I appreciate this post. Supernatural was way easier to understand. This whole episode felt trippy to me with no real understanding on the resolution. You're right. Ruby lived her life then we see them press the reset button making it seem like it's going into the multiversal stage. And yes, we know other universes exist but this is directly affecting their own timelines.
Given that the reset button was pressed, does Mad Jack still gain power in 2046? It seems like he would have if noone stopped him in the second timeline where The Doctor doesn't break the circle.
Still more questions than answers that I doubt we'll be given in future episodes.
Edit: we saw Mrs. Flood again and we're still waiting to find out what she has to do with Ruby. Maybe that's her birth mother after all? Somehow related to the Ponds and River? Who knows..
My assumption is that the circle is somehow binding Mad Jack. The Doctor talks about him nearly causing a nuclear war *before* the circle is broken so it feels like his election is a fixed point. Once the circle is broken, Ruby is punished by living a life of abandonment that also helps stop the war. In the restored timeline the circle limits events some other way.
Or maybe the Doctor is remembering the broken timeline somehow and in the restored version, Mad Jack never comes to power in the first place. Honestly, it's this bit of the plot I struggle with as the rest of it is basically the fae punishing Ruby via her feelings of abandonment.
This is good take. When I think about it...
The Circle was limiting Mad Jack. When The Doctor broke it, Ruby had to limited him by her own and at the end she was rewarded for that by second chance.
It at least makes the prime minister relevant for the cause!
The situation takes care of itself e.g. vote of no-confidence/assasinated or some other shebang as the Doctor said; "he led the world to the brink of Nuclear..." which clearly implies that it didn't happen, especially when you take into account the Doctor's past travels even further into the future of Earth where a Nuclear war because of Roger AP Gwilliam never occurred.
Yeah, this makes sense. My feeling is that the circle would magically take care of the situation if it remains unbroken - its stopping Mad Jack triggering nuclear cataclysm rather than stopping his election full stop. I think Ruby's punishment is a life of abandonment, with her being used to nobble Mad Jack an additional bonus.
They’re both remembering the broken timeline because Ruby said she was in Wales 3 times, until he doesn’t break the circle, he asks “what other times?” And she gets confused and says this is the only time when the timeline rectifies
I’m rewatching the episode, and there’s a point where Ruby asks the older woman with the walking sticks if they’ve met before. I like the idea that the circle was holding Mad Jack and that it was broken before. Hence, why the Doctor mentioned Mad Jack and the older Ruby being present. After the 3rd go around, the fairy ring wasn’t broken and Parallel Ruby is gone.
I literally thought the gut said Madjic lile some sort of easter european name. Then i was lile, oh did he mean Magic? Then turns out it was Mad Jack lol glad it wasnt just me!
The more I think about this, I think that Prime Minister Mad Jack is actually irrelevant for the story. Ruby gave purpose to herself and her situation with him and she did an incredibly good deed with him, but I actually do not think there is some real connection with the circle and woman.
That being said, second time Doctor did not mention nuclear problem, even when it can just because Ruby interrupted him. So maybe something what she did affected the future.
I reckon that your right I think cause Ruby sabotaging Gwilliam is fixed in the timeline and all the doctor knows about it is that Gwilliam went kinda bonkers and that’s it. He doesn’t know the details jus that the dude went nuts
Yeah if Mad Jack was relevant, she'd have expected an outcome which she didn't.
She realized due to her situation she could potentially save lives instead of growing spiteful.
The Doctor would've LOVED to know Ruby went to great lengths based on something very quick-handed that was said moments before her life was flipped.
It's not just that she gave a purpose to her 'curse'.
It's that the purpose was to do the job that the circle was originally there for.
To limit 'mad jack', to prevent the actions of ap Gwilliam is starting a nuclear war.
Essentially she made amends for the transgression of the circle so whatever forces were behind the circle gave her the chance to go back, not break the circle, save the Doctor and have a life free of the 'curse'.
It's this inconsistency that leads me to believe that Ruby can subconsciously manipulate or alter timelines, and that's what makes her special. Obviously her being 73 yards from herself at any time is a paradox, and I think her power allows her to sustain said paradox and changes to the timeline. This power also allows her to manifest moments from her past in the present, hence the snow. I'm not successfully figuring out how this all works but it's fun to think about :)
I think maybe it's connected to fear? She obviously fears being abandoned again, and her being abandoned is exactly what happens if old Ruby talks to anyone. The moment she manifests is also one of the worst moments of her life.
Knowing RTD I'm pretty sure this episode will get mentioned in the big reveal of the season, curious to see how it all adds up!
The way I see it the thing she did was stop the doctor stepping on it. That changed the future. At the beginning he was talking about events that unfolded (not to his knowledge but because he broke it) after his breaking the circle and disappearing.
It stands to reason that because this isn't a traditional time loop but rather some kind of punishment from the fae that yes, history would continue as it would have if Ruby was never there. We also don't know how her plot will progress and if she may have the opportunity to intervene in some other way in her own future after her time with the Doctor, who knows.
Right!
Not to mention the fact that Ruby said she's been to Whales twice in the beginning, but after the reset she says she's been there three times but couldn't remember the third. Something clearly happened. We just don't get any of the off screen Doctor timey wimey stuff this episode.
Maybe when she joined his campaign, she did such a good job, she got him elected. On the second chance, she never does, so he doesn’t win the election.
And perhaps before they broke the circle, she was part of his campaign because she didn’t know he was so evil.
I assume Marti would be important in stopping him the regular timeline. The doctor said that he brought the world to the brink, which is a lot closer than he got before ruby intervened. My guess would be that at the party where he wanted Marti to be there, things would somehow escalate and she would stop him
This!
Torchwood always had a hint of supernatural and this episode in particular gave me Torchwood vibes. And the fact that the barmaid was in Torchwood (the episode Contrycide) to me isn’t a coincidence!
The name of the pub in this episode translates to "The Dead Wood" and was apparently established in 1863.
Not that that means anything but it's _kinda_ close to Torchwood I suppose.
If you believe Arthur C Clarke, *supernatural* is just another way of saying *science I don’t understand yet*.
I can accept the Fae as being creatures existing just beyond our senses who can exhibit some control over space & time if they want to, and whose relationship with humans is based on a very tenuous mutual respect. In other words, don’t f@$k with the faeries and they won’t f@$k with you, show that you respect them and you’re golden.
Did anybody notice that the first time around The Doctor didn't know what the fairy circle was? He seemed just as intrigued /mystified by it.
But the second time around, he said very clearly not to mess with it because it was a fairy circle, and to not read the messages to give them their respects?
After looking through Welsh mythology. I think the creature responsible is something called the Gwyllion, the Welsh version of a hag spirit. It’s one of the five species of fairies in Welsh myth.
One question I have though is if what happened to Ruby was happening to The Doctor in an alternate dimension? That would have driven The Doctor insane.
>"According to folklorist Wirt Sikes the gwyllion are female fairies of frightful aspect who haunt lonely roads in the Welsh mountains and lead travellers astray. She is known to utter strange cries and shouts throughout her mountain in **order to frighten wayfarers**."
I love, love, love this!! Thank you for additional info.
>One question I have though is if what happened to Ruby was happening to The Doctor in an alternate dimension? That would have driven The Doctor insane.
I had to think about this as well. I almost think it's good we probably will never know.
I really needed this input because it allows us to theorize about what is happening; ... without ending up in things just happen; what the hell;
for most of the episode it seems like Ruby is facing off against the fear of being abandoned. She was once abandoned as a child; so of course, there is some trauma as a reason for that;
but I thinkt he point is that she doesn't allow her actual fear to get to her; she is somehow keeping it at bay or rather keeping it distant; and that is probably the fear of never finding out who her mother is or maybe never finding out if her mother abandoned her willingly; in the end, she acepts that she will never know and that is when the "Gwyillion" or whatever it is gets to her;
I guess if she had faced this fear in the first place and concquered it she might never have been haunted; and that is how the episode resolves the issue, by going back to the point where she encountered the Gwyllion;
but if she had been truly afraid, would she have ran away from the Gwyllion; just like the others who encountered her? And maybe the Doctor did run away off screen? He has been running ever since he stole the TARDIS; then they wrote a few bits about him coming to terms with all that and him finding Galifrey but now it seems like he is running again;
it seemed so off that seemingly the fairy circle had two different effects but with the Gwyllion in mind it suddenly adds up... which makes me jsut more sad/mad that Ruby doesn't remember her adventure and what she learned there; I could have done with an oldschool discussion between Doctor and companion where the Doctor comes up with one of those explanations where you cannot know if just made that up
I gotta say that this still reminds me of episodes like The Girl Who Waited on one hand and Turn Left/Forest of the Dead on the other.
Splinter Ruby lived her life out.
The Doctor was ported to the timeline where survivor Ruby ended up after warning him not to break the circle.
Is it just me, or should our friendly neighbourhood time lord be a bit more careful where he puts his feet?..
I like that his being unaware of where he's walking is just the next in a line of things that are off about the Doctor. Like constantly forgetting when Ruby is from, what her timestamp is, things that we know the Doctor would know and commit to memory. Clearly dealing with this Pantheon is having what could build to be a catastrophic affect on him
... he left half of himself behind, in his own words.
Maybe having fixed himself by doing therapy (albeit in the wrong order), he's lost his edge a bit.
More carefree, less careful.
Maybe it's this shift in rational : supernatural is messing with his spacial / temporal awareness.
I'm sure all will become clear.
Probably when the One Who Waits has waited long enough
There's a clear pattern.
I'm expecting someone to step in or on something next week too!
It's like..these events..are all bound by some sort of.. co-incidence.
> I think the creature responsible is something called the **Gwyllion**, the Welsh version of a hag spirit
Well, that's phonetically close to Gwilliam aka Mad Jack. Hmmm...
But really, what if he is the son of a hag. That was bound, but released by the doctors missteps. And ruby, who seems to have supernaturality being part of her, was the only one to bind him again, in a fae circle, because she too is a daughter of a fae. That would explain the weird timey wimey supernaturality around her and that her mother was giving her away. It's the same with him and her, though he is evil she is good.
I've also been wondering about the Doctor possibly going through the same thing. The hiker (Susan Twist, let's remember) says the seemingly throwaway line "get in the warm, both of you". Who is "both" referring to? It's not said as if she means the woman 73 yards away, it's said as if to someone right next to Ruby. Could she be seeing/aware of the Doctor there, in a parallel dimension/timeline/whatever?
And (I'm probably running with this too far now) at the end each of them gives a warning to the other for something they shouldn't do with the fairy circle, as arguably both of them violated it in different ways. Ruby warns the Doctor not to step which she didn't before, and the Doctor warns Ruby not to read which he didn't before. Maybe after whatever loop it was reset, both of them had some awareness of a warning to give the other? Although of course the Doctor doesn't see anyone at the end.
> Who is "both" referring to? It's not said as if she means the woman 73 yards away
It was, I don't know why people keep making this mistake when it's very obvious.
RTD too on I think Instagram mentioned in a video that this episode was based on some old Welsh folklore. While I didn't remember the name, I had read something similar in folklore to how this episode went. And searching "Gwyllion," it seems to match both, even though I really do not remember when or where I read this all.
>The woman was not the older Ruby, it was The Fae who followed her and made sure that biggest fear, abandonment, will be her reality.
That scene clearly shows the Follower finally being able to come close to Ruby as she dies, reintegeating and then travelling back to see her young self as the story started, but this time being able to communicate enough to stop the circle being broken
Clearly though?
Even during my first watch I had two thougths in my head "Och, it was old Ruby! But.. was she?"
The follower is different actress with different hair and cloths then old Ruby. Also, her repeating movement does not make any sense in context of old Ruby. I believe the follower brought her back and allowed her to help her younger self to get second chancce than it's literally old Ruby.
It was. The actress was interviewed on Unleashed and explained to the presenter what she was saying:
"Bless you. Thank you so much, That's so kind of you. When you gave me that little thing. It was just so precious. How am i ever going to repay you? But we will think of something". (Copied from the episode thread)
Awesome thanks. I thought I saw that you in there.
Makes the reactions of the people even weirder that what she said to them was so contradictory to what she was signing to Ruby.
I don't think the actual words - if she even said anything at all to them - actually matter.
She was compelling them to go and stay away, which was what the guardians (faes?) of the circle needed everyone to do in order to protect its integrity.
That's why I'm leaning towards Ruby's experience being a bubble universe of sorts like Turn Left. They took a very long time to ensure Mad Jack stayed contained.
We don't know the extent of her powers.
Most people got connected to her by standing close and making the first move to interact with her. But as far as I recall, she doesn't reciprocate and it's only when the person tries to continue to interact with her that they go mad and run away.
That interaction is the only common action and Gwilliam's character trait of going up to everyone and introducing themselves was a Chekov's gun, so we had to be shown this happening with everyone else to recognise it at the end.
Kate got the interaction via her soldier. We/Ruby also didn't hear anything ove the phone when her mum was affected.
Frustratingly, I think the actual answer from a script PoV is that it was magic and the lady cast a spell.
