Apologies for any sound quality issues with my mic (I know they were apparent with clipping at the thoughts section) methinks an update I installed this morning made a cafuffle with my settings but I think I've negated the issues as best as possible.
@kassidyj97 I honestly thought to myself recently "Wouldn't it be cool if Doctor Who went David Lynch for an episode?" so I was very happy that RTD had also apparently thought that.
Love the Ruby Sunday showcase episode. I like the nice interplay of Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson, but having Millie have to carry most of the episode by herself, does show that she's up to the task at hand. The atmosphere was eerie and unsettling, it was amazing
Loved the episode; I enjoy when Doctor Who goes surreal now and then. Couple of points: - I don't think the Woman is older Ruby exactly. They're different actresses (Hilary Hobson and Amanda Walker). But I did get Watcher vibes: an entity from afar that seemingly merges with the character at the point of death? - According to Unleashed, the Woman is constantly repeating something along the lines of: "Bless you. Thank you so much. When you gave me this little thing, it was so precious. How can I ever repay you? But we'll think of something." She's mouthing it, so we don't hear it, but considering she could have mouthed gibberish for all we knew, it's interesting she had specific lines.
I liked the episode. Millie Gibson was great. But RTD seriously owed us an explanation to why everything was happening. I know it’s probably some celtic curse and nothing to do with timey wimey science as usual in Who. But even so. He could have explained.
Millie just carried this episode ! Seeing everyone leave her was so heartbreaking! The ending was a bit confusing, best guess she experienced an alternate timeline because they broke the circle
this was a very interesting episode which i believe they pull off really well. Roger ap Gwilliam sounded like he was the minister of war that was mention in before the flood.
Two absolute instant classics back to back in Boom and 73 Yards. Very much the RTD of Turn Left from S4 here of doing a creepy alternate timeline story.
Here's my idea of what's happening (based on some basic knowledge of the Fey and Fairies lore). The moment the Doctor broke the Fairy Circle he triggered the process of being pulled into the Fey Realms, as lore has it if as person enters a Fairy Ring they are trapped in the Fey Realms for ever (though knowing the Doctor he'd find a way around it eventually, though as time passes differently according to lore, he might arrive back in the 22nd or 23rd century!). Ruby however only removes something from it, which instead invokes the wrath of the Fey, which is what I suspect the 73 yards woman is, however, it can't directly get at Ruby because there's a hidden power built into her (as Maestro says), whatever that power is, it prevents the Fey being from causing direct harm to Ruby, so instead, it lashes out at people around Ruby. Eventually as Ruby is dying, the 73 yards rule starts to fade and the Fey being goes in for the kill, however it doesn't understand the power inside Ruby, and that power hijacks the Fey's power allowing for Ruby's Consciousness to loop back and prevent these events from happening. I strongly suspect that whatever power was put into Ruby is now Time based, and that strongly suggests that it was a "God of Time" that was present when she was born, now who do we know fits the bill? A certain Omega..... As to the Mad Jack written warning, it's a hint that a time loop was in processes from the start.
I’m still not sure I fully understood this. Roger had to have already been born or he’d be too young to run for election. So did freeing Mad Jack’s soul make Roger the new Mad Jack? Was Roger otherwise going to be a good person? And why did the Doctor disappear? Did he get sucked into the circle? I feel like we will never get an answer. Just like the Midnight creature, it will remain a forever mystery.
I don't think Mad Jack is even that important in this equation. Perhaps MadJack from the circle and MadJack the prime minister aren't even the same person. Ruby broke the fae circle. The circle punished her by sending her into a separate timeline, where her worst fear became real - everyone abandoned her. The old woman most likely didn't say anything to those people, its just that anyone who approached her got hit by a strong telepathic field, that made them avoid Ruby forever. It was basically her personal hell. Stopping MadJack wasn't the main goal (in fact, I'm not sure if it will have any consequences for the prime-minister in the main timeline), however doing that helped Ruby repent. After living a long life with many good deeds and eventually accepting her fear of abandonment, fae circle forgave Ruby and allowed her to go back and fix everything. A lot of this stuff was directly said by RTD in Behind the Scenes.
