Doctor Who: The Legend of Ruby Sunday / Empire of Death ★★★★★

“I bring Sutekh’s dust of death” – Susan Triad

Storyline
The Doctor flies the Tardis into UNIT HQ, determined to solve two mysteries: the identity of Ruby’s mother and the woman whose face keeps popping up in his adventures. The modern version of the latter is tech giant Susan Triad, who is about to launch some world-changing software for free – and Mel has infiltrated her inner circle. Kate allows the Doctor to use UNIT’s time window to re-create the events of Christmas Eve 20 years ago. Wondering if Susan could be his granddaughter and fearing a trap, the Doctor is unprepared to be facing his ancient enemy Sutekh.

This god-like being has been waiting aeons for revenge – latched onto and cloaked by the Tardis, evolving, and is now ready to spread his dust of death across every planet the Doctor has visited. As Earth is destroyed across time, the Time Lord, Ruby and Mel flee in the “memory Tardis” to London 2046. The secret of Ruby’s birth is the key to ensnaring Sutekh and hauling him to his demise in the space-time vortex. Finally, on Earth in 2024, Ruby meets her mother and must leave the Doctor.

First UK broadcast
Saturday 15 June 2024
Saturday 22 June 2024

Cast
The Doctor – Ncuti Gatwa
Ruby Sunday – Millie Gibson
Melanie Bush – Bonnie Langford
Kate Lethbridge-Stewart – Jemma Redgrave
Voice of Sutekh – Gabriel Woolf
Rose Noble – Yasmin Finney
Carla Sunday – Michelle Greenidge
Mrs Flood – Anita Dobson
Cherry Sunday – Angela Wynter
Colonel Christofer Ibrahim – Alexander Devrient
Susan Triad – Susan Twist
Morris Gibbons – Lenny Rush
Harriet Arbinger – Genesis Lynea
Bailey Sinclair – Fela Lufadeju
Colonel Winston Chidozie – Tachia Newall
Corporal Alice Sullivan – Jasmine Bayes
The Vlinx – Aidan Cook
Voice of the Vlinx – Nicholas Briggs
Kind woman – Sian Clifford
Amol Rajan – himself
Roger ap Gwilliam – Aneurin Barnard
Louise Miller – Faye McKeever

Crew
Writer – Russell T Davies
Director – Jamie Donoughue
Music – Murray Gold
Producer – Vicky Delow
Executive producers – Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner, Jane Tranter, Joel Collins, Phil Collinson

RT review by Patrick Mulkern

This is a clutch-your-cushions finale. True, this season only started seven weeks ago and has flown past in a flash. There’s a sense that it hasn’t yet earned a grand showdown, and that with several Doctor-lite episodes we haven’t shared enough time with Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson together. But their story has been running since Christmas 2023, and this two-parter concludes that with a degree of satisfaction. It is also hugely reliant on the programme’s heritage. Susan from the 1960s. Sutekh from the 70s. Mel from the 80s. And UNIT from all those decades. It engenders fan ecstasy for sure, but for new or casual viewers? The showrunner melds it all into a digestible feast and a big-dipper ride.

Since Christmas, Russell “Tease” Davies has been dropping hints, feeding red herrings, misdirecting with abandon… breezily generating a vortex of speculation on social media, with some clues so simple (anagrams) that even very young viewers should figure them out. Many are toppled like dominos as the first episode unfolds, but RTD does this generously, amusingly. “S TRIAD spells out… TARDIS,” explains the Doctor, pleased with himself. “Well, obviously,” says Kate, rolling her eyes. “Even I got that,” says Colonel Ibrahim, the 2020s version of 1970s UNIT beefcake Sergeant Benton.

The police box’s arrival into UNIT HQ, parking as if it were home, and UNIT’s rise from the ashes are very satisfying. UNIT has been so mucked about with in recent years. Disbanded by Chris Chibnall in Resolution (2019), it was later revived, then razed to the ground by him in The Power of the Doctor (2022). Somehow a “time window” has survived all these events and provides a grainy VHS-quality glimpse of the past. (No one asks if it can handily peep into the future.) It’s a clever device, though, which draws in the viewer as much as the participants on screen, scanning every image, every angle for revelation. It’s beautifully visualised.

