Christmas and Doctor Who are inextricably linked. And now, with the return of showrunner Russell T Davies kickstarting a brave new era for our heroic Gallifreyan wanderer, we’re getting our first proper Doctor Who Christmas special since 2017: The Church on Ruby Road. But what makes Christmas and Doctor Who such a good fit?
“I think … family!” says Ncuti Gatwa, the man playing the newest incarnation of the Doctor. “Doctor Who, Christmas … They’re both institutions that revolve around family, and coming together. They just go hand in hand. I mean, it’s Christmas Day, you get to sit down with your family, watch Doctor Who and go on an adventure. An adventure through time and space with a crazy man in a box!”
It’s fitting. Christmas is a holiday that revolves around the birth of a saviour, and Doctor Who has undergone more births, rebirths, deaths and renaissances than almost any other TV franchise. Debuting 60 years ago, it went from black and white to colour, ferrying generations of families through the time-travelling escapades of seven incarnations of the Doctor.
When the show was cancelled in 1989, the torch was carried on by other mediums. The universally excellent, critically acclaimed Big Finish audio plays stepped up and continue to this day, with most of the classic Doctors and companions returning to voice their incarnations.
Then Davies brought the show back from oblivion in 2005 with the wonderful Christopher Eccleston in the lead. A year later, The Christmas Invasion – the show’s first ever Christmas special – saw David Tennant’s debut as the beloved Tenth Doctor. And thus, a tradition was born. Now, Doctor Who and Christmas are synonymous – even for people whose festive period isn’t exactly a time of blissful family bonding. “At least Doctor Who can account for an hour of peace from the chaos,” smiles Gatwa. “An hour’s peace from the madness of Christmas, right?”
The Doctor has a particularly fraught relationship with Christmas. Their origins are, frankly, a mess of contradictions, and Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor is now having to contend with the fact that he is not even Gallifreyan. “He probably has quite a funny relationship with Christmas,” says Gatwa. “It isn’t joyous for everyone, and the Doctor is … quite lonely. I think the Doctor has a loneliness, a sorrow, a sadness that they try to fill with chaos and mischief. So I think they have quite a love/hate relationship with it.”
The Church on Ruby Road sees Gatwa’s Doctor encounter Ruby Sunday, a woman raised in foster care. Doctor Who has always dealt with family in fascinating ways, but here it dives into the importance of chosen family being just as vital as your biological one. “It’s part of the reason Doctor Who has such a huge connection to LGBT people,” says Gatwa.
“We choose our families. And the Doctor is a lonely wanderer, looking for their next adventure … I know many a gay man, MANY a gay man, I could describe that way!” He laughs. “I think that’s a beautiful, beautiful theme Doctor Who has, because chosen family can be more meaningful, more supportive. That really can be the case, and it’s a theme that absolutely runs through the show.”
Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor attempts to combat his cosmic loneliness by teaming up with Ruby, played by Millie Gibson, with much of the action in The Church on Ruby Road taking place at the foster home she continues to call home – a warm, welcoming environment, which paints foster care in a refreshingly optimistic light. “Ruby’s grown up in such a positive, loving way,” says Gibson. “But she’s obviously still got a missing piece to her, not knowing who her biological family is. And the Doctor doesn’t have a family but Ruby is his now, in a way. It’s such a beautiful theme, especially for a Christmas story.”
I ask Millie whether she has any real-life companions of her own. “My mum!” She laughs, then leans down, revealing an enormous Christmas tree behind her, concealed until now. “I didn’t have a tree, and she got me one. That’s something a companion would do.”
Would she travel across time and space with her mum? She raises an eyebrow. “Oh my God. NO. I’d end up leaving her somewhere out of spite, and then would go … ’Probably shouldn’t have done that, I’d better go back!’”
The Church on Ruby Road is a strange, swashbuckling foray into a brave new era of Doctor Who. It is, appropriately, a gift. I ask Gatwa what he’d get the Doctor as a present, were the opportunity to present itself. He gasps. “I have got the perfect answer for that, that I think I’ll get in trouble for saying!” He cracks up. “World peace. There we go, brilliant answer. You get the Doctor world peace.” There’s a twinkle in his eye which suggests that this is absolutely not what he was going to say. But in this moment, he isn’t Gatwa. He’s the Doctor, a transcendentally charming mischief maker.
Doctor Who: The Church on Ruby Road airs on BBC One and Disney+ on Christmas Day.
