There are few issues on TV that really feel nearly as good as assembly a brand new Physician and simply figuring out they’ll be terrific. Physician Who’s Twenty first-century run has had a lot of ups and downs so far, however casting the titular function has by no means been one among them. Ncuti Gatwa, the Fifteenth Physician, is not any totally different: instantly charming, charismatic, and odd. In his first full journey, “The Church on Ruby Street,” Gatwa shows shades of Medical doctors who’ve come earlier than whereas placing his personal sturdy stamp on the function; concurrently welcoming and enigmatic, he’s the form of particular person you’d fortunately comply with wherever however is clearly not telling you every thing.
And in “The Church on Ruby Street” we lastly meet Fifteen’s companion for the forthcoming season: Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), an orphan who finds herself in a stretch of very unhealthy luck. The following episode is a superbly good vacation romp, the type that can promote you on each this new Physician and Ruby Sunday very quickly in any respect, a feat so tough you would possibly overlook how straightforward it’s to mess up. Physician Who is nice at choosing Medical doctors. The exhausting half is choosing the companion.
Trendy Physician Who has put plenty of weight on the Physician’s sidekick, usually to the present’s detriment. The function is arguably extra necessary for Physician Who to get proper than the lead — a great companion (or in some circumstances, companions) has to each be the viewers surrogate and the grounding drive for the Physician. Earlier than showrunner Russell T. Davies left Who for the primary time in 2009, his then-final stretch of specials emphasised that unhealthy issues occur when the Physician is alone, stewing in his centuries-old thoughts as he travels all of time and area and confronts the horrors therein.
The place Physician Who has gotten into hassle up to now is when its writers resolve to make its companion much more than this. Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) turned a love curiosity for the Tenth Physician (David Tennant), which you’ll take challenge with or not (I personally imagine the Physician-companion relationship ought to at all times be platonic, however flirting is okay). Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) practically had her tenure as companion ruined due to the choice to make her smitten with the Physician, eternally unrequited as a result of she wasn’t Rose.
The worst mistake Physician Who’s writers could make with a companion, nonetheless, is after they make them a puzzle for the Physician to unravel. This was the spotlight of the Steven Moffat period of Who, the place long-running plots about “The Lady Who Waited” (Karen Gillan as Amy Pond) or “The Unimaginable Lady” (Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald). Once more: It’s exhausting sufficient being the companion. Additionally making them a plot machine? That’s rather a lot!
“The Church on Ruby Street” appears prefer it’s going to go on this path, as Ruby Sunday seems to be the nexus of a number of unnatural coincidences that pile one on high of one another because the particular goes on. Fortunately, Davies side-steps that notion, merely utilizing it because the means to introduce the monster of this episode: little baby-eating goblins that navigate the universe based mostly on coincidence and likewise like to sing.
It’s in that type of predicament that the viewers will get to know what sort of companion Ruby Sunday shall be: a younger lady who’s recreation to match the Physician beat for beat in no matter it takes to get out of an outlandish state of affairs, even when it means singing and dancing in entrance of some baby-eating goblins. Ruby Sunday is an orphan who needs she knew extra about her previous, however isn’t scared to run towards the longer term — one that features a time-traveling alien who loves an journey and desperately wants the corporate. It seems like the beginning of a fairy story.
Which, put merely, is what Physician Who looks like at its perfect.