The Legend of Ruby Sunday

[Craig @craig Emperor]

It’s the first episode of the two-part series finale. (Already?)

The Doctor and UNIT investigate Ruby’s past. But as the Time Window reveals horrifying secrets from Christmas Eve, the mysterious Triad Technology unleash the greatest evil of all.

As it’s UNIT, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart is back. As is our old companion Mel, and Rose Noble.

And of course Susan Twist is in it again. And Mrs Flood.

And who’s betting on the Daleks?

It’s once again written by Russell T Davies and directed by Jamie Donoughue (who is doing both of the final episodes).

Donoughue’s short film “Shok” got an Oscar nomination. Since then he has directed episodes of “The Last Kingdom”, “The Innocents”, “A Discovery of Witches”, “A Town Called Malice” and the series finale of “Endeavour”.

[syzygy @thane16]

@blenkinsopthebrave to those who said it’s not sutekh…. Take a bow! And @ps1l0v3y0u and all those others who followed early Who and remember those very early episodes.

24 hours ago, and not having seen him before, or the years in which he travelled: “the mother and father and other of them all” all I could offer was The Beast because RTD LOVES a beast, devil or tormenter and yes he most definitely enjoys going OTT @mudlark so we’ll have to wait for part 2.

It was odd to see the Doctor slamming the wall? There’s something very human about this Doctor. Even facing the devil trapped in the dark of the Satan Pit or facing  Akhaten with Clara, he often behaved in a way that you’d least expect? I thought of the Family of Blood and the quiet “rage of a time lord” as he placed Mother in every mirror and Father in chains forged from the heart of a dark star: “He never raised his voice….”

Ncuti can do quiet, though and beautifully. And Millie Gibson is fantastic. And barely 19. 😳

[Miapatrick @miapatrick]

Puppy!

 

@janetteb I was thinking of you during the first half. I think at least, it’s like when you get the wrong answer on The Chase and so does the Chaser, because the Doctor was really buying the Susan theory for a while there.

 

And we have new Susan knowledge! The Doctor isn’t a dad (yet). And he’s scared to become one. What would that actually mean? He doesn’t know much about Susan’s parents – she didn’t know, or wouldn’t tell him about her parents? Which doesn’t bode well, but could be a fixed point in time thing.

But also raises a lot of questions, because he’s been pretty sure he’s the last of his kind a couple of times, how do they retro-fit this with Nine? Once we get to Ten these questions become most easily answered with ‘River’.

 

[Miapatrick @miapatrick]

@thane16 doesn’t Ruby’s mother (the known one) say it’s the beast?

This Doctor is very in touch with his emotions. Crying every episode, his horrified frustrated rage in Dot and Bubble. His instant flirty crush in Rouge. After all, if Fourteen is working through his stuff on earth, with his earth family. it’s probably going to lean into that. And there’s no particular reason to just try and learn how to be a functioning Gallifrayan instead, because he isn’t strictly one, though he is a base code.

What did the Harbinger (honestly, Kate, if you’re really increasingly with magic, binding with salt etc and someone turns up with the name H. Arbinger, maybe give it some thought? Perhaps the security clearance ought to involve this kind of thing as well, just to be sure) Say about the Lord of Time again? The Lord of Time was blind, and vain, and knew nothing?

I wonder if the Doctor has to let go of some of this humanity, if the Lord of Time (as it seems in context) means more than Timelord/Original Timelord, indeed, plays into how one being from an unknown dimension could create the Time Lords.

I’ve always fallen between two theories – that Ruby is a whatever the Doctor is, or lately, the Doctor is from the same place at the Toymaker, Maestro etc.

And now I’m also thinking about 73 Yards, if the apparition was always Ruby, the same Ruby, saying what she said at the end, or something else or a different her, saying something truly, truly horrifying. She must have been saying something to get those reactions, what could the Ruby we know say to have that effect? What is the significance of this episode? The magic trapping Mad Jack, local legends used to make fun of outsiders that are real and catastrophic, (or improved at the time and becoming real). The Doctor finds Ruby after he lets magic in/starts using its rules. And Ruby stops mad Jack, but does so by doing something she herself finds absolutely horrifying.

[syzygy @thane16]

@miapatrick yes, you’re right, she did say it was the beast. It was interesting when the Doctor demands Ruby go into the Time Window (what a terrific idea!) & she asks “why?” that Kate says “go, don’t question!!!” -a little harsh considering the issue with Harbinger…. AND the latter did say, before the reveal, “this is what I’m made for (presuming the tech & analysis angle which means something else now…)” so for me, there was a lot of “mind blown” as I know little before The Gap.

as for Ruby? Golly, I’m lost! She seems SO empathic, kind & generous to the extent that she wants to speak to her mum not for herself but to reassure her. She mentioned several times how alone mum must’ve felt. But the whole created-reality theory is getting away from me – at least.

I think it was the Doctor’s anger at losing the soldier which surprised me -he didn’t know him, & it felt as if it was all about the Doctor for a second hence the “stop grizzling” by Mel.

lol -Kate check out together staff better. @miapatrick -oh boy, do I agree & she did explain that a lot of their problems were supernatural in 73 Yards. I’m also a bit stunned -what did Ruby say to everyone incl Kate which caused them to run? And NEVER come back -even to the pub, well after Ruby left? I don’t have the imagination to work it out. Other than Mad Jack …

[syzygy @thane16]

@winston ??? Halloooo!

