📝 SHOW NOTES | ‘The Legend of Ruby Sunday’ (spoilers!)

Okay. So. That was an episode of Doctor Who.

Our live show starts at 8pm UK time this evening, but here are Billy’s rough notes following the midnight/midday drop of the pre-finale ‘The Legend of Ruby Sunday’.

• Kate, Rose, Morris, a new character called Harriet, Vlinx, Ibrahim, etc, in situ at UNIT. The Doctor arrives and does intros, before showing Susan Twist on screen in all their adventures.
• She is Susan Triad who is rehearsing a keynote speech. IT Genius releasing her software worldwide for free from S Triad Technology. It is an anagram of TARDIS.
• After prompting from Ruby, the Doctor says, “Susan is the name of my granddaughter”. Oh shit. But this turns out to be a bait and switch.
• Kate’s face when she realises the Doctor hasn’t explained regeneration to Ruby when she asks why he doesn’t recognise his own granddaughter.
• Mel is undercover in S Triad. Susan is getting ready for her big speech.
• Morris suggests they (Susan/Ruby’s mum) are the same thing which would help settle all of these spinning plates. While it isn’t dismissed as a possibility, the characters move on from that line of thinking very quickly.
• Ruby’s off to find a VHS tape at her mum’s which could reveal her biological mother’s identity. First we’ve heard of the existence of this tape and that her and Carla make a habit of watching it every Christmas Eve.
• Carla goes with Ruby and Rose to help out with UNIT. Mrs Flood comes up to the flat. She’s always “hiding herself away”. A radio flickers when she walks past it. Mrs Flood is mean to Cherry and warns her of a storm coming in. “He waits no more.”
• Meanwhile, Mel is still snooping around S Triad. She shakes hands with Susan while wearing some kind of device on her palm which takes a sample of Susan’s DNA.
• Kate says the Brig would tell her stories of the Doc by the fireplace but never mentioned a granddaughter. He never went back to see Susan because “he brings disaster” and going back “could ruin her”. Kate says he brings “joy”. The Doctor says he’d recognise Susan if he saw her, and S Triad as an anagram of TARDIS is more than likely a trap (which I thought was a funny recurring gag).
• Mel returns to UNIT. The DNA sample she took from Susan confirms she’s human. Ruby appears with the tape. The Doctor asks if UNIT has a time window, which he warned them against using in the 70s. They do, 10 floors down.
• The Doctor laughs at how rough the time window is. It uses the nuclear power of Europe to show a rough image of history. The Doc uses the VHS to provide more data for the time window. Mel puts Carla at ease as Ruby joins the Doctor inside the time window.
• The machine is turned on and the Doctor and Ruby can see Christmas Eve 2004 at the church on Ruby Road. It appears to be snowing at random intervals because time is a complex web of ebbs and flows and that particular moment is very vivid, for some reason.
• The woman appears but she’s glitching around causing the time window’s power to spike. They can’t get a good look at her face. Then the TARDIS appears showing the Doctor going back to save baby Ruby from the goblins. The woman turns and points, but not necessarily at the Doctor.
• “If time is memory and memory is time, what is the memory of a time machine?” Nice line, but will it have any bearing on what’s to come?
• A huge mass of black stuff appears. A UNIT soldier who walked behind the TARDIS has met something on the other side which has seen inside of him. He is in hell and is ancient. The writhing mass disappears and leaves the UNIT soldier dead, embalmed in sand.
• The Doctor is taken by Mel to meet Susan Triad. She says she doesn’t sleep well and has dreams about all the people the Doctor has met with her face.
• The VHS has changed and now shows the mass with the TARDIS inside it. The TARDIS inside UNIT HQ growls again and Kate wonders if the mass is still around it, but they can’t see it.
• Something is talking over Susan as she delivers her keynote. Something with a deep, silky voice.
• Kate says there are life forms woven into the TARDIS itself. She demands it shows itself. Harriet starts talking like she’s been possessed. Good build up here.
• Harriet Arbinger. Harbinger.
• Something that sounds like the Master’s music cue starts playing as Ruby runs back to the time window.
• Trickster gets a mention as the God of Traps, Toymaker the God of Games, Maestro the God of Music, Reprobate the God of Spite, the Mara the God of Beasts,
• SUTEKH. HE’S A FUCK OFF HELL HOUND.
• Susan Triad’s face! Shit! She turns her aid to sand! The God of Death!
• The Doctor said that he was looking at the wrong anagram.
• Harriet has popped down the fancy dress shop and bought one of those half masks that looks like a skull.
• Ruby’s mum is back in the time window and it looks as though we’re about to find out who she is.
• “I bring Sutekh’s gift of death for you and for all in your tiny, vile, incessant universe”.
• ROLL CREDITS! No trailer on the Disney+ version and no trailer available after the midnight drop.
• Holy fuck. It took a while, but we got there. The mother of all cliffhangers, preceded by an awful lot of faffing. It felt like the extended third act of a pre-finale episode, like the last 10 minutes of Utopia have been stretched to 50, which leaves us with just 45 minutes next week to actually enjoy the return of Doctor Who’s best baddie before he’s defeated in the final two minutes.