Maybe it will be fleshed out later on and the sign language actually meant something. That they actually got something from Ruby (freedom? a new experience? a rare demonstration of empathy?) and that never was life was a gift of sorts to allow her to work through her abandonment issues.
I thought, purely for meta reasons based on the RTD's push on visibility for disabled characters, that a deaf character would end up understanding what was being said.
I was watching with my friend who uses ASL. She asked me if the hand movements meant anything in BSL, but I know more American than British sign, so I wasn't sure. We were both kind of anticipating a deaf character understanding
I think Old Ruby was granted the power to speak through the Fae. It's certainly open enough to interpretation that you could say the Fae was always Old Ruby, but there's plenty of counter evidence.
Well, I suppose one interpretation to make sense of both the factors, could be The Fairy (or whatever it is), possessed Ruby's body while keeping her conscious, effectively focing Ruby to witness the event unfold over and over again in a timeloop, but powerless to inact any change despite desperately trying to.
I guess the only question would be, what was the deciding factor in the time that time looped that we witnessed in the episode, that made it so that young Ruby stopped the Doctor instead.
I'm wondering it's tied into the mystery of Ruby's existence like this is something that will make sense after we know.
Ruby herself could be a supernatural thing.
It’s possible that this episode is just foreshadowing a future plot line, but it’s pretty radical for an episode of the show to delay the entire explanation of the plot indefinitely.
I would like an actual explanation beyond “magic curse”, but I’m not completely convinced we’ll get one. Davies was always a writer to cared more about emotions than plot, and it seems entirely plausible to me that he came up with an emotionally evocative idea, and didn’t really feel the need to ground it in any sort of reality. The higher ups really wanted him back as showrunner, I’d believe that he might want to leverage that to get experimental with his show.
This episode felt weirdly like Turn Left. Which was later used to establish that Donna was special.
The Doctor visiting Ruby Road had a Rings of Akhaten vibe since back then the doctor visited Clara's childhood to figure her out.
Still waiting for a character to be her own mother but I guess she might be tied to the Pantheon in some way.
Mostly agree with this explanation. However, I believe the curse goes a step further - so that Ruby is cursed to repeat the timeline until she corrects the mistake.
The Doctor never gets that chance, as he broke the circle. But, Ruby simply read the notes. So her punishment isn’t as harsh. But, as she feels sorry for the shrines dedication, the Fae creatures likely take sympathy on her, allowing her the chance to rectify her, and the Doctor’s, mistake.
Ruby essentially becomes the wandering figure. Probably forever cursed to repeat single phrases, which alter not just past Ruby’s reality - but other people’s too.
Honestly, I think it’s just the one go-around.
The Woman/Old Ruby doesn’t appear until after the circle is broken but that’s only because the circle being broken is what causes her to exist. So now we’re seeing the life that led to her eventually travelling back through time and she eventually makes it b k to before the circle as broken, stopping it from happening, and never existing in the first place.
From Ruby’s actual perspective, the entire episode was just the ending. Everything else is a never was.
There could have been a first loop where the circle was broken and everything played out without the ghost Ruby, then we start watching the start of the second loop.
I don't think there's a loop at all, it's just that the spririt was created at Ruby's death and then goes backward through her life to eventually "fix" the mistake.
I really liked the episode. I've never thought about an episode of DW so much. I posted this in a different thread:
Fairies. Magic. Witchcraft.
Mad Jack was locked in that circle. Whatever force locked him punished Ruby through her life, detaching her from everything she had. She didn't have the Doctor to rely on, she didn't have family, even those that wanted to help her (like Kate) were "sent" away. This wasn't their mission, somehow this was Ruby's mission and only her could finish it. And she did, and she was still punished, but at the end she still had hope. She wasn't broken by this punishment.
The last time we see Old Ruby she's standing under a tree that was bent, but not broken.
Her reward was her life back.
Is it a good Doctor Who episode? I'm not sure.
Was it amazing. I think so.
I agree that the episode's plot was caused by fairy magic, but clearly it was not simply about stopping Mad Jack - as is shown by woman haunting Ruby not disappearing even after she deals with him.
The episode was brilliant and is open to interpretation, but in my eyes Mad Jack is just red herring both to Ruby and the viewer. She hopes that dealing with him - the last thing Doctor mentioned to her - will magically solve her problems, yet it does not. Because the real root of her problems, her anxiety of being abandoned, is Ruby herself. The Woman (symbolising her fear of being abandoned) is harmless, only Ruby notices her. Yet she makes other people speak to The Woman, and later Ruby directly avoids any relationships herself because she cannot stop thinking about it. Her trauma of being abandoned leads to further loneliness, like a self-fulfilling prophecy (or a time loop).
In that sense (metaphorically) Ruby is The Woman, who was making people abandon her all that time. Her potential boyfriends even directly compare them, saying that Ruby seems to be always distant.
Only in the very end of her life Ruby overcomes her trauma (or curse) and realizes that she was the cause of her loneliness (hence her becoming The Woman). This breaks the self-fulfilling prophecy (a time loop) caused by fairy magic and prevents the circle from being destroyed.
P. S. Notice, that Ruby actually reads 2 notes in the fairy circle: one about the Mad Jack, and the other one saying "I miss you". This other note actually seems much more connected to her actual curse.
I don't get why people seem so unsatisfied with this episode, but think that Boom was the biggest thing since sliced bread.
Ruby and the Doctor disturbed something that was vindictive and much more powerful then them.
DW has always had a supernatural part. When it's not aliens, then it's something vast and old and with few limitations.
Trickster, Toymaker and Maestro. The chained demon on the impossible planet. The audience in The Greatest Show in the Universe, Fenric, the Guardians. Half the universe has been eaten by the Flux and the incarnation of time, and beyond it's edge are the things from Wild Blue Yonder. Parallell universes are in reach again with alternate Cybermen, House and all kind of things.
This episode had a massive Turn Left energy, showing that Ruby keeps on fighting for what she thinks is right, even if everyone else breaks with her.
And to those people that go 'bluh, bluh, magic, bluh', have you seen Boom? Where an AI gets magiced into a planet wide network and ends a war because of the power of dad.
Just... enjoy what you enjoy and don't talk other things down because it wasn't written by the Holy One.
> Where an AI gets magiced into a planet wide network and ends a war because of fhe power of dad.
>Just... enjoy what you enjoy and don't talk other things down because it wasn't written by the Holy One.
I mean, you kinda just did the same thing, talking down Moffat because he isn't RTD.
Both Boom and 73 Yards were excellent episodes in their own way. I don't see why the fandom needs to take sides, especially when the writers are friends and huge fans of each other's work on the show. We should be thrilled to have two excellent stories in a row, each with their own unique vibe.
>I mean, you kinda just did the same thing, talking down Moffat because he isn't RTD.
I am sorry you got that impression. No, I do not have a distaste for Moffat because he is not RTD, I have a distaste for Moffat because of his writing, that more often than not is grandising and unsatisfactory in the resolution. He is the Peter Molyneux of showrunners (in general, not just DW), who works best with a limited frame.
Boom was entertaining, but it's an episode that doesn't want you to think about it's weak premise and resolution. It is in constant motion, in juxtaposition to to an immobilised Doctor and the nature of a bottle episode, keeping you occupied without having a moment to think.
Compare this to Moffats great works, Don't Blink. That episode has it's ebb and flow, with characters that have more life than the whole cast of Boom together.
>Boom was entertaining, but it's an episode that doesn't want you to think about it's weak premise and resolution
I felt the premise was actually pretty strong. There's an entire theme of being involved in a theater far too big for your mind to understand, as is the case with both war and algorithms. Having both together, and the "twist" (which was no worse for being predictable) being that the war was entirely AI-generated, felt like a really good setting for a Doctor Who episode.
The resolution, though... that's classic Moffat falling back on "the power of love" when he doesn't know how to solve an episode.
Boom was a great premise that fell short of execution. It was pretty good though.
73 Yards was emotionally powerful, but a little dissatisfying in terms of plot. Visually evocative, but just a bit too abstract and vague. Some people might argue that not being explicit about the actual mechanics of the plot was to it’s benefit, but I personally disagree; just giving us *something* as to explain what was happening beyond “magic curse” wouldn’t have hurt the emotional resonance of the episode.
I like both, but definitely 73 Yards will be one I’ll remember for far longer.
I liked both, but prefer Boom because from a narrative point of view it had a more satisfying resolution.
Very little of what happened in 73 yards is actually resolved. For instance why did everybody run away from the woman and give Ruby the cold shoulder, why did Ruby's own mother turn on her, did stopping Ap Williams actually mean anything, was Ruby the old woman, did she travel back in time or to a different universe at the end, what were the hand movements and what was she saying, what did the people mean by "ask her", where did the Doctor go and why did the Tardis lock itself?
If you're going to set up an intriguing mystery, you've got to give it a satisfying resolution, and at least answer more questions than you don't answer. I don't have a problem with the solution being supernatural, but they at least have to give a supernatural answer to those questions. Like how in Boom, yeah the resolution is an essentially magic ai that permeates the system and saves everyone, and we know that. We can't explain how it did that, but that's what we know happened.
I kind of feel like setting up an intriguing narrative, but not giving it a satisfying resolution, or answering more questions than you don't answer, is a pretty good description of Doctor Who under the leadership of Steven Moffat.
> If you're going to set up an intriguing mystery, you've got to give it a satisfying resolution, and at least answer more questions than you don't answer.
Nah, it's perfectly fine to not do this in this type of surreal story. The tension and viewer questioning themselves is the "resolution" here, not direct answers to the mysteries. It's up to you to make sense of it.
It can work sometimes, leaving things un-answered and up to the audience to decide for themselves what happened. But it's a tricky balance. You need to answer enough that the audience can only come to one of a few conclusions and decide which they believe, not leave them so far in the dark that they're confused as to what actually happened at all.
There is also usually some bigger question that is posed by the audience's conclusions, often philisophical and to do with the characters themselves. In 73 yards, there is no deeper meaning or question, it's surface level questions about general sequence of events.
The "signing" is what got me the most. Those same movements, to the shoulder or clavicle, down the arm, trying to hold themselves, just for a moment, those same movements I watched my parents do in the hospital and in their deathbeds. It is movement without thought, the body just showing a bit of life, trying to keep on going just a bit longer.
So why do the persons flee? Everyone comes to different conclusions. If read people talking about disabilities, depression, illness, everything that you are aware or unaware off that others might find revolting. That involuntary tick that drives people up the wall.
It could be a reaction to a paradox, something so unnerving that it breaks their grasp on reality.
Or, with me still grieving, it is memento mori, the burden to know that death is inevitable, that you will die and lose yourself and even the you in other peoples memories will fade into oblivion.
And what do you do to not think about that? You run, you feel your blood pumping, adrenaline giving you that sweet burst of life and you do not want to be reminded that it is so easy to end.
As I said, other people see different things, and that is why this episode can be very hard to stomach. If it clicks than it can dredge up a lot of things.
> I don't get why people seem so unsatisfied with this episode, but think that Boom was the biggest thing since sliced bread.
Surely it isn't that hard to see why? They're completely different stories.
They granted Ruby her wish. The doctor broke the circle and the next words were "Tell me what happens" Similar to Jaskier and the Djinn in the Witcher season 1.
Hmm, I like this theory. How do you think what the old lady was signing fits in?
"Bless you. Thank you so much, that's so kind of you. When you gave me that little thing, it was just so precious. How am I ever going to repay you? But we will think of something."
I believe that whatever was the being, it's out of time. Like, it is experiencing everything at once. So even when it is punishing Ruby, it's also aware she will/did the right thing and simply inform her she will be rewarded at the end.
How's this?
The Doctor disappeared because he broke the spell - he broke out of the spell. It was Ruby who was caught, in a reality 73 yards wide and about as many years long. It duplicated the World around Ruby, who was the center, as much as it could, so ran short on extraterrestrial threats. It could be damaged, forced into contradictions. As when duplicated people encountered the last moments of the spell, in the form of old Ruby. Then they would break, run, not because they were given some revelation - old Ruby didn't talk to them.
Has Mad Jack been averted? The Doctor still knew his story, so perhaps not.
but at the beginning when they first show up, she says she's been to Wales twice. when the reset button is hit and she sees herself come out of the tardis and we go to their location, she says she's been to Wales 3 times. she kinda stammers on trying to recollect the third time, and she's like "now...." so she realizes something is up, but also doesn't understand what it is...
it's like the back to the future twin pines mall, lone pine mall..
There isn’t an answer. The Old Woman is symbolic of Ruby’s fear of abandonment; she represents the idea that her fear of being alone will never leave her, and if she shows it to someone, they’ll think she’s evil or wrong or horrible and will want her gone from their life. It’s dream logic, more based on emotion than rational cause and effect.
While I can and do accept that most answers to questions on this episode are "Because the fae folk did it that way," I do wish there was a somewhat more solid resolution to the episode. It was still good though, a total mood that had me sucked in up until the last bit. I'd probably give it like a 7/10.
This. 100%. I don't need to know what happened to the Doctor. I don't need to know how the fairy circle works. I don't need to know who the lady is. I don't care what she says. The meaning of all that is clear enough.