[bunface @bunface]

Appreciating the suggestions that the Doctor is about to come into his ‘true’ character, having been just that bit toooo human? All the polite introductions at UNIT, the hugs and how are yous… For a while I was jeez, get on with it! But now I’m hoping that and the over-vocalised hysteria and questioning is all part of the Doctor that might get burned away by the encounter with Sutekh.

Didn’t know Sutekh. Baker was my Doctor but my memory from then isn’t perfect! However, had a quick Wiki and got into reading about the Egyptian god Set/Sutekh (god of chaos, deserts, foreigners) and his eighty year fight with (good) brother/nephew Horus…

Aside from the nice detail about Set possibly having a child called Maga (very RTD), there’s this:

Another important episode concerns mutilations that the combatants inflict upon each other: Horus injures or steals Set’s testicles and Set damages or tears out one, or occasionally both, of Horus’s eyes. Sometimes the eye is torn into pieces. Set’s mutilation signifies a loss of virility and strength. The removal of Horus’s eye is even more important, for this stolen eye of Horus represents a wide variety of concepts in Egyptian religion. One of Horus’s major roles is as a sky deity, and for this reason his right eye was said to be the sun and his left eye the moon. The theft or destruction of the eye of Horus is therefore equated with the darkening of the moon in the course of its cycle of phases, or during eclipses. Horus may take back his lost Eye, or other deities, including Isis, Thoth, and Hathor, may retrieve or heal it for him.

So if the Doctor ‘lost the moon’, that makes him a Horus figure, and suggests he is from the same place as Sutekh, and a God to boot.

Oh, and also that the Doctor might lose an eye! Temporarily… Which makes sense of all that comments on his good looks. Gatwa will rock an eye patch, for sure!

Just sayin’!

That aside, kinda enjoyed the ep, once past the intros. Thought the time window scene would have been better with less shouting/people and more atmosphere, but hey.

[Miapatrick @miapatrick]

@thane16 and I loved hat the mother whose raised Ruby wanted to tell her birth mother that she took her in, that her baby was cared for – not in a possessive way, but in a don’t be so sad, she was looked after and loved.

I wonder why is that that when, briefly, Ruby had not been her daughter, she was just so cold, and blank, and uncaring. A coldness that returns when whatever was said was said to her in 73 Yards. Ruby’s warmth and compassion seem natural coming from such a warm and compassionate mother – but without Ruby her life became bleak and cold.

I think it was (a little self-entered – the Lord of Time was Vain) frustration. He’d just had a conversation on how he was dangerous, no, Mel said, you’re wonderful – and here comes another casualty, and Kate looking at him, just for a moment, the way people looked at Ruby when the apparition spoke to them. He’d been having a lovely reunion, the possibility of a family one, two exciting mysteries, hoping to give Ruby what she wanted, a step maybe to her own family reunion,  and here it comes, death and misery, and Rory’s words, maybe, echoing in his head, how dangerous he is to people – Kate told the solider to stop, he told him to keep on looking. Because he was right the first time when he spoke about this child – he’s dangerous to people. those soldiers in boom – dead. those influencers – dead because they wouldn’t let him help. The handsome Darcy-country hunter, trapped in a dimension for his sake. Het’s had a time of it, but this isn’t the time for him to indulge these feelings, as Mel (and you) say. Bu he can be, a little, vain and blind. Especially when someone’s trying to blind him.

[syzygy @thane16]

@bunface Yes I see what you mean.

And the Capaldi iteration had a carer: “Clara cares so I don’t have to” so possibly there’s a more relaxed Doctor wearing heart on sleeve; carefully introducing characters to Gallifrey; to Susan; & ruminating on potential children…

Perhaps in keeping with his new personality: confident in himself; putting others first: to ease them in; to say: “show me the lovin’” so is it hysteria, or courtesy?

This might be a gentle response to those banging on about “ooh woke, ooh politically correct” when really it’s about how recipients feel; about civility & kindness when in our current climate the latter is oftentimes dismissed & interactions harsh or insensitive.

Puro.

[syzygy @thane16]

@miapatrick yes! I recall Tennant & Capaldi mentioning their vanity: the conversation with Martha in Gridlock fraught with loss & memories of “the mighty citadel under twin suns with fields of deep red grass, capped with snow.” And he didn’t want to share this, as to make it concrete was to no longer contain despair…

and yes: blind or vain, but as you say, “when someone’s trying to blind him.” 

 

[bunface @bunface]

@thane16

I agree that the demonstration of civility and warmth is a definite part of the RTD project – and I’d say both Tennant and Eccleston showed some of the same, in ways that were more of their time just as Gatwa’s style belongs to Gen Z sensibilities. But I also think RTD obviously hasn’t lost his fascination with the moral dilemmas raised by the Doctor’s function and nature, and the question about his godlike abilities and inclinations, despite the humanlike person ability of every one of his iterations.

On the one hand, in this ep there’s all that civility and fun and smoochy ‘confidence’ and on the other hand there’s punching the wall and wide-eyed not knowing what to do. What I see is the projection of (mock) confidence through learned ‘human’ social graces as a way of disguising true feelings. Surely Dot and Bubble was discussing this, as was Rogue? Lots of people performing social interactions and relationships but actually barely covering the fact that something more complicated is going on?

Capaldi (and Smith) and maybe Moffat, full stop, stripped that away, which I found great fun and very real. Which has nothing to do with not being a good person, a kind and caring person (the main thrust of Capaldi, despite the lack of ‘manners’), but maybe raises those questions you ask about what makes us human, and kind/caring – is it words, actions, both?

