MD Who , of trend , is Billie Jean King of the cliffhanger . For a show that thrived on needing to get people to tune back in next hebdomad as storyline stretch across multiple episodes , few on-going series have subdue the art of a last minute hook screaming into the closing championship that will have you seated this time in seven days . “ The Legend of Ruby Sunday ” , the penultimate episode ofthe current season , has that . And it ’s really good . It ’s just got a somewhat wooly-minded instalment before all that .
Much of “ Legend ” is largely about entreat its time for that final reveal — the dreary entity who ’s behind every little crumb of teasing across Doctor Who ’s latest season , everything from weird groans the TARDIS has been make , to just whyRuby ’s nascency motheris such a mystery , and to , of course , why Susan Twist has been depict up as the most persistent guest lead of a Doctor Who season in year . Very suddenly , the Doctor has settle this is a thing he now has to immediately care about , but he ’s also decided it has to be the time he has to now manage about Ruby ’s birth , even if she ’s been randomly making it snow all season long . And so , our Hero are off to UNIT to say hi to their old friend , and ask the fully grown interrogative they should ’ve been asking all time of year long : has anyone seen Susan Twist recently ?
Conveniently , they have — Susan is now encounter another Susan , Susan Triad , a globose technical school capitulum prepare to introduce some incredibly dim software to the world that forebode to change everything . We never know what , how , or why , “ Legend of Ruby Sunday ” is not actually interested in this . It just call for you to know that Susan Twist is Also Here . And so , within a few scenes , the episode is already getting away from itself , pull in in a bunch of sparsely interlink directions : the Doctor and Ruby are at UNIT because they hope UNIT can use billions of pound sterling deserving of regime equipment to expect at some CCTV footage from the night Ruby was left at the Church that would give her her name . They also need to help the Doctor figure out why his own TV show keeps casting the same woman , but then not only is that woman already here , she … might be the Susan , as in , theDoctor ’s granddaughter Susan , a theory swim almost entirely on the basis that “ S. Triad ” is an awkward anagram of “ TARDIS . ”
Image: BBC/Disney
What this means is that abruptly the Doctor and Ruby are on the spur of the moment pulled between three potential immense storylines — the ( possible ) return of Susan , whoever Susan Triad really is if she is n’t a Time Lord , and attempting to use UNIT ’s dubious “ Time Window ” , which essentially appear like a Volume position but is a window in clock time and outer space , to figure out the identity of Ruby ’s mother . There ’s also a vast mould to make do with all of a sudden with the restitution of UNIT — familiar faces like Kate and Mel , and Rose Noble ( who now has a task there , watching for potential shoplifters which … seems like a waste misuse of UNIT resources ! ? ) , and fledgeling like scientific advisor Morris ( Lenny Rush ) , archivist Harriet ( Genesis Lynea ) , and soldiers like Colonels Ibrahim ( Alexander Devrient ) and Chidoze ( Tachia Newall ) . So in the destruction , no matter how fast the TARDIS comes break up in in the opening , what “ Legend ” is almost entirely about is consume this immense casting shuffle about as we wait for that climactic unwrap to click into berth .
In some ways this works — there is so much up in the air throughout the installment that there is a lingering sense of apprehensiveness that is efficacious , as you and the Doctor and Ruby alike seek to race through all the theory of what ’s really going on . But in plenty others , it ’s mostly frustrative . There ’s a deficiency of flow to “ Legend ” that pulls the Doctor and Ruby between all these warring patch thread — one mo they ’re having this worked up frustration that no matter what they try with the Time Window , they ca n’t see Ruby ’s female parent in its gateway to Christmas Eve . The next , the Doctor and Mel are racing over to Triad Technologies to seek and sus out Susan before her adult , incredibly obscure keynote speech to the world , and they ’re also trying to voyage the Doctor ’s discomfort at the possibility that his own granddaughter is not just still alive , but a potential threat .