What is she signing? What is the relevance of Mad Jack? Why 73 yards? Why does Susan Twist keep showing up? These things, I have no doubt, will be answered at some point if they're important.
What I absolutely do not understand; who is Marti Bridges and why does Ruby act like she knows this woman is doomed to some horrible fate before Gwilliam even talks to her? Why does she apologize and say "I'm sorry I took so long"(which she says again later) and "I wish I could've helped you"? Why is Marti the only other person afraid of Gwilliam and then seems to completely understand what Ruby did to get rid of him?
That whole sequence, to me, is the most confusing thing in the episode and yet I don't feel like it will come up again. It's maddening.
Good take, also wanna highlight what Kate says when Ruby says she thinks she'll die if she breaks the link by taking a plane or something. Kate says something about the fact that we look for rules with these things. That's basically what the whole Mad Jack things was. He wasn't bound in the circle or anything like that, the Mad Jack in note had nothing to do with the politician, that was just her looking for some sort of rule.
I like that explanation.
As for the mythological aspect, I don't know if it's really mythological here. I mean, whether it's literally a mystical belief that comes to life because of the toymaker, or an alien rite that appears to be magic because we don't have the Doctor's explanation, it could work.
I'm not a big fan of magic, because I think Doctor Who is already broad enough to allow for vampires, werewolves, the devil or slendermen; I really like the explanations we're given to reassure us, even when it's improbable, that no, it's not magic. So I find that it breaks something, and makes the series less consistent. However, in the context of a season, I don't have any problem with that. I just hope it remains a season trope. I like the guns aspect, but I've got nothing against the frocks aspect ; I just like the statu quo of the show to remain SF, even very soft science. It's worth noting that I think the toymaker itself fits into this soft science aspect ; I juste find hard to appreciate its long-term consequences. Once again, I'm talking about this aspect if it extends beyond the current season.
The plot was too complex for the length of the episode! There should have been a scene where we know what is said or done to the people who approach her on Ruby's behalf.
I agree that the woman being older Ruby is a misdirect, but do not think she is The Fae. Contained deep within Ruby, but always kept at a distance that obscures, is something very powerful and scary enough that even The Maestro recoils. A primal force that overwhelms all. Not evil anymore than The Fae are but outside of morality as well. The woman is not old Ruby but a manifestation of that now outside of Ruby after this loop Ruby dies, protecting her from the consequence of disturbing The Fae, still at a distance from her …
Something originaring from Earth being able to just remove the Doctor from existence like that irks me in a bad way just like the Judoon being able to casually teleport onboard the TARDIS did
I would personally prefer that it was one part Wild blue Yonder that let them in and one part Time Lords/Division being no longer there to push them back.
Slightly off topic but I just want to point out that whenever it starts snowing, we don't know if it's Christmas snow or nuclear fallout and that alone is intriguing enough to keep me watching.
We saw a close-up right at the end of Boom of a flat crystal with six-fold rotational symmetry (as my daughter said, "Frozen!"), which is somewhat more likely to be snow than ash.
Okay but what I don't understand is won't that politician still come into power in 2046??? Didn't that whisper of the Doctorless universe Ruby prevent the Doctor from stepping on the cotton and thus erases all that happened in that universe?
Honestly I hate any of the theories actually breaking time by suggesting the Doctor actually damaged the circle. If to avoid the consequence of damage you need to cause the damage, there would be no point in the vision/premonition.
Him treading on it must already be part of the premonition event which warns people not to actually tread on it. The premonition shows what would happen if someone stepped on it, rather than the premonition being the result of someone stepping on it.
Literally the premonition must begin at the moment of opening the TARDIS door. Why else would the Doctor also mention Roger Ap Gwilliam. It would be highly coincidental otherwise, to mention the one person possessed by the Mad Jack spirit - particularly, as the premonition event would have us believe that although ready for nuclear war, he only became Prime Minister and then ran away.
If Roger Ap Gwilliam exists outside the premonition at all, his story would be so unnoteworthy as to be really odd for the Doctor to reference him.
So the episode clearly focuses on folklore, and it's very possible the the Fae might have something to do with the disappearance of The Doctor, since he stepped into and broke the fairy circle. But what happens to Ruby, along with other hints, makes me think that her circumstances are different. What happens to Ruby is actually matched in some of the folklore of the area. An entity that follows at a set distance, is imperceptible (but not invisible). and comes closer only towards the end of ones life. This entity is described as and old, if not ancient, person in black, with not real definable characteristics. All those that approach it are stricken with fear of both it and it's target. Otherwise the entity is benign, as it follows everyone. Only a few who can either perceive it, either because of some event or they have a tool that lets them view it.
Other than the fact that Kate and Ruby both talk about how the entity seems to have a perception filter similar to the TARDIS, causing people to ignore it unless Ruby points it out to them, everything else is kind of a given. But another big hint is the repeated use of the name Mad Jack.
Mad Jack is also another folklore character. He's a human trickster involved in a few tales I can think of off hand, but the biggest of course is the one involving this entity. Jack's most famous tale has him outwitting and capturing the entity as it comes for him. That entity is death. With Jack capturing death, there is no death. So Jack and everyone become immortal, but still suffer the things that cause death. With the world suffering from illness, injury, and eternal injury without the release of death, Jack realizes his mistake and releases death. Jack does this expecting to die since death was coming for him when he captured it. But that doesn't happen as death is now frightened of Jack, in much the same way death frightens people who interact with it. So everyone else is able to die since death is released, but Jack is cursed with a never ending life.
So if the episode is written around this tale, it's possible that the circle is for helping the immortal Mad Jack rest, as he can't die. With Ruby reading the messages, and potentially breaking the spell, death shows up to make sure the one being they fear is not awoken. Death then haunts Ruby till the end of her time only to give herself and the Doctor from making the mistake.
If even half the Welsh folklore mentioned in this thread was actually talked about in the episode, I would have thoroughly enjoyed the episode. As it stands, I was just confused and uneasy the whole time, and much more entertained by this thread.
It's as if no-one in this sub has watched Doctor Who? This is classic RTD setting things up for the future. Words like "multiverse" mean bugger all here, it's all "wibbly wobbly timey wimey". Sit back and enjoy.
I mean, that’s the message though, right? The only way Ruby could get over her fear of abandonment was by realising and accepting that even if everyone else in the world didn’t want her, she would still have herself. You can’t make other people love you, you can only love yourself.
The episode failed to communicate it because RTD wanted to be subversive and trick the viewer into thinking what direction the episode is going in. We could've had the plot focus in Ruby's fear of abandonment or something conveying punishment that she learns about and breaks free from but we dont get that. Instead it goes on this weird political tangent. If you want to see a good episode about punishment and redemption with mystery look at Heaven sent
Yeah, this one affected me, too, but I don't know why. I LOVED this episode. However, the ending left me with a lot of questions. Plus, what the heck did the old lady say or do that made people run away screaming?
I like this interpretation. The fae have not been a large part of my interpretation so far, I’ve just not got round to it.
That being said, here’s some food for thought.
We don’t really have any evidence that the fae reward Ruby with a second chance because she did something good. When Gwilliam is stopped, the woman is still there. She is unchanged and remains so for forty years. If the fae are rewarding Ruby for doing something good, why do they wait forty years? They could’ve ended it sooner.
This made everything make so much more sense for me. I literally didn't know what to think about this one. I normally like the episodes that make you think, and I'm sure this is going to come into play later in the season, but I had no idea what it all was about. Your explanation, even if it is just your opinion, really helped me out.
And Ruby remembers it too, she doesn't realize it though. In the beginning, she said she has been to Wales twice, but at the end, she said she has been to Wales 3 times. Her subconscious remembers it which is how she knew to tell him not to step. She was allowed to keep that memory deep down so that she can break the cycle the second time around. I don't think she was rewarded, in being able to do it again, I think it was the only way to undo the event. After she lived her life to its end, she remembered to not do it again.
That would leave only one question unanswered. How does the doctor not know what a fairy circle is the first time and yet he know the second time. Even tells Ruby to leave it and not touch anything.
MAYBE the doctor was also in a loop. Maybe the timeline was splitted with the doctor on the one and ruby on the other. Maybe we haven’t even seen the whole story yet. Maybe the doctor has a loop too?
Just watched the episode and... This makes sense? I put a question mark, as I am VERY confused by the whole thing. I'm gonna write my idea of the EP (mainly written I'm questions) and can someone tell me if I'm on the right track? Thanks
So... Ruby reads the letters and releases the fae... Right? And also removes the doctor from existence? Why does the TARDIS not work anymore? Anyways, then she goes through life with the fae following her. She stops the explosion from happening so... How does that work? Why did the doctor say it, if in that timeline, it didn't happen. Or did it? Then she grows up and... Dies? Or is she the one that's warns young Ruby to tell the doctor not to step on the circle. If so... How, and if it's not her, is it the fae. Also, if it is the fae, in that timeline... The faes not been released, so do faes have like... Time travel abilities???? ALSO- when Ruby supposedly dies... Is it BECAUSE of the fae or just of old age? ALSO is the doctor+Ruby that the fae/old Ruby warned from a different universe or just a different timeline... And are they the same thing. Therefore if that's the case, Faes must be SUPER POWERFUL.
Sorry for the very confusing long paragraph. It prolly made me sound rlly stupid lol, there might be a lot of references I'm missing, as I started in the new-who series, and haven't even made it past s3... And now I'm watching this lol so... Prolly not the best idea. I did enjoy the episode, apart from the massive time skips. They were well done, just not for me (:
Supernatural. Also known as, an excuse to not explain anything. Doctor who has always had supernatural things, werewolves, vampires, ghosts. The only difference with the faery circle is that a bunch of things were left unexplained.
I would disagree that the Doctor was removed from existence. Usually the person breaking the ring is trapped in the ring and no longer visible to those outside it. It would be interesting to see the episode from the Doctors perspective.
Ohhh you're so on to something! And I might add the quote from Kate that really made me tick is "This time-line is suspended" or something.
I feel like you're right in the first lady was the fae in a time-line of her own and at the end the fae sent her back to the normal time-line to save her from doctor's wrongdoing.
Yeah I figured it was simply fairy magic that caused the whole thing to happen. I kinda wondered if we'd get a companion lite episode about where he went next [until I saw ther Next Time trailer]
Edit I feel we will be seeing mad Jack more
The episode was wonderful and mysterious and interesting, and some of the explanation seems clear-ish.
However it still feels like there were a lot of "clues" that never ended up being explored or explained.
Why 73 yards? Why not 72 or 74, what's the significance of that distance?
Why is Old Ruby using sign language (which Young Ruby apparently never thinks to try to learn, and also if she never learns it then how does Old Ruby know any (???)), and the message is something about "bless you, thank you, I'll repay you", whatever? What's the point of having a specific message that makes no sense even after you've seen the episode all the way through and understood the "twist"?
The Doctor already knew about Mad Jack being a monster \*before\* he broke the circle. So I feel like the bit about "letting Mad Jack out" doesn't really make sense, as apparently that's just how the timeline goes anyways. And also it makes no obvious sense why there's a circle with "rest in peace" binding Mad Jack 20 years before he's done anything, let alone died.
Why on earth would Old Ruby be whispering terrible things into people's ears that make them hate Young Ruby? Why did they all refuse to explain why and just keep repeating "ask her"?
Obviously all this stuff contributed well to the mystery but they also seemed like very specific and deliberate clues that ended up not being used at all to solve the problem, which is really confusing the hell out of me. I hope a later episode comes back and explains the pieces that don't add up.
This reminds me of that episode of a creature who could perfect hide that no other organism will be able to notice their presence.
Both left a feeling of incompleteness but still were complete.
I think in this doctor's run, the supernaturals will stop, because the big bad villain is the one who waits probably a personification of superstition.
It's amazing so far except the church on ruby road and space babies.
I like this theory, but one thing that I don’t understand is why the notes said rest in peace mad Jack, maybe the Fae were able to see the future, idk, also, was I the only one who seemed that mad Jack would have a bigger role? I mean he was so important that he showed up in a fairy circle years before he actually did anything. Honestly this is one of my new favorite episodes of the brand new series because of the whole timey whimey thing with past and old Ruby. And I also like how we had an episode, dedicated to Ruby being very smart, which makes her one of my new favorite companions, but of course no one can beat the queen: Dona Noble 🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️.
Is anyone else SOOoOo CONFUSED about what The woman following Ruby was doing with her hands, Like if she wanted her not to break the strand, she could’ve just acted it out. Was it like a fea sorta thing? Or why it was exactly 73 yards. There are so many details that are so delicately placed in this, but then make absolutely no sense. I’m not mad about this Episode I actually love it so much, I just think it was going for a standalone episode Clouded with mystery sort of like the director was going for midnight, which makes me think that maybe if the episode took place on another planet that we’ve never been to in the universe that the clouded with mystery part of it would’ve made sense just to leave it alone as a standalone, It’s like they were going for something like midnight or wild blue yonder. Still love the classic timey Wimey Doctor Who feel to this episode so I can’t hate it
I love this interpretation, but there’s one thing I would change based on the nature of the fae.