Essentially I think it’s a question that’s central to Gatwa’s iteration, because so much precious time has been spent on it throughout the series. Partly to annoy the anti-wokists, as you suggest, partly to baffle and irritate the neurodiverse, but mainly to show a Doctor trying on a new costume, newly open to discovery. Clothes making the man, I think manners and fun and gentleness may remain, but not as a disguise, not as a costume, which (to me) is how they feel to have been up til now.

There’s still the darkness and guilt, as was made explicit here… With all the intros taking place in a very corporate environment (Unit), like a VIP had arrived to meet and greet the workers, I can’t help thinking ‘the fastest sharks have the smoothest skin’.

[syzygy @thane16]

@miapatrick I should clarify that I don’t mean to describe the Doctor as vain but rather they had a smell of vanity, occasionally -in the way it might be perceived by earthlings…In Gridlock the Doctor admits “I lied and I liked it. This way I could pretend. That they were still alive [context is everything!].”

Puro.

[Miapatrick @miapatrick]

@thane16 oh I think he can be. And thinking about it, when is Mel most use to him? When she’s telling him he’s amazing, or when she’s telling him to get over himself and get on with it? Companions, after all, keep the Doctor grounded.

 

another thing that’s occurred to me. When he explains regeneration to Ruby he says sometimes their faces change, often to survive injury, but they stay the same person. Which is true, though they don’t stay the exact same personality which, I need to do a rewatch, I think is later referred to by other characters. It was a no entirely satisfactory explanation, I think – but isn’t Ruby leaving after this series? Or I’d think she would be experiencing a kind of mirror to what Clara faced – she had to deal with the changed body, and see through to the same fundamental (though in a different iteration) self. Ruby might be expecting more or less exactly the same personality. Bu she’s not going to see that…

[syzygy @thane16]

@bunface –very interesting yes…learned human social graces (?), which, to others like Kate, may seem odd or different for the same reason characters in the Doctor’s previous iterations (2006-2016) found his occasional coldness, his “jibber-jabber” timey whimey quite jarring. It is the centuries -long question, as you say, thoughts, or deeds-  as expressed by John Donne, for example.

Puro . Til tomorrow!

[syzygy @thane16]

@miapatrick. Yes indeed, perhaps pressed for time though, he said “a different face, same person” but Matt’s Doctor phoned Clara to “help” this new Doctor because he would need her… and as he was so very different to the previous incarnation….  Absolutely. A friend like Mel must tell us truth – you’re amazing but get up! To have a  friend one trusts is gold.

[syzygy @thane16]

@bunface “not as a costume” -in other words, originally playing at dressing up, to a point… Now, the Doctor is more fully immersed in this culture -he wears what he wants, as he wants which is precisely what we humans do. He is thus more natural, fully at ease in himself…. Or is he? 😉 As you intimated, too.

A VERY good point bunface….

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

Cogitating. Calculating. RTD channels ‘Gods of Egypt.’ Bold!

Definitely worth checking PoM again. If just for purpose of ‘the ruby.’

Obviously snot-doggo is Sutekh; the trip to the nuclear winter echoes the original… nearly got there with H Arbinger… but the actresses’ name, like Susan Twist: Genesis Alyen!!! Worth checking the rest of the cast maybe for other quislings? What is Anita Dobson a rebus for? Or does that mean she’s NOT under Sutekh’s thumb? Cos she was looking a bit Marcus Scarman last time I checked.

But surely this is taking place in an virtual reality in which Sutekh has been reborn?

Rogue = Jack. Hell he’s even American. And a singer.

I still think Mad Jack is Rassilon. Big Stick Crazy Hat!

Little girl Splice… sounds like some kind of history we don’t understand.

Dunno about Finetime. The dot reminded me of The surveillance units in The Library… two worlds, one dead.

I think REG is still out there, be he GI or the V person. And that’s why Mel is there.

And where is 14? 15 asked Rose how Donna was… must be odd asking about yourself.

Interesting about the comments re 15’s development. How do you incorporate Whitdoc into that? Surely all the Doc’s are flawed and think they’re wonderful until… they have to rescue Peri, fail to rescue Peri, be nasty to Ace, survive the Time War…

Ncuti radiates confidence. He has been treating this like a game…

 

[bunface @bunface]

@thane16

Just rewatching… What about Kate testing DNA and saying ‘Just because Susan Triad is nice, doesn’t mean she can’t change. A chrysalis doesn’t know it’s a butterfly. A phoenix is just a bird until it burns.’

Is that a hint… As you said, baaaad Doctor?

[bunface @bunface]

So struck by how like a bunch of Whovians discussing all the potential plot twists and turns in a chatroom this ep is! Hehe.

[Devilishrobby @devilishrobby]

Right omg how right some of us were in our theorising…… do I dare spoilerise or do I leave revealing who the big bad is before anyone  who hasn’t watched the episode yet but some of my fellow forum got it bang on though the writing was all there.

[Charlie Cook @cookgroom]

Really loved this episode, and the wild comments. Keep them coming.

seems to me that all the clues were there in relatively plain sight for once (i must reread the tom baker episodes) – a bit of a change for RTD, and far more satisfying than the ‘how were we supposed to know that’ solutions.
mind you, still another 50 minutes to go…

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

Obviously Shirley Bingham has been replaced by Morris… why?

guns in dem wheels!

kids on segues

A N Other perfectly reasonable explanation. Like 14 has taken her out for a curry.

nb Shirley wasn’t in shot when Max Capricorn’s tooth was ‘recovered.’ (What’s that? It was someone else’s tooth?? Unhygienic!)

And did someone mention the Skaro scheme for pre—school refugees? ‘Our strollers are cutting edge/spleen frying. You will obey me!’

