Space Babies – As this episode of Doctor Who begins, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) enters the Tardis and meets The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa). He tells her why he can’t tell her his name. The Doctor mentions he landed in 1963. Ruby learns that his world, Gallifrey, is gone and everyone died due to a genocide. He is the last of the Time Lords. They use the Tardis and encounter dinosaurs in an area that will be Wyoming. Ruby steps on a butterfly. Her appearance changes and she calls herself Rubathon Blue of the 57th Hemisphere Hatchlings. The Doctor brings the butterfly back to life to fix her. They go back into the Tardis and travel elsewhere. They find that they’re in a space station and an alien is after them.

The Doctor questions why he ran when he loves meeting new things. He pushes a button and finds they’re on a baby farm with a parthenogenesis machine. Ruby questions whether this place grows babies for food. The Doctor says baby farms boost the population because worlds sometimes go sterile. The babies are grown for a colony world. They open the window before realizing the human race went to the stars. The Doctor pushes a button that reveals they’re on a planet called the Pacifico del Rio. He uses a device on her phone so she can call her mom, Clara (Michelle Greenidge). Clara doesn’t want to talk to her because she just ran out the door. Meanwhile, The Doctor tries to figure out what’s wrong with this place.

Eric (Mason McCumskey) arrives and says they’ve been waiting for an awfully long time. He rushes off to tell everyone about mommy and daddy. Eric leads them to a bunch of other babies in strollers. They get back to work and explain their responsibilities. Poppy (Sienna-Robyn Mavanga-Phipps) says she kept the station running for mommy and daddy. The babies took over the station when something happened to the adults. Ruby admits they don’t know where the adults went. The Doctor finds out that the crew went home, abandoned the ship, and left the babies behind. They also left the birth machine running. The babies grew up, but remained the same size. Doctor tries to cheer up Poppy by telling her about his story. The babies explain that they manage to survive thanks to Nan-E. The babies begin freaking out when Doctor mentions the thing downstairs.

They call it the Bogeyman. Nan-E is scared of the Bogeyman. Doctor checks the system and confirms the station is in trouble because of a build-up of pressure in Hull 3-B. Nan-E keeps telling him Portal 3-5-7. The Doctor rushes there with Ruby. They stop to talk about Ruby’s parents, but she doesn’t know anything about them. She was just left in the snow on Ruby Road. It begins snowing. The Doctor doesn’t know what that means. He wonders who her mother is. The Doctor says the memory changed and she was pointing at him. Then, they watch a video of the captain and other crew members signing off and calling the company’s actions appalling. Nan-E says the government closed the station to save money, but the law says it’s illegal to stop the birth machine.

She introduces herself as Jocelyn Sancerre. Ruby learns the planet below won’t stop the babies from being born. When they’re born, they just don’t look after them. Jocelyn has been alone on her own watching the kids for six years. She hides because she doesn’t want to see them die and she doesn’t want them to see her die. The station is stuck in orbit. The Doctor is thrilled to learn there’s a DuBarryDuPlessy world nearby that can take in a lot of refugees. They need to get to the Tardis, but the bogeyman is preventing them from doing that. The Doctor wonders why he’s so scared of the bogeyman. They see Eric approaching the bogeyman on the camera. Eric says Ruby told him there’s no such thing as the bogeyman. He’s going to find the naughty dog and tell him off.

It looks like Eric is about to get attacked by the bogeyman. Ruby rushes in to help since she blames herself. The Doctor follows her. They find the stroller empty and decide to distract the bogeyman. They find Eric before the bogeyman chases them away. The other babies use fire to attack the bogeyman. Then, the babies return. The Doctor decides to stay to find out what that thing is. Jocelyn tells them what she knows about the bogeyman. The Doctor finds something that may tell them more about the bogeyman. Ruby gets slimed. They find the parthenogenesis machine. The Doctor says it’s all one machine. There’s one up above and one down below. The one above grew the babies and the one below grew the bogeyman. The Doctor explains that the educational software ran out of control.

The software told a story and invented the bogeyman. The machine made it scary intentionally. The Doctor explains to Ruby that the bogeyman is made out of bogeys. As they laugh about it, the bogeyman appears behind them. Jocelyn finds that the system has calibrated so she finally has control. She leads The Doctor and Ruby to safety before saying she’s going to get rid of the bogeyman. Jocelyn wants to blast the bogeyman to space. The Doctor tells Ruby to stop her. The Doctor believes the bogeyman is the only one of its kind. He manages to save the bogeyman. Ruby stops Jocelyn and tells her that you have to save them all. Later, Doctor tells the babies that their favorite monster is fine.

Then, he tells them about the world of Mondo Caroon. The build-up is from their nappies. Before they leave, The Doctor gives Ruby her very own Tardis key because he wants her to come with him. Once they enter the Tardis, The Doctor tells Ruby that he can’t take her to the church on Ruby Road. If they change one thing, it could change everything. Ruby says they will go see her mom at Christmas right now. Carla speaks to someone on the phone about a man called The Doctor. Ruby and The Doctor arrive seconds later. Before exiting the Tardis, The Doctor runs a DNA scan on Ruby.

 

Doctor Who Review

This episode of Doctor Who wasn’t great, but the effectiveness of the episode may depend on the viewer and their age. Younger viewers may enjoy this episode, but teens and adults probably won’t. For adults who require a little more than stunning visuals, this episode is going to be very disappointing because it was embarrassingly bad.

The story wasn’t particularly strong and can even be described as stupid at times. It was shallow with no reason for viewers to genuinely care about the outcome. The idea may have looked great on paper, but it was comically bad when put in motion. No one has really settled into their roles yet unless the hyper-exaggerated performances are going to be the norm from here on out.

None of the theories seemed to flow as well as they could’ve because there were so many and they were thrown out so rapidly towards the end of the episode. While some scenes looked amazing, the rest of the scenery felt claustrophobic. The name is still there and the visuals are impressive, but this is not on par with the Doctor Who viewers have cherished for so many years.

Rubbish would probably be high praise to give to this episode. It scores a 4 out of 10. Recaps of Doctor Who can be found on Reel Mockery here. Find out how to support our independent site at this link. Learn more about advertising with us here. Discuss Dr Who and other shows at the Reel Mockery Forum.