It is, of course, a fantastic episode of television. It's curious in that, straight up, it's not exactly for me. Or for big die-hard fans of the phone box show. The show hasn't been this explanatory and introductory about its basic fundamentals since The Pilot with Peter Capaldi. The Gen Alpha kids for whom this is the new exciting show on Disney+ have no idea who the fuck Peter Capaldi is, having been Earth Babies in 2017 when we were talking about 12 and Bill and Nardole. The only beat that isn't touched on is "bigger on the inside" and that's only because they did that beat at the end of Church On Ruby Road. It's all re-introduced and re-explained, and I can see that being a negative point for die-hard fans who know all this shit off by heart already. Certainly, I constantly desire something new and fresh and innovative in Doctor Who, and seeing old beats like "oh, we time travel" or "last of the Time Lords" or "the companion looks out at the vastness of future space in awe" can be seen as old hat.
On the other hand, it's not just the words. It's the vibes. Even though it's all shit I've heard before and know intimately, it's the way it all happens that gives a certain freshness. Take the whole "last of the Time Lords" exposition, where Doctor Who explains that all the Gallifreyans are gone. When Chibnall reverted the status quo back to this four years ago, it felt stale and trite, rolling back for no real reason other than the nostalgic comfort of the old plot beats and Time Lord angst. Contrast to the very architect of that plot line in the first place doing it again, and it's night and day. Yes, it's a bummer, but Gatwa's Doctor is a cheerful optimist and he doesn't let it get him down. There's the moment in the climax where it motivates his actions at the end, but remember that this is the Doctor who went through therapy and came out of it better. Gatwa's joy is just infectious and I continue to adore him. On the same token, Ruby looking out of the window into space is wonderfully shot. Hell, they even do the space-time phone call thing that was so present in RTD stories of the mid-aughts. That's a funny synchronicity, because over on the Doctor Who podcast I'm part of we just did 42 and that's present in that story as well.
Synchronicity. There's a funny word. It's something that has haunted me for over 20 years now. The idea of coincidence being cancelled, things resonating with each other and being interconnected. That's a new element of this story, and something that feels related to the overall arc we know nothing of yet. There's clearly a mystery involved with Ruby Sunday and the mother who abandoned her, and that synchronicity comes into major play in this story. The titular Space Babies are orphaned, stuck up here because of a pro-life system which refused to abort them but also refused any responsibility for taking care of them. In the words of the late great George Carlin, if you're pre-born you're fine but if you're pre-school you're fucked. It's not just Ruby and the babies who mirror each other, but Doctor Who as well. The Timeless Child is canon, but RTD at least has the good grace to do something with it on an emotional level beyond just shaking up lore and doing jack shit. That, ironically, is ground I've covered here before, so let's cover something newish. The Boogeyman.
There's a crassness to this thing, but also this symbolic beauty and grace. Yes, it's a creature constructed out of literal baby snot. That's so gross that I kind of love it for how brazen it is. (And, touching on gross, there's also the resolution at the end being A GIANT FUCKING FART FROM BUILT-UP BABY DIAPERS HOLY FUCK) There's also the implication that it was born out of a story come to life, some metafictional thing which feels very Moffatian in its approach. I won't say too much on that because I have to wait all of one week to go full ham on Steven Moffat praise, but I dig it. It's a potential glimpse into the weirder and wilder universe that this era is building towards, and it's a neat change of pace from just "godlike beings fuck around with time and space" like the Toymaker or... well, next episode. In addition, I just adore that the Doctor empathizes with it as an orphaned baby, the only one of its kind, and takes special care in trying to save it because we have to save all of the babies on this ship. So far in the Gatwa era it's the closest thing we've had to a monster, and the corridors it lurks are perfect industrial straight out of Ridley Scott's Alien. Just the right mix of dimly lit, steamy, and slimy to make them traditional-ass Doctor Who corridors. Hey, if we're introducing the kids to this hip Doctor Who thing, there ain't nothing more Doctor Who than running down a corridor away from a big monster.
That sums up Space Babies well, I think. There ain't nothing more Doctor Who than this, but it's not the dull dishwater "routine Doctor Who" of years past. Yes, it's being Doctor Who 101 for the new kids, but it's doing so in a way that also doesn't make the oldheads like me roll their eyes. It's giving everyone this vibrant dose of new shit that resonates and sings and synchronizes. It's lovely, it's wonderful, and it's a genuinely good little episode. Speaking of resonance and singing and synchronizing, though... Well, that's tomorrow's job. That'll be a fun one to get to, but Space Babies gets a pass. It's quite good. Let's see if the rest of the era can be this wonderful.
No comments:
Post a Comment