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@thane16 Many thanks, Puro!

After watching the reveal unfold, I couldn’t help but look back at my post on the BBC Spoilers thread on 13 June at 17.53. I want to assure you I do not write for RTD2–although, perhaps I should!

I have a couple of thoughts about how Sutekh escaped from the captivity imposed on him by Horace in order to return this time, which I will give a bit more thought to. Suffice to say, the hint is in what Tom Baker says toward the end of “Pyramids of Mars”: “It’s all about time”.

 

[Devilishrobby @devilishrobby]

@ps1l0v3y0u Shirley anne is supposedly on detachment to UNITS Geneva branch and Morris is a stand-in. Presumably the actress was temporarily unavailable for the finale episodes, but it has been reported that she will be back for season 2.

However on another note I’m still a bit confused about Mrs Flood is she evil ie an agent of Sutek or another big bad to be resolved at a later date because she certainly has some kind of mean streak in the way she behaved with Gran and she seeemed to have some insight into what was about to occur. Also is the cloaked woman another Sutek agent or could it be he/she is another member of Suteks pantheon but not actually an ally of Him remember the Egyptian Pantheon of gods were not all  friendly to each other, so could this be a member of the pantheon at war with Sutek and Ruby is either weapon against Sutek  or a child of the gods needing the doctors protection.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@devilishrobby

Did you read the Geneva thing somewhere? Was it in the script??

Otherwise… CERN… large hadron collider… arrghh!

The weird lady in the snow. Sorry I think all this is AI generated, mirroring what we think we know. Is Ruby meta for the show: or meta for Whitdoc (on a Sunday) or the ruby gizmo that summons doggo… sorry Sutekh. Her age in Boom sounds like Sutekh’s projected lifespan given by 4.

But also Ruby may mirror the Doctor generally… I think Triad, cradles, some other three… someone help me… oh the Stooky Babbies.

Stooky Bill; Roger ap Wlliam…

In other words NOT Ruby or The Doctor’s mother but the one who rescued them from something worse. Who rescues the Doctor, serially? nb she probably did it at the request of The Actual  Biological Mother. Who she knows. Question is, what happened to the other two babbies? I fear one is The Loon.

But would Russ give it all away like that? I fear this will twist and turn more than a twisty turny thing.

Of course The Doctor has a (cloned) daughter. He just thinks she’s dead.

Mrs Flood… River predicted 11 would fail in Good Man goes to War. But she knew what was going down. So she doesn’t make Gran her tea. Maybe Sutekh has poisoned the water. Maybe she has a bad bedside manner. I dunno.

The snow is GI

@blenkinsopthebrave

You got there first. I did mention Pyramids of Mars in the Chord thread… and promptly said that couldn’t be it.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

Well that was proper scary, that was. I really shouldn’t watch DW after midnight, but I can’t resist when I know it’s there!

(And congrats to @blenkinsopthebrave on the Sue-Tech spot 🙂  )

Was getting a bit of a Weeping Angels vibe with the shadow-thing in the Time Window, but it had already infiltrated into the TARDIS upstairs. Just saying tho – the CCTV camera was apparently roughly 66 meters away from the church… in other words, about 73 yards! Now when did the TARDIS pick up its stowaway? Best guess would be after Wild Blue Yonder, maybe at the Ruby Road Church.

Is the hooded figure definitely female? I was thinking that maybe the Doctor nipped back to deposit Ruby himself and then mind wiped himself…. but that pointing hand is definitely white so probably not. Is Ruby possibly the Doctor’s great grand daughter? (Susan was stuck on earth, with a human BF… so that would explain Ruby being seen as human. They are making a big thing about Susan – or is RTD trolling us?!)

I do think think Ruby must be the key to this, there’s something very odd about her! Abandoned as a baby, kidnapped by goblins, rescued from goblins, bifurcated in 73 yards to lead a double life, and no trace of her DNA in any database. So next best guess is that Ruby abandons herself. But why? (Also RTD has said he’s never going to share what Old Witchy Ruby says to people to scare them off – but that doesn’t mean he won’t SHOW us… (Personally, I think she probably just said “Run!” 😉 ))

Mrs Flood – an evil plant, or just temporarily possessed?

Susan Triad – has anyone at UNIT properly checked out the software she’s going to release everywhere in just a few minutes?! And did anyone actually investigate her backstory, not just her DNA – she must be on Wikipedia at least!

Her (or rather Sutekh)’s remark at the end – “did you really think I might be family….?!!!“.  Ooh, you can feel the Doctor’s hearts break.

Also – Kate says something about the caterpillar/butterfly not knowing it’s a chrysalis – does this relate back to Ruby transforming into something weird after stepping on a butterfly?

[ScaryB @scaryb]

Anyone else think that Ruby’s outfit in this episode is very TARDIS like…?

[MissRori @missrori]

I think the butterfly/chrysalis comments are more foreshadowing for Ruby’s true identity. After all, there’s a pun everybody’s missed so far: Ruby Sun Dei.

(For those who aren’t brushed up on Latin, “Ruby Sun God”) 😉

[UNITPICKER @unitpicker]

It has been a strange series for sure with it being as Doctor lite a series of Doctor Who as I can remember. This was familiar RTD penultimate episode of a series fodder though. Some happy reunions, some dangling plot threads and an existential threat of a big bad getting revealed right at the end.

The big lingering mysteries are Ruby and her parentage and the truth about Mrs Flood. On the latter, Mrs Flood did seem aware of what was going on without being connected to these events. The most tired and predictable route would be her being the latest incarnation of The Master. She has that slightly sinister vibe about her and is completely unfazed by the extraordinary events happening around her. The Rani is a vague possibility but it does rather feel like that character may never be back. She could of course be the real Susan.