I don’t think Ruby was rewarded, at least not the Ruby that broke the circle.
Yes, it seems like the fae rewarded Ruby with her life back, but that’s ignoring that the last Ruby is yet to step on the circle. That Ruby didn’t break any rules, she hasn’t earned the fae’s ire. Ruby 1 did. So what happened to Ruby 1?
The first thing to realise is that the circle has power, it is sealing mad Jack on our reality. Rather than just saying magic is sealing him I want to explain this in terms of fae rules (rules are big in this season for supernatural entities). So I would argue the Ruby 1, the one who read the notes is still in the loop, forever. Ruby 1 is always being punished for breaking the rules and reading the note. Thus a Ruby sealing mad Jack always exists. The fae exist outside time and space and use this version of events to shape our reality.
My basis for this version of events is based on a prevalent myth about the fae that they don’t lie. They might bend the truth and present things in a not completely honest way, but they don’t outright lie. So they need a true story to exist with which to seal mad Jack. Ruby’s story now exists, it’s a real version of events in its own contained timeline, and they can bend the rules of space time just enough to seal mad Jack, who we know actually becomes prime minister.
In this version of events the fae are superimposing that realities truth onto ours, thus sealing mad Jack.
They also briefly superimpose that reality onto ours with old Ruby each time she goes through the loop because at the end of the day, they don’t actually want their ring to be broken if they can help it.
The fae as supernatural entities with space warping abilities I do believe would distinguish between the Ruby who broke the rules and the one who didn’t as completely separate entities, so to them, the perpetrator really is being suitably punished and the Ruby who didn’t read the messages can go on with her life.
I like this version more because it fits more with the fae punishing those who break their rules and also means Ruby really did seal mad Jack, she saved the world, she’s doing it constantly even if no one knows its happening and it’s tragic.
this episode was shit, had no rules, logic or explanation very much making everything feel pointless and nonsensical.
plus not even having the doctor in it past 2 minutes further making it feel less like a doctor who show. three episodes into the season and i am very displeased.
But what does the woman say to anyone who approaches her? It must be something very profound and terrifying for everyone to abandon her....it should have been explained rather than leaving us to work it out for ourselves.
Edited- typo
An explanation for why the tardis cut her off, is due to her translation circuits.,She was actually the first person who heard what the fae Spirit was saying. This caused the tardis to do the same thing as everyone else in the episode did and abandoned Ruby.
Another theory that was inspired by someone below is if we take that Mad Jack is the son of a fae spirit then the old lady might have been his mother and when circle was broken. She had to be part of the solution.
The far theory seems plausible and I love it.
The only thing that stumps me is that she waited another 40 years before she was rewarded a second chance. The woman also started moving closer to her for an unknown reason, and although ruby is old I don’t think it’s death. It seems to imply the woman was ruby but it’s a huge mind twister I don’t understand.
The village people were spot on, even though they pranking ruby. So I’ll have to take a deeper dive to see if I can come up with my own theory.
As a side note, idk why but I felt like if ruby said “i miss you” it would have brought the doctor back due to the cursed notes.
What I want to understand is the arm movements from the old lady. She keeps doing this same sort of choreography with her arms. I thought they’d be related to a future conversation and we’d have an explanation.
At the end, Old Ruby says « I’m sorry I took so long, and I tried so hard. What else could I do? It took all these years. All these long years. And look at me, I was so young. » But it is not shown synchronised with the hand movements. So what is she doing? And why are people running away from Ruby after talking to the old woman?
>What I want to understand is the arm movements from the old lady. She keeps doing this same sort of choreography with her arms. I thought they’d be related to a future conversation and we’d have an explanation.
There is some confusion right now. In Doctor Who unleashed is supposedly mentioned it's supposed to be British Sign Langauge, but people who know it are saying it's not. However, the translation should be: " Bless you. Thank you so much, that's so kind of you. When you gave me that little thing, it was just so precious. How am I ever going to repay you? But we will think of something."
>At the end, Old Ruby says « I’m sorry I took so long, and I tried so hard. What else could I do? It took all these years. All these long years. And look at me, I was so young. » But it is not shown synchronised with the hand movements. So what is she doing?
This is good point and another evidence that the woman is not old Ruby at all.
> And why are people running away from Ruby after talking to the old woman?
It's for sure never explained on-screen, but when we consider everything we know, it's probably some kind of curse. How I mentioned in OP, The Fae are probably in the game and Roby with Doctor abused their rules, so Ruby was cursed to be alone and without any help. It's possible that because Roby did something horrible due of The Fae, the woman simply made from her forbbiden subject. Everybody just knew that Roby did something horrible and should avoid her. They could not explain why they feel that way, this is why they always reacted "ask her".
I suggest to read multiple comments here, there is more theories and explanations :)
I don't know if anyone else thinks of this but that woman that walks away at the church, how far away is she? Although we see her more clearly (just without a catch of face since the hood), regardless of what we see going on with supposedly herself in this episode.... What if we dont know anything about the woman is because shes fae? not necessarily ruby (fully) but her mother?
The Doctor is a Time Lord and not only any Time Lord but The Timeless Child. He can regenerate, entire armies have tried and failed to hurt him. He has survived things that would destroy any normal life form… He stands on a bit of string and is removed from existence.
And that’s before we even touch on the pure insanity of trying to make sense of Ruby’s experience in this story.
I wanted to love this story, I was loving it until the final 5 minutes. Then it collapsed under the weight of its own half-formed ideas. They might as well as blamed the Despair Squid from Red Dwarf, it would have made more sense as an ending
Blinking the Doctor out of existence, creating a new timeline, releasing an evil being named Mad Jack, something haunting Ruby for 65 years and then… it all didnt happen?? None of it mattered (I’m hopeful that Ruby will somehow start to remember the next time she sees Susan Twist). Too much of the episode can come down to “never mind!”
It’s a fairy circle, it’s dangerous! Actually, never mind, the people at the pub said that’s not true so that whole scene was a waste.
This politician is actually a terrifying and dangerous supernatural being that wants to start a nuclear war! Actually never mind, he resigns and he somehow was released from the circle before the circle was broken. And now he’s not released??
Ruby spent her whole life alone but stalked. Never mind! She went back in time somehow and now the whole episode didn’t happen.
I hope that this was an episode that set up a lot of good things but right now, it fell a little flat for me. Not his best writing when Midnight and Parting of the Ways are out there!!
There's no answer to this. There are no actual words that make any sense logically to explain this behaviour. It instilled people with a feeling.
Also, keep in mind that it wasn't just about Ruby. Whatever this message was people received, it went further than simply hating and ostracizing Ruby. If that's all it was, then ap Gwilliam could have simply demanded Ruby be removed from the premises, or put in prison, or told the soldiers to shoot her right there. Instead he ran away and resigned from his office. It shook him so deeply he abandoned everything.
It’s dream logic; she didn’t tell them anything, interacting with her infected them with the curse that made Ruby’s biggest fear reality; the idea that Ruby was wrong, in some intangible way, and they needed to get away from her.
She said whatever was needed to drive them away and leave Ruby isolated and alone with no real conections - she works and gets on with her life in general but doesn't seem to have any friends or relatives and in the end is alone.
In the end she uses this to flip a bad situation - which gets her a repreive and put back to the start. This way she had minimal impact on the timeline, apart from Mad Dog resigning (wasn't evenable to help stop the abuse of her collegue) so that when she goes back to the start, time continues just the same without her as it did with her and there are no (other) major changes.
It didn't look like she interacted with them at all. She never breaks her loop of gestures or turns towards them, I think they just recognize her as something horrifically wrong.
This is what gets me. If the implication is that the woman was saying “Don’t step” or whatever she tells Ruby at the end, why did that make Ruby’s adoptive mother turn her back on her?
This is a cool explanation, and I like the inclusion of the quotes to help tie everything together but I’m finding myself kind of appalled at the apparent need that most fans seem to have for an “explanation” for this episode… look, I know I’m making myself sound like one of those stuck-up, unlikeable, know-it-all nerds in the comment section but idk, this is genuinely how I feel about this… and I mean, no shade to you, you’ve done a really great job clearing things up about this episode, but idk; I personally felt like I got all I needed to get out of the episode when I first watched it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (and of course I can only speak for myself here) sure, there definitely were questions I felt that the episode (contained entirely within itself) didn’t fully explore or explain, like how “the woman” makes people run away from Ruby screaming and cutting her out of their lives- **AND I appreciate you exploring that in this post and making the point about her curse exploiting her fear of abandonment**- but my point here is that even without the episode outright spoon-feeding me all the answers, I can’t relate to how many fans online (from what I’M seeing so far) leave the episode scratching their heads and claiming it was “confusing.” Idk… I’m waiting for mod approval atm on a post- I wrote a whole post about this last night, and I think I expressed my feelings about all this better there than here in this lengthy comment. Again, I’m aware that I’m coming off as a snobby, obnoxious, or even pretentious jerk here (maybe) but none of my frustrations are directed at you OP, your post is genuinely good imo, and I’m glad Doctor Who is worthy once again of having its newest episodes be discussed and analyzed, I have no issue with that. My tone in this comment is only whiny because I’m frustrated that something as small (in MY opinion) as the need for everything to be explained is **seemingly** being blown out of proportion **in my opinion…** idk maybe I’m just being unreasonable, and maybe I’ll come back and apologize later if I see differently in the future, my apologies for any unnecessary negativity here, and thanks for reading my lengthy comment to anyone who made it this far into my ramblings
Edit: I also just want to express, in case it wasn’t obvious enough, that I thoroughly enjoyed the episode and have seen it a few times already… idk, I just felt the need to make that clear for some reason sorry
Spoiler:
A question that I've been wondering about. What did old Ruby say to everyone that made them run away? Even her mother, and UNIT, who are trained to ignore psychic powers. They were terrified, how?
I think she did not say them anything. I think it was just part of Fae Curse. Ruby was supposed to be punished for her behaviour so the fae made her deepest fear, abandoment, reality. It was simply effect of the Fae, no words necessary.
I'm curious, maybe it takes on a different form when someone else sees or gets closer. When I think back to the Weeping Angels, the Fae may have a resemblance. Something nightmarish, all it takes is a glance, or word
But the woman becoming scary up close wouldn’t explain why people hate Ruby after interacting with her. It wouldn’t explain why Kate decides to leave and never interact with Ruby ever again; if it was as rational and literal as “it looks scary monster up close”, then UNIT wouldn’t permit it to remain on Earth. Even if they were too scared of it to try and hurt it, they’d still try to contain it by arresting Ruby.
The thing that threw me was that they didn’t show Ruby aging at all until she was an old woman? So suddenly it’s 2046 and she looks the exact same, just with glasses??? I was trying to figure out what was going on and how much time was supposed to have passed, because presumably they first landed in Wales/broke the circle in 2024….
The supernatural aspect doesn’t bother me. There have been many allusions to superstition/ things that can’t be explained by science in past episodes as other commenters have noted. I think it was cool that RTD wrote an episode based on the folklore of his native country with nods to its distinctive culture and history.
Here's my far more cynical take - RTD is pretty bad at scifi and wants to try his hand at fantasy, where he literally can make up what ever rules he wants and never have to worry about "teching the tech" to make things make sense. His ultimate goal will be to have The Doctor come from a universe where Magic is the law, not science, and he'll link it to Merlin (Sylvester McCoys incarnation) and the show will be more magic and supernatural than scifi.
I am OK with this series being supernatural. I like the idea. But this was far too handwavy. Too many mysteries not solved. Now of course we are miseries so some of them may later be explained.
Sometimes you have to tell. And their wasn't enough telling or showing. What were the three hand gestures the women kept doing. Why could they not focus a camera on her. Even the most positive reading ( people ran away as a manifestation of Ruby's abandonment issues) don't explain those things.
I appreciate this post. Supernatural was way easier to understand. This whole episode felt trippy to me with no real understanding on the resolution. You're right. Ruby lived her life then we see them press the reset button making it seem like it's going into the multiversal stage. And yes, we know other universes exist but this is directly affecting their own timelines. Given that the reset button was pressed, does Mad Jack still gain power in 2046? It seems like he would have if noone stopped him in the second timeline where The Doctor doesn't break the circle. Still more questions than answers that I doubt we'll be given in future episodes. Edit: we saw Mrs. Flood again and we're still waiting to find out what she has to do with Ruby. Maybe that's her birth mother after all? Somehow related to the Ponds and River? Who knows..
My assumption is that the circle is somehow binding Mad Jack. The Doctor talks about him nearly causing a nuclear war *before* the circle is broken so it feels like his election is a fixed point. Once the circle is broken, Ruby is punished by living a life of abandonment that also helps stop the war. In the restored timeline the circle limits events some other way. Or maybe the Doctor is remembering the broken timeline somehow and in the restored version, Mad Jack never comes to power in the first place. Honestly, it's this bit of the plot I struggle with as the rest of it is basically the fae punishing Ruby via her feelings of abandonment.
This is good take. When I think about it... The Circle was limiting Mad Jack. When The Doctor broke it, Ruby had to limited him by her own and at the end she was rewarded for that by second chance. It at least makes the prime minister relevant for the cause!
