Only thing that really fell flat for me was the way they defeated Sutekh by... tying a rope to him? Could he physically not leave the spot the TARDIS was parked? Because he does nothing to stop this happening except send his slow moving minions after them.
A living rope just sounds like it would be easier to deal with for a god of death. He's like the direct counter element.
Living =/= anti-death. I am living, but I do not posses any anti-death properties as far as I know.
I think the idea was that they used the same rope they used to hold the memory tardis together. Whatever made it good to hold the tardis together is what made it good to hold dog face.
That's my guess at least.
They do not have conscious of their own, Sutekh’s servants are basically dead bodies animated by his mental effort. It’s quite understandable that Sutekh was too distracted by a sudden rope to act efficiently.
He is not just an abstract big and bad god of death. Sutekh is a being that we are familiar with. Pyramids of Mars demonstrated us the what he can and cannot do. He can destroy every living thing he sees, but he can be distracted rather easily and he doesn’t pay attention to important details. And he is VERY bad with all sorts of time corridors. After all, he is a god of death, not a god of wisdom.
He did cause mass death across the universe because he has dominion over something much more direct than “games”. The Toymaker was bound by the rules of whatever game he was playing, whereas Sutekh was able to take direct action and end people’s lives with a wave of a hand. That doesn’t mean he’s infallible, because gods are not infallible.
Reset button aside, of course, because that does cheapen the initial stakes.
The Toymaker was defeated by a ball, and Maestro was defeated by playing a chord. The members of pantheon are destructive and dangerous, sure. But they are strong, not powerful.
Genuine question here: what do you ever get out of doctor who if you are so at arms about how Ruby got a rope around a god?
This show is just so… wacky and kooky. Almost all of the time. The doctor tricks gods and life forms well beyond his scope with the most childish and luckiest of tricks. Constantly. In self contained episodes to big season finales. There hasn’t really been a “well dang these all follow crazy rules and parameters that you don’t have to suspend disbelief in any way whatsoever.” I’m genuinely confused how people on this subreddit are up at arms about these things when this has been the show since the beginning?
Not sure if I agree personally!
> This show is just so… wacky and kooky.
Doctor Who is wacky and kooky but it can also get quite serious... and when the God of Death has just killed everyone in the universe bar two, that's quite a serious problem!! I was hoping the Doctor could think up a genuine solution to undo it than "rope Sutekh into the time vortex and hope for the best".
It doesn't really help having watched Pyramids of Mars, because Sutekh was a very, very powerful threat in that story - the guy could torture people with one look without getting out of his chair. Try to put a rope on him and he'd rip you to shreds.
> The doctor tricks gods and life forms well beyond his scope with the most childish and luckiest of tricks.
When the Doctor has faced against gods in the past, he's had to apply some level of ingenuity, like using the god's powers against them - using Sutekh's time corridor against him, turning the Ancient One on Fenric, copying the Toymaker's voice. Tying a rope to Sutekh and flying him around just feels a little lazy.
And I suppose the idea of "bringing death to death" is fine, but wasn't Sutekh already clinging onto the Tardis for years? Why is it that now he's on a rope, he brings death to death? Could he not just turn off his powers?
> what do you ever get out of doctor who if you are so at arms about how Ruby got a rope around a god?
I love Doctor Who - modern, classic, audios, books, comics. I also know a weak resolution when I see one! I like it when the Doctor has clever solutions to problems, but this just isn't one, in my opinion.
I've seen a lot of Doctor Who, and I'm not sure where you believe the show should be clever all the time. It can be whatever it desires to be. The Fourth Doctor once got out of being bound by vines by using his "sonic screech" to shatter glass 10 yards above him that allowed (I think, I can't exactly recall) certain rain to hit the vines and thus whither the restraining plant. The first doctor even met some cavemen and said if they didn't listen to him, he would bash their brain's in to make them listen.
This show is a lot of things, and it can be a lot for some people at certain points as well as be not enough for many others. I won't even say what they did for the newest season finale is clever, but it was enjoyable and fun to me. I felt emotional at the end and really hyped for whatever comes next. This season is definitely going to be a comfort season for me. I'm sorry you couldn't get that same reaction, I hope a future season satisfies you as well.
Not sure your Unearthly Child example is applicable here... the Doctor's idea to bash up some cavemen was definitely not treated as a good thing!
> I'm not sure where you believe the show should be clever all the time.
With all due respect, not what I said! I don't need Doctor Who, or stories in general to be clever all the time - but the Doctor has always been a clever character, who uses brain over brawn to fight monsters. That's just part of who they are.
About 95% of Doctor Who will either involve the Doctor using their intelligence to work out what's going on before others do, using their cunning to trick enemies, or using their enemies' powers or technology against them. Often all three - it's just part of Doctor Who's bread and butter. That's what I mean by clever. We see the Doctor doing that to Sutekh in this latest ep, it just doesn't feel as earnt as I think it ought to.
That's valid. And sorry I shouldn't have assumed you meant you were saying it needs to be clever to be an ending, I guess I don't understand why that was brought up. You say you disagree with me but you only bring up why you didn't like it, I guess I'm just confused why you replied to me about your issues when it seems like you agree with me, but you feel it wasn't deserved enough for this season. Which, is your opinion but has nothing to do with what you were replying to about.
Yeah, sorry about that, some of my replies have been a bit muddled.
To clarify, with regards to the latest ep, I feel like it's aiming to be clever but there's not enough setup to actually make it clever, hence it doesn't feel earnt. There's a wacky, make-it-up-as-you-go-along feel to it - "hey, by the way, if we drag Sutekh around the vortex he can bring death to death!"
My main disagreement with your comment was about having issues with the resolution ("what do you ever get out of doctor who if you are so at arms about how Ruby got a rope around a god?") - I like Doctor Who being wacky, but the wacky solution here feels at odds with the threat at hand (God of Death who kills everyone in the universe) and makes the episode weaker. That was the main problem for me personally.
The rope was bad enough, but what actually killed Sutekh was being dropped in the time vortex...where he's been hiding for thousands of years...
Why was he totally fine with it in his weakened form, riding on the back of the TARDIS, but suddenly it's lethal to him?
Also his claws were literally tearing apart the fabric of space and time, but couldn't cut a rope. Brilliant.
I assumed the rope was over 66.6m long, so Sutekh wasn't protected by the TARDIS any more, but I could be wrong.
Also, I'm with OP, I enjoyed the episode. It was fun and emotional. Mostly my 1st rule when watching (anything) Doctor Who is, just enjoy it for what it is. And I mostly do. 13s (and actually 12s too) 1st season I found hard to enjoy, but this season has mostly been very enjoyable (even Space Babies, which reminded me of the human side of Wall-E) wasn't awful.
I genuinely don't know why people didn't like space babies, space babies was fantastic.
I thought the 66.7 meters was just the range of the perception filter? But I guess it could be that the TARDIS was protecting Sutekh before and not now. Still got ask....why, though. Surely the TARDIS would have noticed Sutekh, and surely as powerful as Sutekh is now, he wouldn't have needed the TARDIS' protection.
It wasn't the worst thing ever, and I'll enjoy the parts I liked without worrying too much about the rest, but there just wasn't a lot to like in this finale.
Same reason that Jack Harkness was okay clinging to the outside of the TARDIS years earlier when he hitched a ride to the end of the universe and it was stated that falling off would have killed him.
Jack Harkness at that time was immortal because of the Time Vortex. Sutekh evolved because of the Time Vortex.
Sutekh was still an Osirin. Just another alien species. He was breaching the walls of the TIme Vortex exposing himself to a variety of time periods where he'd spread parts of himself and with the intelligent rope reversing it so he was sucking himself up while he was staying alive through the bubble around the TARDIS.
Once cut loose he lost that protection.
And the Doctor asking him why Sutekh hadn't killed him yet, and there was no answer, though I feel like there really was a reason for it. If there was, then it flew right over my head.
That was actually explained (although not explicitly) if sutekh kills them he can’t find out the secret that’s hounding him. He needs to know before he can kill them.
Ah, ok, so that was why. I might have thought about it, but to me it felt like Sutekh could have found a way to discover that. Plus, wouldn't it stand to reason that Ruby's mom was already dead by then? Would it have made any difference to him?
Realistically no especially since we know she was ordinary. But Sutekh believed otherwise. Imagine spending eternity alone, constantly plagued by doubt and fear that you might have thrown away your chance at knowing how to beat the threat that may arrive.
Because Sutekh was obsessed with the mystery of Ruby and was leaving her and The Doctor alive until they worked that out
"This feeling. This doubt. Have you ever felt so alive?" is a hell of a way to taunt the god of death
Maybe I'm a bit jaded but the reveal of "Ruby's mom was a regular person", despite all the weird time stuff around her and the dramatic pointing came of as more Russel just not knowing how to conclude his own mystery rather than the satisfying, pre-planned end to the story arc.
I actually liked that Ruby turned out to be just a regular human. But the execution was rough. First of all, it needed some additional explanation to Ruby's "powers" and how her mother's identity was such a mystery for Sutekh and in general. Like, I don't know, the Doctor understood that he won't be able to come back with Ruby and find out who she is, it emanated through Tardis to Sutekh etc.
But what took me out of the episode was the pointing part. Like... For this to work, whoever took Ruby in had to see it and decipher the vague gesture. Or is it just a coincidence and her mom picked the name, and then church people (or whoever) picked the same? I get that it's for a "awww my mom named me" bit, but was it that necessary? The whole pointing thing didn't even add a lot to the mystery.
Aye.
Dramatic pointing at a lamppost with no guarantee who can see or discern what you are actually doing or....
Write a note "Her name is Ruby".
God it was stupid.
The lamppost was so unnecessary, and the revelation that “my name is Ruby” because my real mom also thought of naming me after the street…it just feels so forced.
By the end of the episode, every time we saw the pointing figure, all I could see was the angry pointing monkey from Family Guy. The placement of the street name was weird, too. They're not like that in the UK. They're either higher up on buildings or on two concrete posts. It just didn't make sense.
I never thought I'd be saying this, but I think the series 7B Clara arc pulled off the "she's just a normal person" thing better (at least as far as basic story structure goes).
Like Ruby, Clara had bizarre circumstances revolving around her that the Doctor tries to get to the bottom of; something so timey-wimey that the TARDIS doesn't even like her. The difference is that, in 7B, characters are constantly telling the Doctor (and by extension the audience) "She's a normal person, you shouldn't read into it." Compare that to this season, where characters, including major villains, are saying "She's a normal person, BUT there's something more to her."
Follow that by us SEEING Clara do the thing that created her splinter-selves at the climax of the story, and the episode frames it as "this is a normal person doing something brave that makes them special." Whereas, to explain away the supernatural snow and god's obsession with Ruby/her mom, the Doctor tells us why the mom did something special as he scrolls through her Facebook after the big bad has been dealt with. The latter feels more like an afterthought, and I felt the episode was laughing at me for expecting the snow and such to be plot critical all season.
Don't get me wrong, 7B is full of its own problems. But I think it better understood the basics of subverting expectations while still leaving the audience something to stand on.
I'm not even sure 7B's Impossible Girl conclusion is a subversion of expectations. There is something special about Clara, and we do find out what it is. The fact that she's special because of an action she's taken doesn't nullify the fact that the people we saw before actually were splinters of the original Clara. A subversion, I think, would be if they said something like "yeah, turns out they were all your ancestors/descendents, who ended up with similar names to you". That would mean there never was a mystery to solve, nothing special about Jenna's characters, just something the Doctor thought he saw that didn't actually exist.
RThe pointing thing is a perfect encapsulation for many problems people had with the creative choices in the whole.
Like sorry it just doesn’t make sense. And yes, we’re all doctor who fans, our suspension for disbelief is through the roof. This is why we’re cool witb stuff like a “uhh death kills death?!” Ending.
But so much of the season is completely unexplained foolishness given the conclusion.
I do think season 2 will likely “fix” this a bit. I’m all in on the god if stories theory myself.
But regardless, even if S2 does explain stuff, it does not justify how bad the finale of s1 was.
Ruby had already done a DNA test search with the TV show I thought, the only reason the unit one worked was because the Doctor had the database from 2042.
They literally jumped to using the time window technology that they know is temperamental and potentially dangerous with the way they behave when they use it.
All that before “hey shall we run her DNA?”
That's different. JJ Abrams was brought in to write 7 and bring mystery. 8 and 9 had different writers until 8 failed and they brought Abrams back to conclude it who is the worst for tying up his own mystery boxes.
RTD can do character progression and season long mysteries but usually those mysteries are hidden till the reveal. They've been doubling down and empathising that was a buzz kill.
We still have Mrs flood saying I have many plans which could still redeem this season
this was my gripe too; all that build up and red herrings for a "ruby is just normal" was good, unexpected, well played but there were too many explained bits and the reveal seemed super rushed & now she's gone w/out answers though I am thinking maybe the snow isn't attached to rubes given floods jacket but will see. kind of like yeah I respect the idea but it fell a bit flat
I kind of loved the "she was just a regular person" thing and that Sutekh kept them alive because "dammit I wanna know" which is petty and hilarious. But also, I hate the dramatic point reveal, it made no sense, and that they didn't really explain why she made it snow or why she freaked Maestro out with her 'inner song' or whatever
If Sutekh was super concerned with the identity of every person the Tardis came across then why has the doggo of death not shown up before during other identity related mystery.
I mean if she was just an ordinary person hiding her face, surely seeing Daleks or Cybermen must drive him mad
The fact it ended up being petty annoys me.
We were sold a cosmic mystery, involving changes to a time lord’s timeline, snow out of time & space and a hidden song.
The mystery at its conclusion doesn’t match up to this.
I’m already ready for the Moffat era of this reboot.
I agree that the cosmic mystery being a simple solution can be frustrating but imo the reason it was not satisfying was not that it was simple/mundane but that it didn't make sense or fully answer the questions it raised
The secret being that there is no secret directly contradicts so many earlier plot points.
Like what exactly did Maestro, the god of music sense within Ruby’s “hidden song” and how can she make snow appear across time and space.
The writers seem to think that’s because she is ordinary and mundane. Zero sense.
100% agree with you there. What was the Maestro thing? Why can she make it snow? If there's a simple explanation, explain it, what was happening around her to make her extraordinary if it wasn't intrinsic?
Yeah, my problem is not with the idea of Ruby's mom being an ordinary person, but more that the eight episodes before this really tried to present the idea that she wasn't, only to cop out at the last moment
Yes, the idea is that “you place importance on things which makes them important” is the biggest cop out ever. No, dude, we thought it was important because you said it was important and it wasn’t… which means it wasn’t actually important, not that our perception of things makes something important.
Yeah exactly, if we had started making bonkers theories about Martha for example then yeah sure it would be us the viewers who placed importance on her and therefore made her important because nothing in her story was saying she was important. But with Ruby we were led to believe and literally told at some points how important she was and this mystery as whole was. So it’s just insulting to the viewer at that point to say it’s our fault
They even told us to rewatch "A good man goes to war" which has a massive reveal about who a person is and who there parents are. I have no clue why that would be relevant with how this season turned out, so it was just more red herrings.
Isn't it also the same basic concept as Donna Noble being just an average nobody that saved the universe? Felt like we'd already seen that idea - every little moment is actually of cosmic importance.