 

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

Been thinking more about how Sutekh managed to escape from the captivity of Horus (as in deity) as opposed to Horace (as in Rumpole) and turn up in 2024 London. In “Pyramids of Mars” the Tom Baker Doctor tricks Sutekh, who (as the Baker Doctor explains) does not understand time and does not take account of the 2 minute delay for radio waves to travel from Mars to Earth, thus allowing the Doctor enough time to foil Sutekh and send him on his way.

Now, my idea (best guess) is that Sutekh (the one we have just seen) has been manipulating the Susan Twist character to (somehow) steal Tardis technology and and develop (via Triad Technology) a way of overriding the ability of the Tardis to do what the Tom Baker did back in “Pyramids of Mars”. But how to explain that to the viewer?

For this reason, I have this crazy notion that–just maybe–the upcoming episode will include clips of Tom Baker in “Pyramids of Mars”.

Anyway, whatever happens, I encourage finding (streaming service, library, etc) and watching “Pyramids of Mars”.

 

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

Sutekhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Lord of Death…

@bunface @thane16

Just rewatching… What about Kate testing DNA and saying ‘Just because Susan Triad is nice, doesn’t mean she can’t change. A chrysalis doesn’t know it’s a butterfly. A phoenix is just a bird until it burns.’

Is that a hint… As you said, baaaad Doctor?

I re-watched The Pyramids of Mars and Sutekh offers the Fourth Doctor an alliance, whilst torturing him. The Doctor says no, and manages to trap Sutekh in a time corridor.

However – my bonkers theory for the night – what if an “alternative time’ version of the Doctor said “Yes” to Sutekh’s offer of an alliance at that point? And the red TARDIS enveloped by the sand-storm of Sutek, which appears in UNIT’s time window, is that Doctor’s alternative timeline TARDIS. And “our” Doctor’s TARDIS keeps groaning because of the time-paradox of two alternative versions of herself in the same part of the space/time continuum.

The Fourth Doctor explicitly talks about “alternative time” in The Pyramids of Mars, because Sarah-Jane gets scared and asks whether they can’t just leave Sutekh to his own devices and go back to her time of 1980, as they already know Sutehk didn’t destroy the Earth in 1911. The Doctor shows her Earth in 1980 if they just scarper – and it’s a howling void. He explains to her that there are “alternative times”. This is exactly what the Doctor shows to Ruby to explain how Maestro’s rampage, if unchecked, would devastate the London of Ruby’s original time-line.

Incidentally, it’s Ruby who walks back into the room immediately after Kate’s line “A chrysalis doesn’t know it’s a butterfly. A phoenix is just a bird until it burns” and the butterfly mention ties in with our previous discussions about the importance of the butterfly effect this season.

I don’t know how far into the Ancient Egyptian Set mythos RTD2 is going, but Isis was the mother of Horus, the one who eventually defeats Set.  Red is a colour strongly associated with Isis, i.e., Ruby. So maybe Ruby’s mother (Isis) deposited Ruby (Horus) where she needed to be to keep her safe, and also positioned her to be able to defeat the Sutekh/ Alternative-Time Doctor Alliance.

I could not get my head round the idea that the Doctor knows he hasn’t had children yet, therefore Gatwa Doctor or a future Doctor must have deposited his grandchild Susan with the First Doctor – for some unknown reason choosing to deposit her backwards in his own timestream. Maybe the Doctor has a circular rather than a linear relationship to time, and at some point a future incarnation of his regenerates into the Hartnell Doctor and the cycle goes round again.

I also couldn’t get my head round the fact that the Doctor says Ruby’s birth and depositing at the Church on Ruby Road in 2004 is a “fixed point” in time, only to then declare that, because of their interactions with that fixed point (through the UNIT time window) time was being re-written (the video-tape now contains evidence of Sutekh).

These are all the Gods I caught Harriet-Arbinger naming:

The Toymaker the God of Games

Trickster the God of Traps

Maestro the God of Music

Reprobate the God of Spite

Mara the God of Beasts

The Three-Fold Deity Malice and Mischief and Misery

Insensa the God of Disaster

The Mother and Father and Other of All – Sutek

@scaryb

Just saying tho – the CCTV camera was apparently roughly 66 meters away from the church… in other words, about 73 yards!

Oooh nice spot.

[Devilishrobby @devilishrobby]

@ps1l0v3y0u apparently it came from a RTD interview in a Radio Times interview quoted in Screen Rant article about morris only being a temporary replacement. It may have been because the actress was filming a part in Renegade Nel though I can’t see any confirmation of the last bit.

 

[Mudlark @mudlark]

That was certainly satisfactorily gripping as a build up to the final episode of the series, and with more than one twist well before the end. I watched the episode this morning on I-player, on the large screen monitor linked to my computer, and I’d intended to watch again this evening when broadcast on TV – but ‘events’, as Harold Macmillan once said, ‘events’. So these are my first, partially processed reactions to that first viewing.

It started out as the story of an investigation into Ruby’s mysterious origins and, as a side issue, an attempt to discover more about the woman whose face has kept cropping up in events seen and unseen by us, and this would have been satisfying enough, but then it turns gradually into a story about possession, both psychic and physical. Firstly the well meaning if slightly nosey neighbour Mrs Flood, called in to look after Cherry Sunday while her daughter is away, turns all sinister and prophetic – and maybe her eventual recognition of a Tardis was after all just the inner possessor breaking through. Then came the reveal that there was more to certain staff of UNIT than was at first apparent; and finally there was  Susan Triad herself, who turned out, after all our speculating, to be a pleasant woman with entirely philanthropic intentions – except that, encysted within that benign caterpillar was, as Kate L-S feared, the germ of a very nasty butterfly.

