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Post by mark687 on Jun 13, 2024 15:33:30 GMT
Synopsis
The Doctor and UNIT investigate Ruby's past. But as the Time Window reveals horrifying secrets from Christmas Eve, the mysterious Triad Technology unleash the greatest evil of all.
Cast List (Rumoured Incomplete)
The Doctor Ncuti Gatwa
Ruby Sunday Millie Gibson
Kate Lethbridge-Stewart Jemma Redgrave
Melanie Bush Bonnie Langford
Rose Noble Yasmin Finney
Colonel Ibrahim Alexander Devrient
Morris Gibbons Lenny Rush
Harriet Genesis Lynea
Susan Triad Susan Twist
Bailey Sinclair Fela Lufadeju
Carla Sunday Michelle Greenidge
Mrs Flood Anita Dobson
Cherry Sunday Angela Wynter
Colonel Chidozie Tachia Newall
Corporal Sullivan Jasmine Bayes
The Vlinx Aidan Cook
Voice of the Vlinx Nicholas Briggs
Writer Russell T Davies
Regards
mark687
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Post by mark687 on Jun 14, 2024 23:49:50 GMT
Good set up though Anti-Climatic because it was the obvious
And Shane you'll need to screen for Jr there's some full on Horror in it.
Regards
mark687
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Post by shallacatop on Jun 14, 2024 23:52:03 GMT
One of those pitch perfect set ups in the vein of Bad Wolf, The Sound of Drums, Silence in the Library, The Stolen Earth, The Pandorica Opens, etc. Let’s just hope it sticks the landing. Some really gruesome visuals; I hope we see Sutekh beyond the jackal appearance.
Ncuti on fine form showing a range of emotion and Millie continues to be a joy. Loved the opening pre-titles in particular where we got straight into the UNIT family groove.
Only criticism is I thought Lenny Rush was quite irritating, especially knowing we’ve got Osgood or Shirley that could’ve filled the exact same role.
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Post by Star Platinum on Jun 14, 2024 23:57:09 GMT
We are so back.
This was amazing. I loved every second of this. The tension building up the entire episode was great, and bringing it to a boil with the cliffhanger. This could possibly be RTD’s best season finale yet!
I can’t wait for next week!
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2024 23:59:01 GMT
Thought it was great - loved that Russell blew off the theories so fast - the anagram for TARDIS, the Susan name parallel. Or listing The Trickster in a list, just tossed off. Like he's mocking fan theories in a fun way.
Sutekh has been heavily speculated but it didn't make the reveal any less wonderful. I don't think I expected Ruby's birth and Mrs Flood to tie in. Seems that "Oh, RTD has too many plot teases.." may not be the valid critique it appeared.
Disagree about Lennie Rush - thought he was cool.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2024 0:03:58 GMT
How, though, are some gonna take The Doctor saying he's never had children? ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/6343532/images/ZBDvOFPmQgNwxFXLpuoD.gif)
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Post by Whovitt on Jun 15, 2024 0:27:31 GMT
Best episode of the season so far! Proper edge-of-your-seat viewing. Not that it's a problem to have political messaging in an episode, but this one felt more like a traditional, "just here having fun" episode of Doctor Who, and I loved it! I'd seen the rumours about the big bad returning, and immediately knew they were true when Susan asked Mel to call her "Sue", but that didn't diminish the epic-ness of the reveal. I don't think the CG dog thing on the TARDIS is particularly well realised, and I'm not too sure about the skull-like look of Sutekh's minions, but everything else about the ending was incredible! And seeing Gabriel Woolf's name in the credits... I actually had to go and look him up, because I didn't realise he was still with us. I thought it might have been archive material from Pyramids of Mars, so learning that all of this is brand-new material was the perfect icing on the cake ![:D](//storage.proboards.com/6343532/images/IwGTjEvWiMqDCgEk5m52.gif) I'm sure I'll have proper notes on the episode when I've watched it a second time, but as it stands, no notes. Can't wait for the finale next week!
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Post by antartiks on Jun 15, 2024 0:40:58 GMT
Wow, what a great episode. I was on the edge of my seat for the last 10 minutes or so. How bloody great is it that Gabriel Woolf can be in a Doctor Who episode in 2024 ? Pyramids of Mars is one of my absolute favorite episodes of Doctor Who, so I enjoyed the hell out of that. The Mara and Trickster mentions were on point too. Awesome setup episode, I'm really hoping part 2 delivers next week. But so far, so great.
