DOCTOR WHO: SPACE BABIES & THE DEVIL’S CHORD review.

I wonder what Disney newbies, accessing Doctor Who for the first time, will make of ‘Space Babies’, which was clearly written as another introductory episode for the fifteenth Doctor and Ruby: Two exuberant, excited, apparently young people (above), travelling in a time and space machine that looks like a battered old hut on the outside and is a hi-tech marvel on the inside, to a space station run by talking babies, terrorised by a monster made from nasal mucus…

By any standards, that’s all a brave, bold, mind-blowing ask for a new audience to accept.

With the rest of the world now tuning in, long-term viewers will have recognised that writer and executive producer Russell T Davies recycled his companion introduction scenes from the first season he executive produced in 2005 – namely the stories ‘Rose’ and ‘The End of the World’; even some of the dialogue is the same, principally the “I’m the last of the Time Lords” line. There’s also a scene that explains how Ruby can understand the local language and – in the biggest steal, from ‘The End of the World’ – a sequence where, like Rose, Ruby phones her mum at home. (I guess RTD’s thinking was, “These scenes worked well before, so why not?”)

There’s a sense of more recent de ja vu about the location for the Doctor and Ruby’s first trip into space: a spacecraft where something has gone seriously wrong. But where the atmosphere of ‘Wild Blue Yonder’ (2023) was gripping and paranoid, the talking, cooing space babies in their pushchairs, with Baby Station Beta full of congealed nappies that provided methane propulsion – i.e. a big fart – made the story twee and silly.

Again, I wonder what teenagers and twenty-somethings thought. The Umbrella Academy (2019-2024) or Wandavision (2021) ‘Space Babies’ wasn’t. The fabled long-term viewer will remember the burping dustbin from ‘Rose’ and the farting aliens from ‘Aliens of London’ and ‘World War Three’ at the top of Russell’s first season, so he clearly likes – quite literally, in this case – toilet humour.

Much as I’d like him to deliver searing, grown up drama to the standard It’s A Sin (2021) or A Very English Scandal (2018) in Doctor Who all the time, the intention here seemed to be – as in his 2005 season, again – to concentrate on the exhilarating, sometimes daft, rush of adventure the Doctor and Ruby were caught up in before things become considerably darker. The reviews and pictures from Steven Moffat’s ‘Boom’, the third episode, have indeed confirmed that to be the case.

‘The Devil's Chord’, the second episode, was a step towards that, and I really hope the Disney newbies stayed around for it after the inconsequential ‘Space Babies’. Perhaps the inclusion of the most famous band in the world – The Beatles, naturally – ensured that.

Having a larger-than-life, scene-stealing villain always gives Doctor Who stories more focus, and Maestro (above, played by Jinx Monsoon in utterly perfect casting) was so far over the top they were skiing down the other side. In an unexpected sequel to ‘Giggle’, RTD’s desire to shift the series more into fantasy was apparent as the Time Lord and Ruby took on a god who could steal music – a wonderful, poetic idea.

There was so much to enjoy here. From the opening moments when Maestro erupted from a piano, through the Doctor and Ruby’s priceless expressions when they realise how appalling The Beatles’ song is, to Ruby being dragged along the floor by a lasso of musical notes, and the awed description by Paul McCartney (George Caple) of his hidden musical talent… the heady mixture of surrealism, humour and emotional drama was archetypal Doctor Who.

Despite the pre-publicity, The Beatles themselves don’t get much of a look in, though look closer and there may have been some oblique allusions to the Fab Four. Maestro’s extreme facial expressions, and vocals, reminded me of the Blue Meanie leader from The Beatles’ psychedelic cartoon feature Yellow Submarine (1968). Their tendency to erupt from pianos possibly references The Beatles, in the same film, hiding in a piano in the ‘Hey Bulldog’ sequence, and the chord Lennon and McCartney strike on the Abbey Road piano sounds suspiciously like the climactic one at the end of ‘A Day in the Life’. I’d love to know if any of this was intentional.

The darkening of the series was heralded by a gloomy sky over 1963 London and a trip in the TARDIS into alternative time, where the London of 2024 had been destroyed and its ruins were funeral black. Clearly another primer about the series’ format for new viewers, this scene was again borrowed, this time from one of Doctor Who’s greatest stories, ‘Pyramids of Mars’. Like Sarah Jane (Elisabeth Sladen) before her, Ruby learned that just because she came from the future, the past wasn’t immutable. The sequence was sombre and well acted by both Ncuti and Millie.

The song and dance number at the end – ‘There’s Always a Twist’ – surprised me at first, as it played no part in the defeat of Maestro, appearing to be an unnecessary, self-indulgent add-on. But… if you consider Maestro and the Doctor’s winks to camera, the Abbey Road zebra crossing lighting up as they and Ruby danced across it, and the presence of Shirley Ballas and Johannes Radebe from Strictly Come Dancing (2004-2024) – who I’m pretty sure weren’t around in 1963 – there might be something else going on.

With the TARDIS duo up against beings who can alter reality, perhaps they never left the Toymaker’s domain? I think RTD may be playing a long game here, and it’s easy to see the song’s title having a double meaning that could pay off down the line.

If not, it’s RTD and the cast having fun because they can. Watching Beatles producer George Martin (Ed White) doing the twist was hilariously life affirming.

With the rapid shifts in emotion in ‘Space Babies’ for Ncuti and Millie to play, the intention was clearly to show their acting range – variously happy, sad, terrified, introspective and surprised. The story succeeded on that score, but it was good to see their performances had calmed down in ‘The Devil’s Chord’. Ncuti, in particular, enjoyed some dramatic character development, terrified of a foe he couldn’t defeat and the price he’d already paid in confronting a similar entity. The Doctor being afraid is strikingly new, not to mention unsettling.

I do hope, though, that their character doesn’t settle into the default noughties Doctor-template of hyperactive geek. The were signs of it in both episodes, but it’s early days yet.

One miss, one hit, the intriguing mystery of “a hidden song deep inside [Ruby’s] soul” and a Steven Moffat story waiting in the wings. Doctor Who in 2024 is different, but reassuringly familiar.