In a way, I was just a little bit disappointed that it turned out to be Sutekh after all. Set/Sutekh*, as depicted in Egyptian mythology, certainly didn’t have much to recommend him. Originally he seems to have been the younger brother of Horus, later of Osiris, but either way a jealous and spiteful younger brother who tried, in various nasty ways, to get rid of his sibling in order to usurp their power. He wasn’t always regarded in an entirely negative light, but eventually he came  to be seen as the personification of destructive evil and of the arid desert. His problem was that the other gods of the pantheon were always more powerful than he and they prevailed – just as the fertile Nile valley prevails against the surrounding desert, so I find myself not entirely convinced when he is touted as the Lord of Death and the Ultimate enemy. That’s the problem with Ultimate Enemies; they tend never to be as terrible or invincible as they wish to present themselves.

* According to my reference book on mythologies, Sutekh was originally a god of the Hyksos pharaohs – incomers to Egypt, possibly of Canaanite origin – but became identified with the Egyptian god Set, so presumably the two had much in common.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@juniperfish

The Mara… always wanted to see a full blown bad-assed Mara empire. So cool sounding, so poorly realised for 5, alas. Though Dukkha, Anatta and Annica were wonderfully creepy; Anatta and Annica were also intent on playing a game, so much so that they refused to acknowledge Tegan’s existence.

Surely, The Doctor is The Trickster? Or will that be REG (from Rogue’s scan)

The Eye of Horus in PoM would appear to be an enormous ruby.

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@miapatrick  @thane16  @bunface

Early in the comments you were discussing the newly and overtly empathic and emotional face of the Doctor. For what its’s worth, I’ve been seeing this as a result of the bi-generation.  What was left of the accumulated trauma and guilt carried over from the Time War and other events and losses, together with all the resulting inhibitions, were left for the 14th Doctor to sort out in his retirement, free to attend to his own needs. The 15th Doctor is equally liberated, uninhibited and free to show his real feelings.

The vanity of the Doctor was also mentioned. I’m not sure that there is any vanity, in fact, but there certainly are occasional flashes of Time Lord arrogance. He knows he is fallible – he’s been faced with his own fallibility often enough – but he also cannot help being conscious of his intellectual superiority and greater store of knowledge. The 12th Doctor called us earthlings ‘pudding brains’, after all. That arrogance, to his credit, it is generally supressed, but it tends to surface when things get to a critical stage and he has to take command. I’m reminded of the scenes in Midnight where everyone is panicking At one point someone challenges him, saying , ‘Oh, so like you’re so special’, to which the Doctor replies, ‘As it happens, yes, I am’. Then, later, when someone else asks, ‘But how did you know what to do?’ he snaps back, ‘Because I’m clever’.

[Dr. Pepper-Bean @dr-pepper-bean]

Is the Doctor supposed to be the hero or the villain of this show?  I ask because, so many times this season, he’s either been shown to be the cause of the problem in many of the episodes, or someone else solves the problem for him.  In this episode he recklessly caused Colonel Childozie’s death, and it’s also implied that he’s the one who brought Sutekh back by insisting on using the Time Window.

When this is over, he should be punished.

 

[syzygy @thane16]

@scaryb @juniperfish @mudlark et. al.

Yes, this is juicy! ScaryB, yes, something is very odd about Ruby -Maestro says “she has music hidden in her soul…. This creature is VERY wrong. And HE can’t have been there that night!”
@unitpicker “she could of course be the real Susan.” Oh yes! That’s most intriguing.

Juniper -yes, me too. How can the fixed point suddenly change ? Perhaps this particular baddie can alter … a point so it’s not…. fixed…..?

[syzygy @thane16]

@juniperfish I like it! “ That in an alternative universe the Doctor said yes.”

ooh, yes, I think you’re onto something here. The TARDIS groaning & the fact we have STRIAD/Sutehk appearing everywhere (& in places we haven’t specifically seen) Ruby & Doctor travelled in the universe.

That we have 2 TARDIS perhaps one is an Alt reality where the Doctor feels he must say “yes” the result of which are the odd tales; the similar stories where Ruby is shown a burning planet from a spaceship calling her mother just like Rose did in her second episode in 2005 etc etc.

The second Tardis (hence what you said about the groans, @juniperfish ) may be used to fling Sutehk into a time wilderness via another Time Window with Mrs Flood’s help? Who could be Susan?  @unitpicker

So Ruby (Horus) is the daughter of ….a certain wolf ….? I like how Ruby & Rose are similar….

That Susan’s name is quite ancient, meaning Lily of the Valley…. (THAT valley). A place not far from a river which floods….

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@juniperfish

A cracker of a post! I had forgotten all the names that Harriet Arbinger had listed (also seems very unfair in a story involving gods that some people (like Harriet) have had their humanity (as well as their lives) stripped away. Also agree with a point made upstream that the site seems really energized in a way we haven’t seen for some time.

Now off to re-watch.

[syzygy @thane16]

@dr-pepper-bean

I don’t think the Dr needs to be punished. Since 2005 the Dr has carried a burden associated with this work, with his name. We know he’s saved countless billions.