This was like a more nonsensical version of Turn Left. Which, I mean, I love Turn Left, but part of what made it so great is that we've already seen how things were supposed to go in the first place, making it easier to grasp what went wrong in the alternate timeline and what Donna had to do in order to fix it. In 73 Yards, not only was the thing initiating the alternate timeline in the first place was basically "magic"; but, we also don't really get any explanation of what's actually supposed to happen. It just leaves us having to guess too much, which is a problem RTD's resolutions often have sadly. I don't think it makes sense to compare it with us not knowing the Doctor's name when River whispered it. THAT was a logical example of leaving things up for interpretation, or keeping it vague to keep the mystery alive. And the Midnight monster was, again, a valid example of how not knowing made it more creepy - But that felt okay since we didn't actually NEED to know in order to follow and understand the story. All we needed to know was that the monster was an unknown, and the mechanics of it taking the Doctor's voice. However, this isn't the case here. As soon as the twist made Ruby The Woman, it was no longer a mysterious monster, but our main character herself. There was a need for further explanation imo.. Especially when the entire episode hinges around this mystery (it's even titled 73 Yards), AND everything that happens in it technically gets undone in the end anyway. That just means that having no answers doesn't make it more mysterious or creepy, it just makes the episode feel pointless and confusing. Millie did amazing in carrying the episode, and I loved the vibe and setting overall. I even liked the twist of Ruby being The Woman - I just wish there was a better explanation for how she went about "fixing" the timeline, what actually happened after she did, and why people ran away from her older-self in the first place. I mean, if Ruby was the one to stop Roger ap Gwilliam, what happens in the restored timeline where she doesn't? I could accept that maybe stepping on the shrine was the thing that made him become Prime Minister in the first place (releasing "Mad Jack"), but then, the Doctor was talking about him almost causing Nuclear war BEFORE ever stepping on the shrine, and repeated his anecdote about him in the end even after Ruby "fixed" the timeline. Is it just because he's the Doctor and could somehow sense the aborted timeline? Or does Gwilliam rise to power regardless and the difference is he's stopped some other way (which would mean, Ruby really didn't need to do anything about it)? Even Turn Left had a scene at the end where the Doctor and Donna talk about what happened, to make it extra clear to the audience what actually went on (despite it being much clearer to begin with), and I think this episode could have really used a scene like that as well. Instead, we get the Doctor mocking Ruby for seeing the woman, which honestly made no sense and made the entire thing even more confusing (not only because he's seen much weirder stuff over the years, but also because, if he could sense the aborted timeline, why wouldn't he believe her?). I honestly did feel like it was a pretty clunky script, at least resolution-wise. Unlike the well-thought out writing of Turn Left, we never got any explanation of how older-Ruby went back in time to become The Woman in the first place, or how and why she was able to teleport/keep exactly 73 yards away. We have no explanation of why the TARDIS wouldn't let her back in, or what caused the Doctor to disappear in the first place. Also, what could she possibly say to cause so many people to run away from her? I can MAYBE buy UNIT stepping back once they realise she's older Ruby, cause they don't want to mess with the timeline.. But, what made her own Mum run and turn on her? How did she possibly cause Gwilliam to quit, or get perfect strangers to run away screaming? If it wasn't supposed to be her, or was some sort of hex empowering her, then yeah, I'm sorry but I did feel like that should have been better explained. We get a sort-of explanation about it in the start with the people in the pub, but then even that gets immediately thrown out the window when we realise they're just teasing Ruby and don't actually mean what they're saying. I honestly think keeping The Woman a mystery would have worked MUCH better without the half-baked twist of her being older Ruby the entire time.. But even then, we would need further explanation about these other questions.
If you're in it for the plot, I think you'll bounce off this episode. But it you watch for the experience of the thing, or for the character examination/subtexts (I actually felt we got a lot of insight into Ruby here), or things being deliberately left to interpretation, you'll have a much more enjoyable time. As a David Lynch fan, it won't surprise you I thought very highly of this story. Not everything makes sense, not everything has to. Also, I don't think the Woman was Ruby the whole time. The actresses are different, and considering we can hardly see her face, you'd just use Older Ruby's actress if you meant it to be her. Honestly, it felt more like a merging of entities, and I was very much reminded of the Watcher from "Logopolis", which similarly kept its distance and merged with the Doctor at the point of his death.
@TheRantingCynic I mean, that's fair. I get that not everyone is as bothered about the lack of clarity as I am, but for me personally, it really brought down what was otherwise a really great episode. I was very happy we got more of Ruby, and I thought the episode looked great visually. I loved the direction and editing - the match-cuts and transitions worked really well (including the multiple time jumps), and the music was as beautiful as always. But, you're right, as a viewer who's a big fan of storytelling and writing, I do get a lot of my enjoyment out of the plot itself.. And on that front, I found the episode mostly disappointing. I guess that having RTD hype this up as "the best thing he's ever written" also didn't help. He had me ready to be mind-blown, and the first half of the episode itself was indeed great.. It felt like it was really building up to something amazing, which only further increased my disappointment with the ending.
