Doctor Who is BACK! Space Babies & The Devil's Chord Review 

What were YOUR thoughts on Space Babies and The Devil's Chord?

I’m upset you aren’t doing the official podcast, I’m happy to see you here in any case!!! I’ve watched your content since Capaldi on The Fan Show and beyond…

13:47 There IS Murray Gold in the episode! He was playing the piano in the musical number at the end! 😂🤣 Murray Gold was literally in the episode. A very well earned cameo.

Thanks for the review! Very insightful and actually helped me see the episodes slightly differently. I was sad when I saw you weren't on the official podcast anymore but now I'm thrilled because we get your independent opinions and analysis. Great to have you. Will be watching every week for sure!

Nice to see you back Christel! Been a fan for over 10 years now wow Edit: you were great on the Doctor Who Podcast, I hope they have you on again!

So glad you're doing these. You're one of my very favorite parts of Who Fandom, Christel!

Miss you on the podcast, you were the best voice on there. Hope you'll be dropping your reviews for the rest of the run!

Love your videos Christal, please keep up the fab work :)

Very enjoyable. I'm surprised that no one has tied his granddaughter & 1963 to Mrs Flood in the Church in Ruby Road. She's more or less the right age (OK a few years younger in real life) but after her comment at the end of the episode about "never seen a Tardis before" this episode made me wonder a bit.

For ‘Space Babies’, I got confused by the Bogeyman. When the Doctor basically started saying that the Bogeyman was one of the babies, it made me think I had missed something when I got distracted by a news notification on my phone. That alone, says something about the episode. For most Doctor Who, when it first broadcasts, you’d have to set a bomb off next door for me to be diverted (less so for Chibnall’s era, except for Flux which had my full attention). So, not a great start. I’m still kind of confused about the Bogeyman and what it was (what caused it). Is it a ‘Sleep No More’ rip-off or what? I really liked parts of the episode (like the acting and Millie and Ncuti’s chemistry), and hated other parts (the butterfly gag being my most hated). Overall, it didn’t grip me like I expect from Doctor Who. I thought ‘The Devil’s Chord’ was much better and as a music nerd, I really appreciated it.

That was a solid review of the two episodes! Both acknowledging the pros and cons of both episodes which is great. Definitely looking forward to the next review.

Great reviews, thanks. I think the point of the dinosaurs/"butterfly effect" scene was to explain how easy it is to mess up the flow of time, so that when the Doctor tells Ruby that they can't go back to the day of her birth, the viewers who might be new to time travel TV shows realize that the stakes are high if someone messes with time.

Space Babies felt like there were sparks of a good episode in there, but it was all built around a premise I just couldn't get behind. I love everything Ncuti and Millie are doing. They've got incredible charisma and energy and I don't know if I could've stuck through it if not for them. Devil's Chord, on the other hand; huge step up. Really enjoyed that one. Jinx Monsoon doing a camp, scenery-chewing villain and Ncuti bringing the comedy. I wish it had been more about the Beatles, since that's what I felt was being advertised and there were a few cracks in the production I could see, but I still had a fun time.

What do you think about the idea that we might actually see the Doctor’s granddaughter by the end of the season?

Definitely a lot of similarities between "Space Babies" and "End Of The World", both performing the second episode function (as "The Church On Ruby Rpad" was the first) in giving that wonderment to the companion and fleshing out The Doctor for any new viewers!

Thanks for making this, as always a great insight into the Docco episodes.

Really enjoyed the episodes overall and as usual, really enjoy your thoughts and insights. Look forward to hearing what you think of Boom !

My issue with the refit of the title sequence is the logo hangs too long before it goes away

I think the thing with doctor who is If you can’t stick with it at its worst then you don’t deserve to be here at its best You have to embrace the silly. It’s not like the 2000s anymore where every reboot has to be gritty and dark With reboots, it’s about adding something new andI think they’ve delivered successfully here. It feels fresh but still recognisable as doctor who Actually so hyped for boom Keep the reviews coming Crystal😂

I remember thinking, since it's going on Disney Plus now, and Americans call bogeys 'boogers' the bogeyman pun isn't going to land there right?

The one thing that I didn't like about these both overall was that there was a six month gap between ep 1 and 2 for the characters. Which means that we, the viewer, miss out on Ruby and The Doctor bonding and building up this "best friendship" that they mention throughout the rest of the season. It was too much telling and not any showing of all that character development. It's bugged me the whole season. But, that's probably also because of the season being 5 episodes too short. But eh. And I didn't think Space Babies was the best opener since it's technically the start of a new season and didn't grip the way most other season premieres did. But it was still weird and fun. I just think it should have been the second episode and they should have done something else for the first ep. It actually would have made more sense to have a more whimsical, fantasy-like story first since that's a big theme of the season. Also, since Boom was her first planet, that means that was 6 months of time traveling on and off. So we didn't see her first time travel reactions or anything like that cuz it all happened between episodes.

Love your enthusiasm and knowledge. need more content from you.

I’m so baffled that the entire specials team was dumped from the Official Podcast

Missed you on the podcast. Happy to still hear your thoughts, even if I'm not as fond of Space Babies as you. I doubt it'll hold up particularly well over time.

Have you seen the videos from the podcast. You’re mentioned in the comments so many times. Lot of people missing you.

