Doctor Who season 14 has officially started starring Ncuti Gatwa as The Doctor with Millie Gibson as his companion Ruby. With Disney picking up Doctor Who, there are bound to be changes to the show. This is being brought up mainly in part to why we are technically reviewing episode 2 of the new season instead of episode 1. Traditionally the Christmas episodes were not considered part of the season when it came to the show, it was just an extra yearly special. Disney has the Christmas episode Church on Ruby Road marked both as episode 1 of season 14 AND special number 4 of the 60th anniversary specials, which we only just discovered was the case when watching the first released episodes. As opposed to reviewing the first episode 5 months late, episode 2, Space Babies, written by Russel T Davies is being reviewed as our season kick-off episode 1-ish. Being listed both as episode 1 and as the 4th special means its up in the air whether Disney will be giving an 8 episode season with Church on Ruby Road as 1 of 8, or as 1 of 9.

If you haven’t seen the specials the most important thing to keep in mind that affect the universe without getting spoilery are, “gravity” as we know it is now called “mavity” and always has as a result of an interaction The Doctor had with Isaac Newton, and that myths and superstition were spoken into existence at the edge of the universe which based on The Doctor pointing it out means we will likely see the repercussions of that going forward. That being said, we are on to the actual review.

Space Babies is good. It’s fairly well written, Ncuti and Millie played their roles perfectly but its also a bit silly. Don’t get me wrong, Doctor Who has always been silly, but this felt a little extra so. It wasn’t excessive, but was enough to make it feel just a little off, though maybe that’s also just the nature of this episode. Immediately, when Ruby travelled through time she asked about the butterfly affect, which has been mentioned in the past in Doctor Who but largely written off with The Doctor making jokes or mentioning that the paradox machine within the TARDIS does its best to prevent anything catastrophic from happening. Here The Doctor asks why Ruby would step on a butterfly, pointing out you’d almost have to do so intentionally, though somehow Ruby’s first steps out of the TARDIS end up being right onto a butterfly. There are immediate obvious repercussions which The Doctor resolves, ushers her back into the TARDIS and mentions he forgot to turn on the “Butterfly Accommodation” switch, out the gate a little silly but also very much sounds like something the doctor would have on his control panel for when he feels like being a little reckless.

The ultimate destination for the episode is a space station in the year 21,506 which is run by 6 year-olds stuck physically as infants, all being terrorized by a boogeyman as a result of both a technical glitch with the education system and it being illegal to turn off the birthing pods when the crew abandoned the station. Luckily for the children on the space station there happens to be a world known for taking in refugees within the system their space station is at, though despite mentioning that he could take them all there in his TARDIS, decided it was ultimately a better idea to expel the methane gas buildup from 6 years worth of diapers causing the space station (which has no engines) to start heading directly for that planet. Satisfied with a job done The Doctor and Ruby leave not at all concerned with the fact that unless that planet also has ships and the ability to stop or evacuate and destroy the space station it’s now on a collision course.

Despite it feeling a little extra silly, and his wonton disregard for launching an occupied space station at a planet, it was still a really good episode. It felt like it was intentionally written for newer audiences even though the things he explained to his new companion he’s always explained to new companions. While marked as episode 2, it did also truly feel like it was a first episode to a season. I thoroughly enjoyed it and am looking forward to the future.