The Church on Ruby Road (TV story)

The Church on Ruby Road was the 2023 Christmas Special and opening episode of series 14 of Doctor WhoThe Church on Ruby Road on doctorwho.tv broadcast on 25 December 2023.
It was the first full episode to feature the Fifteenth Doctor, as played by Ncuti Gatwa, and introduced audiences to the new companion, Ruby Sunday, as played by Millie Gibson, concluding the sixtieth anniversary year with the start of a brand new era, officialising the reboot of the series number.
The Church on Ruby Road was the second time since the 2005 relaunch of Doctor Who that a Doctor's first full story was a Christmas Special, following the Tenth Doctor in .
The Church on Ruby Road also marked the return of the Christmas Specials to televised Doctor Who, having been absent since 2017's .
== Synopsis ==
Long ago on Christmas Eve, a baby was abandoned in the snow. Today, Ruby Sunday meets the Doctor, stolen babies, goblins and perhaps the secret of her birth...
== Plot ==
On Christmas Eve 2004, a baby girl was dropped off at a church on Ruby Road. Leaving as quickly as she arrived, the mother departed - nobody seeing who she was. This is witnessed by the Fifteenth Doctor, with tears streaming down his face.
On 1 December 2023, a series of accidents caused by unseen Goblins plagues the set of that girl, Ruby Sunday's, interview with Davina McCall for a television show. Davina is offering to help her find her birth parents, or someone else in her family if possible, by attempting to match a DNA sample from Ruby against various databases. As Davina tells Ruby that she does need to be realistic about the situation, a chain of falling, heavy studio lights nearly crash into Ruby, ending the interview early.
Three weeks later, on 22 December, as Ruby plays a small gig with her band, a small electrical mishap interrupts their performance as the Doctor watches on from the outskirts of the pub. The next day, Ruby encounters him at a club, dancing one floor below her, before turning around and seeing him catch a glass of gin and tonic that she knocks over when it's not quite where she left it. He asks Ruby if she normally has bad luck, and she says that it's been happening for a while now. He departs, but follows her as she gets into a taxi with her friends. A Christmas snowman decoration hanging from a nearby building is poised to fall on the taxi. Using his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor changes the light at the intersection, prompting the taxi to drive on, just as the decoration collapses onto him. A policeman stops him as he leaves to take a statement, but the Doctor instead tells the man his girlfriend will accept his marriage proposal and leaves.
On Christmas Eve, Ruby returns to her home, a flat in 3 Minto Road, to see that her adopted mother, Carla Sunday, is fostering another new-born, a little baby named Lulubelle. Carla leaves "Lulu" in Ruby's care as she leaves to the store. As she walks out, Davina calls Ruby, and sadly informs her that they were unable to find any trace of anyone related to her. Ruby is saddened by the news, but accepts it. Davina then changes the subject, asking if Ruby been having any bad luck recently, as she's been having the worst rash of it, including falling off a boat on dry land, and remembers it started when she talked to Ruby. Davina, who is stuck in a wheelchair due to her numerous injuries, talks about how terrified she is as a nearby Christmas tree topples over on her, with the star heading directly for her head, and her phone cuts out.
Ruby hears noises over the baby monitor and heads into the other room, where she finds the crib empty and a photograph of a goblin resting underneath. She chases after the culprits out the skylight and finds goblins nestling Lulubelle in a basket dropped down from above a long ladder reaching up into the sky. The goblins scamper up as the basket is pulled up and the ladder begins to retract, prompting Ruby to jump on as it drifts away from her flat. The Doctor suddenly appears and yells after her as he bounds along the rooftop and jumps onto the ladder as well. As the ladder retracts further, the pair have difficulty holding on, so the Doctor pulls out a set of intelligent gloves, gloves that takes care of all of the friction and mavitational force that normally exist when climbing and transfer them all into the glove itself, away from the body. The pair are effortlessly pulled up with the rest of the ladder into a flying ship, where they promptly encounter a small horde of goblins that capture them and tie them up.
The Doctor begins to decipher the goings on of the goblins, chance, luck, and coincidence. He's not altogether clear on everything, but he's deducing that they are using luck to stitch Ruby into time ever so slightly more, make her more real, and then use the similarities between her and Lulubelle as seasoning for when they eat the latter. He manages to untie them both, but is unable at first to escape the room - everything is built with wood and rope, which his sonic screwdriver isn't effective on. But, after spending a small amount of time with the rigging, he likens it to wires and circuitry, untying knots as one would flip switches, triggering the right one to get them out of the room they were in and into a crawlspace above.
