Chatter Box Film

BBC Studios has provided Chatter Box Film with screeners to review two episodes of Doctor Who season One – starring Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson.

These two episodes are titled Space Babies and The Devil’s Chord which release as a double episode premiere on May 10 in the US, and May 11 in the UK.

Space Babies

This first episode is directly following on from the end of the Christmas special The Church on Ruby Road.

The storyline for this first episode is funny and bizarre to watch with a combination of drama, mildly scary moments and mystery. It’s very reminiscent of David Tennant’s episodes from series 2.

Russell T Davies creating the idea of fully talking babies was quite a strange thing to see, however they were also adorable in the show. And the CG animations while they were talking was done quite well, as they were being dubbed over by voice actors.

The mystery surrounding Ruby Sunday was keeping me more intrigued than this plot, and this new episode has already left me with more questions about the new elements they’ve added to Doctor Who than previously seen before.

The Devil’s Chord

The Devil’s Chord is an episode where they go to the 1960’s, as shown in marketing; the Beatles are there and Maestro played by Jinkx Monsoon is the antagonist for this second episode. 

As mentioned in interviews, they were not able to get any Beatles music for The Devil’s Chord as it’s too costly, however this episode has been creatively written to work around being without it. It’s an excellent plot to set up a musical villain!

Jinkx Monsoon’s performance was very entertaining, fantastical and somewhat frightening as Maestro; due to the musical aspects which accompanied the character’s scenes.

There was also an attempt to make chords look physical with the use of CG, and they’ve not complicated the design for this as it remains as simplistic 3D sheet music. One recent example for a scene like this is nowhere near as fun as it looked in a musical fight scene from the film Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness though.

There’s unsual actions from characters in these two episodes which suggests they are aware there’s an audience, and keeps catching me off-guard. It seems like this is going to be a concept which will be addressed at a later time.

Overall thoughts

Overall, Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor and Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday work really well and are fun on-screen together, they’ve had a chance now to interact more in two full episodes while actually on time travelling adventures.

From these two episodes which leans deeper into a fantasy genre; the show is being heavily tied together by the mystery of Ruby Sunday. The focus heavily surrounds this character more than the Doctor, much like nearly every other companion has done in the past.

Although, there’s starting to be more about the Doctor contemplating and referencing his past briefly in these two episodes, which I hope they revisit in the upcoming episodes or later seasons to conclude the plot of important unfinished characters.

The Devil’s Chord appears to be a stronger, original and more interesting concept out of the two. Space Babies was a weaker episode to start off a “new era” and introduce brand new fans to Doctor Who globally.

All 8 episode titles and the official trailer is available to check out here for Doctor Who season one.