Doctor Who: Space Babies ★★

“If things connect, then you are connecting like crazy” – the Doctor

Storyline
Ruby Sunday joins the Doctor on his adventures – first stop, prehistory, where she nearly changes evolution. They move on to a space station in orbit above the planet Pacifico del Rio. A baby farm has been abandoned by society and the tiny survivors live in terror of a Bogeyman.

First UK broadcast
Saturday 11 May 2024

Cast
The Doctor – Ncuti Gatwa
Ruby Sunday – Millie Gibson
Jocelyn Sancerre – Golda Rosheuvel
Carla Sunday – Michelle Greenidge
Cherry Sunday – Angela Wynter
Eric – Mason McCumskey
Voice of Eric – Sami Amber
Poppy – Sienna-Robyn Mavanga-Phipps
Voice of Poppy – Shola Olaitan-Ajiboye
Voice of Sandra – Cadence Williams
Voice of Marcel – Param Patel
Voice of Adjani – Lonnee Archibong
Bogeyman – Robert Strange
Rico Trieste – Jesús Reyes Ortiz
Lucia Colasanto – Yasmine Bouabid

Crew
Writer – Russell T Davies
Director – Julie Anne Robinson
Music – Murray Gold
Producer – Vicki Delow
Executive producers – Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner, Jane Tranter, Joel Collins, Phil Collinson, Julie Anne Robinson

RT review by Patrick Mulkern

Sometimes programmes with the naffest titles confound expectations. Space Babies is not among them, sadly. It's a new experience for me to dislike something written by Russell T Davies – whom I greatly admire – but my finger wavered over the one-star button, such is my antipathy to this instalment.

Cute babies should tug at your heartstrings. Baby-farmed little 'uns abandoned by an uncaring society, even more so. These babies zip around in pushchairs, run an orbital station, and can even talk (clever effects). They're aging but seem to be in arrested development. Never had a hug. This should bring out one's protective parental instinct but weirdly it all lands flat. There's nothing to feel here.

We observe a lot of dashing about, fleeing from a monster and hiding in shadows, but the excitement levels simply don't transmit.

The bowels of the space station have generated a literal Bogeyman, a creature composed of bogeys and snot – nine years if not light years from the ludicrous dust monsters created from human eye mucus in Sleep No More (2015). Despite the frenetic chases, it poses little tangible threat and ultimately becomes another “space baby” that the Doctor must save, an only-one-of-its-kind with whom the Last of the Time Lords empathises.

In an amusing, again quite literal crap ending, the Doctor “lets rip” six years' worth of nappy methane to propel the station into another orbit.

Space Babies is positioned as a soft reset, the launch of supposedly another “season one” in some territories, but offers none of the panache of Rose from 2005. The 15th Doctor gives Ruby the same space-portal vista and phone home moment that the ninth Doctor gave Rose in The End of the World, only with far less impact.

As a jumping-on point, perhaps wisely, it eschews timeworn mystification. Within the first few minutes, any newbies, along with Ruby, receive a crash course in the basics of Doctor Who, the workings of the Tardis and the latest holding pattern for Time Lords. (It's lovely to hear Murray Gold revisit a motif from his 2007 theme, This Is Gallifrey.)

Ncuti Gatwa – buff, dynamic, crackling with energy – often dances across the screen. He is rarely still but benefits whenever such moments come and the camera lingers in close-up on his piercing gaze. Then, he is the Time Lord. Millie Gibson has a different energy, refreshingly playing her age, but is required to flit from thoughts and responses almost beat by beat in the off-kilter pacing. In this fast 45-minute slot, the duo are constantly reacting. It's snap, snap, snap, in search of a rhythm.

RTD is expert at setting up clues and threads. The snow from another time is eerie, while a “mystery woman” never fails to be intriguing and has served Doctor Who well for aeons – from River Song to Madame Kovarian, via Missy and Impossible Girl Clara, right back to Susan Foreman in An Unearthly Child. They are in the DNA of Doctor Who. Ruby, the cowled “mother” figure and the woman that keeps popping up played by Susan Twist (here a comms officer on a monitor) are the latest batch and presumably interlinked.

You cannot fault RTD's audacity. Both launch episodes are bold, but each to their own tastes. For me, Space Babies is Diaper Who, whereas The Devil's Chord screams to be loved.

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