Each one of these threads on their own could ’ve made a compelling instalment , but together they jumble into something that palpate tongue-tied , and where none of the emotional beat you ’re meant to feel for the Doctor and Ruby — who themselves havestruggled to feel likea really crocked friendship this season in a lot of way already — get the time to emit or really farming . And because all these threads ca n’t really lead somewhere other than the reveal at the ending of the episode , along the agency there ’s just little story momentum other than poor Morris annoyingly accept to cry “ chance of a sand trap ! ” with increasingly high pct to remind you this is all building to something .
Image: BBC/Disney
Thankfully , that something is pretty killer . Push and extract between UNIT HQ and Triad Technologies , the Doctor agnise all too late that he and UNIT alike were front at the unseasonable anagram : Susan Triad was a scarlet Clupea harangus , and Susan Technology was there in it all along . This great wickedness , this moan force that has been hiding around the TARDIS in evident sight , this mystical force that has both transformed Sue and even Harriet — full name Harriet Arbinger , a herald of the pantheon — into skull - face herald of its comer : Sutekh ( once again sound by Gabriel Woolf ! ) , now a divinity of death made chassis , the legendary villain of“The Pyramid of Mars ” , back to menace the doc once more . And it ’s legitimately a marvellous reveal — that lurk dread that ’s bubbled up throughout “ Legends ” and its myriad plot threads pays off in classic style , a glorious releasing sack that is everything you want out of a Doctor Who villain unwrap : the slight puzzle , the body revulsion of Sue and Harriet ’s transformations , an absolutely horrifying death when the former have-to doe with someone and they turn into skeletonized detritus .
It ’s skillful enough , even , that you kind of forget in the here and now that it ’s fundamentally Russell T Sir Humphrey Davy riffing on past work — Sutekh ’s reveal here is a fascinating mirror to theProfessor Yana / Mastertwist in 2007 ’s “ Utopia ” , which aired on this exact weekend 17 year ago , right on down to the fact that Murray Gold re - leverage some of the rising and come chain fromthat reveal ’s soundtrack . That you even leave , perhaps more importantly , that nothing that come about in the 40 minutes beforehand really mattered all that much in comparability . Was the fable of Ruby Sunday resolve ? TBD . Did it matter the Doctor thought his granddaugter had returned ? Not really . Did UNIT actually help at any point other than the fact Mel got to bike the Doctor to Triad Technologies and Morris could keep yelling about trap likelihood ? Well … they did leave a few mooks to expire and rage up the tension , I guess . That was somewhat utile in an episode that , by and large , felt like it struggled to find an existence beyond setting up Sutekh ’s reveal .
Which mostly means that , as great as that five min is , we ’ll have to look until next workweek to see if it was worth it — or rather , that Doctor Who can justify a bit of aimless specify up here with a deliciously villainous carrying into action . If there ’s any classic villain the revive version of the show has n’t play with yet to do it , Sutekh is up there : “ Pyramids of Mars ” isa classic for a reason , and the reason is Sutekh ’s horrifying , emptied feeling of just how far beyond he was when it came to the Doctor and humanity . A cold and bet scoundrel , the gargantuan monstrous descriptor we see in “ Legend ” enclose the TARDIS in roar and cackles , blot out beneath secret puzzles and anagram , already palpate like a mix of the familiar and the new .
Image: BBC/Disney
If next week ’s finale can pull off Sutekh as an all - meter villain for the modern era of the show , then perhaps we can forgive “ The Legend of Ruby Sunday ” for being little more than a stepping Harlan F. Stone . If it ca n’t ? Well , at least we beget a somewhat grotesque cliffhanger here — and sometimes with Doctor Who , that ’s the best you’re able to trust for .
require more io9 news program ? Check out when to expect the latestMarvel , Star Wars , andStar Trekreleases , what ’s next for theDC Universe on film and TV , and everything you need to have sex about the future ofDoctor Who .
Daily Newsletter
Get the good tech , science , and culture news in your inbox day by day .
News from the futurity , delivered to your nowadays .
You May Also Like
Image: BBC/Disney
Image: BBC/Disney
Image: BBC/Disney