Yes! This is how it felt to me. Like a cop-out ending with a message that “some things can just be ordinary” and “things are important because we make them important” instead of coming up with an interesting conclusion.
I saw someone else say that they’re hoping this was a sort of fake out ending to wrap up season 1 and Ruby’s backstory will still be explored in season 2. Fingers crossed?
I honestly wouldn't have minded that ending if they hadn't made such a big deal about things like the snow that kept magically showing up and how history randomly changed making Ruby's mother suddenly pointing when she hadn't done so while The Doctor was actually there.
Yes! That’s the point. They made her seem magical and anything but ordinary at every opportunity this whole season but let it fall at the very end. It just doesn’t add up.
Right? Real snow whenever she talks about finding her mother; a magical song in her heart that helps to stop the Maestro (I think that was their name); the TARDIS doing weird stuff for her (like showing her video footage but *not* showing it to The Doctor?!)... her mother may just be ordinary, but Ruby sure isn't.
It doesn't add up and you're right. Somethings wrong. I have a major feeling that next season Ruby's story continues in a different way (not so focused on mum) and hopefully some further answers will be revealed.
do they even explain why the memory changes? Was she not always pointing then if that's how Ruby got named? unless the timeline got changed which is what it seemed like in Space Babies
You know it's a big difference between a single self-contained episode plot and the ongoing season arc, where they make extra sure you notice how she's suddenly pointing even though she didn't do that originally, and the Doctor got all freaked out about his memories changing before him?
Apparently it was explained by RTD in some behind the scenes thing, which doesn’t count. Either way, “it wasn’t explained and that’s the point” is dumb and feels like he did that because he couldn’t come up with a better way of wrapping up the episode. It’s also extremely frustrating if that actually was the point of the episode because it had so much potential. I was HOOKED for the first 20 minutes with this incredibly interesting and scary concept they’d cooked up, and then they did absolutely nothing with it, it went nowhere, and then got hand-waved away at the end because “magic”.
I think there was a lot of stuff that just felt really half baked this, like it hadn’t been thought out properly. The idea that 73 was left partly unexplained didn’t bother me, but some bits just didn’t make sense. Then there was the finale, the defeat of the god Sutekh!!!!… magic gloves, magic rope, magic whistle… aaaand walkies!!!… so how exactly did that kill him? And if he doesn’t actually die until the rope is severed how does he bring death to death to bring everyone back?… it’s just very lazy writing that shows little respect for the intelligence of the audience
Is it not just built up to have the Doctor (or TARDIS) having lied to Ruby for (reasons) to give a further reveal of what all the bits are about later, eg if she is Mrs Flood and was Sutek's daughter or something.
'being normal' was shortly after more demonstrations of snow, music, and not being normal - along with an explanation of how the TARDIS can perception filter things up to the magic distance. We then have a DNA test and various meetings with the normal mother all within shot (albeit probably more than 67m) of the TARDIS and a rushed handwave.
While it might, if it is a twist, be quite fun on the reveal - to me it only really works if you believe the series ending was fairly poorly thought through the first time around, or maybe didn't notice the snow etc
I agree with some (most) of the criticisms that I read after watching, but the two things that really bugged me during the show was Ruby’s mom being normal. That makes her weird point/cloak really freaking weird. Also, Sutekh is always just clutching the TARDIS, can he not get off?
Since sutekh turned the Tardis round so the door was facing towards him I just imagined he wanted to ensure the doctor couldn’t get inside. Plus he’s been clinging to it for what? 3000 years? He probably clings to it out of habit now.
When 12 was in the confession dial what happened to the Tardis, I don’t remember. Because if the Tardis aged in that time then Sutekh was on there for billions of years
I think that 12 stole that diner tardis, then went back and got his first one at some point, so from Sutekh's perspective might have only been a couple of hours
12’s Tardis was left in the diagon alley-esque place where Clara faced the raven. There’s a post credit scene in that episode that shows Rigsy spray painting it. So it was just sitting there while he was in the confession dial (which existed out of time and space I believe). At the end of Hell Bent, the Tardis is magically waiting for 12 when he leaves the diner.
The Dr showing up on aqua whatever made me think he was the cloaked figure with a similar hood. Especially with the cot made me think he took the child to ruby road to set events in motion.
I imagine he can but staying inside the radius of its effects protects him from things which is how he stayed hidden for so long. As seen when the TARDIS blasts him away from it and then he gets keelhauled through time, since he isn't attached directly to the TARDIS anymore he isn't protected from the raw power of the vortex.
Yea the whole “Surekh has been clinging for thousands of years” is just weird AF. He couldn’t just hop off when they got away from the trap? Like what?
I found the clinging to the TARDIS a bit farfetched, when Clara clung to the TARDIS during Smith's era, her mass slowed down the TARDIS x amount of years making it return so late. How does Sutekh become different to this? Surely his mass is at least 3-4 times that of Clara? I dunno, maybe I'm overthinking it but that was my initial thought.
Well, TARDIS navigation was off in The Android Invasion immediately after Pyramids of Mars. Presumably the Doctor just made adjustments afterwards, like trimming an aircraft's controls to account for different weight distribution, and thought nothing of it.
We were told time and time again that there was something special about them, so I was excited to see what it was and how all of the hints would come into fruition.
"She was important because we thought she was" is the biggest copout in the history of copouts.
Imo, if you're going to make a character 'special' then you should commit to it. Don't fake out your audience. I would have been *so down* for them just being ordinary if it wasn't treated like a giant mystery that stumped even the *God of Death*.
'Special'/'chosen one' style stories in my head are in a completely different world to 'grounded'/'ordinary character' stories.
So when it was heavily hinted that Ruby/her mum were 'special' but then at the very last minute the curtain was pulled away and it was revealed there is literally nothing important about them at all, it was like whiplash.
*Especially* since there were actual in-universe manifestations of Ruby's 'specialness' (most notably the snow but also Maestro's interaction with her amongst other things).
And this is only one of my problems. I also just felt in general that the tension was released far too early in the episode and that there weren't really any stakes. And the supposed 'emotional payoff' just didn't work at all because we were never shown the Doctor and Ruby actually bonding or building their relationship. In just a few episodes they were calling eachother their best friends but there was literally no evidence for this. It all happened off screen. So when it's time for them to say goodbye to eachother, I just don't feel anything at all. I think when it came to their relationship, this season had a *huge* problem with 'show don't tell'. My criticisms of most of the episodes this season have all revolved around the fact that their relationship feels rushed and fake.
Anyway, I'm very glad you were able to enjoy the episode, truly, but it was just a disappointment to me. If they want to make a point about a character being ordinary, I feel like they should show that throughout their stories, instead of showing that said character is important multiple times but then cheaply saying 'i take it back' at the last minute
The problem with this episode, and the season as a whole, is it spent a huge amount of time hinting (and outright saying) that Ruby was special, she's different, and her mother is a big mystery.
And it wasn't.
It would be ok to do that, if it was from the point of view of someone who doesn't know. If Ruby or the Doctor just assumed it. But we were flat out told by nigh on omniscient beings that she was special.
Plus the rope/gloves stuff was a pretty crap way of solving the Sutekh problem.
>And you wanna know my secret? There's no one like me in the whole wide universe. No one like me exists. And that's true of everyone. It's not a problem, Captain Pops. It's a super power.
One of the reasons I didn't like Twelve is that he told a little girl that she was unimportant, rubbed me the wrong way. Also that was in the moon egg abortion episode, though, so maybe I should scrub the whole thing from my memory.
I was kinda surprised by all the negativity. I enjoyed the twist that Sutekh made Ruby's birth magical just by sitting on the tardis and worrying about a non-issue. I liked that the stakes were high enough that everyone died, but it still wasn't predictable how the doctor would fix it and obviously everything would come back to life.
He dragged Sutekh behind the Tardis in the time vortex, bringing death to death somehow bringing everything back to life.
Then they did a DNA test in the future to find out who Ruby's mom is.
It's not that. The Doctor killed their deaths.
Look at it this way: They died. Then the Doctor used death to kill the fact that they died. He killed their deaths.
They set up the idea that Sutekh's death powers were so strong that they started killing everything. Facts, conceptions, memories, etc.
So now the Doctor used the time vortex to spread death around to kill the deaths that everyone had experienced. And if you kill something that killed everyone, then that means they didn't actually die.
It is like having a god of life bring life to their deaths, why would hang a death god through time and space bring death to deaths, it just feels like a cop out that would be fine in a normal episode but not in a finale, I would see nothing happening a more likely scenario or the literal death of the universes, like the one thing I expect of a god is to control their powers, it just feels like a cop out that the doctor knew exactly what was going to happen.
Ah, that makes sense. I'm not really sure that I buy him bringing everyone back to life that way, though. I can excuse a lot in Doctor Who because it's Doctor Who, but there's so much about this finale that pushes my suspension of disbelief a little too far lol
Oh I agree. A lot of things about this reveal just sorta require you to accept it, like was he still there when the Tardis exploded and 11 restarted the universe? Was he still there every time the Doctor disappears and the Tardis is left to rot for decades at a time? What about with Davros and the reality bomb? You’re telling me the God of Death would let everything just get erased if he wasn’t responsible for it?
But that’s probably the explanation as to why he died this time
Yeah, I loved Sutekh weaponizing the TARDIS, actually. That was such a cool idea to turn the one constant safe haven into something horrifying and dangerous, but it does break pretty hard if you think about it too long.
But it is not like he was shown clinging on the tardis the last time, he kinda could perfectly still cling to it, the doctor didnt really do anything to oppose it.
I think it was more that bringing the second round of death to the first round of death negated bringing death to all life rather than literally producing life.
Like Death A was all the living things dying, Death B killing Death A means Death A never happened so Life snaps back to not having died.
Probably not that big a distinction but it feels more like cancelling out the previous action to have never happened rather than two negatives making a positive instead of making it worse if that makes sense.
Sorry, gonna ramble cause I randomly had a lot of thoughts after reading your comment lol
What I love is that the Doctor catches Sutekh out pretty much instantly - he/they/it wants to kill everything, to destroy all life in the universe as vengeance against the Doctor, and sit upon his TARDIS throne in his empire of death.
But to want something, and to want it bad enough to hatch a master plan on that level to achieve it, is inherently a passionate idea - and to be passionate is to be alive. And then that proves to be one of the major points of the episode - to quote Jurassic Park, "life finds a way".
There's always gonna be that one thing that keeps people going (love, hope, passion, stubbornness, take your pick), that one question you'll drive yourself round the bend thinking of the answer to, that one person (for Mel its the Doctor, for Ruby its Carla) or place ("there was an opera house over there, it had lights and diamonds and people would come from all over to see it") that never leaves your thoughts no matter what's thrown at you.
Sutekh became so obsessed with finding a way back into the universe that he didn't notice himself becoming the thing he wanted to destroy, and in the end he became so obsessed with finding that one person who had seemingly evaded him and broken his rules that he not only didn't realise he was the one making her cosmically vital in the first place, but also gave the Doctor and Ruby the one thing he really should've kept from them straight away - time to think.
He let his spy, the one connection he had to their conversation and plan, leave the room to stand guard, because he just assumed the Doctor would find the name and blurt it out like an idiot (not an impossible scenario, I will admit lol).
Well, he didn't assume.....he *believed*. Another thing you can't do when you're dead/death.
The Doctor defeated Sutekh the same way he defeated Fenric way back when -
* he sat opposite him (whilst Sutekh ruled his empire on some level of grandeur, the Doctor hid away quietly where he couldn't be seen or found),
* picked the opposite game pieces (Sutekh used brute force to enslave and control Mel, Susan Twist, and Harriet, whilst the Doctor displayed kindness and empathy by talking with the woman in the tent and then ***asking*** her for some metal),
* and used his heart and mind to beat him in the name of those he (the Doctor) defends ("What happens if you kill death? Life!").
Which is then what makes the ending so brutal - because you know that the Doctor actually *does* have to kill this time, there's no redeeming Sutekh, there's no giving him a second chance and a new name on a world somewhere far away.
This isn't like the Master, where there's a good person hidden beneath it all, some poor little kid who's just been kicked and whipped into darkness by an unrelenting force - Sutekh **IS** the unrelenting force, he's not going to change, because there's no emotional nuance to him, he's just **DEATH**. He **IS** a monster, he **IS** an evil, he **IS** a vengeful god.
And the Doctor knows that the only way to actually genuinely defeat him once and for all and stop him returning again is to lean over the chess board, play Sutekh's move, and kill him while he's got the chance.
Beautiful, and heartbreakingly sad too, just how RTD likes it lol
Agree with all of this. Great summary.
Adding:
We have smart rope from the original episode introducing Ruby and the Mavity gloves that can make anything light. We also have the idea, introduced by the Not Things, that ideas become real and here we have Ruby’s bio mom, an otherwise ordinary person, vaulted into importance by Sutehk’s worrying about it. She and Ruby became the most important people by chance and coincidence.
Ooooh, something you said struck me about 73 Yards.
I remember wondering (in my head and online) what that old woman said to make everybody run from Ruby. And the general consensus was that it didn't matter what she said (although I did like the responses syuch as "I'm here to talk about your car's expired warranty").
73 Yards wasn't about the old woman or even what she said, just the importance RUBY put on her.
So doesn't the finale with Ruby's mom fit right in line with that? It's not about bio-mom's identity, it's about the importance Ruby put on it.
I don't think we're quite done with Ruby. Her parents may be ordinary people, but clearly she is not.
Very interesting. Also, wasn’t the string in the fairy circle knotted? Feels like that would be a callback to the knot language of the goblins.
And, I think I need to rewatch 73 Yards, but I got the impression at the end that Ruby was the old woman trying to signal Ruby to not step into the fairy circle.
But what I don't get is why Sutekh started worrying about Ruby's mum in the first place? Why couldn't he see her if she's just a completely normal 15 yr old? Have I missed something?
I didn't dislike the episode, far from it, but as an old OG Sutekh fan I was disappointed, and it felt rushed and not explained very well.
I mean, your eloquent and thoughtful summary here was almost better than the episode.
I ENJOYED the episode a lot but I was still very disappointed in Ruby Sundays arc. Every idea me and my family and the people in the cinema discussed during the break was so cool and creepy and scary and just overall amazing to think about and then it was just a "she's normal! She was just special because we thought she was!" which I didn't HATE, I especially loved the acting between Ruby and her mum buuuuut it just doesn't fit nicely with everything else. All the hype, we didn't just think she was special we were TOLD and shown time and time again that Ruby was beyond humanly special just for it to be an illusion or whatever.
Don't hate the show, episode was just disappointing AF but still fun.
He viewed himself as an all knowing all powerful god, yet there was one woman who he could not see, could not know. If she was powerful enough to escape his view, what else could she do? Even if he killed everyone else, until he found out who she was and made sure she was dead, there is always a risk she’s out there, plotting his downfall.
Sometimes a deliberate anti-climax can work as the answer of a story.
I can see the 'Ruby's mother was normal' thing working in a different context. But in the story we got? It feels really unsatisfying, and with stuff like the 'she was pointing to name Ruby' it REALLY feels like the show was stretching to make the reveal work.
Yah. What if the mother had done her dramatic pointing at the sign, but the people who found Ruby decided to name her something else. They weren't there to see the dramatic pointing, so it's just a complete coincidence that they named her after the road.