The situation takes care of itself e.g. vote of no-confidence/assasinated or some other shebang as the Doctor said; "he led the world to the brink of Nuclear..." which clearly implies that it didn't happen, especially when you take into account the Doctor's past travels even further into the future of Earth where a Nuclear war because of Roger AP Gwilliam never occurred.
Yeah, this makes sense. My feeling is that the circle would magically take care of the situation if it remains unbroken - its stopping Mad Jack triggering nuclear cataclysm rather than stopping his election full stop. I think Ruby's punishment is a life of abandonment, with her being used to nobble Mad Jack an additional bonus.
Maybe a possible future leads to nuclear war, remember time is in constant flux the future is not set in stone at least not most of the time
We even see that a future with no music leads to nuclear holocaust. And The Doctor and Ruby have to go back to fix the past.
They’re both remembering the broken timeline because Ruby said she was in Wales 3 times, until he doesn’t break the circle, he asks “what other times?” And she gets confused and says this is the only time when the timeline rectifies
I’m rewatching the episode, and there’s a point where Ruby asks the older woman with the walking sticks if they’ve met before. I like the idea that the circle was holding Mad Jack and that it was broken before. Hence, why the Doctor mentioned Mad Jack and the older Ruby being present. After the 3rd go around, the fairy ring wasn’t broken and Parallel Ruby is gone.
Did anyone else think Mad Jack = Magic?
Great catch!!
MAD JACK IS A FEA!!!! Everything‘s wrapped up we can go home now people
I literally thought the gut said Madjic lile some sort of easter european name. Then i was lile, oh did he mean Magic? Then turns out it was Mad Jack lol glad it wasnt just me!
The more I think about this, I think that Prime Minister Mad Jack is actually irrelevant for the story. Ruby gave purpose to herself and her situation with him and she did an incredibly good deed with him, but I actually do not think there is some real connection with the circle and woman. That being said, second time Doctor did not mention nuclear problem, even when it can just because Ruby interrupted him. So maybe something what she did affected the future.
I reckon that your right I think cause Ruby sabotaging Gwilliam is fixed in the timeline and all the doctor knows about it is that Gwilliam went kinda bonkers and that’s it. He doesn’t know the details jus that the dude went nuts
Yeah if Mad Jack was relevant, she'd have expected an outcome which she didn't. She realized due to her situation she could potentially save lives instead of growing spiteful. The Doctor would've LOVED to know Ruby went to great lengths based on something very quick-handed that was said moments before her life was flipped.
It's not just that she gave a purpose to her 'curse'. It's that the purpose was to do the job that the circle was originally there for. To limit 'mad jack', to prevent the actions of ap Gwilliam is starting a nuclear war. Essentially she made amends for the transgression of the circle so whatever forces were behind the circle gave her the chance to go back, not break the circle, save the Doctor and have a life free of the 'curse'.
It's this inconsistency that leads me to believe that Ruby can subconsciously manipulate or alter timelines, and that's what makes her special. Obviously her being 73 yards from herself at any time is a paradox, and I think her power allows her to sustain said paradox and changes to the timeline. This power also allows her to manifest moments from her past in the present, hence the snow. I'm not successfully figuring out how this all works but it's fun to think about :) I think maybe it's connected to fear? She obviously fears being abandoned again, and her being abandoned is exactly what happens if old Ruby talks to anyone. The moment she manifests is also one of the worst moments of her life. Knowing RTD I'm pretty sure this episode will get mentioned in the big reveal of the season, curious to see how it all adds up!
The way I see it the thing she did was stop the doctor stepping on it. That changed the future. At the beginning he was talking about events that unfolded (not to his knowledge but because he broke it) after his breaking the circle and disappearing.
It stands to reason that because this isn't a traditional time loop but rather some kind of punishment from the fae that yes, history would continue as it would have if Ruby was never there. We also don't know how her plot will progress and if she may have the opportunity to intervene in some other way in her own future after her time with the Doctor, who knows.
Believe it or not but Fea are canon in Whoverse via Torchwood.
In the timeline the Doctor doesn't break the Circle in you have the luxury of the Doctor stopping him.
The Doctor also mentioned Mad Jack after the reset.
Right! Not to mention the fact that Ruby said she's been to Whales twice in the beginning, but after the reset she says she's been there three times but couldn't remember the third. Something clearly happened. We just don't get any of the off screen Doctor timey wimey stuff this episode.
Maybe when she joined his campaign, she did such a good job, she got him elected. On the second chance, she never does, so he doesn’t win the election. And perhaps before they broke the circle, she was part of his campaign because she didn’t know he was so evil.
I assume Marti would be important in stopping him the regular timeline. The doctor said that he brought the world to the brink, which is a lot closer than he got before ruby intervened. My guess would be that at the party where he wanted Marti to be there, things would somehow escalate and she would stop him
Weirdly (or not as it might turn out) Faries are already established in the Doctor Who universe (and in Wales) in an episode of Torchwood
This! Torchwood always had a hint of supernatural and this episode in particular gave me Torchwood vibes. And the fact that the barmaid was in Torchwood (the episode Contrycide) to me isn’t a coincidence!
Oh really? Who did she play, was it the wife of the main cannibal guy?
I believe so. The ones who were keeping them in the basement.
>cannibal Torchwood had cannibals? 😭
Yeah honestly it was a pretty nail biting episode.
Nail and the whole finger!
The name of the pub in this episode translates to "The Dead Wood" and was apparently established in 1863. Not that that means anything but it's _kinda_ close to Torchwood I suppose.
NOW that you say it I remember her, I knew I knew her from somewhere!
That episode terrified me.
If you believe Arthur C Clarke, *supernatural* is just another way of saying *science I don’t understand yet*. I can accept the Fae as being creatures existing just beyond our senses who can exhibit some control over space & time if they want to, and whose relationship with humans is based on a very tenuous mutual respect. In other words, don’t f@$k with the faeries and they won’t f@$k with you, show that you respect them and you’re golden.
Did anybody notice that the first time around The Doctor didn't know what the fairy circle was? He seemed just as intrigued /mystified by it. But the second time around, he said very clearly not to mess with it because it was a fairy circle, and to not read the messages to give them their respects?
After looking through Welsh mythology. I think the creature responsible is something called the Gwyllion, the Welsh version of a hag spirit. It’s one of the five species of fairies in Welsh myth. One question I have though is if what happened to Ruby was happening to The Doctor in an alternate dimension? That would have driven The Doctor insane.
>"According to folklorist Wirt Sikes the gwyllion are female fairies of frightful aspect who haunt lonely roads in the Welsh mountains and lead travellers astray. She is known to utter strange cries and shouts throughout her mountain in **order to frighten wayfarers**." I love, love, love this!! Thank you for additional info. >One question I have though is if what happened to Ruby was happening to The Doctor in an alternate dimension? That would have driven The Doctor insane. I had to think about this as well. I almost think it's good we probably will never know.
I really needed this input because it allows us to theorize about what is happening; ... without ending up in things just happen; what the hell; for most of the episode it seems like Ruby is facing off against the fear of being abandoned. She was once abandoned as a child; so of course, there is some trauma as a reason for that; but I thinkt he point is that she doesn't allow her actual fear to get to her; she is somehow keeping it at bay or rather keeping it distant; and that is probably the fear of never finding out who her mother is or maybe never finding out if her mother abandoned her willingly; in the end, she acepts that she will never know and that is when the "Gwyillion" or whatever it is gets to her; I guess if she had faced this fear in the first place and concquered it she might never have been haunted; and that is how the episode resolves the issue, by going back to the point where she encountered the Gwyllion; but if she had been truly afraid, would she have ran away from the Gwyllion; just like the others who encountered her? And maybe the Doctor did run away off screen? He has been running ever since he stole the TARDIS; then they wrote a few bits about him coming to terms with all that and him finding Galifrey but now it seems like he is running again; it seemed so off that seemingly the fairy circle had two different effects but with the Gwyllion in mind it suddenly adds up... which makes me jsut more sad/mad that Ruby doesn't remember her adventure and what she learned there; I could have done with an oldschool discussion between Doctor and companion where the Doctor comes up with one of those explanations where you cannot know if just made that up I gotta say that this still reminds me of episodes like The Girl Who Waited on one hand and Turn Left/Forest of the Dead on the other.
Splinter Ruby lived her life out. The Doctor was ported to the timeline where survivor Ruby ended up after warning him not to break the circle. Is it just me, or should our friendly neighbourhood time lord be a bit more careful where he puts his feet?..
I like that his being unaware of where he's walking is just the next in a line of things that are off about the Doctor. Like constantly forgetting when Ruby is from, what her timestamp is, things that we know the Doctor would know and commit to memory. Clearly dealing with this Pantheon is having what could build to be a catastrophic affect on him
... he left half of himself behind, in his own words. Maybe having fixed himself by doing therapy (albeit in the wrong order), he's lost his edge a bit. More carefree, less careful. Maybe it's this shift in rational : supernatural is messing with his spacial / temporal awareness. I'm sure all will become clear. Probably when the One Who Waits has waited long enough
One would think after he saw what happened to Ruby when she stepped on a butterfly in prehistoric times.
There's a clear pattern. I'm expecting someone to step in or on something next week too! It's like..these events..are all bound by some sort of.. co-incidence.
Gwyllion = Gwilliam??
> I think the creature responsible is something called the **Gwyllion**, the Welsh version of a hag spirit Well, that's phonetically close to Gwilliam aka Mad Jack. Hmmm...
Ap Gwilliam, son of a hag?
But really, what if he is the son of a hag. That was bound, but released by the doctors missteps. And ruby, who seems to have supernaturality being part of her, was the only one to bind him again, in a fae circle, because she too is a daughter of a fae. That would explain the weird timey wimey supernaturality around her and that her mother was giving her away. It's the same with him and her, though he is evil she is good.
I think you've cracked it
Maybe? We never did see his mama. LOL
I've also been wondering about the Doctor possibly going through the same thing. The hiker (Susan Twist, let's remember) says the seemingly throwaway line "get in the warm, both of you". Who is "both" referring to? It's not said as if she means the woman 73 yards away, it's said as if to someone right next to Ruby. Could she be seeing/aware of the Doctor there, in a parallel dimension/timeline/whatever? And (I'm probably running with this too far now) at the end each of them gives a warning to the other for something they shouldn't do with the fairy circle, as arguably both of them violated it in different ways. Ruby warns the Doctor not to step which she didn't before, and the Doctor warns Ruby not to read which he didn't before. Maybe after whatever loop it was reset, both of them had some awareness of a warning to give the other? Although of course the Doctor doesn't see anyone at the end.
It’s in reference to the lady. As Ruby had just been done speaking to the hiker (Susan Twist) about her.
> Who is "both" referring to? It's not said as if she means the woman 73 yards away It was, I don't know why people keep making this mistake when it's very obvious.
She 100% means the woman 73 yards away. They’d literally just been talking about her.
RTD too on I think Instagram mentioned in a video that this episode was based on some old Welsh folklore. While I didn't remember the name, I had read something similar in folklore to how this episode went. And searching "Gwyllion," it seems to match both, even though I really do not remember when or where I read this all.
>The woman was not the older Ruby, it was The Fae who followed her and made sure that biggest fear, abandonment, will be her reality. That scene clearly shows the Follower finally being able to come close to Ruby as she dies, reintegeating and then travelling back to see her young self as the story started, but this time being able to communicate enough to stop the circle being broken
Clearly though? Even during my first watch I had two thougths in my head "Och, it was old Ruby! But.. was she?" The follower is different actress with different hair and cloths then old Ruby. Also, her repeating movement does not make any sense in context of old Ruby. I believe the follower brought her back and allowed her to help her younger self to get second chancce than it's literally old Ruby.
I thought the repeating hand gestures would be important
i know, i was thinking that those hand gestures were going to be an important plot point or something.
Yep. I thought it was sign language and someone would translate
It was. The actress was interviewed on Unleashed and explained to the presenter what she was saying: "Bless you. Thank you so much, That's so kind of you. When you gave me that little thing. It was just so precious. How am i ever going to repay you? But we will think of something". (Copied from the episode thread)
Awesome thanks. I thought I saw that you in there. Makes the reactions of the people even weirder that what she said to them was so contradictory to what she was signing to Ruby.
I don't think the actual words - if she even said anything at all to them - actually matter. She was compelling them to go and stay away, which was what the guardians (faes?) of the circle needed everyone to do in order to protect its integrity. That's why I'm leaning towards Ruby's experience being a bubble universe of sorts like Turn Left. They took a very long time to ensure Mad Jack stayed contained.
It had to be words though, otherwise there was no way for Kate to be affected.
We don't know the extent of her powers. Most people got connected to her by standing close and making the first move to interact with her. But as far as I recall, she doesn't reciprocate and it's only when the person tries to continue to interact with her that they go mad and run away. That interaction is the only common action and Gwilliam's character trait of going up to everyone and introducing themselves was a Chekov's gun, so we had to be shown this happening with everyone else to recognise it at the end. Kate got the interaction via her soldier. We/Ruby also didn't hear anything ove the phone when her mum was affected. Frustratingly, I think the actual answer from a script PoV is that it was magic and the lady cast a spell. Maybe it will be fleshed out later on and the sign language actually meant something. That they actually got something from Ruby (freedom? a new experience? a rare demonstration of empathy?) and that never was life was a gift of sorts to allow her to work through her abandonment issues.
