The more I watch of this season of Doctor Who, the more I'm thoroughly impressed and excited with where we are heading. It feels like old season of the revived show, I'm thinking Bad Wolf and Turn Left; we keep getting the most perfect little clues to who (or what) Rudy truly is.
In this episode, we got to see a phenomenal performance from Millie Gibson, as well as, some more of Russell's fantastic ability to write something completely captivating.
We have tense and spooky moments, that are brilliantly executed with flashes of the light humor typically depicted in the show. The Doctor is seen incredibly sparingly in this episode, with Millie Gibson essentially carrying the episode as a young woman whom, quite quickly, ends up being alone.
Ruby and The Doctor find themselves in Wales on quite a bright day but Ruby's good mood soon turns sour when after they stood upon an unassuming circle of delicate string The Doctor mysteriously disappears. And Ruby is left alone in the harsh weather of Wales, locked out of the Tardis and no one in sight... with the exception of a woman stood at a distance away from her. However, no matter how hard Ruby tries to reach her she finds she cannot. She is always stood far away from her.
Anyway, as we see throughout the episode, anytime someone approaches this mysterious person they are told something and then run away in utter fright. We, as the audience, don't know what is being said, and with Russell T Davis at the helm of this show, I doubt we'll find out anytime soon.
In a completely heartbreaking moment we see Ruby's own mum approach this woman, and her reaction goes the same as all the others; she runs away from Ruby, she runs away from her own daughter, and she is left devastated. We do get a further glimpse at Carla's reaction to see that it is a prolonged period of time and that the effects of this woman don't just disappear over time. No, our Ruby spends the next year all alone. Even Kate and the great minds of UNIT disassociate from Ruby also, and they're used to the effects of aliens abilities.
Ruby tries to move on with her life, she tries dating, but each time we check in with her, she struggles with the living of a typical life. All her relationships end the dance way, with them feeling like there is someone else in this relationship. They're not wrong. That woman is always there. So, I guess, she's never really been alone all this time. She remains at a distance of 73 yards away from Ruby. It's the distance in which you can see a person but you cannot make out any of their features because you'd think that Ruby might be able to make out her own features ... oh, SPOILERS.
Ruby does manage to do the world some good through this woman by getting rid a man who would've brought misery onto Earth through his careless actions, and it's not the first time that we've seen terrible decisions coming from the prime minister (cough, Harriet Jones, cough).
He takes to her and even he does, just like all the others before, he runs away of fear and resigns from prime minister effective immediately and thankfully before he is able to cause any destruction to the world.
The next we are off Ruby, she's an old woman, and she's going back to Wales to visit the Tardis, which has remained untouched for 65 years. She recalls The Doctor as an "old friend", and this is where the episode is finally coming to conclusion. We see Ruby in her bed presumably at a nursing home, and when the lights go out, we hear the ghoulish happenings of something, and that something is the woman only this time she is much closer than 73 yards. And then, we find out that this old woman is actually ... RUBY.
It's some kind of time loop, and the old Ruby is able to stop it by warning her younger self from a far to not allow the Doctor to step on the fairy circle, meaning she was able to break her OWN time loop which started because they broke an ancient law, possibly even older than The Doctor. The Doctor or the Whoineverse has never really been that welcoming of magic (I'm thinking Shakespeare's Code and Torchwood's Small Worlds), and yet he totally understands its power and tells Ruby to let the fairy circle rest in peace. And so they do, and they walk away, and the older Ruby is freed from the imposed, obligatory loop which most likely played, and would've continued to play until it was broken.
I do believe that this was a fantastically performed and written episode of Doctor Who, and I think we learnt a great deal about Ruby Sunday in this episode, possibly even more than we have in any other episode this far, and I cannot wait to see the finale to see all these strings pulled together to form the final image and I know when we see it, it will be so obvious, we won't even believe we didn't see it before.
In this episode, we got to see a phenomenal performance from Millie Gibson, as well as, some more of Russell's fantastic ability to write something completely captivating.
We have tense and spooky moments, that are brilliantly executed with flashes of the light humor typically depicted in the show. The Doctor is seen incredibly sparingly in this episode, with Millie Gibson essentially carrying the episode as a young woman whom, quite quickly, ends up being alone.
Ruby and The Doctor find themselves in Wales on quite a bright day but Ruby's good mood soon turns sour when after they stood upon an unassuming circle of delicate string The Doctor mysteriously disappears. And Ruby is left alone in the harsh weather of Wales, locked out of the Tardis and no one in sight... with the exception of a woman stood at a distance away from her. However, no matter how hard Ruby tries to reach her she finds she cannot. She is always stood far away from her.
Anyway, as we see throughout the episode, anytime someone approaches this mysterious person they are told something and then run away in utter fright. We, as the audience, don't know what is being said, and with Russell T Davis at the helm of this show, I doubt we'll find out anytime soon.
In a completely heartbreaking moment we see Ruby's own mum approach this woman, and her reaction goes the same as all the others; she runs away from Ruby, she runs away from her own daughter, and she is left devastated. We do get a further glimpse at Carla's reaction to see that it is a prolonged period of time and that the effects of this woman don't just disappear over time. No, our Ruby spends the next year all alone. Even Kate and the great minds of UNIT disassociate from Ruby also, and they're used to the effects of aliens abilities.
Ruby tries to move on with her life, she tries dating, but each time we check in with her, she struggles with the living of a typical life. All her relationships end the dance way, with them feeling like there is someone else in this relationship. They're not wrong. That woman is always there. So, I guess, she's never really been alone all this time. She remains at a distance of 73 yards away from Ruby. It's the distance in which you can see a person but you cannot make out any of their features because you'd think that Ruby might be able to make out her own features ... oh, SPOILERS.
Ruby does manage to do the world some good through this woman by getting rid a man who would've brought misery onto Earth through his careless actions, and it's not the first time that we've seen terrible decisions coming from the prime minister (cough, Harriet Jones, cough).
He takes to her and even he does, just like all the others before, he runs away of fear and resigns from prime minister effective immediately and thankfully before he is able to cause any destruction to the world.
The next we are off Ruby, she's an old woman, and she's going back to Wales to visit the Tardis, which has remained untouched for 65 years. She recalls The Doctor as an "old friend", and this is where the episode is finally coming to conclusion. We see Ruby in her bed presumably at a nursing home, and when the lights go out, we hear the ghoulish happenings of something, and that something is the woman only this time she is much closer than 73 yards. And then, we find out that this old woman is actually ... RUBY.
It's some kind of time loop, and the old Ruby is able to stop it by warning her younger self from a far to not allow the Doctor to step on the fairy circle, meaning she was able to break her OWN time loop which started because they broke an ancient law, possibly even older than The Doctor. The Doctor or the Whoineverse has never really been that welcoming of magic (I'm thinking Shakespeare's Code and Torchwood's Small Worlds), and yet he totally understands its power and tells Ruby to let the fairy circle rest in peace. And so they do, and they walk away, and the older Ruby is freed from the imposed, obligatory loop which most likely played, and would've continued to play until it was broken.
I do believe that this was a fantastically performed and written episode of Doctor Who, and I think we learnt a great deal about Ruby Sunday in this episode, possibly even more than we have in any other episode this far, and I cannot wait to see the finale to see all these strings pulled together to form the final image and I know when we see it, it will be so obvious, we won't even believe we didn't see it before.
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