Lulubelle moves along a conveyor belt as the goblins sing about how the Goblin King is going to devour her, with the Doctor and Ruby crawling above and watching in horrified fascination as they frantically try to untie the right ropes. The Doctor makes a mistake, however, and causes himself and Ruby to fall on the conveyor themselves. The two grab the baby as the ropes above them continue to unravel, don their intelligent gloves and set them to reverse, taking a line of rigging and using it to descend back to the ground.
Escaping from the goblin horde, the Doctor and Ruby return Lulubelle to the flat. Thinking about accidents and bad luck, they dash around the flat to goblin-proof it. Carla returns, and, as the Doctor introduces himself, she acts concerned, not sure why they need a doctor. Frustrated, and trying to change the subject, Ruby tells Carla how the show called and they were unable to locate any of her family. The Doctor tells Ruby and Carla that he’s adopted too, and how he doesn’t know who his birth parents are because he’s a foundling also like Ruby, which Carla notes as a coincidence, and, as discussion turns back to coincidences, the house shakes until the roof cracks in two, the Goblins having left.
The Doctor then looks around, and sees that Ruby has vanished. He dashes around the flat and outside looking for her, asking Carla and others, none of them having heard of her. He takes a deeper look around the flat and it is a far drearier place with no Christmas decorations, no pictures of Ruby or any other foster children. Carla is also far different; unhappy with her lot in life, resentful of having to take in Lulubelle on Christmas Eve and having fostered far fewer children and having only done so for the money. The Doctor, brought to tears at witnessing these changes, dashes outside and into his TARDIS, dematerializing in front of Mrs Flood as he travels back to the night when Ruby was abandoned at the church. 
In the snowy night, the Doctor sees the figure of Ruby's mother walking away, but he ignores her as he rushes towards the building. He chases after the goblin scaling the church with little Ruby, grabbing onto the ladder at the last second. The Doctor uses his intelligent gloves in reverse mode to pull the ship downwards, bit by bit, but finds it too slow to make a difference. In a last ditch effort, he jumps off the roof, pulling the ship down with him and impaling the Goblin King's stomach with the steeple, killing it. The ship and all in it vanish as the timeline is restored, and the Doctor catches baby Ruby as she falls from the ship and places her once again on the church's doorstep. Back at the TARDIS, the Doctor sees Ruby's mother in the distance, but does not go after her.
The Doctor returns to 2023 and rushes up to Ruby's flat to find her safe and sound, babbling about how they went back to take her so he had to go back. He then mentions that he forgot something else and dashes off again, running into his TARDIS as Mrs Flood watches from her front yard. The Doctor travels back to when Davina was about to have a Christmas tree fall on her and catches it, saving her life.
The Doctor returns once more to the present day to see Ruby, but thinks better of it, feeling that he might be the one who brought bad luck to her and her family. Ruby and Carla talk about the Doctor, Carla just finding him crazy, and Ruby trying to contextualize the day she's just had. It dawns on her that the Doctor is a time traveller, and she kisses her adopted mother and dashes out of the door. Looking around on the street, she asks Mrs Flood if she's seen the Doctor, and Mrs Flood points to the TARDIS over the road. Ruby enters it, after a wish of luck from Mrs Flood, to find the Doctor leaning on the railing in the console room, ready to welcome her aboard.
As the TARDIS dematerializes, another one of Ruby's neighbours comes up to Mrs Flood and panics about how a box has just vanished in front of them. She tells him to stop making such a fuss and then, as he walks away, asks the audience, "Never seen a TARDIS before?"