I'm in love with Gatwa's Doctor so far. I'm really hoping he gets to stay for at least 4 seasons, as 9 episodes per season still feels too short, as much as I enjoyed this new season 1.
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Post by agentten on Jun 15, 2024 1:01:46 GMT
This season has been quite a rollercoaster for me, with some episodes that I didn't care for at all and others that I thought were marvelous. "The Legend of Ruby Sunday" is marvelous. I was on the edge of my seat the whole episode and that reveal! Absolute chills! RTD promised us a Susan Twist and boy did we get it! This felt like the second coming of Bad Wolf. Can't wait for next week's episode, but I'm also going to love speculating all week about what could happen. I doubt that this is a threat that'll be gone by the end of the season.
Some thoughts: - We still don't know what Ruby has to do with all of this, nor Mrs. Flood. Very intrigued to see how it all connects. - That the threat is somehow part of the TARDIS suggests that could be it's entry point to this universe or perhaps it was hitching a ride from the edge of the galaxy after the salt shaker incident. - The naming of the names was chilling. We have so many more big bads coming. - Kudos to Murray Gold for the score this week. Incredible work! Especially during the big reveal. - Clearly a UNIT spin off is in the works. They're introducing a lot of UNIT characters and building new sets. However, as I've said before, where is Osgood? It must be a plot point. Otherwise, why not bring her back by now? - Loved Mel in this episode. I love that she's so good at being part of UNIT and, while I really like Ruby, I also kinda want to see Fifteen traveling with Mel. The hallway scene where she helps The Doctor with his guilt had so much unspoken history. - Laughed out loud at Mel's bike being orange. Such a cute callback to her first scene with old Sixie. - Loved the little confirmation we got that Donna does indeed now work for UNIT. Hopefully, this means we'll see her more. - This level of threat seems to call for a lot of help. I wonder if we'll see other former companions brought into service to deal with this truly intimidating problem. Perhaps the final fight somewhere down the road is where Fourteen could come back into the picture and finally regenerate.
Loved every minute of this episode. Top notch leveraging of the Who mythos from RTD and a very satisfying reveal to the Susan Twist mystery.
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Post by dasmaniac on Jun 15, 2024 1:14:41 GMT
RTD did it again. He's always loved a good finale. This was nothing short of extraordinary. Did anyone catch the line from The Doctor that he'll be in this body for a long time? Perhaps a hint we'll be seeing 15 for a long time.
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Post by Sir Wearer of Hats on Jun 15, 2024 3:49:14 GMT
I am SERIOUSLY worried for Mel now given where she’s standing ….
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Post by bethhigdon on Jun 15, 2024 4:07:31 GMT
It's hard to judge what is clearly just the first half of a two parter.
Let's just say that I'm glad that they didn't go the obvious route with Susan Twist. If Susan is to ever return, Ford (so long as we still have her) needs to be there in some manner to pass on the torch, imo.
Also I get to hold onto my Mrs Flood is Dodo theory for one more week.
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Jun 15, 2024 4:24:24 GMT
Well.. That was a great episode.. I got momentarily choked up with what The Doctor said to Ruby about how he knows Kate. And when he saw Mel.. This episode was all strengths and non of the weaknesses of the others. ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/6343532/images/ZBDvOFPmQgNwxFXLpuoD.gif)
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Kestrel
Chancellery Guard
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Post by Kestrel on Jun 15, 2024 5:59:16 GMT
Uh-oh. Looks like I get to be the lone voice of dissent here -- or at least the first one. My teenage iconoclastic tendencies have resurfaced! This won't end well....
.... .... .... ....
Was this episode better or worse than Space Babies? I'm leaning towards the latter. Space Babies wasn't a great watch, but I think it largely succeeded in telling the story it wanted to tell (I just really, really didn't like the story it wanted to tell). The Legend of Ruby Sunday, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have any story it particularly wants to tell.