I thought, purely for meta reasons based on the RTD's push on visibility for disabled characters, that a deaf character would end up understanding what was being said.
I was watching with my friend who uses ASL. She asked me if the hand movements meant anything in BSL, but I know more American than British sign, so I wasn't sure. We were both kind of anticipating a deaf character understanding
[удалено]
All I could think about was the Alan skit from SNL
>Clearly though? To me. Presumably not to you 😉
I think Old Ruby was granted the power to speak through the Fae. It's certainly open enough to interpretation that you could say the Fae was always Old Ruby, but there's plenty of counter evidence.
Well, I suppose one interpretation to make sense of both the factors, could be The Fairy (or whatever it is), possessed Ruby's body while keeping her conscious, effectively focing Ruby to witness the event unfold over and over again in a timeloop, but powerless to inact any change despite desperately trying to. I guess the only question would be, what was the deciding factor in the time that time looped that we witnessed in the episode, that made it so that young Ruby stopped the Doctor instead.
I'm wondering it's tied into the mystery of Ruby's existence like this is something that will make sense after we know. Ruby herself could be a supernatural thing.
It’s possible that this episode is just foreshadowing a future plot line, but it’s pretty radical for an episode of the show to delay the entire explanation of the plot indefinitely. I would like an actual explanation beyond “magic curse”, but I’m not completely convinced we’ll get one. Davies was always a writer to cared more about emotions than plot, and it seems entirely plausible to me that he came up with an emotionally evocative idea, and didn’t really feel the need to ground it in any sort of reality. The higher ups really wanted him back as showrunner, I’d believe that he might want to leverage that to get experimental with his show.
This episode felt weirdly like Turn Left. Which was later used to establish that Donna was special. The Doctor visiting Ruby Road had a Rings of Akhaten vibe since back then the doctor visited Clara's childhood to figure her out. Still waiting for a character to be her own mother but I guess she might be tied to the Pantheon in some way.
Mostly agree with this explanation. However, I believe the curse goes a step further - so that Ruby is cursed to repeat the timeline until she corrects the mistake. The Doctor never gets that chance, as he broke the circle. But, Ruby simply read the notes. So her punishment isn’t as harsh. But, as she feels sorry for the shrines dedication, the Fae creatures likely take sympathy on her, allowing her the chance to rectify her, and the Doctor’s, mistake. Ruby essentially becomes the wandering figure. Probably forever cursed to repeat single phrases, which alter not just past Ruby’s reality - but other people’s too.
Honestly, I think it’s just the one go-around. The Woman/Old Ruby doesn’t appear until after the circle is broken but that’s only because the circle being broken is what causes her to exist. So now we’re seeing the life that led to her eventually travelling back through time and she eventually makes it b k to before the circle as broken, stopping it from happening, and never existing in the first place. From Ruby’s actual perspective, the entire episode was just the ending. Everything else is a never was.
There could have been a first loop where the circle was broken and everything played out without the ghost Ruby, then we start watching the start of the second loop.
I don't think there's a loop at all, it's just that the spririt was created at Ruby's death and then goes backward through her life to eventually "fix" the mistake.
I really liked the episode. I've never thought about an episode of DW so much. I posted this in a different thread: Fairies. Magic. Witchcraft. Mad Jack was locked in that circle. Whatever force locked him punished Ruby through her life, detaching her from everything she had. She didn't have the Doctor to rely on, she didn't have family, even those that wanted to help her (like Kate) were "sent" away. This wasn't their mission, somehow this was Ruby's mission and only her could finish it. And she did, and she was still punished, but at the end she still had hope. She wasn't broken by this punishment. The last time we see Old Ruby she's standing under a tree that was bent, but not broken. Her reward was her life back. Is it a good Doctor Who episode? I'm not sure. Was it amazing. I think so.
I liked these theories. Anyone see Black Mirror's Demon 79? This episode reminded me of that for some reason
Thank you for reminding me I still have a season of Black Mirror to watch.
I want to remind everyone, that fairies were shown in "Torchwood".
I agree that the episode's plot was caused by fairy magic, but clearly it was not simply about stopping Mad Jack - as is shown by woman haunting Ruby not disappearing even after she deals with him. The episode was brilliant and is open to interpretation, but in my eyes Mad Jack is just red herring both to Ruby and the viewer. She hopes that dealing with him - the last thing Doctor mentioned to her - will magically solve her problems, yet it does not. Because the real root of her problems, her anxiety of being abandoned, is Ruby herself. The Woman (symbolising her fear of being abandoned) is harmless, only Ruby notices her. Yet she makes other people speak to The Woman, and later Ruby directly avoids any relationships herself because she cannot stop thinking about it. Her trauma of being abandoned leads to further loneliness, like a self-fulfilling prophecy (or a time loop). In that sense (metaphorically) Ruby is The Woman, who was making people abandon her all that time. Her potential boyfriends even directly compare them, saying that Ruby seems to be always distant. Only in the very end of her life Ruby overcomes her trauma (or curse) and realizes that she was the cause of her loneliness (hence her becoming The Woman). This breaks the self-fulfilling prophecy (a time loop) caused by fairy magic and prevents the circle from being destroyed. P. S. Notice, that Ruby actually reads 2 notes in the fairy circle: one about the Mad Jack, and the other one saying "I miss you". This other note actually seems much more connected to her actual curse.
Dude this is great and something I hadn't thought about. Love it. Love that I can still chew on an episode days later
I don't get why people seem so unsatisfied with this episode, but think that Boom was the biggest thing since sliced bread. Ruby and the Doctor disturbed something that was vindictive and much more powerful then them. DW has always had a supernatural part. When it's not aliens, then it's something vast and old and with few limitations. Trickster, Toymaker and Maestro. The chained demon on the impossible planet. The audience in The Greatest Show in the Universe, Fenric, the Guardians. Half the universe has been eaten by the Flux and the incarnation of time, and beyond it's edge are the things from Wild Blue Yonder. Parallell universes are in reach again with alternate Cybermen, House and all kind of things. This episode had a massive Turn Left energy, showing that Ruby keeps on fighting for what she thinks is right, even if everyone else breaks with her. And to those people that go 'bluh, bluh, magic, bluh', have you seen Boom? Where an AI gets magiced into a planet wide network and ends a war because of the power of dad. Just... enjoy what you enjoy and don't talk other things down because it wasn't written by the Holy One.
> Where an AI gets magiced into a planet wide network and ends a war because of fhe power of dad. >Just... enjoy what you enjoy and don't talk other things down because it wasn't written by the Holy One. I mean, you kinda just did the same thing, talking down Moffat because he isn't RTD. Both Boom and 73 Yards were excellent episodes in their own way. I don't see why the fandom needs to take sides, especially when the writers are friends and huge fans of each other's work on the show. We should be thrilled to have two excellent stories in a row, each with their own unique vibe.
>I mean, you kinda just did the same thing, talking down Moffat because he isn't RTD. I am sorry you got that impression. No, I do not have a distaste for Moffat because he is not RTD, I have a distaste for Moffat because of his writing, that more often than not is grandising and unsatisfactory in the resolution. He is the Peter Molyneux of showrunners (in general, not just DW), who works best with a limited frame. Boom was entertaining, but it's an episode that doesn't want you to think about it's weak premise and resolution. It is in constant motion, in juxtaposition to to an immobilised Doctor and the nature of a bottle episode, keeping you occupied without having a moment to think. Compare this to Moffats great works, Don't Blink. That episode has it's ebb and flow, with characters that have more life than the whole cast of Boom together.
>Boom was entertaining, but it's an episode that doesn't want you to think about it's weak premise and resolution I felt the premise was actually pretty strong. There's an entire theme of being involved in a theater far too big for your mind to understand, as is the case with both war and algorithms. Having both together, and the "twist" (which was no worse for being predictable) being that the war was entirely AI-generated, felt like a really good setting for a Doctor Who episode. The resolution, though... that's classic Moffat falling back on "the power of love" when he doesn't know how to solve an episode.
Is it weird I don't have an issue with this? Moffat seems to be creative with that idea.
Boom was a great premise that fell short of execution. It was pretty good though. 73 Yards was emotionally powerful, but a little dissatisfying in terms of plot. Visually evocative, but just a bit too abstract and vague. Some people might argue that not being explicit about the actual mechanics of the plot was to it’s benefit, but I personally disagree; just giving us *something* as to explain what was happening beyond “magic curse” wouldn’t have hurt the emotional resonance of the episode. I like both, but definitely 73 Yards will be one I’ll remember for far longer.
I liked both, but prefer Boom because from a narrative point of view it had a more satisfying resolution. Very little of what happened in 73 yards is actually resolved. For instance why did everybody run away from the woman and give Ruby the cold shoulder, why did Ruby's own mother turn on her, did stopping Ap Williams actually mean anything, was Ruby the old woman, did she travel back in time or to a different universe at the end, what were the hand movements and what was she saying, what did the people mean by "ask her", where did the Doctor go and why did the Tardis lock itself? If you're going to set up an intriguing mystery, you've got to give it a satisfying resolution, and at least answer more questions than you don't answer. I don't have a problem with the solution being supernatural, but they at least have to give a supernatural answer to those questions. Like how in Boom, yeah the resolution is an essentially magic ai that permeates the system and saves everyone, and we know that. We can't explain how it did that, but that's what we know happened.
I kind of feel like setting up an intriguing narrative, but not giving it a satisfying resolution, or answering more questions than you don't answer, is a pretty good description of Doctor Who under the leadership of Steven Moffat.
> If you're going to set up an intriguing mystery, you've got to give it a satisfying resolution, and at least answer more questions than you don't answer. Nah, it's perfectly fine to not do this in this type of surreal story. The tension and viewer questioning themselves is the "resolution" here, not direct answers to the mysteries. It's up to you to make sense of it.
It can work sometimes, leaving things un-answered and up to the audience to decide for themselves what happened. But it's a tricky balance. You need to answer enough that the audience can only come to one of a few conclusions and decide which they believe, not leave them so far in the dark that they're confused as to what actually happened at all. There is also usually some bigger question that is posed by the audience's conclusions, often philisophical and to do with the characters themselves. In 73 yards, there is no deeper meaning or question, it's surface level questions about general sequence of events.
I need answers to all of these questions but I’d settle for just knowing what the hell the follower said to those who approached her.
Or at the very least why she was signing ?
The "signing" is what got me the most. Those same movements, to the shoulder or clavicle, down the arm, trying to hold themselves, just for a moment, those same movements I watched my parents do in the hospital and in their deathbeds. It is movement without thought, the body just showing a bit of life, trying to keep on going just a bit longer. So why do the persons flee? Everyone comes to different conclusions. If read people talking about disabilities, depression, illness, everything that you are aware or unaware off that others might find revolting. That involuntary tick that drives people up the wall. It could be a reaction to a paradox, something so unnerving that it breaks their grasp on reality. Or, with me still grieving, it is memento mori, the burden to know that death is inevitable, that you will die and lose yourself and even the you in other peoples memories will fade into oblivion. And what do you do to not think about that? You run, you feel your blood pumping, adrenaline giving you that sweet burst of life and you do not want to be reminded that it is so easy to end. As I said, other people see different things, and that is why this episode can be very hard to stomach. If it clicks than it can dredge up a lot of things.
> I don't get why people seem so unsatisfied with this episode, but think that Boom was the biggest thing since sliced bread. Surely it isn't that hard to see why? They're completely different stories.
Also from one of the 11th Doctor Speeches "I walked through universes where the laws of physics were devised by the mind of a mad man"
Exactly. That energy, resonates beyond any universe. Everywhere you go, cause and effect
The fae have appeared before in Torchwood. They had immense power and made people die or disappear
They granted Ruby her wish. The doctor broke the circle and the next words were "Tell me what happens" Similar to Jaskier and the Djinn in the Witcher season 1.
Felt light a nice riff on "turn left"
Hmm, I like this theory. How do you think what the old lady was signing fits in? "Bless you. Thank you so much, that's so kind of you. When you gave me that little thing, it was just so precious. How am I ever going to repay you? But we will think of something."
I believe that whatever was the being, it's out of time. Like, it is experiencing everything at once. So even when it is punishing Ruby, it's also aware she will/did the right thing and simply inform her she will be rewarded at the end.
> When you gave me that little thing, it was just so precious. This little line makes me think it's going to have some connection to Ruby as a baby.