== Cast ==
* The Doctor - Ncuti Gatwa
* Ruby Sunday - Millie Gibson
* Davina McCall - Herself
* Denzel - Bobby Bradley
* Trudy - Mary Malone
* Woman with Pram - Belinda Owusu
* Policeman - Barney Wilkinson
* Mrs Flood - Anita Dobson
* Abdul - Hemi Yeroham
* Carla Sunday - Michelle Greenidge
* Cherry Sunday - Angela Wynter
* Ruth Lyons - Gemma Arrowsmith
* Goblin 1 - Rachelle Beinart
* Goblin 2 - Jess Judge
* Goblin 3 - Dilu Miah
* Goblin 4 - Giuseppe Lentini
* Goblin 5 - Andrew Francis
* Goblin 6 - Lukas DiSparrow
=== Uncredited cast ===
* Baby Ruby Sunday - TBA
* Ruby Sunday's mother - TBA
* Vicar - TBA
* Clark - TBA
* Big Jim - TBA
* Woman - Susan Twisthttps://bleedingcool.com/tv/doctor-who-is-susan-twist-playing-the-same-secret-character/
* Lulubelle - TBA
* Voice of the Goblin singer - Christina Rotondohttps://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/doctor-who-christmas-2023-cast-characters/
== Crew ==
== Worldbuilding ==
=== Ruby Sunday ===
* Ruby plays a GO:PIANO88 musical keyboard and is in a band. She can also sing.
* Ruby was born on Christmas Eve 2004, around 2PM.
* Ruby is unaware who her mother and father are.
* Ruby declined going out with Bobby McGeever.
* Ruby has a good relationship with her neighbour, Mrs Flood. Another neighbour is Abdul.
* Over the years, Carla has managed to foster thirty-three children and still keeps in touch with some of them.
* Lulubelle's mother couldn't cope with raising a child, according to Ruth. She also claimed that her family was too complicated to explain.
* Ruby bought bread and eggs, among other groceries, from a shop.
=== The Doctor ===
* At the nightclub, the Doctor is wearing a kilt and very briefly dances with a man. 
* The Doctor has invented "intelligent gloves" because he spends a lot of time hanging off things. These need to be recharged after usage.
* The Doctor jokes he wishes he was called Lulubelle because it is a brilliant name.
* The Doctor quickly learns the language of the Goblins, and he already knows how to "speak" the rope language.
* The Doctor has once spend a "long, hot summer" with Harry Houdini, who taught the Doctor how to untie himself.
* The Doctor demonstrates his singing abilities.
=== London ===
* VOSS is an estate agency, with available properties around London.
* The snowman is attached to a department store.
=== Minto Road ===
* Minto Road is in the W11 postcode district.
* There are at least fourteen houses on Minto Road, with 14 Minto Road being located at one end. Around the corner from this house is Hawkins & Co. Estate Agents.
* The Sundays' home is 3 Minto Road. 
* Mrs Flood's home is 4 Minto Road.
* Minto Road is a Pay & Display Zone and has a 20MPH speed limit.
* A flyer on the fridge in Cherry's flat for Minto Pizza Alla Pala reveals that the local pizza parlour opened in 2006.
* On the same fridge, there are business cards for Crossgate Cabs, which states that their phone number is 020 7946 0112. There is also a business card for Citywide Taxis.
* The Sundays have a bag with pictures of bread on it.
* The 94 is a bus that operates the Notting Hill area. There is an advert for Triad Technology on its side. It is part of the London Carriage Association and it had the number plate SKI8 TKY.
* Other buses include the 47, 55, 96, W60 and the X99.
* Mr Swanton's Barber Shop is a business located in Notting Hill near a bus stop.
== Notes ==
* The title of the story was officially announced by the official Disney+ Twitter account in a "Season's Streamings" promotional image on 6 November 2023, ahead of any BBC announcements.
** This marks the return of the Christmas Specials; in the instalment of Russell T Davies's column Letter from the Showrunner printed in DWM 585, Davies had stated that a "Christmas Special" would be returning as the format of the first full episode of the Fifteenth Doctor's tenure, although clarifying that he considered the term to be synonymous with the Festive Specials. The Disney+ announcement clarified that The Church on Ruby Road will be a traditional Christmas Special.
** The first BBC acknowledgement of the title came in a press release on doctorwho.tv on 30 November 2023, revealing minor plot and casting details.Doctor Who lands on Christmas Day 2023 with ‘The Church on Ruby Road’ on doctorwho.tv
* The preview of The Church on Ruby Road released in DWM 598 revealed a teaser of the plot and a snippet of dialogue between the Doctor and Ruby.DWM 598 - Preview of The Church on Ruby Road, Pages 18-19
** This preview also revealed Ruby would be part of a band.
** Davies' A Letter from the Showrunner column printed in DWM 598, styled as a Doctor Who-themed "The Twelve Days of Christmas", revealed that scene eleven's stage directions began inside the TARDIS control room.
