Episode Discussion | Doctor Who | 1x07 "The Legend of Ruby Sunday"
Episode Discussion | Doctor Who | 1x07 "The Legend of Ruby Sunday"
Logline
As the Doctor and UNIT investigate Ruby’s past, horrifying secrets from Christmas Eve are revealed, and the mysterious Triad Technology unleashes the greatest evil of all.
Written by: Russell T Davies
Directed by: Jamie Donoghue
Wild ep. Looked great, too.
But man, calling something "S TRIAD" is such an awkward, RTD thing to do...
Ruby: But what [is regeneration] for?
Doctor: It can save us if we're dying. Or sometimes, we can hide ourselves away with a new face.
Mrs. Flood: It's nice for me to get out. I'm always hiding myself away.
Toymaker: The One Who Waits [...] I saw it hiding... and I ran.
Between "S TRIAD", the Susan Foreman references, the teases with Mrs Flood, and the shifting timeline of Ruby's birth, it feels like this episode was specifically referencing all the fan theories about this season in order to shoot them all down. Obviously these episodes were filmed a while before anyone could even make fan theories, but it seems that us Doctor Who fans are very predictable.
I dunno if the effect is the same for people who haven't been following the press for the whole season, but this felt like a masterclass in suspense-building for the finale. "Empire of Death" had better live up to all of its buildup.
it feels like this episode was specifically referencing all the fan theories about this season in order to shoot them all down.
Yeah, it really seems that Davies knew what he was doing when he laid out the bread crumbs for this one - far better than stuff like "bad wolf" back in the day.
I agree that it was pretty suspensful. Since not a lot actually happened in this one, full credit goes to the actors and to Murray Gold's score.
I look forward to a week's worth of Sutekh explainers.
Not a fan of the anagram stuff, but i can imagine myself as a kid really enjoying that. Looking forward to the finale, I hope it delivers.
Enjoyed this one! I assume Sutekh is a new thing? I only watched stuff from the Eccleston era onwards, so not sure if this is from the older stuff?
Yep, Sutekh dates back to 1975's "Pyramids of Mars" (which I have not seen).