I’ve noticed we’ve moved away from the Dr being the sole saviour, particularly since the Moffat era & into Chibnall’s, the ‘companions’ have had to solve their planet’s problems -whether on the moon, or where Rory was the boy who waited; where Clara survives in between her penultimate & final heartbeats… & where Yaz walked earth alone for decades, over a century ago.

I think it’s time that the Doctor isn’t our only saviour anymore.

[Dr. Pepper-Bean @dr-pepper-bean]

@syzygy, I agree that the Doctor doesn’t need to be the sole saviour, but that doesn’t mean he needs to be as weak and feckless as he’s been portrayed this season. In this latest episode he’s clearly responsible for reckless homicide.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@thane16, @dr-pepper-bean,

I tend to think you are both right. Yes, the Doctor has long ceased to be the magical solution to all of humanity’s problems. Or even the problems of non-humans. And the limits on the Doctor’s ability to solve the problems of others goes back a long way. The Pertwee Doctor had to witness (impotently) the Brigadier senselessly blowing up the undersea home of the Silurians. On the other hand, when the current Doctor punches the metal door in impotent rage over the death of Col. Childozie, it is clearly because he recognizes his role in the colonel’s death.

But I think that what the show did back in the days of Pertwee, or today, is to force us to think about these very questions. I think that is what makes Doctor Who such a special show.

 

[bunface @bunface]

@juniperfish

Agree with blenkinsop, a cracking post! 💫Totally won over by your good/bad divergence theory. Everything has been doubled, tripled multiplied… It has to be.

Incidentally, it’s Ruby who walks back into the room immediately after Kate’s line “A chrysalis doesn’t know it’s a butterfly. A phoenix is just a bird until it burns” and the butterfly mention ties in with our previous discussions about the importance of the butterfly effect this season.

Yes, as someone else said, it also raises Ruby’s supernaturalness, our previous changeling/faery theory. The prehistoric butterfly Ruby is the true creature?

I still think the Phoenix ref. might relate to the Doctor, though, with a bearing on the so far controversial writing of his new iteration, whether we see that as a positive move away from hero/god/saviour status towards a more modest cog in a community of diverse human and non-human collaborators – which is what we got here, with the Doctor having the final but (as others point out above) fatal say in how things turn out – or towards a reinvention that combines the vulnerable and emotionally expressive Gatwa with what has gone before.

There’s been a lot of stress on the Doctor being the same person, deep down, and even here he tells Ruby he changes but is still the same. So I’m still thinking that we are going to see some kind of evolution, the completion of the regeneration that never was, as it were…

Now I don’t read up on stuff because I have to keep a clear head, so I’ve no idea whether anything’s been said on the matter, but is it possible that 14 is waiting in the wings, all oncoming storm and still got it energy? Maybe it’s me being bothered that he’s sitting around all untidy only for Disney to put him to work in a spin off, but I’d be quite happy to see him come back in part two, in order to literally join forces with his other half and in the process create a whole other Doctor who can do it all – the heroics and the crying – with equal confidence.

I also see it because the room in this ep – and the hallmark of the show since always? – is about diversity, and for Gatwa to absorb Old White Guy Tennant would complete the embodiment of that project, meaning the Doctor was male/female, black/white, young/old and if he loses his sight (literally or metaphorically, as has been mentioned) able-bodied/disabled. Not to mention alien/honorary or literally human. If the show is to be truly inclusive, it has to include the old white guy figure who has been put out to pasture. He can’t be forgotten about as we move into the new woke era. Real love means absorbing and acknowledging/using our history, even if it now feels outdated.

So then I wonder, if that happened, would Gatwa’s costume finally settle? Maybe a nice fluorescent orange unisex boiler suit?! Yes!!!

OR…

could The Twist be that actually Gatwa is leaving, to be replaced by a mixed race actor??? 😱

Oh gosh, who would that be?

 

[bunface @bunface]

Surely, The Doctor is The Trickster? 

👍

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@blenkinsopthebrave @thane16 @dr-pepper-bean

Yes, the Doctor often regrets:

13… 13 is obviously difficult.

12 couldn’t save Bill and nearly refused to regenerate;

11 was devastated to be lose Amy and Rory to the Weeping Angels and sulked in Victorian London for years.
<p style=”text-align: left;”>9 & 10 might seem quite ruthless but that’s fall out from The Time War, the biggest regret of all time. 10 had real issues… more of that to come.</p>
8 regretted so much he drank Karn’s best bosh to become John Hurt.

7 may have lived happily in Perivale with Ace. Until the call came from Skaro. A storm was brewing, but good for him.

6 is controversial but his only defence for the appalling fate of Peri (anyway you look at it) was to blame the Time Lords. If you think 15 is weak, Pepper Bean, check out 5… though that really was a show runner issue.

4’s journey is interesting… he supposedly felt Gallifrey was too dangerous to take Sarah Jane with him. Or perhaps he anticipated a similar reaction from her to Leela, who decided to stay. In fact the writers found it impossible to write for such a strong female lead. Writing problems contributed to 4’s journey but season 18 looks pretty regretful. He did end up carting Adric about.

3 and the Silurians. 2 and his concern for the obviously traumatised Victoria , and as it emerged his fear of The Time Lords.

We can’t really judge 1’s reaction to the deaths of Katarina or Sarah Kingdom but it seems to have deeply disturbed him.

Maybe 15 has been game playing… The real struggle lies elsewhere.

Does 14 regret? Where is 14? You wanted to find a second tardis…

 

 

[bunface @bunface]

Maybe the Doctor has a circular rather than a linear relationship to time, and at some point a future incarnation of his regenerates into the Hartnell Doctor and the cycle goes round again.

