Doctor Who Is NEW!: The Legend of Ruby Sunday

This week's edition of Doctor Who Is NEW brings us to part 1 of the 2 part season finale as we anticipate the answer to some questions.

• Just who is that woman played by Susan Twist who keeps showing up wherever the Doctor and Ruby travel in time and space? 
• Could it be related to a character named Susan? Could it be the Doctor's long lost granddaughter Susan?  
• Who is The One Who Waits?
• What is the deal with Mrs. Flood who lives next to Ruby's adoptive mother, Clara? 
• Who is Ruby Sunday's birth mother?
• Who is Ruby Sunday? 

These questions will be asked. 

Some new questions will be added to the list.

And some of them may get answered.

Warning for spoilers as we jump into the latest episode of Doctor Who after the break.   

The Legend of Ruby Sunday  

by Russell T Davies   

The episode opens with a big epic arrival scene for the TARDIS at UNIT Tower where (after many weeks of seeing this in previews) the Doctor pops out with "Show me the loving!" 

And it kind of goes down from there. 

Man, I do not want to say that. 

Don't get me wrong! There are a lot of really good bits in this episode that are epic and funny and scary and what all but does it really come together by the time we get to the "To Be Continued"?

The Doctor and Ruby arrive at UNIT requesting their help. The same face is following them wherever they go in space and time. It's always a different person but the same face. Can UNIT help him identify who that face is?

They can and they already have. Her name is Susan Triad and she is a super rich tech mogul whose company "S Triad Technologies" is going to release world changing software to the everyone for free. UNIT is genre savvy enough to realize that is not always a good thing and they have Mel Bush already working undercover as an assistant to Susan Triad to suss out what's going on. 

The Doctor notices that "S TRIAD" is an anagram for "TARDIS". 

UNIT had already noticed that as well. 

Is Susan Triad really as nice and benevolent as she seems or is she some super secret villain working to take over the Earth for the Autons or some shit?  

The Doctor wonders if Susan Triad might be his long lost granddaughter Susan. Finally, something UNIT didn't know: the Doctor has a granddaughter?  

Then the Doctor springs another request on UNIT. Can they use all this fancy tech to find out who Ruby Sunday's birth mother is?

It seems like this whole Susan Triad thing is taking up a lot of attention and resources but yeah, let's work on that now. 

The Doctor:  Do you have a Time Window?

Kate: You know you expressly forbid UNIT from working with time travel technology! 

The Doctor: Yes, I know. Now, do you have a Time Window?

Kate: On the 10th floor down. 

Using an old VHS tape of security camera footage from outside the church on Ruby Road and something called a "Time Window", we get a surreal and very eerie re-creation of the night the mysterious woman left baby Ruby at the church.  

A re-creation, yes, but there's something new in the image, something dark, terrible, deadly.  Something that kills a UNIT soldier.  

A UNIT tech expert named Harriet Arbinger (or H. Arbinger.... or "Harbinger") begins reciting a sinister litany of the terrible threat that is coming. 

There is something up with Susan Triad but she is a pawn, part of the trap for the Doctor as a dark force of evil coalesces into existence in our world.

A dark and terrible god.

A god of death.

SUTEKH!!

...

What the hell?!?!  

When I posted in the first Doctor Who Is NEW for this new season, I did not anticipate the relevance of this paragraph:   

In a call back to the classic series "Pyramids of Mars", Ruby points out that the Maestro could not have destroyed the world in 1963 since she is from the future and the world is not destroyed. The Doctor arranges a short hop to Ruby's present (June 2024) and oh look, the world is destroyed.  

Andrea and I watched "Pyramids of Mars" a couple of months ago.  The 4th Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith race against time to stop an ancient and god like being known as Sutekh.  The Doctor takes Sarah to her future to show what happens if they don't stop Sutekh in 1911 and damn! Everything is dust! I had selected the episode pretty much at random as a fairly strong entry from the classic era.  When I watched it 2 months ago, I had NO clue that it would be relevant.   

(There will be a Doctor Who Is CLASSIC post on this episode sometime next month.)  

Given how recently I had seen "Pyramids of Mars", the reveal of Sutekh should have been more on my radar.  Russell T Davies had already established god like beings (Toymaker, Maestro) entering the universe and Sutekh was an established god like being.  And being a "god of death" whose only reason to exist is to make things die, well, he would be prime suspect for someone who would frighten Toymaker and Maestro. 

Others in fandom saw it coming but it managed to sneak past me until the last minute.   

But... 

Does it all add up? 

For an episode titled "The Legend of Ruby Sunday", poor Ruby and her "legend" gets short shrift. The Doctor's leap of logic of trying to connect the Susan Triad mystery to Ruby's secret origins feels tenuous at best.  

We've got a lot going on and I'm not entirely sure it all connects. (It almost feels like "More balls!" from the Chris Chibnall era.)  

Let's see how RTD brings this on home in the season finale, "Empire of Death".

And Doctor Who Is NEW! will post next Monday.