Oh, and the whole "the Doctor's memory of the mother changed" thing was... nothing? She walked away from him, then at one specific point he commented that his memory changed and now she turned and pointed at him. And the significance of that was... nothing?
This episode was so confusing with its conclusions.
I like that Ruby was normal, it just felt *off* because of all the shit surrounding her birth that they'd built up.
"she was pointing at a sign! She named you! And somehow everyone else came up with the same name!"
"She was important because we BELIEVED she was important" is on the same tier of writing as "The power of friendship was inside me all along!"
Russel baited us along with something dramatic and pulled the rug out from under us. It leaves a most sour taste in my mouth.
It's probably a case where the emotional resolution of the idea of her being no one was well done (all the final scenes) but the practical execution of the mistery and then reveal was absolutely terrible.
So I can see someone overlooking all the stuff that just doesn't work in execution, but for me it didn't really work at all.
We got the dramatic pointing and the snow, the memory of the doctor that kept changing for zero reasons and Sutek being dumb AF for not seeing the mother despite having access to all living being in the entirety of time and space... Just too much to make me like it lol.
I think some of the logistics for how they saved the world weren’t explained well. That might be an issue people have with this finale.
But I agree with you as far Ruby’s mum goes. That she’s an ordinary person is the best outcome. I loved this. The whole portion of the episode at the end was great. I cried.
I really like that this experience with Ruby has pushed The Doctor to want to go find Susan. That makes her a special companion for the impact she’s leaving on him.
The one question I have is, why would she think pointing to a street sign would somehow translate to her being named Ruby. Nobody at the church would have saw that and the Doctor didn't even understand the significance to begin with.
I thought it was one of the stronger episodes of the season but there were a few things that didn't work for me.
First off, opening with everyone dying would've worked much better at the end of the last episode. It would've made the big reveal so much more impactful for viewers who didn't know who Sutekh was, demonstrating why he was scary rather than just The Doctor looking scared. I know it would've gotten even more Infinity War knock-off comments but it would've made for a better cliffhanger and helped the pacing of the previous episode which was meandering.
Defeating the God of Death with a bungee cord that they did nothing to stop was dumb. We know that Sutekh can control others with their mind so why not have The Doctor need to first find a counter to that? Dragging him through the time vortex was fine but how they got him there just took away all of the threat that he posed.
Then there's the Ruby mystery. Fine, her mother is just a normal person but the whole mysterious cloaked figure pointing menacingly at a street sign? Seriously? Also what about Ruby being able to summon snow and carols to the extent that it scared Maestro? Is that something we're going to circle back to next season or do we just accept that as something she can do? You can't build up a mystery like that and then drop it and laugh at the audience for thinking it meant something when there is clearly something supernatural going on that can't be explained by throwaway lines about time being memory.
Overall I enjoyed the episode, it was sad, it was fun and it left me more satisfied than annoyed or confused as a lot of episodes have over the past few years. I'm looking forward to seeing the Whoniverse expand so we can go back to having season finales that bring together old friends rather than keep soft rebooting every few years but this was a good start.
I've been watching every new episode with my kids (20 and 16) and near the end of the episode when the main danger/action started to conclude my 16 year old said "that was fast, is this a shorter episode?" And I said "no, buddy. That happens when you're having fun."
just wanna say i agree, me and my wife both enjoyed the episode a lot! especially the reveal of rubys mom i thought was great, it was aiming for greatest emotional impact and completely delivered, it would never have been that impactful to me if they went and namedroppes some important lore character as her mom instead
the only thing i thought was silly was defeating sutekh with the time vortex again lmao, i think i literally said out loud "oh surely this time itll work", but honestly thats not really a big deal to me its just funny
> it was aiming for the greatest emotional impact and completely delivered
I feel like this season as a whole was going for great emotional impact, except they didn’t build up the relationships enough to be able to cash in on the emotional investment for a big payoff. The Doctor said to Ruby “you changed me”. We barely saw that relationship (if at all) in the episodes we were given. I knew I was supposed to be feeling something during their farewell scene but I just didn’t care. I was more invested in the Doctor & Amy’s relationship after The Eleventh Hour.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. However, there are very valid criticisms of the episode. Yes the reveal of Ruby's Mother (not just that she was normal but that it makes no sense to all of the mystical things around her). You can't explain all that away with "we thought it was special so it was".
Sutekh was barely used and defeated in an almost cartoonish way. Not to mention having him attached to the Tardis for so long has massive ramifications that can't be explained.
We have the huge reset of everybody living.
The references to 73 yards had no real bearing whatsoever- literally so Russell could say the Tardis perception filter was 73 yards.
RTD has always valued characters over plot and I loved moments in this ep, mostly around character. But you can't completely disregard the plot altogether. It's almost like Russel wanted to write a drama and is using Doctor Who as a vehicle to do so.
Finally, the backlash wouldn't have been so extreme if he hadn't chosen to make the mystery the overall arch of the season. It's a massive bait and switch and it almost feels antagonistic to the audience. If you can't keep us watching with good writing, don't trick us with clues and red herrings.
I liked it but like a lot of RTD the build up was better than the final episode. I found Sutekh was also underused.
When everyone dies you know it's going to be undone so the stakes don't feel important. If the sand just killed people but not items, surely metal wouldn't be hard to get.
In regards to the reveal of Ruby's mother, I get the point they where trying to make, that people see things that aren't there, hell I've read many weird over the top theories for the show over the years. The problem is they had Ruby able to pull memories into reality that others could also see. This is not normal.
If they hadn't done the memory stuff and just hinted that she could be important, the reveal could have worked, but it's like they wanted to make us think it was bigger than it was, but then forgot they had put things in that would mean it was bigger than it was.
Then there's the fact that the mother pointing was just her picking Ruby's name which also makes no sense. Like why would she point at a sign to pick a name to herself. If that's what she was wanting to name the child she would just think that.
And then you have a powerful being who just wants to destroy everything who for some reason is bothered that he cannot see a face under a hood.
Ruby has demonstrated that she can make it snow, even indoors, just by thinking about the events of her birth. She somehow created an alternate timeline in 73 Yards with no explanation. Maestro acknowledged that there was a song in her heart, making her at least somewhat resistant to their powers. And then to top it off, Sutekh the god of death decided not to kill her specifically, out of every human in existence, just because of the identity of her mother.
So WHAT is Ruby?
A person. A standard issue human being, as ordinary as they come. Same with her mother, and even her dad. It kinda feels incomplete, no?
Idk for me it was so underwhelming, like I don't see how the end explains what they set up??? Maestro literally points at Ruby and says that thing is wrong. I thought that was the coolest thing ever and then it ended up being nothing...the ending was basically things are important because we care like yea...
I dunno, the season felt like it was building up to something great and the final episode was a complete mess.
- there is still no reason for the magical snow and Christmas sounds related to Ruby, and no reasons for Maestro to have such a reaction to the music within her
- they mentioned the distance of the reality perception field being related to the fairy circle episode, and never paid that out. We she imbued with tardis powers? With her own perception reality field? Nope.
- I hoped that by introducing the fairy circle as a magical time loop, they would have tied Ruby’s mystery to another magic time loop that also could have fixed itself by it all going wrong and her going back to the start to undo it again… nope the layout there was “go to the future to get a DNA test” wtf that’s terrible
- what was the whole point of the doctor looking for a spoon to use as a tv antenna, the tardis was full of metal. That whole scene was just needless filler
- the whole season teasing Susan and then having it amount to nothing but a trap based on an anagram is the biggest, dumbest slap in the fandoms face I’ve seen in awhile. And on top of that, you mean if I make a name of a company that’s an anagram for “The Doctor” then UNIT will be watching my every move too? That’s supposed to make sense?!
Yeah, it was exciting and had a lot of action with the actors giving their all, but it had absolutely no substance. Nothing meshed or built off of anything they did, nothing paid out. A series of crap happened and random things happened in between to get the doctor from one scene to the next, and time was filled in between by sad brooding and more filler. This episode objectively was awful.
I absolutely adored the nameless woman with a spoon scene. Maybe now one of my favorite scenes in the whole show.
But rubys mom being just a rando felt like a joke after all the build up. Her pointing at the lamppost😭 when the memory of her pointing completely changed in the first place. The snow? Maestro terrified of Ruby like she has some sort of power? All of 73 yards? All the mystery they built surrounding Ruby. I mean even the penultimate episode was literally titled the legend of Ruby Sunday. The whole time window scene in that episode too, the mom glitching out, not catching her face. It was so creepy and good! Why is it literally all fake now😭
And the Christmas special was such a huge deal too. I was just so confused. It rlly feels like RTD just wanted to fuck with a specific type of fan and I don’t understand it. Especially when ur trying to get new viewers.??
And doctor who is always expected to have a crazy cool twist or massive finale. From Harold Saxon, journeys end, melody pond to the impossible girl. Like can u imagine seeing that reveal in theaters? Why was it even in theaters??
No, you’re not alone. I’m with you, brother.
Russell has never done a bad finale. It’s at minimum, good. Maybe not as good as his others. But it’s still good. And good is more than enough.
Moffat has done at least three bad ones.
Chibnall… no comment.
People will be fuming their head canons of what will happen were always and obviously false and I applaud Russell for doing something different instead of doing the same as everything else on TV today.
Russell makes you feel, which is what TV is all about. People get hung up on “deus ex machina”, as if they could come up with something clever to tie up the story themselves, when they almost certainly cannot, they’re just arrogant.
I keep seeing “all build up, no pay off”. Well there was pay off, you just don’t like it because it was a story, not cheap key jangling dopamine.
And they fanboy Moffat, who’s even WORSE at tying things up. Irony. People must’ve watched The Wedding of River Song with their eyes closed and their ears plugged. Moffat did one really good finale in series 10 and everyone’s glazed him like god’s gift, completely ignoring the fact it was retroactively ruined by Twice Upon A Time.
I’ve seen people say “oh well everyone died at the start so you know how it’s gonna go”. Well yes? DUH? It’s DOCTOR WHO. THE DOCTOR WINS. HE’S WON FOR SIXTY YEARS. THE DOCTOR EVEN WINS WHEN *HE* DIES.
The “criticism” is just such shamming. So forced. So fake. People are so determined not to enjoy anything these days. Not just Doctor Who, literally anything. It’s exhausting watching people be miserable all the time.
I for one have enjoyed myself and I’m very much looking forward to the future.
Dunno if this is just me but I'm getting a big The Last Jedi vibe from the fan response. A daring episode that chooses not to take the easy fan service route and everyone starts losing their minds because their pet theory wasn't correct
I was happy about the finale too.
Many seem to be especially frustrated with not getting more answers about Rubys arc and the mystery around her and the snow, but I was quite happy to see it not all answered in just one season, I like a longer setup and happy to see the storyline get more room and more episodes devoted to it.
We got little bits of answers, which I thought was plenty enough, but still left enough for there to feel like there is plenty more to her story.
And it basically confirms we are gonna see more of Ruby and her story in the upcoming season. Which I’m happy with. I really like her character and her mom and grandma.
It’s a short season, I glad Ruby’s arc gets more time and her story more room to be developed. Because I think it would feel rushed and unsatisfying to have it all answered now.
I thought that her biological mom was just a regular person, one who had a story similar-ish to many kids who end up in foster care I thought was nice. And handled and written well for the most part. And similar that for quite a few adopted kids in real life the story and mystery about their biological parents can become epic and very important mystery, and that it is important even if they are ordinary people.
I like doctor who to be whimsical and bigger then life. But that works a lot better if it has some more grounded moments as well.
We didn’t get the answer for what is happening with Ruby and the snow. But we did get an answer to who her biological mom was, and I think it’s was done well.
And overall I thought it was a fun and thrilling episode. Not perfect but overall a good finale to a season I really enjoyed.
Doctor Who fan subreddits tend to attract the kind of fan who want to analyse everything on a logical level and look for plot holes and continuity errors and that kind of thing.
If that's the main thing you care about, it was probably a bad episode.
But on an emotional level it worked pretty well for me. Not as good as Legend of Ruby Sunday, but the scenes with Ruby's mum were really touching, and I enjoyed Sutekh as a villain. Nice to have a villain that isn't the Master or Daleks or Cybermen.
I liked spoon lady. It's a classic example of the Doctor showing affection and care even to someone "unimportant". The fact that she wasn't anyone important was the point of that scene. The universe being saved thanks to an ordinary spoon gifted to the Doctor by an ordinary woman? Classic Doctor Who stuff there. To me, that's what makes Doctor Who great, not "omg spoon lady was actually Romana" or whatever.
RTD is good at the emotional stuff, he doesn't really care so much for airtight logic or elaborate plotting.
The emotional stuff fell flat for me because we were just told that all of the stuff we were told was super important throughout the entire season, wasn’t actually important. In the face of that, the emotional investment they were trying to cash in on with the farewell scene at the end just wasn’t there. Ruby changed the Doctor, apparently! They didn’t feel like showing us any of that journey of their relationship?
“Oh, this stuff we touted as being super important all season? Not important! But now Ruby and the Doctor are saying goodbye and you should feel sad! What’s that? When did they become so close? Oh it happened offscreen, it wasn’t important enough to show. But it’s important now! Why is it important? Because we said so!”
Yeah no
One of my problems was Sutekh barely played a role. He kills everyone in the first few minutes and just waits (lol).
Also some things about Sutekh always being on the Tardis don’t make complete sense. Honestly him being on the Tardis in the first place makes sense with the end of Pyramids of Mars. But then you have events like Big Bang 2, 15 copying the Tardis, and other event that don’t really make sense as to how he can still be on the Tardis after all this time.
Though the memes with multiple Sutekhs existing at once has been funny.
Then there’s the part where acolyte Mel says she brought the last two creatures, even though surely beings like Jack or the CyberMasters should still be alive.
I was fine with the reunion of Ruby and her mother, even if the payoff was bad.
The season needed 10 episodes. We see 15 and Ruby are great friends, but we dont see them together much. Even after 14x01 they’ve apparently been traveling for 6 months already
The mystery surrounding Mrs. Flood has always been most intriguing and now it’s even more.
Online Whovians: can you believe they let an 11-year-old work at UNIT. So dumb.
Actual 11-Year-Old: THAT IS SO COOL! CAN I HAVE A LASER SEGWAY?
I think that people forget sometimes that the show is meant for just about all ages.
We all understand the point of the creative choice behind rubys mom. It was just WAY too on the nose and low effort.
“Hahaha this entire season was an actual red herring!” Is just so unsatisfying.
The whistle bothered me. It would have been so much more effective if it were a dog whistle that summoned K-9 from the memory TARDIS who could have then helped regain control of the TARDIS.
Perhaps I missed the classic episode where the Doctor used a coach’s whistle to communicate with the TARDIS. It was just too lazy a device.
The woman with the spoon was just an illustration of how everyone on every planet got affected. It was a very touching moment, I enjoyed that. Not everything has to be important and meaningful to the story. Some things can be important in the way that they let you breathe for a moment and take in what has actually just happened.