** The interview with Michelle Greenidge and Angela Wynter in that issue contained further details about Ruby: she is a keyboardist who is homesick for Manchester, having recently moved into Cherry's flat in Notting Hill with her mother Carla, and that she was a day old when she was abandoned on Christmas Eve.DWM 598 - Sunday Best, Page 32-34 
* The non-fiction feature , published in Doctor Who The Official Annual 2024 on 7 September 2023, teased the casting of Dobson and Greenidge; the feature also hinted that the doors in the promotional images may have significance.
* The Church on Ruby Road is the first time in the revived series that a Doctor's first Christmas special does not include "Christmas" in the title, following , , and .
* At sixteen days, The Church on Ruby Road marks the third shortest gap between a regeneration story and its follow-up, behind at seven days and at six days.
* "The Goblin Song" was an original song for The Church on Ruby Road. It was released ahead of the episode on 11 December 2023 with proceeds going to Children in Need.Doctor Who releases Christmas single, The Goblin Song on doctorwho.tv
** The short story was released by BBC Studios on 14 December 2023 to celebrate success of the song in the charts, also revealing the name of the singing goblin as Janis Goblin, a play on Janis Joplin.
** Davies clarified on Instagram that the goblin would be named "Janice" by the Doctor, as she resembles from The Muppet Show.@russelltdavies63 on instagram.com
** Pixie Not is a pun on pop singer , Ralph McTelf is a pun on folk singer-songwriter , Bryan Fairy is a pun on pop-rock singer , and Gob Dylan is a pun on singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.
** While other original songs have been released with actors in character as the Doctor (MUSIC: Who is the Doctor?, The Doctor and I), The Church on Ruby Road marks the first time both an incarnation of the Doctor and a companion have performed a musical number on-screen.
* Davies felt inspired by the door opened by the inclusion of the Toymaker in the preceding episode — as he deemed the Toymaker to be a fantasy character — so decided to include goblins, a traditional element of fantasy stories, in The Church on Ruby Road. He also sent the script to former showrunner Steven Moffat, who had a surprised realisation about the unused potential of the species within Doctor Who.
* The Church on Ruby Road is the first episode that does not credit a white male performer as a regular cast member. Although William Hartnell was absent from Mission to the Unknown, he still received credit for contractual reasons.
* The Church on Ruby Road is the first episode since to include a mid-credits scene, and the first Christmas special since to include one too.
* Although unremarked upon in the episode, the television series Davina McCall hosts is seemingly Long Lost Family, a television series McCall hosts in real life.
* While scripted to be Henrik's,Christmas Special - The Church On Ruby Road (2023) on bbc.co.uk the department store in the final cut bears the branding of the real business, likely a budgetary constraint. This error is fixed in .
* The scene where the Doctor interacts with a policeman was the result of a suggestion by Disney, who felt that the Doctor needed more screen time early on in the episode.
* This is the least viewed and reviewed Christmas special of all time and the second least viewed and reviewed special of all time after Legend of the Sea Devils. 
=== Comparison between BBC and Disney+ versions ===
There are slight differences between the version broadcast on BBC One and the one shown on Disney+:
* The Whoniverse ident was shown at the beginning of the episode on the BBC version. However, on the Disney+ version, the BBC ident was shown.
* The Disney ident was shown at the end of the episode on the Disney+ version.
* Following the TARDIS reveal scene, in the BBC version the Cast credits appears, followed by the mid-credits scene and then the rest of the end credits roll. In the Disney+ version a short teaser is shown after the TARDIS reveal scene which is then followed by the mid-credits scene and then the full end credits roll.
=== Myths ===
to be added
=== Filming locations ===
* Notting Hill - , BristolDoctor Who filming in Frederick Place Bristol - pictures show the Tardis has arrived on bristolworld.comRussell T Davies talks “exciting” Doctor Who scenes as programme films in Bristol on cultbox.co.uk
** Minto Road - Frederick Place, Bristol@BBCBristol on twitter.comDoctor Who in Bristol on google.com/maps
** Forbridge Street - Wetherell Place
** Bruton Place/Park Place (where Ruby gets off a bus)
* , Bristol
** (Davina's bad luck)
* , Newport
** The church on Ruby Road - St. Mary's Church
* Cardiff
** Parkgate Hotel (interview with Ruby and Davina)
** PRYZM (now called Circuit) (the nightclub)DWM 598 - Alien Superstar
** The Golden Cross (where Ruby's band plays)
** House of Fraser, St. Mary's and Wharton Street (where the snowman falls on the Doctor)
=== Ratings ===
* 4.73 million viewers. (UK overnight)Doctor Who ratings - overnight figures
* 7.59 million (UK final).Doctor Who - final ratings in the UK
=== Production errors ===
* The letters of the names in the title sequence for both Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson do not render behind the TARDIS as it spins past, and instead appear to pop up after the TARDIS has passed. In the case of Gibson's credit, this issue only affects her last name.
