- Title: Doctor Who – Space Babies
- IMDb: link
After introducing us to the Fifteenth Doctor‘s (Ncuti Gatwa) new companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) on Christmas, the new series of Doctor Who kicks off with “Space Babies” in which The Doctor takes Ruby 150 million years into the past for a quick joke about chaos theory before jumping 19,000 years into the future and landing on a space station baby farm run by space babies who mistake the travelers for their missing parents. The only adult on the station is an accountant (Golda Rosheuvel) who has been hiding behind the scenes pretending to be a robotic nanny after the other crew left when the station was ordered to shut down.
While not a bad opener, the show has certainly had better (which may explain why Disney+ reclassified the Christmas special as the first episode of this season). The baby themes are laid on a bit thick to be sure along with some kid-themed jokes of goo dripping from pipes and engines propelled by baby feces. Also onboard the station, between The Doctor and the the TARDIS is a literal Boogeyman (don’t ask) which was born the same time as the babies because of a computer malfunction thinking the monster was a necessary part of the babies’ development.
Continuing a tradition we’ve seen with some of the recent companions beginning with Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), The Doctor is fascinated by his latest companion and a connection she seems to be making with their latest destination. We even get a memory which somehow makes it snow on the space station suggesting a higher importance on the night of Ruby’s birth that The Doctor refuses to mess with along with the closing scene of The Doctor using the TARDIS to scan his companion for whatever might set her apart.