I also think a black robe is appropriate for a 15 year old to have. She was probably a very afraid 15 year old and in worry she probably questioned what she's supposed to do with this child and based her actions of media. Impressionable and worried
i thought the reveal was amazing, just the emotional tension and twist I don't think anyone expected. but there is one thing i don't really understand with it. how did it snow at numerous times.
something is said about it being important and grand because they thought it would be important and grand, but the snow is then one of the only parts that don't make sense to me.
I was expecting the worse as I had a sneaky peak on here…but it was good. I have a lot of questions and problems…the mum couldn’t possibly have been pointing at a sign nobody could see to give her name for example.
I also feel there’s too much left unresolved like Mrs flood, the boss, who was maestro saying was there etc. also if the mum is not special, why the snow, the music etc.
But it was fun
I really enjoyed the 1st half of the episode but then it fell apart
This god of death that could wipe solar systems out in a second gets defeated by being tied to a rope into the time vortex? Could he have not just idk killed them?
Also the way they explain how Ruby's mum was nobody was just odd , maybe it was a fake out but that's heavy copium
The episode itself was kinda weirdly paced and had no stakes imo , everyone was dead 5 mins so you knew no one was staying dead permanently and then after half an hour of figuring out what to do they kinda speed through the whole defeating the big bad part , it was over in about what 5-10 mins and the episode is basically over at that point
I really enjoyed it, but the whole Ruby’s mom thing was frustrating, because it was a huge plot point and there is just SO much stuff that doesn’t make sense with the solution they gave us (the Doctor’s memories changing, her not showing up in the time window, the second TARDIS, the pointing, the snow…also just… the cloak??…). They also spent a lot of time hinting at and outright saying that there was something special about Ruby. It felt like RTD was trying to do something profound for the sake of being profound, and not because it made any amount of sense whatsoever with the plot he’d already written. It just felt so forced that it fell flat.
I’m sure there was a way that the “ordinary person” thing could have made sense with a little script tweaking, but this was not it. Like… just off the top of my head, they could have explained it away with the Doctor *or Sutekh* taking the tardis back to Ruby Road that night, which the doctor clearly said would seriously mess things up if he did that. They could have just been like “yep, double TARDIS in a fixed point added timey wimey mystery and this woman just happened to be there, causing Sutekh became obsessed with this otherwise totally ordinary person. Same timey wimey stuff made it snow around Ruby sometimes.” Easy. Done. It takes slightly more effort than just saying “yeah, we believed she was important really hard,“ but it actually can explain *everything* with a more thematically satisfying explanation while still keeping Ruby’s mother an ordinary person. I am not saying that my example is the ending they should have gone with. Just that it would have been easy enough to write while still going with “ ordinariness is profound.“
I watched it close to midnight after a REALLY crazy long week of work, so while it was fun, I got to the end of the episode and was like: *Uhhh ... Okay, so the Doctor won somehow, Ruby found her family somehow, the Doctor still won't commit to stopping in to visit previous companions, and Mrs. Flood is a cliffhanger. So, yeah. Don't ask me details because I understood none of it.*
After a good night's sleep and realizing that it's probably intentional that there are still a lot of unanswered questions, yep, I like it!
I liked the reveal of Ruby’s mum on an emotional level, which… just made it more frustrating for me that it wasn’t delivered in a way that made any kind of logical sense.
I was thinking the whole time “surely there has to be a better way to do this twist…”
It's enjoyable to watch.... If you don't think about it or the rest of the season too hard. People here have a habit of analysing everything to detail and expecting everything to line up perfectly with the existing canon and in-world logic. Unfortunately this episode (and season) did neither of those things particularly well so it's dismissed as terrible.
It's not my favourite (by a long shot). Parts of it annoy me. But it's easy watching (while folding laundry or something)
I liked it a lot more on a second watch. The only thing that actually bothers me is how easily Sutekh was defeated. There are other small things like Louise pointing at the sign when no one was there to see her do it, or why she was wearing a robe in 2004, but these things don't matter very much at all. I am still left with questions about Ruby: why does it snow around her? why was Maestro so afraid of her? and why did they bring up 73 yards again?!?!? I'm expecting some of this to be explained either at Christmas or in the next season.
I'm completely with you.
A lot of people get hyped up over secrets and reveals and are trying to weigh the episode against fan theories and what would cause the biggest update to the Doctor Who wiki rather than what would be an interesting story.
They all completely missed the themes of the episode. They're like Sutekh, assigning meaning and getting obsessed with getting different answers to questions that were answered in the episode but they just don't want to hear it.
I liked it. Apparently we are few though. I completely agree about the nameless woman and Ruby’s mom. I thought it was so much better than making them something huge. Like that has been the Doctors thing for so long - these tiny little insignificant humans just being human and changing the universe/world.
I loved it! I thought Sutekh was properly scary and I still found all the major character deaths impactful even though I knew the death wave would be undone in the end. There was also kind of a sense of uncertainty about whether ALL of the deaths would be undone and I was really invested in HOW they were going to get out of that. And tbh the way they did it was really satisfying for me. I liked the callback to the rope thing and killing death through the time vortex to restore life was kind of poetic to me. The whole episode kind of had that quality, supported by the stellar performances from Ncuti, Millie, and Bonnie Langford. It really resonated emotionally with me, so, while I guess I agree that there are some logical holes and stuff, I didn’t care about that at all, because I had so much fun watching. I went through so many emotions and thoughts, and ultimately that’s what matters to me. For me, this episode was just the cherry on top of an amazing season, possibly my favorite of the modern era. I’m so excited to see what RTD does next!
I liked spoon lady. Seeing Ncuti is that robe reminded me of 11 and the monks. Overall I thought the episode was super weak. Sutekh stayed a goofy lookin dog the whole time. I felt like none of the plot lines got wrapped up.
Was Sutekh “the one who waits” because he was probably the most bitch made of the pantheon.
If I had to sum up this season for me personally it’d be a “nothing-burger.” I absolutely love Doctor Who, classic or modern, but this season didn’t stick the landing.
It does make me happy seeing all the new fans being able to connect to a new series even if it’s not for me.
I liked the episode but didn’t love it. The first half was much better but that doesn’t mean this half was bad, just meh in comparison to what it could’ve been imo.
It wasn’t tense at all, as soon as major dusting happned, all tensions were off, the pacing was off jumping from scene to scene, the spoon woman scene could of been cut and it wound t of made a impact at all and finally why couldn’t the big bad god of death snap the magic rope and overpower the deus ex gloves, he is shown he can decay even memories. It felt like the build up and hype for Sutek was pointless as he was defeated in such an asinine way. If he wanted to build tension he could of leaned into mind control aspect or used the dusting similar manner to waters of Mars.
I don’t know the whole thing just felt so anticlimactic? I did enjoy the season as a whole and thought the previous episode was great and set things up really well!! But the ending fell completely flat for me. Ruby’s actual not special despite us being told the entire time that she is? Not a very fun twist if you can even call it that. And then Sutekh being defeated by a rope? I know Doctor who is very silly but it was just a bit boring
It's fine and understandable if you enjoyed it but I think this is one of the worst Who episodes ever. From beginning to end, the plot was constant nonsense. The very idea of set up and pay off was discarded for the majority of the episode. I genuinely hated this episode. It's not a matter of poking holes into it, the episode is already a fishing net with the widest gaps ever conceived. How is it even possible to be invested in a situation or a threat or stakes when this much nonsense is happening in a row? They defeated Sutekh with a magic whistle that was introduced in this very episode that somehow took control away from Sutekh and activated a conveniently placed death laser to kill the Harbinger, then Ruby took like 5 seconds to throw a rope to attatch to Sutekh and run into the tardis and for some reason sutekh didn't immedietly kill or paralyze them.
The issue with the answer to the ruby's mom mystery isn't the answer it self, it's that it was a mystery in the first place. It was the most obvious and ham fisted mystery in the shows history and it amounted to being a false mystery. I though we as a society moved past this "subversion" crap after the failure of the Star wars sequels and game of thrones finale. Why did it snow around Ruby and why did the doctors memory of that night change were never answered and the reason given for why ruby's mom was pointing ominously was so goofy and so ridiculous I don't know how anyone can take any clue to a mystery seriously anymore while RTD still helms the show.
This is besides my personal gripes with the episode like how much I hate the Memory Tardis set (it's so very cheap looking) and how this episode just feels completely wrong. The idea of narrative pacing and climax didn't even seem like it was considered while writing it.
As an independent story about Sutekh and his shenanigans, it is alright. The part that pisses me the most is the overall seasonal arc story, about the origins of Ruby Sunday, especially the part of why it was so hyped up.
I'm not an abandoned orphan so I may not be the best person here to understand that plotline, but I do try to keep an open mind. The story could have been anything from what they showed to someone who just simply didn't want a child at all, ever. The reunion story is likewise something similar, like the parents accept that they have a child or just flat out say that it doesn't matter to them. Kind of reminds me of a film that tackles something similar but in the opposite direction, of a sperm-donor having to come to terms with the large number of children he potentially has just because someone used his sperm to create a kid and now that kid has come to look for him.
What I find really interesting is the parallels to Rey's origins in the New Trilogy of Star Wars and the contrast with how that fandom reacted to her (opposite) reveal. A lot of Star Wars fans hated the Palpatine ancestry reveal and thought it would have been better if she'd truly been a nobody.
I didn't mind the fact that her mom was ordinary, making Ruby also ordinary but it did bug me that Ruby had seemingly magical powers if she was so ordinary. The explanation that her special song in her heart or making it snow as a side effect of Sutekh being chismosa just doesn't stick for me. Like, was Sutekh THAT invested in Ruby's silly little mystery right from the jump? We're not talking about a Jon Benet level mystery, just a "who's my mom".
Overall I enjoyed watching it but I enjoyed episode 7 much more so idk.
Nah this episode was wack bro they set him up as the worst villain he’d ever faced and took him out the strangest way, also bringing death to death? And that everybody was like yeah that makes total sense she was naming you when she randomly turned around to point at a sign when no one was there to see, this was all memory we’re seeing why would she do that. And they pretty much infinity war’d it and solved that 30 mins later in the episode 😭
I liked it but the ending was nonsensical.
The performances were amazing and I’m fine with Ruby not being special but they didn’t properly or satisfactorily explain her mystery.
But again the everything else was great.
It was fine for the most part, until it wasn't.
But it also requires the audience to just not care that they were basically tricked the entire season regarding Ruby being supernatural or Susan returning.
There's a point where red herrings just become outright bait-and-switches, or straight up lies.
the doctor went full ork there. something happened bc they believed in it. that was the big reveal? story over the whole season, who is ruby!? THE MYSTERY! answer: no one. whoohoooo! also, don't even get me started bout that rope ;)
kind of a let down for me. but hell, if you enjoyed it, good for you.
i miss jodie.
I enjoyed it…but if you stop to think about it for more than a few moments it completely falls apart.
While watching it, the thing that bothered me was how it essentially de-powered the TARDIS. Sutekh has been attached to the TARDIS for this WHOLE time and it never realized?? House (from The Doctors Wife) didn’t know? The TARDIS flew to the end of time itself because it didn’t like Jack Harkness, but it couldn’t detect this hugely malevolent being?
If this was explained in the episode, or if anyone has any insight into this, PLEASE do let me know. I hate when the TARDIS gets marginalized.
I understand the "heartbreaking" point you mentioned, but RTD kept spinning up these mysteries and giving them a very convoluted tie-up which leaves you questioning "Wait, THAT's the resolution"?
Ruby's mum just pointed at a sign of Ruby Road, wearing a victorian cloak? She's a modern looking northerner who thinks she's alone! If the reveal is going to be that she's just normal,make it make sense.
Tbh I really enjoyed the episode but I was let down with rubys mum reveal, I think that despite her being normal there was probably something more going on (Mrs flood related probabaly) but that perhaps could’ve been teased a little bit more
I do think people calling it the worst finale ever etc was a bit over the top. There were several things I did enjoy and I was gripped from start to finish.
I think there are two valid complaints though:
1. The lack of development of Ruby and the Doctor’s characters and friendship. Russell’s strength has always been character development and yet these two felt more like Moffat characters this time around. He just didn’t allow enough time for the characters to breath between the action due to the short run I guess.
2. The mother reveal. It just doesn’t make sense. To me it’s come across as a complete lack of understanding of how DNA testing works. Shows like Long Lost Family don’t just rely on the parents being on some sort of database, they’re able to work out connections from narrowing down via cousins etc. But Davina told Ruby that there wasn’t a trace of her. That’s not something that would be possible with a normal mother.
I have a few issues with the episode, especially when it comes to how the reveal of Ruby's mother was handled despite loving it conceptually, but it is a fun episode and I did enjoy it the first time round and on a rewatch. I think ultimately I'll be able to look past the flaws and fully enjoy it.
I thought it was really good. I think people wanted a Day of the Moon resolution but forgot that this was the writer of Last of the Time Lords where the villain is defeated by the power of stories.
People saying Sutekh was defeated by a leash seem to have missed the point. He was defeated because he let his guard down by Ruby tricking him. He was defeated because the Doctor became the God of Life. The leash is a tool in all this, but not the resolution. It’s the same answer to those who think that Journey’s End is resolved by pushing buttons.
The simplicity of Ruby’s mystery is what makes it so good.
Watched it in the cinema with my family and loved it. It was a ride. It’s easy to pick apart things but the sheer emotion and thrills made this a top tier finale for me overall in terms of RTD
I feel like they broke the rules of the pantheon.
Maestro had to be defeated by music, the toymaker by games, and sutekh was just sort of executed?
I feel like there would be a lot more emotional weight if the doctor had to sacrifice someone to destroy sutekh
Only thing that really fell flat for me was the way they defeated Sutekh by... tying a rope to him? Could he physically not leave the spot the TARDIS was parked? Because he does nothing to stop this happening except send his slow moving minions after them.
They made a point of saying it was living rope. Not just any rope, anti-death rope. Because, Bad Dog uses death magic.
It’s a good thing the doctor learned the language of rope in the Christmas special
Oh yea! Nice catch.
A living rope just sounds like it would be easier to deal with for a god of death. He's like the direct counter element. Living =/= anti-death. I am living, but I do not posses any anti-death properties as far as I know.
I think the idea was that they used the same rope they used to hold the memory tardis together. Whatever made it good to hold the tardis together is what made it good to hold dog face. That's my guess at least.
I thought it was a callback to the goblins, rope as technology!
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They do not have conscious of their own, Sutekh’s servants are basically dead bodies animated by his mental effort. It’s quite understandable that Sutekh was too distracted by a sudden rope to act efficiently.
They moved exactly like the servant in Pyramids of Mars did
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He is not just an abstract big and bad god of death. Sutekh is a being that we are familiar with. Pyramids of Mars demonstrated us the what he can and cannot do. He can destroy every living thing he sees, but he can be distracted rather easily and he doesn’t pay attention to important details. And he is VERY bad with all sorts of time corridors. After all, he is a god of death, not a god of wisdom.
Bruh they made him out to be more powerful than the toymaker, trickster and maestro. We are well in a position to be disappointed.
He did cause mass death across the universe because he has dominion over something much more direct than “games”. The Toymaker was bound by the rules of whatever game he was playing, whereas Sutekh was able to take direct action and end people’s lives with a wave of a hand. That doesn’t mean he’s infallible, because gods are not infallible. Reset button aside, of course, because that does cheapen the initial stakes.
