Notes on - Doctor Who: The Church on Ruby Road

 

The Church on Ruby Road notes

Open with the baby being dropped off at the titular church on Ruby Road.  Quick confirmation that that’s where she got her name

At first I thought the priests had raised her, but of course they clearly gave her to the foster system.

December 1, 2023.   19 years ago, so she’s about to turn 19.

This is the same Devina from Bad Wolf, right>

Ruby is from Manchester

Davina:  You don’t mind me using the word ‘foundling’, do you?  It’s just that some people think it’s a bit old fashioned…

Ruby:  Oh, no no nonononono.  That’s what I was.  I was found.  I was foundled.

Is this a real reality show in the UK?

The golbins really get cause and effect

This is also a bit final destination.

December 22, 2023. 

Ruby plays the keyboard, but it’s not her defining characteristic.  That’s nice.

I’m betting we’re seeing the Doctor jump around quite a bit in Ruby’s timeline

December 23, 2023.

I can’t picture another Doctor club dancing in a kilt and tank top.

The Doctor:  Health and Safety.  Gin and tonic division.

Big snowman, scene added in by Disney request?  I wonder how much of it

All of this engineered bad luck, just to season a baby

Officer Pants.  I wish that was his name

*** Name: The Doctor.  Occupation: Not a Doctor.  Current status: Just passing by.  Employer: Myself.  Address: That blue box over there.

I don’t love the new sonic.

Love that they addressed the Doctor’s assumption that it was a ‘she’

December 24, 2023

Millie Gibson radiates innocent joy

Mrs. Flood, a feisty neighborhood woman who does fun runs

Right now Mrs. Flood identifies is as a Police Box while a goblin tears Ruby’s bag

Ruby is totally cool with a new foster baby coming into her life

Ruby:  We’re having a baby!

Cherry: That’s Christmas ruined.

Carla and Ruby are so sweet together.

And now Carla is laying on thick the ‘poor small foundling, who could your mother be?’ background

Lulubelle is indeed a terribly name.

Is fostering usually so brief?

Love the little spin kiss Ruby throws Cherry as she passes her open door

Are Polaroids really fashionable again?

It’s all been leading up to this moment of leaving Ruby in charge of the baby

Carla: I’m off, Mum!  I’ll just be an hour.

Cherry:  Where is my blasted tea?!?

Davina had been having some serious bad luck.  Where did she encounter a moose?

The goblins took the time to take a polaroid?

Convenient that they’d mentioned that they were painting to explain why there was a ladder right there?

Ruby:  Did you just hiss at me?  Was that a hiss?

Shades of Rose on the barrage balloon.

Brave of Ruby to get on the ladder

Nice jump by the Doctor

The Doctor does indeed spend a lot of time hanging off of things.  Makes sense he’s make these gloves.

The visual of them casually hanging off the ladder is cool

Mavity shout out.

That’s not actually where the name Goblin comes from, but it’s a cute beat and a nice way to introduce that the goblins what to heat the baby.

The Doctor thinks Lulubelle is a brilliant name.

The Doctor had noticed Ruby having a lot of bad luck.  Why?

Time-riders

You become knotted into the day.  They do love rope.

The Doctor: Oh, it’s like a tapestry.  It’s gorgeous!

They’re just picking on Davina for fun.  Fair enough/

Fun way to circumvent the sonic just solving everything

Ruby:  Yes, well if you gave me a hand!

The Doctor:  I am learning the vocabulary of rope!

The whole rope systems as kinetic energy tracks

It’s only taken them two minutes to get this far

And now, a musical number

Love that one goblin corrects her pronunciation of ‘scones’

There’s no way that they could feed on one baby for three days, is there?

In hindsight we know that the Doctor is finding and undoing the master knot.  Cleverly seeded.

The Doctor curtsied!

The Doctor:  Why stop singing?  Rock it, Janice!

The Doctor and Ruby both know how to toss the melody line

The goblins were terrible about slant rhyme.  But The Doctor and Ruby don’t use it at all.

Fun reversal of the intelligent glove making them heavy, which ALSO sets up the dénouement later

I could watch the Doctor and Cherry Sunday flirt all day long.

The Doctor:  Mmm.  Cherry Sunday.

Cherry:  Like a tasty treat.

Accidents and coincidences get their attention and draw the goblins.

Probably good to baby proof the kitchen in any case.

Ruby is so proud of Carla.  That’s sweet.

I was yelling at them not to leave the baby alone!

Oh my god, Ncuti and Millie frantic bicker together like they’ve been working together for years and years

The Doctor thinks that Ruby is going to tell Carla about the goblins.  He doesn’t know about her family.

Carla is so supportive of Ruby in her disappointment for not finding her birth parents.

We’re about to see who Carla would be without Ruby.

‘adopted’ is a nice way of referring to the Timeless Child stuff.  Nice confirmation that it’s still a thing

Too many coincidences drew in the goblins.

Cherry’s not wrong to be concerned about the damage to the apartment

The picture changed, back to the future style.

Not everything’s changing all at once with Ruby’s new

And now the lights are all gone and the painting is drab

Cherry is breaking my heart.  All her joy is gone.

Carla looking forward to being alone on Christmas is so sad

So the goblins just grabbed the other end of the chain of coincidence and snatched Ruby as a baby instead

I like that the goblins are all kind of dressed like tiny pirates

No dance number this time?

He’s not using the gloves to climb, he’s dragging the entire ship back down to the ground

The Goblin King mouth is very well realized

Isn’t it dangerous to skewer the ship without knowing where in it baby Ruby was?

I’m willing to buy that the gloves absorbed Baby Ruby’s inertia and that’s why she didn’t smoosh when the Doctor caught her

How slow exactly was Ruby’s mom walking??

Cheerful paint and the lights are back again

Mrs. Flood seems awfully willing to just roll with all this

I’d actually forgotten that Davina was in danger too

Cherry got her tea!

Plywood and plastic sheeting is your immediate fix, Carla

Ruby is working out that The Doctor is a time traveller

Mrs. Flood already seems to know more that she should.  We’re just starting to get an inkling that there’s something off there.

I love when they walk all around the outside of the TARDIS just to check

And mid credits reveal scene – Mrs. Flood knows what a TARDIS is