* At the end, when Ruby turns and sees the TARDIS after talking to Mrs Flood, the stone street sign next to her head reads Frederick Place, the real world street where the outdoor scenes were filmed, rather than Minto Road like other signage, which was the street in-universe.
* When Ruby enters the TARDIS for the second time and turns around to see the Doctor, the set clearly changed to the TARDIS interior set.
== Continuity ==
* Ruby was first mentioned in the short story , a story which contained a snippet of the Fifteenth Doctor's diary.
* This is not the first story to depict a companion written by Russell T Davies being part of a band; Mickey Smith was part of the band No Hot Ashes, as revealed in his of , although this connection was not present in the original episode.
** Furthermore, Trudy was intended to be transgender and Sally Salter, a member of Not Hot Ashes, is also transgender. Big Bone Bill is another member of No Hot Ashes, and in , another member of Ruby's band is revealed to be named Big Jim.
* The First Doctor had previously been seen visited a nightclub during the events of TV: , albeit only to meet up with Dodo Chaplet and not solely to enjoy himself.
* The Doctor is shown using psychic paper, which debuted in TV: and a new sonic screwdriver, which debuted in AUDIO: .
* Minto Road isn't original to The Church on Ruby Road, as it was first mentioned by Mickey Smith in 2005's . The pizza place mentioned by Mickey in that episode is even indirectly seen, as Cherry has a flyer for it on her fridge, which names it Minto Pizza Alla Pala.
* On the same fridge, there is a business card for Crossgate Cabs, a fictional taxi service that was first seen in .
* The Fifteenth Doctor states that he created intelligent gloves to transfer his mass into the glove to prevent friction on his hands that was caused by mavitational pull when dangling in the air. Rose Tyler was a prime example of this occurring, with her hands suffering severe friction burns when suspended above World War II London during the Blitz in TV: .
* The Church on Ruby Road continues the usage of "mavity", the new name for gravity after time was inadvertently altered by Donna Noble making a gravity pun at Isaac Newton during .
* The Doctor recalls how he is still learning the "new science" that Ruby claims is magic, recalling how the Fourteenth Doctor accidentally made previously mythical occurrences and creatures, like the goblin's existence and ability to time travel, possible when he cast a superstition at the edge of the universe during the events of TV: .
* The Doctor once again mentions meeting Harry Houdini, having claimed to have met and learned escapology from him before in TV: , , , and .
* Upon Ruby revealing she was abandoned as a baby, therefore not knowing her biological parents, the Doctor mentions "recently" learning he was adopted as being abandoned too, which the Thirteenth Doctor found out from the Spy Master in TV: when he showed her the Matrix's recordings of the Timeless Child. 
* Ruby is erased from reality shortly after cracks form along the Sunday family's apartment. Cracks have previously been a sign of an individual's erasure from history, as seen in TV: , and .
* After Ruby is erased from reality, the Doctor displays an ability to remember her despite others forgetting. The Eleventh Doctor displayed this ability when Rory Williams was erased from existence in TV: . He remarked in TV: that this was because he was a complicated space time event that granted him unique immunity to such effects so long as it did not affect his own timeline.
* Carla cries when the Doctor tries to make her remember Ruby. Amy Pond, after forgotting Rory, also had a residual awareness of him that caused her to cry, as displayed in TV: .
* Ruby walks around the exterior of the TARDIS after seeing it is bigger on the inside, in a similar reaction seen by Rose Tyler in TV: , Donna Noble in TV: and Clara Oswin Oswald in TV: .
*The Doctor again argues that what another character perceives as magic is in fact science, as previously seen in TV: , TV: and PROSE: .
== Home media releases ==
to be added
== Gallery ==
== External links ==
== Footnotes ==
Category:2023 television stories
Category:Fifteenth Doctor television stories
Category:Stories set at Christmas
Category:Doctor Who Christmas specials
Category:Musical stories
Category:Stories set in Manchester
Category:Stories set in 2004
Category:Stories set in London
Category:Sources set in 2023
fr:The Church on Ruby Road (TV)