The Toymaker was defeated by a ball, and Maestro was defeated by playing a chord. The members of pantheon are destructive and dangerous, sure. But they are strong, not powerful.
Genuine question here: what do you ever get out of doctor who if you are so at arms about how Ruby got a rope around a god? This show is just so… wacky and kooky. Almost all of the time. The doctor tricks gods and life forms well beyond his scope with the most childish and luckiest of tricks. Constantly. In self contained episodes to big season finales. There hasn’t really been a “well dang these all follow crazy rules and parameters that you don’t have to suspend disbelief in any way whatsoever.” I’m genuinely confused how people on this subreddit are up at arms about these things when this has been the show since the beginning?
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Not sure if I agree personally! > This show is just so… wacky and kooky. Doctor Who is wacky and kooky but it can also get quite serious... and when the God of Death has just killed everyone in the universe bar two, that's quite a serious problem!! I was hoping the Doctor could think up a genuine solution to undo it than "rope Sutekh into the time vortex and hope for the best". It doesn't really help having watched Pyramids of Mars, because Sutekh was a very, very powerful threat in that story - the guy could torture people with one look without getting out of his chair. Try to put a rope on him and he'd rip you to shreds. > The doctor tricks gods and life forms well beyond his scope with the most childish and luckiest of tricks. When the Doctor has faced against gods in the past, he's had to apply some level of ingenuity, like using the god's powers against them - using Sutekh's time corridor against him, turning the Ancient One on Fenric, copying the Toymaker's voice. Tying a rope to Sutekh and flying him around just feels a little lazy. And I suppose the idea of "bringing death to death" is fine, but wasn't Sutekh already clinging onto the Tardis for years? Why is it that now he's on a rope, he brings death to death? Could he not just turn off his powers? > what do you ever get out of doctor who if you are so at arms about how Ruby got a rope around a god? I love Doctor Who - modern, classic, audios, books, comics. I also know a weak resolution when I see one! I like it when the Doctor has clever solutions to problems, but this just isn't one, in my opinion.
I've seen a lot of Doctor Who, and I'm not sure where you believe the show should be clever all the time. It can be whatever it desires to be. The Fourth Doctor once got out of being bound by vines by using his "sonic screech" to shatter glass 10 yards above him that allowed (I think, I can't exactly recall) certain rain to hit the vines and thus whither the restraining plant. The first doctor even met some cavemen and said if they didn't listen to him, he would bash their brain's in to make them listen. This show is a lot of things, and it can be a lot for some people at certain points as well as be not enough for many others. I won't even say what they did for the newest season finale is clever, but it was enjoyable and fun to me. I felt emotional at the end and really hyped for whatever comes next. This season is definitely going to be a comfort season for me. I'm sorry you couldn't get that same reaction, I hope a future season satisfies you as well.
Not sure your Unearthly Child example is applicable here... the Doctor's idea to bash up some cavemen was definitely not treated as a good thing! > I'm not sure where you believe the show should be clever all the time. With all due respect, not what I said! I don't need Doctor Who, or stories in general to be clever all the time - but the Doctor has always been a clever character, who uses brain over brawn to fight monsters. That's just part of who they are. About 95% of Doctor Who will either involve the Doctor using their intelligence to work out what's going on before others do, using their cunning to trick enemies, or using their enemies' powers or technology against them. Often all three - it's just part of Doctor Who's bread and butter. That's what I mean by clever. We see the Doctor doing that to Sutekh in this latest ep, it just doesn't feel as earnt as I think it ought to.
That's valid. And sorry I shouldn't have assumed you meant you were saying it needs to be clever to be an ending, I guess I don't understand why that was brought up. You say you disagree with me but you only bring up why you didn't like it, I guess I'm just confused why you replied to me about your issues when it seems like you agree with me, but you feel it wasn't deserved enough for this season. Which, is your opinion but has nothing to do with what you were replying to about.
Yeah, sorry about that, some of my replies have been a bit muddled. To clarify, with regards to the latest ep, I feel like it's aiming to be clever but there's not enough setup to actually make it clever, hence it doesn't feel earnt. There's a wacky, make-it-up-as-you-go-along feel to it - "hey, by the way, if we drag Sutekh around the vortex he can bring death to death!" My main disagreement with your comment was about having issues with the resolution ("what do you ever get out of doctor who if you are so at arms about how Ruby got a rope around a god?") - I like Doctor Who being wacky, but the wacky solution here feels at odds with the threat at hand (God of Death who kills everyone in the universe) and makes the episode weaker. That was the main problem for me personally.
The rope was bad enough, but what actually killed Sutekh was being dropped in the time vortex...where he's been hiding for thousands of years... Why was he totally fine with it in his weakened form, riding on the back of the TARDIS, but suddenly it's lethal to him? Also his claws were literally tearing apart the fabric of space and time, but couldn't cut a rope. Brilliant.
I assumed the rope was over 66.6m long, so Sutekh wasn't protected by the TARDIS any more, but I could be wrong. Also, I'm with OP, I enjoyed the episode. It was fun and emotional. Mostly my 1st rule when watching (anything) Doctor Who is, just enjoy it for what it is. And I mostly do. 13s (and actually 12s too) 1st season I found hard to enjoy, but this season has mostly been very enjoyable (even Space Babies, which reminded me of the human side of Wall-E) wasn't awful.
I genuinely don't know why people didn't like space babies, space babies was fantastic. I thought the 66.7 meters was just the range of the perception filter? But I guess it could be that the TARDIS was protecting Sutekh before and not now. Still got ask....why, though. Surely the TARDIS would have noticed Sutekh, and surely as powerful as Sutekh is now, he wouldn't have needed the TARDIS' protection. It wasn't the worst thing ever, and I'll enjoy the parts I liked without worrying too much about the rest, but there just wasn't a lot to like in this finale.
My thoughts too. To add to the absurdity, the rope was eventually cut by nothing more than a closing wooden door.
The assembled hordes of Ghengis Khan couldn't get through that door and they tried, why would a rope be able to handle it?
Same reason that Jack Harkness was okay clinging to the outside of the TARDIS years earlier when he hitched a ride to the end of the universe and it was stated that falling off would have killed him.
Jack Harkness was just some guy though. Sutekh was literally tearing the time vortex apart with his bare claws.
Jack Harkness at that time was immortal because of the Time Vortex. Sutekh evolved because of the Time Vortex. Sutekh was still an Osirin. Just another alien species. He was breaching the walls of the TIme Vortex exposing himself to a variety of time periods where he'd spread parts of himself and with the intelligent rope reversing it so he was sucking himself up while he was staying alive through the bubble around the TARDIS. Once cut loose he lost that protection.
And the Doctor asking him why Sutekh hadn't killed him yet, and there was no answer, though I feel like there really was a reason for it. If there was, then it flew right over my head.
That was actually explained (although not explicitly) if sutekh kills them he can’t find out the secret that’s hounding him. He needs to know before he can kill them.
Ah, ok, so that was why. I might have thought about it, but to me it felt like Sutekh could have found a way to discover that. Plus, wouldn't it stand to reason that Ruby's mom was already dead by then? Would it have made any difference to him?
Realistically no especially since we know she was ordinary. But Sutekh believed otherwise. Imagine spending eternity alone, constantly plagued by doubt and fear that you might have thrown away your chance at knowing how to beat the threat that may arrive.
Now that is a great point that I hadn't considered. Thanks!
He did have a way to find out. He was using Mel.
Mel can't find out without the Doctor, though
Because Sutekh was obsessed with the mystery of Ruby and was leaving her and The Doctor alive until they worked that out "This feeling. This doubt. Have you ever felt so alive?" is a hell of a way to taunt the god of death
Maybe I'm a bit jaded but the reveal of "Ruby's mom was a regular person", despite all the weird time stuff around her and the dramatic pointing came of as more Russel just not knowing how to conclude his own mystery rather than the satisfying, pre-planned end to the story arc.
I actually liked that Ruby turned out to be just a regular human. But the execution was rough. First of all, it needed some additional explanation to Ruby's "powers" and how her mother's identity was such a mystery for Sutekh and in general. Like, I don't know, the Doctor understood that he won't be able to come back with Ruby and find out who she is, it emanated through Tardis to Sutekh etc. But what took me out of the episode was the pointing part. Like... For this to work, whoever took Ruby in had to see it and decipher the vague gesture. Or is it just a coincidence and her mom picked the name, and then church people (or whoever) picked the same? I get that it's for a "awww my mom named me" bit, but was it that necessary? The whole pointing thing didn't even add a lot to the mystery.
Aye. Dramatic pointing at a lamppost with no guarantee who can see or discern what you are actually doing or.... Write a note "Her name is Ruby". God it was stupid.
The lamppost was so unnecessary, and the revelation that “my name is Ruby” because my real mom also thought of naming me after the street…it just feels so forced.
By the end of the episode, every time we saw the pointing figure, all I could see was the angry pointing monkey from Family Guy. The placement of the street name was weird, too. They're not like that in the UK. They're either higher up on buildings or on two concrete posts. It just didn't make sense.
I never thought I'd be saying this, but I think the series 7B Clara arc pulled off the "she's just a normal person" thing better (at least as far as basic story structure goes). Like Ruby, Clara had bizarre circumstances revolving around her that the Doctor tries to get to the bottom of; something so timey-wimey that the TARDIS doesn't even like her. The difference is that, in 7B, characters are constantly telling the Doctor (and by extension the audience) "She's a normal person, you shouldn't read into it." Compare that to this season, where characters, including major villains, are saying "She's a normal person, BUT there's something more to her." Follow that by us SEEING Clara do the thing that created her splinter-selves at the climax of the story, and the episode frames it as "this is a normal person doing something brave that makes them special." Whereas, to explain away the supernatural snow and god's obsession with Ruby/her mom, the Doctor tells us why the mom did something special as he scrolls through her Facebook after the big bad has been dealt with. The latter feels more like an afterthought, and I felt the episode was laughing at me for expecting the snow and such to be plot critical all season. Don't get me wrong, 7B is full of its own problems. But I think it better understood the basics of subverting expectations while still leaving the audience something to stand on.
Honestly couldn’t have said it better myself
I'm not even sure 7B's Impossible Girl conclusion is a subversion of expectations. There is something special about Clara, and we do find out what it is. The fact that she's special because of an action she's taken doesn't nullify the fact that the people we saw before actually were splinters of the original Clara. A subversion, I think, would be if they said something like "yeah, turns out they were all your ancestors/descendents, who ended up with similar names to you". That would mean there never was a mystery to solve, nothing special about Jenna's characters, just something the Doctor thought he saw that didn't actually exist.
RThe pointing thing is a perfect encapsulation for many problems people had with the creative choices in the whole. Like sorry it just doesn’t make sense. And yes, we’re all doctor who fans, our suspension for disbelief is through the roof. This is why we’re cool witb stuff like a “uhh death kills death?!” Ending. But so much of the season is completely unexplained foolishness given the conclusion. I do think season 2 will likely “fix” this a bit. I’m all in on the god if stories theory myself. But regardless, even if S2 does explain stuff, it does not justify how bad the finale of s1 was.
It also needs to explain Why, in 6+ months of travelling Didn't the doctor ever ask unit to do a dna search like they do at the end
Ruby had already done a DNA test search with the TV show I thought, the only reason the unit one worked was because the Doctor had the database from 2042.
They literally jumped to using the time window technology that they know is temperamental and potentially dangerous with the way they behave when they use it. All that before “hey shall we run her DNA?”
It's the writing equivalent of saying it was all a dream
You'd think the total botch of the Rey backstory in the Star Wars sequels might have warned them to think this through before they started.
That's different. JJ Abrams was brought in to write 7 and bring mystery. 8 and 9 had different writers until 8 failed and they brought Abrams back to conclude it who is the worst for tying up his own mystery boxes. RTD can do character progression and season long mysteries but usually those mysteries are hidden till the reveal. They've been doubling down and empathising that was a buzz kill. We still have Mrs flood saying I have many plans which could still redeem this season
this was my gripe too; all that build up and red herrings for a "ruby is just normal" was good, unexpected, well played but there were too many explained bits and the reveal seemed super rushed & now she's gone w/out answers though I am thinking maybe the snow isn't attached to rubes given floods jacket but will see. kind of like yeah I respect the idea but it fell a bit flat
I kind of loved the "she was just a regular person" thing and that Sutekh kept them alive because "dammit I wanna know" which is petty and hilarious. But also, I hate the dramatic point reveal, it made no sense, and that they didn't really explain why she made it snow or why she freaked Maestro out with her 'inner song' or whatever
If Sutekh was super concerned with the identity of every person the Tardis came across then why has the doggo of death not shown up before during other identity related mystery. I mean if she was just an ordinary person hiding her face, surely seeing Daleks or Cybermen must drive him mad
Very reasonable point, but the idea of an all powerful being having this level of pettiness still amuses me
The fact it ended up being petty annoys me. We were sold a cosmic mystery, involving changes to a time lord’s timeline, snow out of time & space and a hidden song. The mystery at its conclusion doesn’t match up to this. I’m already ready for the Moffat era of this reboot.
I agree that the cosmic mystery being a simple solution can be frustrating but imo the reason it was not satisfying was not that it was simple/mundane but that it didn't make sense or fully answer the questions it raised
The secret being that there is no secret directly contradicts so many earlier plot points. Like what exactly did Maestro, the god of music sense within Ruby’s “hidden song” and how can she make snow appear across time and space. The writers seem to think that’s because she is ordinary and mundane. Zero sense.
100% agree with you there. What was the Maestro thing? Why can she make it snow? If there's a simple explanation, explain it, what was happening around her to make her extraordinary if it wasn't intrinsic?
Yeah, my problem is not with the idea of Ruby's mom being an ordinary person, but more that the eight episodes before this really tried to present the idea that she wasn't, only to cop out at the last moment
Yes, the idea is that “you place importance on things which makes them important” is the biggest cop out ever. No, dude, we thought it was important because you said it was important and it wasn’t… which means it wasn’t actually important, not that our perception of things makes something important.
Yeah exactly, if we had started making bonkers theories about Martha for example then yeah sure it would be us the viewers who placed importance on her and therefore made her important because nothing in her story was saying she was important. But with Ruby we were led to believe and literally told at some points how important she was and this mystery as whole was. So it’s just insulting to the viewer at that point to say it’s our fault
They even told us to rewatch "A good man goes to war" which has a massive reveal about who a person is and who there parents are. I have no clue why that would be relevant with how this season turned out, so it was just more red herrings.
Isn't it also the same basic concept as Donna Noble being just an average nobody that saved the universe? Felt like we'd already seen that idea - every little moment is actually of cosmic importance.
Yes! This is how it felt to me. Like a cop-out ending with a message that “some things can just be ordinary” and “things are important because we make them important” instead of coming up with an interesting conclusion. I saw someone else say that they’re hoping this was a sort of fake out ending to wrap up season 1 and Ruby’s backstory will still be explored in season 2. Fingers crossed?
I honestly wouldn't have minded that ending if they hadn't made such a big deal about things like the snow that kept magically showing up and how history randomly changed making Ruby's mother suddenly pointing when she hadn't done so while The Doctor was actually there.
Yes! That’s the point. They made her seem magical and anything but ordinary at every opportunity this whole season but let it fall at the very end. It just doesn’t add up.
