Yahoo News Doctor Who Boss: Yes, That Star Wars Film Inspired Finale’s Ruby Twist, But There Are ‘More Revelations to Come’
The following contains spoilers from the Season 1 finale of Disney+’s Doctor Who.
Huh. When I said that the Doctor Who season finale done “Last Jedi‘d us” with the reveal of Ruby’s parents, I was not far off the mark at all.
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In Friday’s finale, “Empire of Death,” the Doctor gleaned that Roger ap Gwilliam, the future politician from the episode “73 Yards,” held the key to IDing Ruby Sunday’s birth mother, thanks to the DNA registration he would put into law. And after Fifteen and friends vanquished Sutekh, UNIT was able to procure a match from that 2040s DNA database, revealing at long last that the new companion’s birth mother was Louise Allison Miller, a 35-year-old nurse in Coventry who, at age 15, gave birth to Ruby.
“She was important because we think she’s important,” it dawned on the Doctor. “In the end, the most important person in the universe was the most ordinary — a scared little girl making her baby safe.”
If that gave any Star Wars franchise fans flashbacks to the second film in the sequel trilogy, The Last Jedi, it was 100% by design.
“This is kind of my reaction to [that film],” Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies shared in the BBC iPlayer video commentary for the finale (per ScreenRant). “The second film said that [Rey] was nothing special, there was nothing special about her parentage… She was just… an ordinary person with the Force.”
Though the subsequent Star Wars film, Rise of Skywalker, would (in)famously retcon that family tree, “I really loved the version where she wasn’t special. When she’s ordinary,” Davies said. “She’s not the daughter of Sutekh. She’s not the daughter of the Time Lords or Rassilon or something like that. Her mum is Louise Miller, who was 15 years old and pregnant, from a dangerous, abusive home, and left her child on the doorstep. Because I think it’s a better story.”
While I don’t begrudge Doctor Who pulling a Last Jedi on us, one could argue that that is not the ho-hum lineage that had been teased earlier this season.
For one, as early on as this season’s second new episode, Maestro (played by Jinkx Monsoon) warned the Doctor of Ruby, “this creature is very wrong.” That ominous observation came on the heels of Maestro being unnerved by the song (“Carol of the Bells”) they’d coaxed out of Ruby, after which the God of Music wondered how “The Oldest One” could have been present for that fateful Christmas Eve in 2004.
TVLine in turn asked showrunner Davies, “How worried should we be for Ruby,” given the “very wrong” label applied to her? (On top of the fact that the Doctor himself was seen running a DNA scan of his new companion?)
“Oh, very,” Davies answered in the video below.
Alluding to the scenes in which it improbably starts snowing, indoors, on the Doctor and Ruby, “Something happened on that Christmas Eve in 2004,” Davies noted. “Something extraordinary’s going on.”
Now, that we now know to be true. The “something that happened” was Sutekh aka the God of Death being present, invisibly entangled with the TARDIS, at the time of Ruby’s abandonment on the church doorstep. All of which one could argue is “extraordinary.”
But is there more to Ruby’s past than Davies is letting on just yet? When we quizzed him about Maestro’s “very wrong” “creature” warning, he promised that “there are a lot of answers that we deliver on that story,” building to “a titanic climax” featuring “some of Millie [Gibson]’s greatest acting, and Ncuti [Gatwa]’s, as well.”
But “a lot of answers” is not necessarily all the answers, I’d note.
After all, despite the heartbreaking farewell that Ruby and the Doctor shared at the end of the finale, it was touted a while back that Season 2 of Disney+’s Doctor Who will feature two companions, played by Gibson and Andor standout Varada Sethu (who already guested in this season’s “Boom” episode).
TVLine asked Davies if Gibson is appearing next season just for some 10-minute passing of the baton, but he affirmed, “She is in next year’s series, it’s as simple as that. [Gibson is] absolutely, definitely in Season 2.”
And as Davies shared in a new video teasing the next Christmas special and beyond, “The story, as we go into 2025, of Ruby’s family is not quite at an end. There’s more revelations to come.”
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