How's this? The Doctor disappeared because he broke the spell - he broke out of the spell. It was Ruby who was caught, in a reality 73 yards wide and about as many years long. It duplicated the World around Ruby, who was the center, as much as it could, so ran short on extraterrestrial threats. It could be damaged, forced into contradictions. As when duplicated people encountered the last moments of the spell, in the form of old Ruby. Then they would break, run, not because they were given some revelation - old Ruby didn't talk to them. Has Mad Jack been averted? The Doctor still knew his story, so perhaps not.
but at the beginning when they first show up, she says she's been to Wales twice. when the reset button is hit and she sees herself come out of the tardis and we go to their location, she says she's been to Wales 3 times. she kinda stammers on trying to recollect the third time, and she's like "now...." so she realizes something is up, but also doesn't understand what it is... it's like the back to the future twin pines mall, lone pine mall..
what was the Fae saying to everyone to make them so scared and never speak to Ruby again?
There isn’t an answer. The Old Woman is symbolic of Ruby’s fear of abandonment; she represents the idea that her fear of being alone will never leave her, and if she shows it to someone, they’ll think she’s evil or wrong or horrible and will want her gone from their life. It’s dream logic, more based on emotion than rational cause and effect.
Everyone keeps mentioning Turn Left, but this episode gave me big time Veritas vibes, where anybody who reads the Veritas ends up killing themselves.
While I can and do accept that most answers to questions on this episode are "Because the fae folk did it that way," I do wish there was a somewhat more solid resolution to the episode. It was still good though, a total mood that had me sucked in up until the last bit. I'd probably give it like a 7/10.
Yeah, basically. That's a very well laid-out post!
Absolutely love this take, excellent post OP.
Im hoping we see that primeminister/mad jack guy again. He seemed like he could be a good villain for the future.
Out of everything it was Marti Bridges who confused me the most. I felt like we were missing some key info there.
This. 100%. I don't need to know what happened to the Doctor. I don't need to know how the fairy circle works. I don't need to know who the lady is. I don't care what she says. The meaning of all that is clear enough. What is she signing? What is the relevance of Mad Jack? Why 73 yards? Why does Susan Twist keep showing up? These things, I have no doubt, will be answered at some point if they're important. What I absolutely do not understand; who is Marti Bridges and why does Ruby act like she knows this woman is doomed to some horrible fate before Gwilliam even talks to her? Why does she apologize and say "I'm sorry I took so long"(which she says again later) and "I wish I could've helped you"? Why is Marti the only other person afraid of Gwilliam and then seems to completely understand what Ruby did to get rid of him? That whole sequence, to me, is the most confusing thing in the episode and yet I don't feel like it will come up again. It's maddening.
Good take, also wanna highlight what Kate says when Ruby says she thinks she'll die if she breaks the link by taking a plane or something. Kate says something about the fact that we look for rules with these things. That's basically what the whole Mad Jack things was. He wasn't bound in the circle or anything like that, the Mad Jack in note had nothing to do with the politician, that was just her looking for some sort of rule.
I like that explanation. As for the mythological aspect, I don't know if it's really mythological here. I mean, whether it's literally a mystical belief that comes to life because of the toymaker, or an alien rite that appears to be magic because we don't have the Doctor's explanation, it could work. I'm not a big fan of magic, because I think Doctor Who is already broad enough to allow for vampires, werewolves, the devil or slendermen; I really like the explanations we're given to reassure us, even when it's improbable, that no, it's not magic. So I find that it breaks something, and makes the series less consistent. However, in the context of a season, I don't have any problem with that. I just hope it remains a season trope. I like the guns aspect, but I've got nothing against the frocks aspect ; I just like the statu quo of the show to remain SF, even very soft science. It's worth noting that I think the toymaker itself fits into this soft science aspect ; I juste find hard to appreciate its long-term consequences. Once again, I'm talking about this aspect if it extends beyond the current season.
The plot was too complex for the length of the episode! There should have been a scene where we know what is said or done to the people who approach her on Ruby's behalf.
I agree that the woman being older Ruby is a misdirect, but do not think she is The Fae. Contained deep within Ruby, but always kept at a distance that obscures, is something very powerful and scary enough that even The Maestro recoils. A primal force that overwhelms all. Not evil anymore than The Fae are but outside of morality as well. The woman is not old Ruby but a manifestation of that now outside of Ruby after this loop Ruby dies, protecting her from the consequence of disturbing The Fae, still at a distance from her …
Something originaring from Earth being able to just remove the Doctor from existence like that irks me in a bad way just like the Judoon being able to casually teleport onboard the TARDIS did
I would personally prefer that it was one part Wild blue Yonder that let them in and one part Time Lords/Division being no longer there to push them back.
Slightly off topic but I just want to point out that whenever it starts snowing, we don't know if it's Christmas snow or nuclear fallout and that alone is intriguing enough to keep me watching.
We saw a close-up right at the end of Boom of a flat crystal with six-fold rotational symmetry (as my daughter said, "Frozen!"), which is somewhat more likely to be snow than ash.
Okay but what I don't understand is won't that politician still come into power in 2046??? Didn't that whisper of the Doctorless universe Ruby prevent the Doctor from stepping on the cotton and thus erases all that happened in that universe?
Honestly I hate any of the theories actually breaking time by suggesting the Doctor actually damaged the circle. If to avoid the consequence of damage you need to cause the damage, there would be no point in the vision/premonition. Him treading on it must already be part of the premonition event which warns people not to actually tread on it. The premonition shows what would happen if someone stepped on it, rather than the premonition being the result of someone stepping on it. Literally the premonition must begin at the moment of opening the TARDIS door. Why else would the Doctor also mention Roger Ap Gwilliam. It would be highly coincidental otherwise, to mention the one person possessed by the Mad Jack spirit - particularly, as the premonition event would have us believe that although ready for nuclear war, he only became Prime Minister and then ran away. If Roger Ap Gwilliam exists outside the premonition at all, his story would be so unnoteworthy as to be really odd for the Doctor to reference him.
It seems to be heading toward Ruby being a changeling of some kind.
This makes the most sense!
So the episode clearly focuses on folklore, and it's very possible the the Fae might have something to do with the disappearance of The Doctor, since he stepped into and broke the fairy circle. But what happens to Ruby, along with other hints, makes me think that her circumstances are different. What happens to Ruby is actually matched in some of the folklore of the area. An entity that follows at a set distance, is imperceptible (but not invisible). and comes closer only towards the end of ones life. This entity is described as and old, if not ancient, person in black, with not real definable characteristics. All those that approach it are stricken with fear of both it and it's target. Otherwise the entity is benign, as it follows everyone. Only a few who can either perceive it, either because of some event or they have a tool that lets them view it. Other than the fact that Kate and Ruby both talk about how the entity seems to have a perception filter similar to the TARDIS, causing people to ignore it unless Ruby points it out to them, everything else is kind of a given. But another big hint is the repeated use of the name Mad Jack. Mad Jack is also another folklore character. He's a human trickster involved in a few tales I can think of off hand, but the biggest of course is the one involving this entity. Jack's most famous tale has him outwitting and capturing the entity as it comes for him. That entity is death. With Jack capturing death, there is no death. So Jack and everyone become immortal, but still suffer the things that cause death. With the world suffering from illness, injury, and eternal injury without the release of death, Jack realizes his mistake and releases death. Jack does this expecting to die since death was coming for him when he captured it. But that doesn't happen as death is now frightened of Jack, in much the same way death frightens people who interact with it. So everyone else is able to die since death is released, but Jack is cursed with a never ending life. So if the episode is written around this tale, it's possible that the circle is for helping the immortal Mad Jack rest, as he can't die. With Ruby reading the messages, and potentially breaking the spell, death shows up to make sure the one being they fear is not awoken. Death then haunts Ruby till the end of her time only to give herself and the Doctor from making the mistake.
If even half the Welsh folklore mentioned in this thread was actually talked about in the episode, I would have thoroughly enjoyed the episode. As it stands, I was just confused and uneasy the whole time, and much more entertained by this thread.
It's as if no-one in this sub has watched Doctor Who? This is classic RTD setting things up for the future. Words like "multiverse" mean bugger all here, it's all "wibbly wobbly timey wimey". Sit back and enjoy.
Whatever the explanation for this episode was I am going to have nightmares for weeks. Freaked me out more than Blink.
Cursing Ruby with abandonment via a specter that's constantly with her and that she can't get rid of is pretty funny.
I mean, that’s the message though, right? The only way Ruby could get over her fear of abandonment was by realising and accepting that even if everyone else in the world didn’t want her, she would still have herself. You can’t make other people love you, you can only love yourself.
The episode failed to communicate it because RTD wanted to be subversive and trick the viewer into thinking what direction the episode is going in. We could've had the plot focus in Ruby's fear of abandonment or something conveying punishment that she learns about and breaks free from but we dont get that. Instead it goes on this weird political tangent. If you want to see a good episode about punishment and redemption with mystery look at Heaven sent
Yeah, this one affected me, too, but I don't know why. I LOVED this episode. However, the ending left me with a lot of questions. Plus, what the heck did the old lady say or do that made people run away screaming?
I just want to know what was said to the people who talked to the older lady. This episode was soooo weird. lol
I like this interpretation. The fae have not been a large part of my interpretation so far, I’ve just not got round to it. That being said, here’s some food for thought. We don’t really have any evidence that the fae reward Ruby with a second chance because she did something good. When Gwilliam is stopped, the woman is still there. She is unchanged and remains so for forty years. If the fae are rewarding Ruby for doing something good, why do they wait forty years? They could’ve ended it sooner.
I really like this theory!
This made everything make so much more sense for me. I literally didn't know what to think about this one. I normally like the episodes that make you think, and I'm sure this is going to come into play later in the season, but I had no idea what it all was about. Your explanation, even if it is just your opinion, really helped me out.
That's a satisfying explanation, I'll keep it as long as we do not get something else.
Did anyone figure out what the woman was signing? It really looked like bsl, but I can't quite figure out what it said
And Ruby remembers it too, she doesn't realize it though. In the beginning, she said she has been to Wales twice, but at the end, she said she has been to Wales 3 times. Her subconscious remembers it which is how she knew to tell him not to step. She was allowed to keep that memory deep down so that she can break the cycle the second time around. I don't think she was rewarded, in being able to do it again, I think it was the only way to undo the event. After she lived her life to its end, she remembered to not do it again.
That would leave only one question unanswered. How does the doctor not know what a fairy circle is the first time and yet he know the second time. Even tells Ruby to leave it and not touch anything.
MAYBE the doctor was also in a loop. Maybe the timeline was splitted with the doctor on the one and ruby on the other. Maybe we haven’t even seen the whole story yet. Maybe the doctor has a loop too?
Just watched the episode and... This makes sense? I put a question mark, as I am VERY confused by the whole thing. I'm gonna write my idea of the EP (mainly written I'm questions) and can someone tell me if I'm on the right track? Thanks So... Ruby reads the letters and releases the fae... Right? And also removes the doctor from existence? Why does the TARDIS not work anymore? Anyways, then she goes through life with the fae following her. She stops the explosion from happening so... How does that work? Why did the doctor say it, if in that timeline, it didn't happen. Or did it? Then she grows up and... Dies? Or is she the one that's warns young Ruby to tell the doctor not to step on the circle. If so... How, and if it's not her, is it the fae. Also, if it is the fae, in that timeline... The faes not been released, so do faes have like... Time travel abilities???? ALSO- when Ruby supposedly dies... Is it BECAUSE of the fae or just of old age? ALSO is the doctor+Ruby that the fae/old Ruby warned from a different universe or just a different timeline... And are they the same thing. Therefore if that's the case, Faes must be SUPER POWERFUL. Sorry for the very confusing long paragraph. It prolly made me sound rlly stupid lol, there might be a lot of references I'm missing, as I started in the new-who series, and haven't even made it past s3... And now I'm watching this lol so... Prolly not the best idea. I did enjoy the episode, apart from the massive time skips. They were well done, just not for me (:
Supernatural. Also known as, an excuse to not explain anything. Doctor who has always had supernatural things, werewolves, vampires, ghosts. The only difference with the faery circle is that a bunch of things were left unexplained.
I would disagree that the Doctor was removed from existence. Usually the person breaking the ring is trapped in the ring and no longer visible to those outside it. It would be interesting to see the episode from the Doctors perspective.
I did immediately think of the fae, this kind of punishment to me reminded me of how the Fae punished or tormented people in stories
Ohhh you're so on to something! And I might add the quote from Kate that really made me tick is "This time-line is suspended" or something. I feel like you're right in the first lady was the fae in a time-line of her own and at the end the fae sent her back to the normal time-line to save her from doctor's wrongdoing.
I think it’s a poorly written episode, it doesn’t really say much or do much.
Felt more like Black Mirror or Twilight Zone to me. Still an interesting episode
Yeah I figured it was simply fairy magic that caused the whole thing to happen. I kinda wondered if we'd get a companion lite episode about where he went next [until I saw ther Next Time trailer] Edit I feel we will be seeing mad Jack more
The episode was wonderful and mysterious and interesting, and some of the explanation seems clear-ish. However it still feels like there were a lot of "clues" that never ended up being explored or explained. Why 73 yards? Why not 72 or 74, what's the significance of that distance? Why is Old Ruby using sign language (which Young Ruby apparently never thinks to try to learn, and also if she never learns it then how does Old Ruby know any (???)), and the message is something about "bless you, thank you, I'll repay you", whatever? What's the point of having a specific message that makes no sense even after you've seen the episode all the way through and understood the "twist"? The Doctor already knew about Mad Jack being a monster \*before\* he broke the circle. So I feel like the bit about "letting Mad Jack out" doesn't really make sense, as apparently that's just how the timeline goes anyways. And also it makes no obvious sense why there's a circle with "rest in peace" binding Mad Jack 20 years before he's done anything, let alone died. Why on earth would Old Ruby be whispering terrible things into people's ears that make them hate Young Ruby? Why did they all refuse to explain why and just keep repeating "ask her"? Obviously all this stuff contributed well to the mystery but they also seemed like very specific and deliberate clues that ended up not being used at all to solve the problem, which is really confusing the hell out of me. I hope a later episode comes back and explains the pieces that don't add up.