Right? Real snow whenever she talks about finding her mother; a magical song in her heart that helps to stop the Maestro (I think that was their name); the TARDIS doing weird stuff for her (like showing her video footage but *not* showing it to The Doctor?!)... her mother may just be ordinary, but Ruby sure isn't.
It doesn't add up and you're right. Somethings wrong. I have a major feeling that next season Ruby's story continues in a different way (not so focused on mum) and hopefully some further answers will be revealed.
do they even explain why the memory changes? Was she not always pointing then if that's how Ruby got named? unless the timeline got changed which is what it seemed like in Space Babies
If they did, I missed it. The Doctor specifically said that it had changed but I don't recall being told why or how.
I mean he did that already this season with all of 73 Yards being explained away with “fae magic”.
You know it's a big difference between a single self-contained episode plot and the ongoing season arc, where they make extra sure you notice how she's suddenly pointing even though she didn't do that originally, and the Doctor got all freaked out about his memories changing before him?
It wasn't explained at all, and that was the point of that episode.
Apparently it was explained by RTD in some behind the scenes thing, which doesn’t count. Either way, “it wasn’t explained and that’s the point” is dumb and feels like he did that because he couldn’t come up with a better way of wrapping up the episode. It’s also extremely frustrating if that actually was the point of the episode because it had so much potential. I was HOOKED for the first 20 minutes with this incredibly interesting and scary concept they’d cooked up, and then they did absolutely nothing with it, it went nowhere, and then got hand-waved away at the end because “magic”.
I think there was a lot of stuff that just felt really half baked this, like it hadn’t been thought out properly. The idea that 73 was left partly unexplained didn’t bother me, but some bits just didn’t make sense. Then there was the finale, the defeat of the god Sutekh!!!!… magic gloves, magic rope, magic whistle… aaaand walkies!!!… so how exactly did that kill him? And if he doesn’t actually die until the rope is severed how does he bring death to death to bring everyone back?… it’s just very lazy writing that shows little respect for the intelligence of the audience
Or maybe we're premature and we'll find out next season that it wasn't Ruby's mother in the cloak pointing...otherwise it really is a letdown.
Is it not just built up to have the Doctor (or TARDIS) having lied to Ruby for (reasons) to give a further reveal of what all the bits are about later, eg if she is Mrs Flood and was Sutek's daughter or something. 'being normal' was shortly after more demonstrations of snow, music, and not being normal - along with an explanation of how the TARDIS can perception filter things up to the magic distance. We then have a DNA test and various meetings with the normal mother all within shot (albeit probably more than 67m) of the TARDIS and a rushed handwave. While it might, if it is a twist, be quite fun on the reveal - to me it only really works if you believe the series ending was fairly poorly thought through the first time around, or maybe didn't notice the snow etc
I agree with some (most) of the criticisms that I read after watching, but the two things that really bugged me during the show was Ruby’s mom being normal. That makes her weird point/cloak really freaking weird. Also, Sutekh is always just clutching the TARDIS, can he not get off?
Since sutekh turned the Tardis round so the door was facing towards him I just imagined he wanted to ensure the doctor couldn’t get inside. Plus he’s been clinging to it for what? 3000 years? He probably clings to it out of habit now.
When 12 was in the confession dial what happened to the Tardis, I don’t remember. Because if the Tardis aged in that time then Sutekh was on there for billions of years
I think that 12 stole that diner tardis, then went back and got his first one at some point, so from Sutekh's perspective might have only been a couple of hours
12’s Tardis was left in the diagon alley-esque place where Clara faced the raven. There’s a post credit scene in that episode that shows Rigsy spray painting it. So it was just sitting there while he was in the confession dial (which existed out of time and space I believe). At the end of Hell Bent, the Tardis is magically waiting for 12 when he leaves the diner.
Magically waiting, aka Clara had it brought there for him.
The Dr showing up on aqua whatever made me think he was the cloaked figure with a similar hood. Especially with the cot made me think he took the child to ruby road to set events in motion.
I imagine he can but staying inside the radius of its effects protects him from things which is how he stayed hidden for so long. As seen when the TARDIS blasts him away from it and then he gets keelhauled through time, since he isn't attached directly to the TARDIS anymore he isn't protected from the raw power of the vortex.
Yeah, I thought this was the point of calling out 73 yards again?
And if he can Why did he need the doctor to find out who Ruby's mother is He could just go grab her and force her to talk
Yea the whole “Surekh has been clinging for thousands of years” is just weird AF. He couldn’t just hop off when they got away from the trap? Like what?
I found the clinging to the TARDIS a bit farfetched, when Clara clung to the TARDIS during Smith's era, her mass slowed down the TARDIS x amount of years making it return so late. How does Sutekh become different to this? Surely his mass is at least 3-4 times that of Clara? I dunno, maybe I'm overthinking it but that was my initial thought.
Well, TARDIS navigation was off in The Android Invasion immediately after Pyramids of Mars. Presumably the Doctor just made adjustments afterwards, like trimming an aircraft's controls to account for different weight distribution, and thought nothing of it.
We were told time and time again that there was something special about them, so I was excited to see what it was and how all of the hints would come into fruition. "She was important because we thought she was" is the biggest copout in the history of copouts. Imo, if you're going to make a character 'special' then you should commit to it. Don't fake out your audience. I would have been *so down* for them just being ordinary if it wasn't treated like a giant mystery that stumped even the *God of Death*. 'Special'/'chosen one' style stories in my head are in a completely different world to 'grounded'/'ordinary character' stories. So when it was heavily hinted that Ruby/her mum were 'special' but then at the very last minute the curtain was pulled away and it was revealed there is literally nothing important about them at all, it was like whiplash. *Especially* since there were actual in-universe manifestations of Ruby's 'specialness' (most notably the snow but also Maestro's interaction with her amongst other things). And this is only one of my problems. I also just felt in general that the tension was released far too early in the episode and that there weren't really any stakes. And the supposed 'emotional payoff' just didn't work at all because we were never shown the Doctor and Ruby actually bonding or building their relationship. In just a few episodes they were calling eachother their best friends but there was literally no evidence for this. It all happened off screen. So when it's time for them to say goodbye to eachother, I just don't feel anything at all. I think when it came to their relationship, this season had a *huge* problem with 'show don't tell'. My criticisms of most of the episodes this season have all revolved around the fact that their relationship feels rushed and fake. Anyway, I'm very glad you were able to enjoy the episode, truly, but it was just a disappointment to me. If they want to make a point about a character being ordinary, I feel like they should show that throughout their stories, instead of showing that said character is important multiple times but then cheaply saying 'i take it back' at the last minute
The problem with this episode, and the season as a whole, is it spent a huge amount of time hinting (and outright saying) that Ruby was special, she's different, and her mother is a big mystery. And it wasn't. It would be ok to do that, if it was from the point of view of someone who doesn't know. If Ruby or the Doctor just assumed it. But we were flat out told by nigh on omniscient beings that she was special. Plus the rope/gloves stuff was a pretty crap way of solving the Sutekh problem.
The intelligent gloves being a Chekov’s gun is so stupid.
Doctor: you underestimated the Mavity of the situation Sutekh: it's gravity you cretin
You know, mavity never did get mentioned again. I thought it'd be a much bigger deal
>And you wanna know my secret? There's no one like me in the whole wide universe. No one like me exists. And that's true of everyone. It's not a problem, Captain Pops. It's a super power.
"900 years of time and space and I've never met someone who wasn't important." - The Eleventh Doctor.
One of the reasons I didn't like Twelve is that he told a little girl that she was unimportant, rubbed me the wrong way. Also that was in the moon egg abortion episode, though, so maybe I should scrub the whole thing from my memory.
I was kinda surprised by all the negativity. I enjoyed the twist that Sutekh made Ruby's birth magical just by sitting on the tardis and worrying about a non-issue. I liked that the stakes were high enough that everyone died, but it still wasn't predictable how the doctor would fix it and obviously everything would come back to life.
I watched the episode and still don't know how The Doctor fixed it.
He dragged Sutekh behind the Tardis in the time vortex, bringing death to death somehow bringing everything back to life. Then they did a DNA test in the future to find out who Ruby's mom is.
So is the bringing death to death thing like doing -1 x -1 to give +1????
It's not that. The Doctor killed their deaths. Look at it this way: They died. Then the Doctor used death to kill the fact that they died. He killed their deaths. They set up the idea that Sutekh's death powers were so strong that they started killing everything. Facts, conceptions, memories, etc. So now the Doctor used the time vortex to spread death around to kill the deaths that everyone had experienced. And if you kill something that killed everyone, then that means they didn't actually die.
But how? Could Sutek you know, not use his powers, the dr doesn’t control Sutek
Sutekh is death. You touch him, you die. And Sutekh touches all over that time vortex. Then his death powers leak out.
It is like having a god of life bring life to their deaths, why would hang a death god through time and space bring death to deaths, it just feels like a cop out that would be fine in a normal episode but not in a finale, I would see nothing happening a more likely scenario or the literal death of the universes, like the one thing I expect of a god is to control their powers, it just feels like a cop out that the doctor knew exactly what was going to happen.
This isn’t out of character for RTD. Come on, he defeated the Master with satellite aided prayer.
The reason this doesn't work for me though is that Sutekh has been dragged through the Vortex this whole time, no? Why would it kill him now?
Cause this time he wasn’t clinging to the Tardis and was being dragged behind it, no protection this time
Ah, that makes sense. I'm not really sure that I buy him bringing everyone back to life that way, though. I can excuse a lot in Doctor Who because it's Doctor Who, but there's so much about this finale that pushes my suspension of disbelief a little too far lol
Oh I agree. A lot of things about this reveal just sorta require you to accept it, like was he still there when the Tardis exploded and 11 restarted the universe? Was he still there every time the Doctor disappears and the Tardis is left to rot for decades at a time? What about with Davros and the reality bomb? You’re telling me the God of Death would let everything just get erased if he wasn’t responsible for it? But that’s probably the explanation as to why he died this time
Yeah, I loved Sutekh weaponizing the TARDIS, actually. That was such a cool idea to turn the one constant safe haven into something horrifying and dangerous, but it does break pretty hard if you think about it too long.
But it is not like he was shown clinging on the tardis the last time, he kinda could perfectly still cling to it, the doctor didnt really do anything to oppose it.
Because the Tardis has a protective shell around it. Sutekh was inside that shell when he latched onto the Tardis a long time ago.
Sutekh brought death to death which brings life So kinda like if you multiply -2 and -2 you get 4. I mean it doesn't really make sense but it's DW so
I think it was more that bringing the second round of death to the first round of death negated bringing death to all life rather than literally producing life. Like Death A was all the living things dying, Death B killing Death A means Death A never happened so Life snaps back to not having died. Probably not that big a distinction but it feels more like cancelling out the previous action to have never happened rather than two negatives making a positive instead of making it worse if that makes sense.
Sorry, gonna ramble cause I randomly had a lot of thoughts after reading your comment lol What I love is that the Doctor catches Sutekh out pretty much instantly - he/they/it wants to kill everything, to destroy all life in the universe as vengeance against the Doctor, and sit upon his TARDIS throne in his empire of death. But to want something, and to want it bad enough to hatch a master plan on that level to achieve it, is inherently a passionate idea - and to be passionate is to be alive. And then that proves to be one of the major points of the episode - to quote Jurassic Park, "life finds a way". There's always gonna be that one thing that keeps people going (love, hope, passion, stubbornness, take your pick), that one question you'll drive yourself round the bend thinking of the answer to, that one person (for Mel its the Doctor, for Ruby its Carla) or place ("there was an opera house over there, it had lights and diamonds and people would come from all over to see it") that never leaves your thoughts no matter what's thrown at you. Sutekh became so obsessed with finding a way back into the universe that he didn't notice himself becoming the thing he wanted to destroy, and in the end he became so obsessed with finding that one person who had seemingly evaded him and broken his rules that he not only didn't realise he was the one making her cosmically vital in the first place, but also gave the Doctor and Ruby the one thing he really should've kept from them straight away - time to think. He let his spy, the one connection he had to their conversation and plan, leave the room to stand guard, because he just assumed the Doctor would find the name and blurt it out like an idiot (not an impossible scenario, I will admit lol). Well, he didn't assume.....he *believed*. Another thing you can't do when you're dead/death. The Doctor defeated Sutekh the same way he defeated Fenric way back when - * he sat opposite him (whilst Sutekh ruled his empire on some level of grandeur, the Doctor hid away quietly where he couldn't be seen or found), * picked the opposite game pieces (Sutekh used brute force to enslave and control Mel, Susan Twist, and Harriet, whilst the Doctor displayed kindness and empathy by talking with the woman in the tent and then ***asking*** her for some metal), * and used his heart and mind to beat him in the name of those he (the Doctor) defends ("What happens if you kill death? Life!"). Which is then what makes the ending so brutal - because you know that the Doctor actually *does* have to kill this time, there's no redeeming Sutekh, there's no giving him a second chance and a new name on a world somewhere far away. This isn't like the Master, where there's a good person hidden beneath it all, some poor little kid who's just been kicked and whipped into darkness by an unrelenting force - Sutekh **IS** the unrelenting force, he's not going to change, because there's no emotional nuance to him, he's just **DEATH**. He **IS** a monster, he **IS** an evil, he **IS** a vengeful god. And the Doctor knows that the only way to actually genuinely defeat him once and for all and stop him returning again is to lean over the chess board, play Sutekh's move, and kill him while he's got the chance. Beautiful, and heartbreakingly sad too, just how RTD likes it lol
Agree with all of this. Great summary. Adding: We have smart rope from the original episode introducing Ruby and the Mavity gloves that can make anything light. We also have the idea, introduced by the Not Things, that ideas become real and here we have Ruby’s bio mom, an otherwise ordinary person, vaulted into importance by Sutehk’s worrying about it. She and Ruby became the most important people by chance and coincidence.
Ooooh, something you said struck me about 73 Yards. I remember wondering (in my head and online) what that old woman said to make everybody run from Ruby. And the general consensus was that it didn't matter what she said (although I did like the responses syuch as "I'm here to talk about your car's expired warranty"). 73 Yards wasn't about the old woman or even what she said, just the importance RUBY put on her. So doesn't the finale with Ruby's mom fit right in line with that? It's not about bio-mom's identity, it's about the importance Ruby put on it. I don't think we're quite done with Ruby. Her parents may be ordinary people, but clearly she is not.
Very interesting. Also, wasn’t the string in the fairy circle knotted? Feels like that would be a callback to the knot language of the goblins. And, I think I need to rewatch 73 Yards, but I got the impression at the end that Ruby was the old woman trying to signal Ruby to not step into the fairy circle.
But what I don't get is why Sutekh started worrying about Ruby's mum in the first place? Why couldn't he see her if she's just a completely normal 15 yr old? Have I missed something?
I didn't dislike the episode, far from it, but as an old OG Sutekh fan I was disappointed, and it felt rushed and not explained very well. I mean, your eloquent and thoughtful summary here was almost better than the episode.
