Space Babies snot the best Doctor Who has to offer, but it’s a lot of fun
Here, as Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge Stewart once wearily observed, we go again…
Ncuti Gatwa’s season opener proper, SPACE BABIES, opens with a statement of intent. The intent, of course, is to fully, forcibly embrace the messy legacy left by RTD’s immediate predecessor. We’re not backing off from the Timeless Child, nope. If anything, we’re plunging headfirst into it although, as the 8th Doctor also once observed, perhaps not the Timeless Child we were expecting (or Chibnall intended). There are clues here and there of a masterplan at work. The thematic emphasis of orphans and foundlings at the heart of not only this particular episode but the whole “Impossible Girl”-esque mystery surrounding Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) point to a larger design. As does the seemingly throwaway gag involving chaos theory’s most infamous butterfly effect. Even the Doctor seems perturbed by that one, which when you think about it is very interesting: a Time Lord confused about time?
Opening pretty much where THE CHURCH ON RUBY ROAD left off, SPACE BABIES quickly and efficiently recaps the series’ basic premise, Davies seeking once again to provide a jumping on point for potential new viewers even if absolutely nobody is going to buy his “this is Series One” pitch. We get a definition and demonstration of the TARDIS. We get confirmation that the Time Lords are gone forever (for, like the third or fourth time) along with a Rani namedrop (RTD is nothing if not a tease) before we whizz off into the future to a space station that feels a little like, whatever other playbooks Davies has thumbed through in his return to the show (Marvel, Buffy The Vampire Slayer), he’s not above remixing his own previous hits. Thus, we get a variation on a theme of THE END OF THE WORLD but instead of The Face of Boe we get the CGI faces of Babies. In Space.
There’s an undeniable adorability to the cast of SPACE BABIES that helps cover up the fact that while there’s a great deal going on all the time, it doesn’t really make an awful lot of sense – even by DOCTOR WHO’s own improbably elastic storytelling standards.
First things first, Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor is an absolute delight. Liberated from the character’s sense of survivor’s remorse that’s permeated the series since its 2005 return and absolved of any Gallifreyan guilt by the character’s newfound sense of cosmic uniqueness, there’s a giddy enthusiasm to the character that evokes Matt Smith’s eleventh Doctor, possibly the only other incarnation of the character that could make SPACE BABIES work. Likewise, Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday seems almost tailor-made to be a companion – in fact despite her apparent incredulity at the Doctor’s continual casual revelations of alienness, she’s a great deal more sanguine with the whole time travel outer space adventure malarky than pretty much any of her predecessors.
Davies, in addition to being a wildly inventive writer is often, when it comes to his sci-fi works, not a particularly subtle one, and SPACE BABIES makes several pointed allusions to the hypocrisies of the [American] pro-life movement (wonder how newly minted co-sponsor Disney+ feels about that?) and the ongoing refugee crisis as well as a grab-bag of half-hearted swipes at late-stage capitalism but the whole thing just feels a bit…sloppy. All the ideas are good but they don’t quite fit together. The ‘fairy story’ explanation kind of makes sense, if you squint a bit, and the character of NannE is fun – and funnier once you can hear Golda Rosheuvel’s actual dialogue being filtered through the comms system. And yes, if you’re disappointed that the primary antagonist is a bogeyman made of literal bogeys then perhaps you’ve forgotten the series is back in the hands of someone who created the farting Ferengi-lite Slitheen and used them not just once or twice but thrice across two distinct series. In fact, this time, a gigantic fart saves the day. Well, for the babies at least. For Ruby, there’s a dire warning about not trying to solve the mystery of her birth with a time machine (Davies clearly not in the mood to reprise FATHER’S DAY) and the Doctor’s clandestine scanning of Ruby’s DNA (Davies keener, apparently, to borrow from THE ALMOST PEOPLE).
Like the station it’s set on, SPACE BABIES feels a bit like it’s held together more by good will than good structural integrity and the Doctor’s arbitrary decision to “not kill the monster because it’s the only one of its kind” when he’s done so numerous times before regardless of numbers feels a bit forced, it’s an undeniable turn to Saturday teatime fun for all the family with writing that while far from perfect at least cements that the decline of the last few years is starting to be reversed.
