, just “how diddly-deet you” neighborino.

Cherry is easily the star of the episode, her and her cup of tea. There are lovely bits of heart and there is just something lovely about sections of “The Church on Ruby Road” that are charming and wonderful. That said, if you want to be a pedant about it you can easily deconstruct the whole Goblin thing to point out that it is mostly the Gremlin mythos, not Goblin. It also feels like there isn’t much threat overall to Ruby specifically until there is that massive tonal shift at the end of the second act, which is the whole episode’s point.

She doesn’t burn herself, she doesn’t trip over, and she doesn’t have anything happen specifically that harms her physically or mentally. The first instance of her “bad luck” is her narrowly being missed by a studio light. Other instances are the keyboard at the gig being unplugged, narrowly missing the snowman (that doesn’t hurt the Doctor), and some eggs falling out of a paper bag. Yes, it is bad luck but not really anything outside of normal.

Davina is the one that gets more of a kickin’ from the Goblins: A plug to the back of the head at terminal velocity, hit, thrown, and everything up to being thrown off of a boat on dry land. Mentally you have the Doctor dealing with Carla’s anger and bitterness when Ruby technically doesn’t exist. The point is that Ruby didn’t get much of it while everyone else had something going on. I want to like Ruby as a character and I want to get more of her already, but so far (as I’ve repeated) it just wasn’t there on paper for me to enjoy.

As I hinted towards much earlier, I think four specials in quick succession have shown a sort of weakness in Russell’s writing since his return. Especially given how much more the series is becoming international and yet we’ve got Ncuti saying “Merry Christmas, Davina McCall.” I get why Ncuti has a smile on his face during it. It is a nudge and a wink, but it would be like saying “Merry Christmas Dan Aykroyd” in something like Euphoria. I’m all for references that some people don’t get, yet even I know you need to temper them or set them up a little.

To you and I, Anita Dobson, Captain Tau (told you), or Mrs Flood is another mystery box to be unraveled. I won’t spend too long on this because there is nothing to say. Breaking the fourth wall and saying “Never seen a TARDIS before?” isn’t much to talk about. Ok, it is but it would all be speculation, which Twitter has run through at length already. There are connections to River Song because of the name Flood, a companion to one of the Doctors that we’ve not seen, and countless other theories. Russell said she’s coming back at some point and it is good we might get this mystery box solved, but there just wasn’t the setup to get there.

One last thing as it gets me. He has all of time and space, yet where does he park? A double yellow line, on a corner, and up a curb no less. I think he needs to go to the TDVLA to sit his test again in his old age, maybe go through the theory test and make sure he can have his license to drive that thing. That was some shoddy parking no matter how old you are. Jokes aside, I’d have liked the “bigger on the inside” line.

Ultimately, “The Church on Ruby Road” is a nothing episode with a few sprinkles of warmth and joy. In a ranking over Russell’s companion introductions, this was easily one of the weakest, so far from “Smith and Jones” it is surprising this is the more mature, experienced writer this time around. I enjoyed Millie and Ncuti’s chemistry and the rest of the cast was enjoyable, if not fully utilized. A fine but ultimately forgettable episode that stands as a weaker Christmas special from Russell in particular.

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Doctor Who "The Church on Ruby Road"

5.5

Score

5.5/10

Pros

• Ncuti and Millie's chemistry.
• Janis Goblin.
• Some good campness.

Cons

• Mystery boxes.
• What was that parking?