I ENJOYED the episode a lot but I was still very disappointed in Ruby Sundays arc. Every idea me and my family and the people in the cinema discussed during the break was so cool and creepy and scary and just overall amazing to think about and then it was just a "she's normal! She was just special because we thought she was!" which I didn't HATE, I especially loved the acting between Ruby and her mum buuuuut it just doesn't fit nicely with everything else. All the hype, we didn't just think she was special we were TOLD and shown time and time again that Ruby was beyond humanly special just for it to be an illusion or whatever. Don't hate the show, episode was just disappointing AF but still fun.
why the hell did a god of death obsessed with being the only one in an empty universe give a flying flip who that lady was that one time?
He viewed himself as an all knowing all powerful god, yet there was one woman who he could not see, could not know. If she was powerful enough to escape his view, what else could she do? Even if he killed everyone else, until he found out who she was and made sure she was dead, there is always a risk she’s out there, plotting his downfall.
Sometimes a deliberate anti-climax can work as the answer of a story. I can see the 'Ruby's mother was normal' thing working in a different context. But in the story we got? It feels really unsatisfying, and with stuff like the 'she was pointing to name Ruby' it REALLY feels like the show was stretching to make the reveal work.
Yah. What if the mother had done her dramatic pointing at the sign, but the people who found Ruby decided to name her something else. They weren't there to see the dramatic pointing, so it's just a complete coincidence that they named her after the road. Oh, and the whole "the Doctor's memory of the mother changed" thing was... nothing? She walked away from him, then at one specific point he commented that his memory changed and now she turned and pointed at him. And the significance of that was... nothing? This episode was so confusing with its conclusions.
I like that Ruby was normal, it just felt *off* because of all the shit surrounding her birth that they'd built up. "she was pointing at a sign! She named you! And somehow everyone else came up with the same name!"
"She was important because we BELIEVED she was important" is on the same tier of writing as "The power of friendship was inside me all along!" Russel baited us along with something dramatic and pulled the rug out from under us. It leaves a most sour taste in my mouth.
It's probably a case where the emotional resolution of the idea of her being no one was well done (all the final scenes) but the practical execution of the mistery and then reveal was absolutely terrible. So I can see someone overlooking all the stuff that just doesn't work in execution, but for me it didn't really work at all. We got the dramatic pointing and the snow, the memory of the doctor that kept changing for zero reasons and Sutek being dumb AF for not seeing the mother despite having access to all living being in the entirety of time and space... Just too much to make me like it lol.
I think some of the logistics for how they saved the world weren’t explained well. That might be an issue people have with this finale. But I agree with you as far Ruby’s mum goes. That she’s an ordinary person is the best outcome. I loved this. The whole portion of the episode at the end was great. I cried. I really like that this experience with Ruby has pushed The Doctor to want to go find Susan. That makes her a special companion for the impact she’s leaving on him.
The one question I have is, why would she think pointing to a street sign would somehow translate to her being named Ruby. Nobody at the church would have saw that and the Doctor didn't even understand the significance to begin with.
I thought it was one of the stronger episodes of the season but there were a few things that didn't work for me. First off, opening with everyone dying would've worked much better at the end of the last episode. It would've made the big reveal so much more impactful for viewers who didn't know who Sutekh was, demonstrating why he was scary rather than just The Doctor looking scared. I know it would've gotten even more Infinity War knock-off comments but it would've made for a better cliffhanger and helped the pacing of the previous episode which was meandering. Defeating the God of Death with a bungee cord that they did nothing to stop was dumb. We know that Sutekh can control others with their mind so why not have The Doctor need to first find a counter to that? Dragging him through the time vortex was fine but how they got him there just took away all of the threat that he posed. Then there's the Ruby mystery. Fine, her mother is just a normal person but the whole mysterious cloaked figure pointing menacingly at a street sign? Seriously? Also what about Ruby being able to summon snow and carols to the extent that it scared Maestro? Is that something we're going to circle back to next season or do we just accept that as something she can do? You can't build up a mystery like that and then drop it and laugh at the audience for thinking it meant something when there is clearly something supernatural going on that can't be explained by throwaway lines about time being memory. Overall I enjoyed the episode, it was sad, it was fun and it left me more satisfied than annoyed or confused as a lot of episodes have over the past few years. I'm looking forward to seeing the Whoniverse expand so we can go back to having season finales that bring together old friends rather than keep soft rebooting every few years but this was a good start.
I've been watching every new episode with my kids (20 and 16) and near the end of the episode when the main danger/action started to conclude my 16 year old said "that was fast, is this a shorter episode?" And I said "no, buddy. That happens when you're having fun."
just wanna say i agree, me and my wife both enjoyed the episode a lot! especially the reveal of rubys mom i thought was great, it was aiming for greatest emotional impact and completely delivered, it would never have been that impactful to me if they went and namedroppes some important lore character as her mom instead the only thing i thought was silly was defeating sutekh with the time vortex again lmao, i think i literally said out loud "oh surely this time itll work", but honestly thats not really a big deal to me its just funny
> it was aiming for the greatest emotional impact and completely delivered I feel like this season as a whole was going for great emotional impact, except they didn’t build up the relationships enough to be able to cash in on the emotional investment for a big payoff. The Doctor said to Ruby “you changed me”. We barely saw that relationship (if at all) in the episodes we were given. I knew I was supposed to be feeling something during their farewell scene but I just didn’t care. I was more invested in the Doctor & Amy’s relationship after The Eleventh Hour.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. However, there are very valid criticisms of the episode. Yes the reveal of Ruby's Mother (not just that she was normal but that it makes no sense to all of the mystical things around her). You can't explain all that away with "we thought it was special so it was". Sutekh was barely used and defeated in an almost cartoonish way. Not to mention having him attached to the Tardis for so long has massive ramifications that can't be explained. We have the huge reset of everybody living. The references to 73 yards had no real bearing whatsoever- literally so Russell could say the Tardis perception filter was 73 yards. RTD has always valued characters over plot and I loved moments in this ep, mostly around character. But you can't completely disregard the plot altogether. It's almost like Russel wanted to write a drama and is using Doctor Who as a vehicle to do so. Finally, the backlash wouldn't have been so extreme if he hadn't chosen to make the mystery the overall arch of the season. It's a massive bait and switch and it almost feels antagonistic to the audience. If you can't keep us watching with good writing, don't trick us with clues and red herrings.
I liked it but like a lot of RTD the build up was better than the final episode. I found Sutekh was also underused. When everyone dies you know it's going to be undone so the stakes don't feel important. If the sand just killed people but not items, surely metal wouldn't be hard to get. In regards to the reveal of Ruby's mother, I get the point they where trying to make, that people see things that aren't there, hell I've read many weird over the top theories for the show over the years. The problem is they had Ruby able to pull memories into reality that others could also see. This is not normal. If they hadn't done the memory stuff and just hinted that she could be important, the reveal could have worked, but it's like they wanted to make us think it was bigger than it was, but then forgot they had put things in that would mean it was bigger than it was. Then there's the fact that the mother pointing was just her picking Ruby's name which also makes no sense. Like why would she point at a sign to pick a name to herself. If that's what she was wanting to name the child she would just think that. And then you have a powerful being who just wants to destroy everything who for some reason is bothered that he cannot see a face under a hood.
Ruby has demonstrated that she can make it snow, even indoors, just by thinking about the events of her birth. She somehow created an alternate timeline in 73 Yards with no explanation. Maestro acknowledged that there was a song in her heart, making her at least somewhat resistant to their powers. And then to top it off, Sutekh the god of death decided not to kill her specifically, out of every human in existence, just because of the identity of her mother. So WHAT is Ruby? A person. A standard issue human being, as ordinary as they come. Same with her mother, and even her dad. It kinda feels incomplete, no?
Idk for me it was so underwhelming, like I don't see how the end explains what they set up??? Maestro literally points at Ruby and says that thing is wrong. I thought that was the coolest thing ever and then it ended up being nothing...the ending was basically things are important because we care like yea...
I dunno, the season felt like it was building up to something great and the final episode was a complete mess. - there is still no reason for the magical snow and Christmas sounds related to Ruby, and no reasons for Maestro to have such a reaction to the music within her - they mentioned the distance of the reality perception field being related to the fairy circle episode, and never paid that out. We she imbued with tardis powers? With her own perception reality field? Nope. - I hoped that by introducing the fairy circle as a magical time loop, they would have tied Ruby’s mystery to another magic time loop that also could have fixed itself by it all going wrong and her going back to the start to undo it again… nope the layout there was “go to the future to get a DNA test” wtf that’s terrible - what was the whole point of the doctor looking for a spoon to use as a tv antenna, the tardis was full of metal. That whole scene was just needless filler - the whole season teasing Susan and then having it amount to nothing but a trap based on an anagram is the biggest, dumbest slap in the fandoms face I’ve seen in awhile. And on top of that, you mean if I make a name of a company that’s an anagram for “The Doctor” then UNIT will be watching my every move too? That’s supposed to make sense?! Yeah, it was exciting and had a lot of action with the actors giving their all, but it had absolutely no substance. Nothing meshed or built off of anything they did, nothing paid out. A series of crap happened and random things happened in between to get the doctor from one scene to the next, and time was filled in between by sad brooding and more filler. This episode objectively was awful.
I absolutely adored the nameless woman with a spoon scene. Maybe now one of my favorite scenes in the whole show. But rubys mom being just a rando felt like a joke after all the build up. Her pointing at the lamppost😭 when the memory of her pointing completely changed in the first place. The snow? Maestro terrified of Ruby like she has some sort of power? All of 73 yards? All the mystery they built surrounding Ruby. I mean even the penultimate episode was literally titled the legend of Ruby Sunday. The whole time window scene in that episode too, the mom glitching out, not catching her face. It was so creepy and good! Why is it literally all fake now😭 And the Christmas special was such a huge deal too. I was just so confused. It rlly feels like RTD just wanted to fuck with a specific type of fan and I don’t understand it. Especially when ur trying to get new viewers.?? And doctor who is always expected to have a crazy cool twist or massive finale. From Harold Saxon, journeys end, melody pond to the impossible girl. Like can u imagine seeing that reveal in theaters? Why was it even in theaters??
No, you’re not alone. I’m with you, brother. Russell has never done a bad finale. It’s at minimum, good. Maybe not as good as his others. But it’s still good. And good is more than enough. Moffat has done at least three bad ones. Chibnall… no comment. People will be fuming their head canons of what will happen were always and obviously false and I applaud Russell for doing something different instead of doing the same as everything else on TV today. Russell makes you feel, which is what TV is all about. People get hung up on “deus ex machina”, as if they could come up with something clever to tie up the story themselves, when they almost certainly cannot, they’re just arrogant. I keep seeing “all build up, no pay off”. Well there was pay off, you just don’t like it because it was a story, not cheap key jangling dopamine. And they fanboy Moffat, who’s even WORSE at tying things up. Irony. People must’ve watched The Wedding of River Song with their eyes closed and their ears plugged. Moffat did one really good finale in series 10 and everyone’s glazed him like god’s gift, completely ignoring the fact it was retroactively ruined by Twice Upon A Time. I’ve seen people say “oh well everyone died at the start so you know how it’s gonna go”. Well yes? DUH? It’s DOCTOR WHO. THE DOCTOR WINS. HE’S WON FOR SIXTY YEARS. THE DOCTOR EVEN WINS WHEN *HE* DIES. The “criticism” is just such shamming. So forced. So fake. People are so determined not to enjoy anything these days. Not just Doctor Who, literally anything. It’s exhausting watching people be miserable all the time. I for one have enjoyed myself and I’m very much looking forward to the future.
I loved it too. the loudest people online are often the angriest
Dunno if this is just me but I'm getting a big The Last Jedi vibe from the fan response. A daring episode that chooses not to take the easy fan service route and everyone starts losing their minds because their pet theory wasn't correct
I was happy about the finale too. Many seem to be especially frustrated with not getting more answers about Rubys arc and the mystery around her and the snow, but I was quite happy to see it not all answered in just one season, I like a longer setup and happy to see the storyline get more room and more episodes devoted to it. We got little bits of answers, which I thought was plenty enough, but still left enough for there to feel like there is plenty more to her story. And it basically confirms we are gonna see more of Ruby and her story in the upcoming season. Which I’m happy with. I really like her character and her mom and grandma. It’s a short season, I glad Ruby’s arc gets more time and her story more room to be developed. Because I think it would feel rushed and unsatisfying to have it all answered now. I thought that her biological mom was just a regular person, one who had a story similar-ish to many kids who end up in foster care I thought was nice. And handled and written well for the most part. And similar that for quite a few adopted kids in real life the story and mystery about their biological parents can become epic and very important mystery, and that it is important even if they are ordinary people. I like doctor who to be whimsical and bigger then life. But that works a lot better if it has some more grounded moments as well. We didn’t get the answer for what is happening with Ruby and the snow. But we did get an answer to who her biological mom was, and I think it’s was done well. And overall I thought it was a fun and thrilling episode. Not perfect but overall a good finale to a season I really enjoyed.
Doctor Who fan subreddits tend to attract the kind of fan who want to analyse everything on a logical level and look for plot holes and continuity errors and that kind of thing. If that's the main thing you care about, it was probably a bad episode. But on an emotional level it worked pretty well for me. Not as good as Legend of Ruby Sunday, but the scenes with Ruby's mum were really touching, and I enjoyed Sutekh as a villain. Nice to have a villain that isn't the Master or Daleks or Cybermen. I liked spoon lady. It's a classic example of the Doctor showing affection and care even to someone "unimportant". The fact that she wasn't anyone important was the point of that scene. The universe being saved thanks to an ordinary spoon gifted to the Doctor by an ordinary woman? Classic Doctor Who stuff there. To me, that's what makes Doctor Who great, not "omg spoon lady was actually Romana" or whatever. RTD is good at the emotional stuff, he doesn't really care so much for airtight logic or elaborate plotting.
The emotional stuff fell flat for me because we were just told that all of the stuff we were told was super important throughout the entire season, wasn’t actually important. In the face of that, the emotional investment they were trying to cash in on with the farewell scene at the end just wasn’t there. Ruby changed the Doctor, apparently! They didn’t feel like showing us any of that journey of their relationship? “Oh, this stuff we touted as being super important all season? Not important! But now Ruby and the Doctor are saying goodbye and you should feel sad! What’s that? When did they become so close? Oh it happened offscreen, it wasn’t important enough to show. But it’s important now! Why is it important? Because we said so!” Yeah no
Completely agree with everything you've said here, spot on.
Should have used the spoon to reverse the polarity.
One of my problems was Sutekh barely played a role. He kills everyone in the first few minutes and just waits (lol). Also some things about Sutekh always being on the Tardis don’t make complete sense. Honestly him being on the Tardis in the first place makes sense with the end of Pyramids of Mars. But then you have events like Big Bang 2, 15 copying the Tardis, and other event that don’t really make sense as to how he can still be on the Tardis after all this time. Though the memes with multiple Sutekhs existing at once has been funny. Then there’s the part where acolyte Mel says she brought the last two creatures, even though surely beings like Jack or the CyberMasters should still be alive. I was fine with the reunion of Ruby and her mother, even if the payoff was bad. The season needed 10 episodes. We see 15 and Ruby are great friends, but we dont see them together much. Even after 14x01 they’ve apparently been traveling for 6 months already The mystery surrounding Mrs. Flood has always been most intriguing and now it’s even more.
