I feel like Russell T. Davies is weaving an ingeniously inventive tapestry of fascinating tales that are being adapted to the screen by a bunch of people who (frustratingly) just continuously don't seem to understand the complexity of the narrative he's already established, after only four episodes?
In 'Wild Blue Yonder', our protagonist (the Doctor) thoughtlessly invoked a superstition at the edge of creation where the barrier between worlds was thin; lines firmly establishing reality from fiction were therefore blurred & consequently, what shouldn't have been theoretically possible before (in this universe) suddenly became increasingly likely (intentionally pushing the boundaries of sci-fi until one could reasonably describe it as fantasy - blending the two genres); bi-regeneration (acknowledged previously as a myth) inexplicably occurred for the first time in the show's 60+ year history, 'The Toymaker' (a godlike being whose very existence challenges our own sense of coherent logic) broke through in to this plane & there, he playfully exacerbated the problem by "toying with supernovas, turning galaxies in to spinning tops" etc. He even "gambled with god & made him a jack-in-the-box, made a jigsaw out of (the Doctor's) history" (additionally explaining the convoluted 'Timeless Child' arc - made possible by a plausible ripple of his tampering in this current plotline, reverberating back through the Time Lord's own linear chronology) & "sealed the Master for all eternity inside his golden tooth". What I'm trying to articulate is everything we're seeing now is arguably a direct ramification of that fleeting encounter on the ominously vacant ship Tennant & Catherine Tate's characters found themselves stranded on (after she carelessly dropped coffee on the TARDIS console); not only is everything we've witnessed an expansion of that founding idea, but the showrunner continues to mine the brilliant concept for all it's worth by realising more of the resultant potential here, in his latest Christmas Special, 'The Church on Ruby Road'.
How?
Well, in short... Goblins. Magical creatures the show never previously featured (for good reason - it would've been silly) demonstrably inhabit the realm of "Who" in the same way "the Daleks" do, from 2023 onwards (like it or not, it's a bold creative decision - making a swift divergence from everything we're accustomed to since the identity of the programme has evolved in to something recognisable, though distinctively unlike any predecessors). There, these pesky monsters manifestly ride the waves of time aboard a wonderfully nonsensical vessel (held together by the "language of rope" - another new thought - defying scientific law - we've to rapidly acquaint ourselves with), weaponising chance retrospectively to embed themselves in events - enough to form a strong, tangible connection & eventually steal people's babies - so their "King" can gluttonously feast upon them whilst his minions simultaneously sing camp songs about their endeavours... I know, absurd (intentionally).
What makes this really interesting is - as acknowledged in a small line of dialogue spoken by Ncuti Gatwa - all the bad luck his soon-to-be companion suffers (at the hands of life-forms who plague her recent days) is furthermore because of him; her trials & tribulations occur from intentional coincidence, made possible with hindsight - culminating to deliberately form these orchestrated circumstances... Coincidentally, only due to his prior actions (with another face) - conducted with no foresight (permitting the implausible to coincide with the comprehensible). Now, if one is to perhaps be tediously philosophical, you could actually argue the retrospectively manufactured coincidence could have subsequently been responsible for the installation of itself (a self perpetuating causal loop / predestination paradox, accountable for its former origins), rationalising the Doctor's behaviours (everything he's coincidentally done is in service of their artificial construction of aforementioned coincidence; binding him & Millie Gibson's "Ruby" together like magnetism - changing the rules for the specific purpose of piecing them in the same space)... However, I feel that robs him of necessary autonomy & renders him a rather passive bystander in his own emotional journey - yet there's so much nuance to be had & outstandingly unique stuff to be realised (addressing this mind-bending whimsicality) which isn't being acknowledged in the context of the installments... And for me, that's a shame.
Don't get me wrong, the outing's good... The realisation merely gives the inaccurate impression of simplicity when beneath the surface, there's anything but.
Don't know if it's Mark Tonderai's poor direction (repeatedly capturing sequences in a consecutive series of claustrophobic close-up / handheld shots, failing to visualise vital information or convey it concisely; scenes seldom have a sense of geography & Ruby's room isn't depicted, preceding her sudden disappearance for instance - reaffirming the noticeable shift in her absence. Plus, verbose editing, needlessly showing her dragging a ladder after spotting it when we could've just quickly cut to her reaching the roof, inferring her response to seeing the solution to her problem - maintaining a more satisfying momentum), the restrictive run-time or Russell's reliable tendency to approach an introductory script with tentative caution (he normally takes a while to get to properly know the characters he's created - hence, I've found the latter half of his seasons are always stronger, simply because he's closer to being certain of who they are & can lean more heavily upon assured foundations, once they've set) or a culmination of all these issues... But despite the adequacy, it could've been better.
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