Episode one an exercise in building tension, drawing us towards a triple cliffhanger, three points of reveal and peril: for the Doctor and Mel at Triad HQ; for Kate in UNIT HQ; and for Ruby in the time window. The snap reveal of Susan Triad’s cadaverous face, the juddering, stealthy approach of the cowled mother figure… the stuff of shivers and nightmares. Full marks for eerie. But for me it doesn’t quite top the exquisite conclusion to World Enough and Time (2017). Not every beat lands in the edit, some of the dialogue isn’t clear. I’m being picky, but I’m vexed by indistinct diction in drama. And it’s not just the usual case of mumbles lost in the mix. I had to replay certain sections and apply subtitles.

Otherwise, the casting is extremely strong. Ncuti Gatwa is luminous and magnetic (he could cut down on the blubbing), Millie Gibson totally authentic as the teenage foundling, while Bonnie Langford leaves far behind the rubbishing she received in 1980s Doctor Who with a spirited and subtle performance as Mel, especially when possessed. Jemma Redgrave is commanding but also deeply empathic. Susan Twist has come out of nowhere for me. She’s had to give all these mini-snatches of characters in recent episodes but arrives fully formed as Susan Triad, who’s actually a pleasant human being as tech giants go, innocent of being bait, and she nails that funny Theresa May dance to the podium.

For many devotees it’s a total thrill that Sutekh has been revived for the first time on TV since 1975. Pyramids of Mars is a gorgeous Tom Baker-era classic – and can be relished again or anew via Tales of the TARDIS. And in full on BBC iPlayer.

How wonderful that Gabriel Woolf, now 91, has revived his most famous, chilling vocal performance. A great actor and broadcaster, his earliest Radio Times credit was for Children’s Hour on the Home Service radio network in 1950. Countless roles and readings followed (including nearly 300 editions of A Book at Bedtime). In 1973, when RT asked readers for their favourite voices, R Shaw of Bolton, Lancashire responded: “The 'golden voice’ on radio or television? There is but one incomparable speaking voice, that of Gabriel Woolf.”

This finale is an FX-laden extravaganza. It’s strange that the original jackal head of Sutekh from 1975, though inert and inexpressive, cannot be bettered for pure chills. Our first glimpse of the augmented 2024 version, engulfing the police box, is like a bejewelled, rabid donkey. It fares better in the second episode, given more movement and angles to appreciate how good the CGI is. This evolved Sutekh starts to gain substance.

The “dust of death” disintegration of all the Doctor’s allies is excellent too, truly horrifying; as is the realisation that all the planets he’s landed on for fun across time are dying too. You just know it will all unravel and reset – it was ever thus in grandstanding Who finales – and it won’t end well for Sutekh, but it’s clever and actually, to me, very funny how Russell T resolves this.

After all his travels with the Doctor, Sutekh has become a Doctor Who fan. This god-like being is reduced to the level of a TV addict, pressing pause on his destructive urges until he too, like us, learns the secret of Ruby’s heritage. And it’s also typical of RTD to wrap up the horror show by the 40-minute mark and make the final act about the Doctor and Ruby. He returns her to where she began last Christmas in a scenario straight out of ITV’s excellent show Long Lost Family, where she finally meets her lovely mum. The ordinary triumphs over the extraordinary. A happy ending indeed.

And oh yes, Anita Dobson. A genuine TV goddess. And Mrs Flood. A fairy godmother who sees it all.

Read more:

• Episode 1 – Space Babies review
• Episode 2 – The Devil's Chord review
• Episode 3 – Boom review
• Episode 4 – 73 Yards review
• Episode 5 – Dot and Bubble review
• Episode 6 – Rogue review

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