@juniperfish

Well, I think if RTD hasn’t thought of that, he jolly well should.

Only it’s a bit like a sourdough starter, where it’s essentially the same but with all the accrued time it can’t help producing a slightly different-tasting loaf.

I love David Bradley as One, that would be great. Fun to think of new actors playing old Doctors!

Tennant will still be 10/14/20(?) though… He’s got a pact in blood with RTD.

[syzygy @thane16]

@bunface I think RTD may have suggested that 14’s run has effectively ended -as Tom’s Doctor is a curator, so David’s Doctor is pottering in Donna’s garden…However like Moffat and the Doctor, I’m sure RTD fibs too. He could indeed return but it would be well hidden from audiences until a proper reveal.

Now, did Gatwa’s Doctor ask Rose “how is your UNCLE!?” Is he Uncle/Doctor or was there a different gent in the house? Or did I miss something ? Perhaps @mudlark or @blenkinsopthebrave would know, too….

However @bunface I get what you’re saying:

“real love means absorbing and  acknowledging our history.”

Although the concept “woke” always worries me…

@ps1l0v3y0u thank you for the info about all the other Doctors -I know so little before The Gap though as a child Pertwee was my Doctor. The arch, aristocratic & at times cynical Doctor was what I expected from Who aged 6-10. 🤔😀

Puro

[syzygy @thane16]

It’s interesting re-reading comments on 73 yards — @wolvesarerunning “everyone who meets Spooky Ruby manifests that original loss” is most interesting considering the recent episode.

@juniperfish also “when the Doctor has to restore the timeline …Ruby will have to vanish like the changeling she is- back into faerieland.”

Now, considering the theory there might be 2 Tardis’ and possibly 2 Doctors -one who is imprisoned by Sutehk or says “yes” & the other moving thru time to restore “normality,” it’s possible Ruby will vanish temporarily but somehow the Doctor ensures her survival/arrival at the correct time.

If the Doctor’s memory is changing regarding the Church on Ruby Road, & IF we assume he will need to protect & restore Ruby at a future point, is the person who deposits baby Ruby somebody other than her mother? Is it a Time Lord from a different time line…(perhaps no paradox in this instance? 1. Or will he brave the paradox?)

In 73 Yards the Doctor vanished. Did he do so because of the broken circle, significant because of what 14 said at the end of the universe, effectively ending his own time line when circle-stepping  OR is he disappearing to fix the mess created by Sutehk?

1. Given how RTD respects a paradox I don’t think the Doctor reappears on Ruby Road… But I do wonder WHO deposits baby Ruby. Why is she/he cloaked? Unless hiding is paramount (it’s not 1978/67 but 2004).

[bunface @bunface]

@thane16

think RTD may have suggested that 14’s run has effectively ended -as Tom’s Doctor is a curator, so David’s Doctor is pottering in Donna’s garden…However like Moffat and the Doctor, I’m sure RTD fibs too. He could indeed return but it would be well hidden from audiences until a proper reveal.

Oh well, I had fun imagining it. And who’s also to say Tennant can let go? Right now he’s probably on zoom going ‘there’s still a week to reshoot! I’ve got this great idea about me being absorbed into Ncuti, like a reverse polarity regenerational timey wimey thing…’

(Hi David…)

 

Now, did Gatwa’s Doctor ask Rose “how is your UNCLE!?” Is he Uncle/Doctor or was there a different gent in the house? Or did I miss something ?

Yeah, I think he meant the old guy! Missed that, so it’s covered. 😣

Thanks for the setting straight! (*Lying*)

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@thane16

I remember 3 as being mocked by those who missed 2 and being terrified by the 66-69 shows. Does the wiping of 2’s best adventures damage the Troughton era or simply mean that we’re unable to laugh cruelly at the limitations of sixties special effects? Season 7 was a huge step up in production values but all the gimicks (introduced to compensate for the grounded tardis) were a bit much. It wasn’t exactly Scrappy Doo against Uncle Scooby, but still more as less.

Also, 3 strikes me as the least regretful Doctor… remember episode 6 of Inferno? Bye Alt Liz. Sorry. Cue armageddon.

The hooded figure? A hood dies its job.River wore a big hood in Husbands, and Skeletor Loon rocked a hoodie in the End of Time. Vashtra likes a hoodie or a veil too, I think? But the figure, whoever it is, points to the Doctor, past the Doctor, at where the second Tardis will be, someone who knows it will be there before they go. Someone who observed the Time Window?

I repeat: 14 has his own Tardis. But what if his face has changed already? Why the bigeneration? Oh they’re all bigenerations. Misdirection. That was for a reason and not just that RTD needed to lift the show out of the grave. There has been a bigeneration mentioned in the show before, but with a different ‘-ation’ word. You all know what I’m on about.

Mrs Flood… if she is emblematic of River in a virtual reality, as I’m tempted to think… I’m not sure how this would work. Virtual River from The Library wouldn’t be confused at all, but Amy’s daughter MIGHT only know about the appearance of the Tardis from Melody onwards, because Amelia described it to her.

We think Kovarian must have told Melody where to find her adolescent parents but we don’t know that. Her and Amy’s knowledge of the Doctor at that time seemed disturbingly comprehensive; as far as Amelia was concerned 11 appeared and then vanished again, didn’t he? Was Amy’s obsession with the Doctor assisted by Melody? We actually have no causal link between the 1969 regeneration and Melody. Just one event preceding the other. Conversely, Melody is still an ickle girl in say 2000… 30 years later!

In other words there MUST have been another River regeneration. Question is, was time travel also involved?

[Author]

Posts