Doctor Who’s Christmas special, “The Church on Ruby Road,” is truly the beginning of something new. The Fifteenth Doctor gets into a strange Earth adventure, complete with singing goblins and a new friend named Ruby Sunday. Fans have been (impatiently) waiting to see how this new TARDIS team would come together for a while. Now, we know how the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday meet in Doctor Who.
The Fifteenth Doctor is in London, hitting up clubs and keeping an eye on a young woman with “bad luck.” The Doctor is certain something more sinister is going on involving her constant mishaps. Meanwhile, Ruby is on her own mission to find out information about her birth parents. She was named Ruby because she was left at a church on Ruby Road on a Sunday. Her adoptive mum Carla adores her but also supports her desire to know where she came from.
Ruby Sunday and the Fifteenth cross paths a couple times, including her watching him on the dance floor, before they meet in the most Doctor Who way possible. She chases a few hissing goblins to her rooftop in an attempt to retrieve her new foster baby sibling from their clutches. The intrepid Ruby jumps onto a hanging ladder of a ship without thinking (how Doctory of her) just as the Doctor appears. His tracking skills always lead him to the right place at the right time.
He’s running across the rooftops and yelling at her about jumping onto a random ladder. Of course, he joins her and, from that moment on, they are like peanut butter and jelly. They do a musical number on the fly, save the baby, and the Doctor even goes back in time to rescue baby Ruby. And those goblins? Well they feed off of a person’s luck as well as coincidence. The baby sharing a birthday with Ruby and arriving on her birthday? Yeah, that makes for a perfect meal. He doesn’t even give her an official invite to travel with him. The Doctor just knows that Ruby will piece it together and come into the TARDIS for answers.
The Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday’s dynamic feels reminiscent of Ten and Donna in a sense. They deliver witty comebacks and boundless energy with ease. But we know that Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor is not quite like any other before him, so this will be a unique union. Their connection over being abandoned as children and having a nebulous past is a nice anchor. And with the mystery surrounding Ruby’s birth mother and her strangely knowledgeable neighbor Mrs. Flood, the Doctor will have lots to unravel during their travels.