I think you have reasonable points, but I do disagree with the notion that we need to know what she said to make people run away. I think the whole point is that it doesn’t really matter what was said- what matters is that these people heard it and chose to abandon her. It’s definitely an exploration of Ruby’s fear of abandonment, derived from her birth mother abandoning her at the church, and how that fear can lead to self-isolation, keeping others ‘at a distance’, in fear of further rejection. She attributes the distant woman’s words as the reason behind her abandonment because she’s terrified of the possibility that her birth mother abandoned her for no reason at all. It’s a search and need for purpose in any or every aspect of life, and I think that also manifests in her later belief that this ‘curse’ was bestowed upon her for a destined goal (stopping the politician), when in reality, it was simply the result of a misstep.
@thysens I actually really love and respect this reading, thank you (: I can totally accept never knowing what the woman actually said (even without your interpretation - that's an aspect which, specifically, feels more equivalent to never seeing the Midnight monster). I think the only reason it bothered me so much, is due to all the other open loose ends. I mean, if this was the only part left ambiguous and the rest of it was better explained, I think that it would have felt more intentional to begin with and wouldn't have bothered me as much. The reason I included it on my list of unanswered questions, was to show that it was simply one of many, which added to the overall confusion imo. It's what made me feel like RTD was trying to do a combination of Turn Left and Midnight, but neither entirely hit the mark; maybe it was just the lack of time and this episode could have worked much better as a two-parter.. But as it stands, I just feel like it was trying to do too much. All that being said, I did love some aspects of it, and Ruby's character exploration was definitely a major one - your reading only enhanced it further for me, so I do really appreciate it.
You summed up my issues with this episode perfectly. I didn't hate it, but I wouldn't call this one a classic either. Not like the first time I watched Blink or Turn Left and I immediately knew that I would be watching those episodes many more times. Water or Mars too, I have rewatched it so many times!
I was on edge from frame 1 as soon as I saw the credits and realised no title sequence was happening. Also, the time skipping through the ep and the focus on a dangerous PM were giving me many Years and Years vibes so that had me even more on edge (thankfully it didn't go as far as RTD did on that show nor did the music. Still kinda traumatised from it all years later lol)
The only downside of the ep is I'll never be able to enjoy Ruby’s mum again. The Alternative timeline version in the Xmas so I could excuse myself because she never had the joy in her life but now it happened a second time I can no longer deal with her. Granny Sunday is still in my good books tho. Very glad Ruby has no memory of the alternate timeline so she doesn’t hate her mum I guess.
I loved this . Who is back! Millie was excellent especially as so new to the role when filmed. The pub scene reminded me of Torchwood And American Werewolf in London. I am really enjoying this series oops aren't we supposed to say season now?
I really, truly think that this was almost an absolutely brilliant episode and really could have been one for the ages, but there was just too much left unexplained for me. I get that sometimes we don't need all the information and a perfectly tied up ending for it to be good writing but literally nothing was explained. Where did the doctor go, who was that old woman, if it was really Ruby all along why did she "scare" everyone away, what happened to all those people who spoke to her, how did Ruby go back in time to stop it all happening in the first place if she has no access to the TARDIS or the Doctor, the fairy circle was clearly linked to everything that happened but how, and what actually did it do. Personally I say drop the Primeminister plot and lean into the heartbreak of Ruby losing basically everyone she loves over the course of her entire life (seriously, that sequence of scenes after she effectively lost her mum had me tearing up, it was done so well), and use that extra time to actually explain the story, just enough to keep it somewhat mysterious and unsettling (an atmosphere they actually achieved very well), while also adding enough context and meaning to the story for a satisfying ending. As I said, I think the idea for this was a masterpiece and most of the episode was executed perfectly, but the real lack of any explanation what so ever, in my opinion, weighed out everything else that was amazing about this episode and took out any real meaning from it completely, leaving a feeling of "well what was the point of that" by the end of the episode and just a little disappointment from the immediate excitement of the first half an hour.
It was a better episode than I came to expect in recent years. Was it brilliant, nope. If the old woman was her, why did it scare people other than her family who might recognize her? Lots of unanswered questions. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. It was good.... but I predicted the end about halfway through.
This was a great episode, but heartbreaking and unsettling. I was hoping the Doctor would appear towards the end having never actually left her but trying to get to her and save her. Although I do like that the old woman was her in the end (I guessed that too), but how did breaking that circle cause all that (magic I guess). That's now in Doctor Who, thanks to the Toymaker. I do wish though, that at least the Doctor did see the old Rubby and figure it all out (because now no one will ever know what happened to her, but at least neither will she).
I loved it feeling like it was definitely the best episode so far… until the ending which did a complete 180 as then it felt like the worst episode so far. Nothing was ever explained and it didn’t really make any sense. We don’t always need answers like Midnight is an amazing episode that leaves us with questions, but this isn’t one of those episodes. This one needed more of an explanation or it just feels like bad writing.