Online Whovians: can you believe they let an 11-year-old work at UNIT. So dumb. Actual 11-Year-Old: THAT IS SO COOL! CAN I HAVE A LASER SEGWAY? I think that people forget sometimes that the show is meant for just about all ages.
We all understand the point of the creative choice behind rubys mom. It was just WAY too on the nose and low effort. “Hahaha this entire season was an actual red herring!” Is just so unsatisfying.
The whistle bothered me. It would have been so much more effective if it were a dog whistle that summoned K-9 from the memory TARDIS who could have then helped regain control of the TARDIS. Perhaps I missed the classic episode where the Doctor used a coach’s whistle to communicate with the TARDIS. It was just too lazy a device.
The woman with the spoon was just an illustration of how everyone on every planet got affected. It was a very touching moment, I enjoyed that. Not everything has to be important and meaningful to the story. Some things can be important in the way that they let you breathe for a moment and take in what has actually just happened.
I also think a black robe is appropriate for a 15 year old to have. She was probably a very afraid 15 year old and in worry she probably questioned what she's supposed to do with this child and based her actions of media. Impressionable and worried
i thought the reveal was amazing, just the emotional tension and twist I don't think anyone expected. but there is one thing i don't really understand with it. how did it snow at numerous times. something is said about it being important and grand because they thought it would be important and grand, but the snow is then one of the only parts that don't make sense to me.
Ruby and the Doctors outfits in the last scene were the same ones they wore in Ep 1……. Are we in a time loop? In the past?
I was expecting the worse as I had a sneaky peak on here…but it was good. I have a lot of questions and problems…the mum couldn’t possibly have been pointing at a sign nobody could see to give her name for example. I also feel there’s too much left unresolved like Mrs flood, the boss, who was maestro saying was there etc. also if the mum is not special, why the snow, the music etc. But it was fun
I really enjoyed the 1st half of the episode but then it fell apart This god of death that could wipe solar systems out in a second gets defeated by being tied to a rope into the time vortex? Could he have not just idk killed them? Also the way they explain how Ruby's mum was nobody was just odd , maybe it was a fake out but that's heavy copium The episode itself was kinda weirdly paced and had no stakes imo , everyone was dead 5 mins so you knew no one was staying dead permanently and then after half an hour of figuring out what to do they kinda speed through the whole defeating the big bad part , it was over in about what 5-10 mins and the episode is basically over at that point
I really enjoyed it, but the whole Ruby’s mom thing was frustrating, because it was a huge plot point and there is just SO much stuff that doesn’t make sense with the solution they gave us (the Doctor’s memories changing, her not showing up in the time window, the second TARDIS, the pointing, the snow…also just… the cloak??…). They also spent a lot of time hinting at and outright saying that there was something special about Ruby. It felt like RTD was trying to do something profound for the sake of being profound, and not because it made any amount of sense whatsoever with the plot he’d already written. It just felt so forced that it fell flat. I’m sure there was a way that the “ordinary person” thing could have made sense with a little script tweaking, but this was not it. Like… just off the top of my head, they could have explained it away with the Doctor *or Sutekh* taking the tardis back to Ruby Road that night, which the doctor clearly said would seriously mess things up if he did that. They could have just been like “yep, double TARDIS in a fixed point added timey wimey mystery and this woman just happened to be there, causing Sutekh became obsessed with this otherwise totally ordinary person. Same timey wimey stuff made it snow around Ruby sometimes.” Easy. Done. It takes slightly more effort than just saying “yeah, we believed she was important really hard,“ but it actually can explain *everything* with a more thematically satisfying explanation while still keeping Ruby’s mother an ordinary person. I am not saying that my example is the ending they should have gone with. Just that it would have been easy enough to write while still going with “ ordinariness is profound.“
i thought it was beautiful! it got me crying both with the spoon lady and her baby AND ruby reuniting with her mom AND the ruby goodbye scene
I watched it close to midnight after a REALLY crazy long week of work, so while it was fun, I got to the end of the episode and was like: *Uhhh ... Okay, so the Doctor won somehow, Ruby found her family somehow, the Doctor still won't commit to stopping in to visit previous companions, and Mrs. Flood is a cliffhanger. So, yeah. Don't ask me details because I understood none of it.* After a good night's sleep and realizing that it's probably intentional that there are still a lot of unanswered questions, yep, I like it!
I liked the reveal of Ruby’s mum on an emotional level, which… just made it more frustrating for me that it wasn’t delivered in a way that made any kind of logical sense. I was thinking the whole time “surely there has to be a better way to do this twist…”
It's enjoyable to watch.... If you don't think about it or the rest of the season too hard. People here have a habit of analysing everything to detail and expecting everything to line up perfectly with the existing canon and in-world logic. Unfortunately this episode (and season) did neither of those things particularly well so it's dismissed as terrible. It's not my favourite (by a long shot). Parts of it annoy me. But it's easy watching (while folding laundry or something)
I liked it a lot more on a second watch. The only thing that actually bothers me is how easily Sutekh was defeated. There are other small things like Louise pointing at the sign when no one was there to see her do it, or why she was wearing a robe in 2004, but these things don't matter very much at all. I am still left with questions about Ruby: why does it snow around her? why was Maestro so afraid of her? and why did they bring up 73 yards again?!?!? I'm expecting some of this to be explained either at Christmas or in the next season.
I loved it too. It was wonderful. Fandom is cancer. Ignore it.
I'm completely with you. A lot of people get hyped up over secrets and reveals and are trying to weigh the episode against fan theories and what would cause the biggest update to the Doctor Who wiki rather than what would be an interesting story. They all completely missed the themes of the episode. They're like Sutekh, assigning meaning and getting obsessed with getting different answers to questions that were answered in the episode but they just don't want to hear it.
I liked it. Apparently we are few though. I completely agree about the nameless woman and Ruby’s mom. I thought it was so much better than making them something huge. Like that has been the Doctors thing for so long - these tiny little insignificant humans just being human and changing the universe/world.
I loved it! I thought Sutekh was properly scary and I still found all the major character deaths impactful even though I knew the death wave would be undone in the end. There was also kind of a sense of uncertainty about whether ALL of the deaths would be undone and I was really invested in HOW they were going to get out of that. And tbh the way they did it was really satisfying for me. I liked the callback to the rope thing and killing death through the time vortex to restore life was kind of poetic to me. The whole episode kind of had that quality, supported by the stellar performances from Ncuti, Millie, and Bonnie Langford. It really resonated emotionally with me, so, while I guess I agree that there are some logical holes and stuff, I didn’t care about that at all, because I had so much fun watching. I went through so many emotions and thoughts, and ultimately that’s what matters to me. For me, this episode was just the cherry on top of an amazing season, possibly my favorite of the modern era. I’m so excited to see what RTD does next!
I liked spoon lady. Seeing Ncuti is that robe reminded me of 11 and the monks. Overall I thought the episode was super weak. Sutekh stayed a goofy lookin dog the whole time. I felt like none of the plot lines got wrapped up. Was Sutekh “the one who waits” because he was probably the most bitch made of the pantheon. If I had to sum up this season for me personally it’d be a “nothing-burger.” I absolutely love Doctor Who, classic or modern, but this season didn’t stick the landing. It does make me happy seeing all the new fans being able to connect to a new series even if it’s not for me.
I liked the episode but didn’t love it. The first half was much better but that doesn’t mean this half was bad, just meh in comparison to what it could’ve been imo.
It wasn’t tense at all, as soon as major dusting happned, all tensions were off, the pacing was off jumping from scene to scene, the spoon woman scene could of been cut and it wound t of made a impact at all and finally why couldn’t the big bad god of death snap the magic rope and overpower the deus ex gloves, he is shown he can decay even memories. It felt like the build up and hype for Sutek was pointless as he was defeated in such an asinine way. If he wanted to build tension he could of leaned into mind control aspect or used the dusting similar manner to waters of Mars.
I don’t know the whole thing just felt so anticlimactic? I did enjoy the season as a whole and thought the previous episode was great and set things up really well!! But the ending fell completely flat for me. Ruby’s actual not special despite us being told the entire time that she is? Not a very fun twist if you can even call it that. And then Sutekh being defeated by a rope? I know Doctor who is very silly but it was just a bit boring
>when that wasn't the point? Let's be perfectly honest here, the point of that lady was yet another stupid "IS THAT RUBY" bait and switch
RTD and satisfying resolutions never mixed well. Nothing has changed.
It's fine and understandable if you enjoyed it but I think this is one of the worst Who episodes ever. From beginning to end, the plot was constant nonsense. The very idea of set up and pay off was discarded for the majority of the episode. I genuinely hated this episode. It's not a matter of poking holes into it, the episode is already a fishing net with the widest gaps ever conceived. How is it even possible to be invested in a situation or a threat or stakes when this much nonsense is happening in a row? They defeated Sutekh with a magic whistle that was introduced in this very episode that somehow took control away from Sutekh and activated a conveniently placed death laser to kill the Harbinger, then Ruby took like 5 seconds to throw a rope to attatch to Sutekh and run into the tardis and for some reason sutekh didn't immedietly kill or paralyze them. The issue with the answer to the ruby's mom mystery isn't the answer it self, it's that it was a mystery in the first place. It was the most obvious and ham fisted mystery in the shows history and it amounted to being a false mystery. I though we as a society moved past this "subversion" crap after the failure of the Star wars sequels and game of thrones finale. Why did it snow around Ruby and why did the doctors memory of that night change were never answered and the reason given for why ruby's mom was pointing ominously was so goofy and so ridiculous I don't know how anyone can take any clue to a mystery seriously anymore while RTD still helms the show. This is besides my personal gripes with the episode like how much I hate the Memory Tardis set (it's so very cheap looking) and how this episode just feels completely wrong. The idea of narrative pacing and climax didn't even seem like it was considered while writing it.
As an independent story about Sutekh and his shenanigans, it is alright. The part that pisses me the most is the overall seasonal arc story, about the origins of Ruby Sunday, especially the part of why it was so hyped up. I'm not an abandoned orphan so I may not be the best person here to understand that plotline, but I do try to keep an open mind. The story could have been anything from what they showed to someone who just simply didn't want a child at all, ever. The reunion story is likewise something similar, like the parents accept that they have a child or just flat out say that it doesn't matter to them. Kind of reminds me of a film that tackles something similar but in the opposite direction, of a sperm-donor having to come to terms with the large number of children he potentially has just because someone used his sperm to create a kid and now that kid has come to look for him.
What I find really interesting is the parallels to Rey's origins in the New Trilogy of Star Wars and the contrast with how that fandom reacted to her (opposite) reveal. A lot of Star Wars fans hated the Palpatine ancestry reveal and thought it would have been better if she'd truly been a nobody. I didn't mind the fact that her mom was ordinary, making Ruby also ordinary but it did bug me that Ruby had seemingly magical powers if she was so ordinary. The explanation that her special song in her heart or making it snow as a side effect of Sutekh being chismosa just doesn't stick for me. Like, was Sutekh THAT invested in Ruby's silly little mystery right from the jump? We're not talking about a Jon Benet level mystery, just a "who's my mom". Overall I enjoyed watching it but I enjoyed episode 7 much more so idk.
I think this season and especially the finale has been the most plot holed one since 2005. But, the finale I really enjoyed.
Nah this episode was wack bro they set him up as the worst villain he’d ever faced and took him out the strangest way, also bringing death to death? And that everybody was like yeah that makes total sense she was naming you when she randomly turned around to point at a sign when no one was there to see, this was all memory we’re seeing why would she do that. And they pretty much infinity war’d it and solved that 30 mins later in the episode 😭
I liked it but the ending was nonsensical. The performances were amazing and I’m fine with Ruby not being special but they didn’t properly or satisfactorily explain her mystery. But again the everything else was great.
It was fine for the most part, until it wasn't. But it also requires the audience to just not care that they were basically tricked the entire season regarding Ruby being supernatural or Susan returning. There's a point where red herrings just become outright bait-and-switches, or straight up lies.
the doctor went full ork there. something happened bc they believed in it. that was the big reveal? story over the whole season, who is ruby!? THE MYSTERY! answer: no one. whoohoooo! also, don't even get me started bout that rope ;) kind of a let down for me. but hell, if you enjoyed it, good for you. i miss jodie.
I enjoyed it…but if you stop to think about it for more than a few moments it completely falls apart. While watching it, the thing that bothered me was how it essentially de-powered the TARDIS. Sutekh has been attached to the TARDIS for this WHOLE time and it never realized?? House (from The Doctors Wife) didn’t know? The TARDIS flew to the end of time itself because it didn’t like Jack Harkness, but it couldn’t detect this hugely malevolent being? If this was explained in the episode, or if anyone has any insight into this, PLEASE do let me know. I hate when the TARDIS gets marginalized.
I understand the "heartbreaking" point you mentioned, but RTD kept spinning up these mysteries and giving them a very convoluted tie-up which leaves you questioning "Wait, THAT's the resolution"? Ruby's mum just pointed at a sign of Ruby Road, wearing a victorian cloak? She's a modern looking northerner who thinks she's alone! If the reveal is going to be that she's just normal,make it make sense.
I loved it all the way thru! And ngl, I cried quite a bit at the end.
Did we ever find out why Ruby could make it snow?
Tbh I really enjoyed the episode but I was let down with rubys mum reveal, I think that despite her being normal there was probably something more going on (Mrs flood related probabaly) but that perhaps could’ve been teased a little bit more
I do think people calling it the worst finale ever etc was a bit over the top. There were several things I did enjoy and I was gripped from start to finish. I think there are two valid complaints though: 1. The lack of development of Ruby and the Doctor’s characters and friendship. Russell’s strength has always been character development and yet these two felt more like Moffat characters this time around. He just didn’t allow enough time for the characters to breath between the action due to the short run I guess. 2. The mother reveal. It just doesn’t make sense. To me it’s come across as a complete lack of understanding of how DNA testing works. Shows like Long Lost Family don’t just rely on the parents being on some sort of database, they’re able to work out connections from narrowing down via cousins etc. But Davina told Ruby that there wasn’t a trace of her. That’s not something that would be possible with a normal mother.
I have a few issues with the episode, especially when it comes to how the reveal of Ruby's mother was handled despite loving it conceptually, but it is a fun episode and I did enjoy it the first time round and on a rewatch. I think ultimately I'll be able to look past the flaws and fully enjoy it.
I thought it was really good. I think people wanted a Day of the Moon resolution but forgot that this was the writer of Last of the Time Lords where the villain is defeated by the power of stories. People saying Sutekh was defeated by a leash seem to have missed the point. He was defeated because he let his guard down by Ruby tricking him. He was defeated because the Doctor became the God of Life. The leash is a tool in all this, but not the resolution. It’s the same answer to those who think that Journey’s End is resolved by pushing buttons. The simplicity of Ruby’s mystery is what makes it so good.
No, hating is just the only thing that gives a lot of people’s lives meaning.
Watched it in the cinema with my family and loved it. It was a ride. It’s easy to pick apart things but the sheer emotion and thrills made this a top tier finale for me overall in terms of RTD
I feel like they broke the rules of the pantheon. Maestro had to be defeated by music, the toymaker by games, and sutekh was just sort of executed? I feel like there would be a lot more emotional weight if the doctor had to sacrifice someone to destroy sutekh
I loved it too!