Great to see you Christel i feel nostalgic for your capaldi era videos 💙💙✨ whilst i hsvent veen "vibing" eith RTD2 I didnt like Space Babies at all snd eont rewatch rver again, Devils Chord however was really good not perfect but fifferent ehacky campy Maestro was a great threat ....bring on BOOM by the Moff

I wasn't a fan of Space Babies tbh but it's the same with alot of the first episodes from the RTD era apart from Catherine Tates first episode as it ended with Rose turning up! But LOVED Devils Cord, Maestro was unhinged and felt so different and was fun to watch the doctor and ruby fight her off, plus the snow was a great part of the mystery

WHo is doctor favourite child?jenny or doctor others children because Susan was doctor granddaughter

Great video! Jinkx as Maestro is my new obsession and I don’t care if it’s too early to say it but, my favourite Doctor Who villain! I’m so enamoured with their performance and I’m really interested in the wider concept of this Pantheon of Gods. Can’t wait to see whatever Gods we run into!

Speaking of the 'stolen music', where was all the actual period music in _The Devil's Chord?_ You know, Beatles music for the Beatles episode. I mean at the very very least we could have gotten _Love Me Do._ Don't get me wrong. It's a fun episode, but that seems like such a huge miss to not actually use the Beatles more. I liked _Space Babies_ although I think we could have a bit more build up to saving the Boogeyman, I mean anything really. Maybe the Doctor could have said something about how lonely such a creature must be with everyone genetically compelled to run away from it. Something! That said, I also didn't particularly like the intro exposition, most of which seemed to be copied and pasted from bits of _The Church on Ruby Road._ To be fair, older fans might not lump the Christmas Special with the main season, but Disney+ has it bundled in as episode one on the their site, so new viewers might have only heard the talking points mere minutes before.

3:43 This was The End of the World stuff, not Rose😅

One minor worry was having the Doctor run away in two back to back episodes. It made sense in the second episode but not the space babies

Why u not on official podcast

Did anyone else think, that when the Doctor said he has to go visit Star Trek, that RTD was sending a message to Paramount?

Stuck in Toymaker Realm.

Got back into Who (dropped-off after Four/Baker) when a fan-boi friend had mentioned "Hello, Dad" Jenny when Ten/Tenn was the lead and I immediately jumped to "explains who Susan's mum is, finally" as she calls The Doctor (One) "grandfather", since ReJenny is a parent (regen/der; could be father, even). Actress actually named Susan Twist throws me off (in a good way... maybe) since knew a previous Russian-based story where patronymic-name was an added clue of "What; really?" as the author had already pointed out the clue of sur/name being a code, even (and re-read EVerything is just right THERE). Just hoping Susan (Twist finally) doesn't appear as a fish-monger and trying to sell red herring (logic term, a pointless distraction). EDIT: also the villains being Embodiments, akin to Jung's archetypes; Toy-maker relates to whimsy where "The Doctor" is based in REAL and SCIENCE_BASED, Bogeyman as childhood-monster-real, and Maestro as joie de vivre. For real, look-up Carl Jung; he has a badger growing from his face, looking like his mum's merkin.

I like Ncuti and Millie's chemistry, that said I don't think that's enough to keep me interested. I feel underwhelmed with the series so far and most of what Bad Wolf have brought to it have been frivolous for the sake of frivolous. I'm concerned that any key messages or themes to the series will be drastically cut down by Disney who dislike appearing controversial. (Marvel films have very much gone this way where villians are evil but don't have a manifesto for their actions.) 'Space Babies' felt very weak and lacking depth in plot, dialogue and presentation. If it was meant to be funny or cute, it didn't and really just made my skin crawl at the uncanny valley and babies not expressing the emotion that they were meant to be. I sense RTD wanted even more gross humour with nappies and snot but was told to reduce it. 'The Devil's Chord' was stronger but as Christel has pointed out is really because of Jinkx Monsoon's great performance. I felt disappointed that they didn't properly interact with the Beatles or Csilla (perhaps for the best given what we know about them now?) to the point that John Lennon and Paul Mccartney didn't even know that they needed to save The Doctor and Ruby but just did so anyway. The song at the end was awful, and I really disliked the Goblin Song in 'The Church on Ruby Road' for the same reasons which were bad lyrics, obvious autotuning and clanging instruments. The one clear success for RTD, JG, JT, etc is is the vast improvement in technical direction - cinematogrraphy and lighting especially. But the BBC basically fixed that the day they orignally left in 2010 so I am not persuaded that Bad Wolf are bringing anything that BBC hasn't already got except vast mountains of cash.

I liked the space babies, although their CGI mouths completely freaked me out. The devil's cord really gave me Once More With Feeling of Buffy vibes. The last song didn't really work for me and all the 4th wall breaking was very strange for me. Like, is this my show? I guess it's part of the whole legion thing, but I'll see how this episode fits in the whole theme.

First I found doctor who episode 1 and 2 awesomeeeeeeee

I enjoyed both episodes, but I didn't love them. Liked the brilliant chemistry between the doctor and Ruby. Didn't like mastro, quite a good idea, bit she was turned up to 11, the musical number was well performed but too long and didn't connect with the rest of the episode. Visually they were both good. The beatles could of been involved more. Prefered Space babies.

You have a refreshingly positive and balanced attitude towards critiquing Doctor Who

Space Babies was meh. The CGI just didn't sell it and was distracting. Plus the toilet humor. 5/10. Devil's Chord was strong but that musical number at the end just killed it. Was like an Eastenders Children in Need skit. 2/10 (7/10 if you cut the last 5mins out).

Just terrible episodes tbh

TOTAL CRAP