Instead, what we get is a lot of set-up, interspersed with some lovely little character moments, that only functions to rather-clumsily set up next-week's finale. And, unfortunately, it fails to do the one thing a finale set-up episode kind of needs to do: pull back the curtain on all the mystery boxes so we can focus the second part entirely on resolving the conflict.
Speaking of mystery boxes: The Legend of Ruby Sunday's plot and structure only really make sense if the Doctor knows or believes or has ever had any reason to believe that the mystery of Ruby's parentage is at-all related to the mystery of Susan Triad's identity. As far as we, the audience, are concerned... these are two totally unrelated mystery boxes, and we're not privy to any more information that the Doctor is. It doesn't make any sense, in the moment, for the Doctor to ignore the Susan Triad thing to investigate Ruby's mother, and it makes even less sense for him to ignore the giant monster wrapped around the TARDIS to investigate Susan Triad. That both plots wind up to be the same thing is no more than baldfaced contrivance of the worst kind -- Doctor Who is better than that; RTD is better than that.
Meanwhile we get another fourth-wall break from Mrs Flood this week, on a much more ominous note this time. God help us if all of these mystery boxes are to be opened up next week -- that'd definitely put this two-parter high up in the rankings of "worst Doctor Who finale."
So, yeah, I didn't really enjoy this one too much. The handful of smaller character scenes worked well, and the humor generally landed. The ultimate reveal of Sutekh was a lot of fun, and the design of Sutekh's monstrous form was pretty freakin' spectacular -- as were the effects for Harbinger. I'm not sure if they gave her the skull-face with make or CGI or a combination of the two, but either way, it looked great and was vastly cooler than the more generic skull-face they gave Susan for her transformation. It was also nice to see Rose again, even if she didn't actually get much to do here.
And let's talk about that Susan twist for a moment. It sure was weird how the scene cut back and forth between her and the monstrous-Sutekh wrapped around the TARDIS, having them speak the exact same lines at the exact same time. Structured that way, there's a very clear implication that both Susan and the monstrous-Sutekh are the same entity. I wonder if that was intentional, or just something done from dramatic effect without a lot of thought put into it?
And I wouldn't rule out the latter, as RTD is once again hiding a twist in some wordplay that her sure seems to think is very clever. It's not. And he takes even more time to explain it than the equally-kinda-cringey Professor Yana reveal.
Continuing on about mystery boxes, come to think of it, did we actually get any answers for any of them? Sure, we learn that Susan Triad is Sutekh... but why on Earth would Sutekh want to masquerade on Earth as an altruistic tech mogul (literally the least realistic thing Doctor Who has ever done)? Why would Sutekh send Susan (or a version of Sutekh, himself, how thinks he's Susan) into a bunch of random time periods just to wink and nod at the audience? Why would Sutekh try to mislead the Doctor into thinking Susan Triad was actually their granddaughter?
And that's something I really, greatly, very much did not like -- the granddaughter scene. Do we seriously have to retcon Susan's relationship to the Doctor to be some sort of pointlessly convoluted, timey-wimey, River Song nonsense? Good lord. This feels like something Chris Chibnall would write. It gives us an "answer" to a question that never needed to be asked in the first place, and cheapens the character and setting by doing so. Hated that.
Overall the episode is well-shot and well-acted, and has a bunch of great little moments -- again, Ncuti Gatwa's performance is spectacular, though in retrospect it's pretty odd that Millie Gibson gets so little to do in a story with her character's name in the title. Shame the script their working with has so little going for it... that shifts way too much responsibility onto the second-half of this story.
TL;DR The Legend of Ruby Sunday gets a big thumbs-down from me. I'm not left terribly optimistic about the finale, especially with the absurdly ridiculous stakes of the conflict being the fate of the entire universe, but it's hard to imagine it can be anything but an improvement. Put me down for a weak 3 out 5.
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shutupbanks
Castellan
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There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
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Post by shutupbanks on Jun 15, 2024 6:59:05 GMT
Strong 4 for me. There was a lot of build-up but, as Kestrel said, most of it seemed to be there for the cliffhanger rather than for a story. I did love the reveal of the UNIT personnel and the relationship they have with the Doctor but there was also a lot of continuity for a casual viewer to deal with as well.
