Not many people will have had “Jabba the Hutt Goblin King gets impaled on a church spire and Doctor Who generates a Christmas single about eating a baby” on their bingo cards for 2023, but that is exactly where we find ourselves after this joyful introduction to the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and new companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson).
From the preview clips of him dancing in a kilt in a club, you might have thought Gatwa’s Doctor was going to be a very different proposition to what has gone before. But across this special, he showed he has everything he needs to be a charismatic and defining Doctor for the second Russell T Davies (RTD) era. Whether representing the gin-and-tonic division of health and safety, bounding across roofs, showing off his mavity gloves, or telling a policeman his fiancee would say yes, Gatwa oozed charm. But when needed, he turned on the seriousness like a tap, looked mortally wounded at time travel being taken lightly, and totally owned the episode.