I didn’t like the setting up of Ruby as one of the most important people in the universe and if UNIT are using their expensive, potentially highly-explosive equipment in the middle of a major city to find out who dumped a baby 20 years ago, well I would be asking their department heads about their priorities. Carla said “Dickensian” but with snow, a lamppost and Christmas I was thinking more Narnia than anything else. I’m also hoping that we get a reveal why Susan has been appearing in places and guises that make no narrative sense except to make viewers say “Ooh, there she is again!”
Having said that, I loved the reveal of Sutekh despite it looking a little cartoon-y in HD. I was amazed that they got Gabriel Woolf back to do this as well. When I heard the voice I nearly had a nerdgasm.
There was some great character work as well: Mel giving the Doctor a dressing down in the hallway was a treat, despite her versions of the Doctor never displaying that sort of behaviour before. I love the relationship between Kate and the Doctor as well, showing that she knows him as well as her dad did.
So, overall, a delight. My hope is that we get a conclusion that carries on that momentum.
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Post by sherlock on Jun 15, 2024 7:38:38 GMT
Well that certainly had a twist at the end. I had seen some of the fan theories of Sutekh but didn’t buy them cos sand and “Sue-Tech” seems too flimsy. I guess not! Nice to hear Gabriel Woolf is still the voice of all things utterly evil.
Its a bit of a change to Sutekh to promote him from one of a number of Osirans believed to be a god by ancient Egyptians to an actual god, but then maybe Harriet is just blowing his trumpet a little. Certainly more dramatic to proclaim yourself “mother and father and other to them all” than “some Egyptians thought I was god of death and then I got stuck in a chair”.
The rest of the episode is really just hurtling towards that twist, but it’s nice to see the Doctor bulldozing his way through an arc rather than waiting for it to come to him (even if in this case, it turns out that was exactly the trap). Susan is well used as a red-herring to drive him to spring that trap (“did you think I was family?” Ouch). So not much memorable in its own right, though Kate being angry yet another soldier got fed to the UNIT meat grinder in service of the Doctor is a nice moment.
All in all, a lot for Empire of Death to wrap up.
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Post by shallacatop on Jun 15, 2024 7:45:24 GMT
Curious how Tales of the TARDIS fits in. I assumed that the Legend of Ruby Sunday cliffhanger would have them in the memory TARDIS, as shown in the trailer. Could be something a little more out of sequence and be something that’s set during Empire of Death instead, almost like a preview.
We didn’t get the Roswell material that RTD teased in episode 7 a few months ago. Could’ve been a mistake and he meant episode 8 or perhaps an extended pre-titles that was scrapped? Could’ve had the Doctor & Ruby encounter another one of Susan’s variants.
Ruby is wearing a different outfit at some point, so perhaps a passage of time in store?
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Post by ollychops on Jun 15, 2024 8:17:53 GMT
Well... that was quite the cliffhanger. I loved the last ten minutes or so... the rest of it was kind of average - it definitely felt like it was treading water until the reveal.
Not crazy about the Susan retcons - the Doctor referenced having a family in RTD1 but he's yet to have kids? It doesn't make sense. And yeah, not happy about RTD ignoring Lucie Miller/To the Death (although I suppose it's vague enough that it could still work).
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Post by fitzoliverj on Jun 15, 2024 8:32:07 GMT
A *considerably* better script than we've had recently. I particularly the acknowledgement of how Rose doesn't really have any reason to be there*, and the Colonel actually thinking about what's going on and acting accordingly (shame it didn't work out for him). But, as that for final revelation - WOW! The stakes have just got a WHOLE LOT LOWER!Seriously, *Sutekh* ? I mean, yes, he's a very powerful alien, and possibly he's got a very big upgrade while hanging around in that billion-year tunnel, but anybody who can sell the idea that he really IS a god needs to be hired to improve the show's image overall.
Oh, and nice shout-out to the incomplete Lenny Henry storyline.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2024 8:32:59 GMT
Surprised to see a few fans think Gabriel was retired or dead - not THAT long ago he was in Benny's New Adventures and the 4DAs. He's 91 though. Wouldn't be surprised if they're adding a bit of digital trickery to his voice above and beyond mixing it with the other actors.
IMAGINE telling someone in the Seventies, or in the Wilderness Years that Gabriel would be back as Sutekh in his 90s and so would Ysanne Churchman as Alpha Centrauri (she was even older!).
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