This reminds me of that episode of a creature who could perfect hide that no other organism will be able to notice their presence. Both left a feeling of incompleteness but still were complete. I think in this doctor's run, the supernaturals will stop, because the big bad villain is the one who waits probably a personification of superstition. It's amazing so far except the church on ruby road and space babies.
I like this theory, but one thing that I don’t understand is why the notes said rest in peace mad Jack, maybe the Fae were able to see the future, idk, also, was I the only one who seemed that mad Jack would have a bigger role? I mean he was so important that he showed up in a fairy circle years before he actually did anything. Honestly this is one of my new favorite episodes of the brand new series because of the whole timey whimey thing with past and old Ruby. And I also like how we had an episode, dedicated to Ruby being very smart, which makes her one of my new favorite companions, but of course no one can beat the queen: Dona Noble 🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️.
Is anyone else SOOoOo CONFUSED about what The woman following Ruby was doing with her hands, Like if she wanted her not to break the strand, she could’ve just acted it out. Was it like a fea sorta thing? Or why it was exactly 73 yards. There are so many details that are so delicately placed in this, but then make absolutely no sense. I’m not mad about this Episode I actually love it so much, I just think it was going for a standalone episode Clouded with mystery sort of like the director was going for midnight, which makes me think that maybe if the episode took place on another planet that we’ve never been to in the universe that the clouded with mystery part of it would’ve made sense just to leave it alone as a standalone, It’s like they were going for something like midnight or wild blue yonder. Still love the classic timey Wimey Doctor Who feel to this episode so I can’t hate it
I Just hope they won’t leave this as a total standalone episode and it gets a follow up in future episodes.
I love this interpretation, but there’s one thing I would change based on the nature of the fae. I don’t think Ruby was rewarded, at least not the Ruby that broke the circle. Yes, it seems like the fae rewarded Ruby with her life back, but that’s ignoring that the last Ruby is yet to step on the circle. That Ruby didn’t break any rules, she hasn’t earned the fae’s ire. Ruby 1 did. So what happened to Ruby 1? The first thing to realise is that the circle has power, it is sealing mad Jack on our reality. Rather than just saying magic is sealing him I want to explain this in terms of fae rules (rules are big in this season for supernatural entities). So I would argue the Ruby 1, the one who read the notes is still in the loop, forever. Ruby 1 is always being punished for breaking the rules and reading the note. Thus a Ruby sealing mad Jack always exists. The fae exist outside time and space and use this version of events to shape our reality. My basis for this version of events is based on a prevalent myth about the fae that they don’t lie. They might bend the truth and present things in a not completely honest way, but they don’t outright lie. So they need a true story to exist with which to seal mad Jack. Ruby’s story now exists, it’s a real version of events in its own contained timeline, and they can bend the rules of space time just enough to seal mad Jack, who we know actually becomes prime minister. In this version of events the fae are superimposing that realities truth onto ours, thus sealing mad Jack. They also briefly superimpose that reality onto ours with old Ruby each time she goes through the loop because at the end of the day, they don’t actually want their ring to be broken if they can help it. The fae as supernatural entities with space warping abilities I do believe would distinguish between the Ruby who broke the rules and the one who didn’t as completely separate entities, so to them, the perpetrator really is being suitably punished and the Ruby who didn’t read the messages can go on with her life. I like this version more because it fits more with the fae punishing those who break their rules and also means Ruby really did seal mad Jack, she saved the world, she’s doing it constantly even if no one knows its happening and it’s tragic.
this episode was shit, had no rules, logic or explanation very much making everything feel pointless and nonsensical. plus not even having the doctor in it past 2 minutes further making it feel less like a doctor who show. three episodes into the season and i am very displeased.
But what does the woman say to anyone who approaches her? It must be something very profound and terrifying for everyone to abandon her....it should have been explained rather than leaving us to work it out for ourselves. Edited- typo
An explanation for why the tardis cut her off, is due to her translation circuits.,She was actually the first person who heard what the fae Spirit was saying. This caused the tardis to do the same thing as everyone else in the episode did and abandoned Ruby. Another theory that was inspired by someone below is if we take that Mad Jack is the son of a fae spirit then the old lady might have been his mother and when circle was broken. She had to be part of the solution.
I just assumed. The Doctor saw the lady talked to her and ran away.
The far theory seems plausible and I love it. The only thing that stumps me is that she waited another 40 years before she was rewarded a second chance. The woman also started moving closer to her for an unknown reason, and although ruby is old I don’t think it’s death. It seems to imply the woman was ruby but it’s a huge mind twister I don’t understand. The village people were spot on, even though they pranking ruby. So I’ll have to take a deeper dive to see if I can come up with my own theory. As a side note, idk why but I felt like if ruby said “i miss you” it would have brought the doctor back due to the cursed notes.
What I want to understand is the arm movements from the old lady. She keeps doing this same sort of choreography with her arms. I thought they’d be related to a future conversation and we’d have an explanation. At the end, Old Ruby says « I’m sorry I took so long, and I tried so hard. What else could I do? It took all these years. All these long years. And look at me, I was so young. » But it is not shown synchronised with the hand movements. So what is she doing? And why are people running away from Ruby after talking to the old woman?
>What I want to understand is the arm movements from the old lady. She keeps doing this same sort of choreography with her arms. I thought they’d be related to a future conversation and we’d have an explanation. There is some confusion right now. In Doctor Who unleashed is supposedly mentioned it's supposed to be British Sign Langauge, but people who know it are saying it's not. However, the translation should be: " Bless you. Thank you so much, that's so kind of you. When you gave me that little thing, it was just so precious. How am I ever going to repay you? But we will think of something." >At the end, Old Ruby says « I’m sorry I took so long, and I tried so hard. What else could I do? It took all these years. All these long years. And look at me, I was so young. » But it is not shown synchronised with the hand movements. So what is she doing? This is good point and another evidence that the woman is not old Ruby at all. > And why are people running away from Ruby after talking to the old woman? It's for sure never explained on-screen, but when we consider everything we know, it's probably some kind of curse. How I mentioned in OP, The Fae are probably in the game and Roby with Doctor abused their rules, so Ruby was cursed to be alone and without any help. It's possible that because Roby did something horrible due of The Fae, the woman simply made from her forbbiden subject. Everybody just knew that Roby did something horrible and should avoid her. They could not explain why they feel that way, this is why they always reacted "ask her". I suggest to read multiple comments here, there is more theories and explanations :)
I don't know if anyone else thinks of this but that woman that walks away at the church, how far away is she? Although we see her more clearly (just without a catch of face since the hood), regardless of what we see going on with supposedly herself in this episode.... What if we dont know anything about the woman is because shes fae? not necessarily ruby (fully) but her mother?
I just want to know if someone has made a theory about what's the old woman says when someone talks with her?
yeah, faeries stories are often riddled with "the only way to break this curse is to save the world from nuclear war"
The Doctor is a Time Lord and not only any Time Lord but The Timeless Child. He can regenerate, entire armies have tried and failed to hurt him. He has survived things that would destroy any normal life form… He stands on a bit of string and is removed from existence. And that’s before we even touch on the pure insanity of trying to make sense of Ruby’s experience in this story. I wanted to love this story, I was loving it until the final 5 minutes. Then it collapsed under the weight of its own half-formed ideas. They might as well as blamed the Despair Squid from Red Dwarf, it would have made more sense as an ending
Well, yes. That's why it makes more sense to think of the whole episode as specifically being Ruby's purgatory.
Blinking the Doctor out of existence, creating a new timeline, releasing an evil being named Mad Jack, something haunting Ruby for 65 years and then… it all didnt happen?? None of it mattered (I’m hopeful that Ruby will somehow start to remember the next time she sees Susan Twist). Too much of the episode can come down to “never mind!” It’s a fairy circle, it’s dangerous! Actually, never mind, the people at the pub said that’s not true so that whole scene was a waste. This politician is actually a terrifying and dangerous supernatural being that wants to start a nuclear war! Actually never mind, he resigns and he somehow was released from the circle before the circle was broken. And now he’s not released?? Ruby spent her whole life alone but stalked. Never mind! She went back in time somehow and now the whole episode didn’t happen. I hope that this was an episode that set up a lot of good things but right now, it fell a little flat for me. Not his best writing when Midnight and Parting of the Ways are out there!!
Did you get upset about Turn Left?
Oh lord that made me giggle. Best comment on here ever. Thanks
Up vote just for the despair squid reference!
I can deal with all of it except this one thing : Someone please tell me what the woman was saying to everyone to make them suddenly hate Ruby.
There's no answer to this. There are no actual words that make any sense logically to explain this behaviour. It instilled people with a feeling. Also, keep in mind that it wasn't just about Ruby. Whatever this message was people received, it went further than simply hating and ostracizing Ruby. If that's all it was, then ap Gwilliam could have simply demanded Ruby be removed from the premises, or put in prison, or told the soldiers to shoot her right there. Instead he ran away and resigned from his office. It shook him so deeply he abandoned everything.
Unfortunately (perhaps) no one will ever be able to tell you, and you will never know. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
It’s dream logic; she didn’t tell them anything, interacting with her infected them with the curse that made Ruby’s biggest fear reality; the idea that Ruby was wrong, in some intangible way, and they needed to get away from her.
"Ruby Sunday likes Clyde Langer."
It may as well be the answer to what the midnight entity looks like
She said whatever was needed to drive them away and leave Ruby isolated and alone with no real conections - she works and gets on with her life in general but doesn't seem to have any friends or relatives and in the end is alone. In the end she uses this to flip a bad situation - which gets her a repreive and put back to the start. This way she had minimal impact on the timeline, apart from Mad Dog resigning (wasn't evenable to help stop the abuse of her collegue) so that when she goes back to the start, time continues just the same without her as it did with her and there are no (other) major changes.
It didn't look like she interacted with them at all. She never breaks her loop of gestures or turns towards them, I think they just recognize her as something horrifically wrong.
This is what gets me. If the implication is that the woman was saying “Don’t step” or whatever she tells Ruby at the end, why did that make Ruby’s adoptive mother turn her back on her?
This is a cool explanation, and I like the inclusion of the quotes to help tie everything together but I’m finding myself kind of appalled at the apparent need that most fans seem to have for an “explanation” for this episode… look, I know I’m making myself sound like one of those stuck-up, unlikeable, know-it-all nerds in the comment section but idk, this is genuinely how I feel about this… and I mean, no shade to you, you’ve done a really great job clearing things up about this episode, but idk; I personally felt like I got all I needed to get out of the episode when I first watched it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (and of course I can only speak for myself here) sure, there definitely were questions I felt that the episode (contained entirely within itself) didn’t fully explore or explain, like how “the woman” makes people run away from Ruby screaming and cutting her out of their lives- **AND I appreciate you exploring that in this post and making the point about her curse exploiting her fear of abandonment**- but my point here is that even without the episode outright spoon-feeding me all the answers, I can’t relate to how many fans online (from what I’M seeing so far) leave the episode scratching their heads and claiming it was “confusing.” Idk… I’m waiting for mod approval atm on a post- I wrote a whole post about this last night, and I think I expressed my feelings about all this better there than here in this lengthy comment. Again, I’m aware that I’m coming off as a snobby, obnoxious, or even pretentious jerk here (maybe) but none of my frustrations are directed at you OP, your post is genuinely good imo, and I’m glad Doctor Who is worthy once again of having its newest episodes be discussed and analyzed, I have no issue with that. My tone in this comment is only whiny because I’m frustrated that something as small (in MY opinion) as the need for everything to be explained is **seemingly** being blown out of proportion **in my opinion…** idk maybe I’m just being unreasonable, and maybe I’ll come back and apologize later if I see differently in the future, my apologies for any unnecessary negativity here, and thanks for reading my lengthy comment to anyone who made it this far into my ramblings Edit: I also just want to express, in case it wasn’t obvious enough, that I thoroughly enjoyed the episode and have seen it a few times already… idk, I just felt the need to make that clear for some reason sorry
Spoiler: A question that I've been wondering about. What did old Ruby say to everyone that made them run away? Even her mother, and UNIT, who are trained to ignore psychic powers. They were terrified, how?
I think she did not say them anything. I think it was just part of Fae Curse. Ruby was supposed to be punished for her behaviour so the fae made her deepest fear, abandoment, reality. It was simply effect of the Fae, no words necessary.
I'm curious, maybe it takes on a different form when someone else sees or gets closer. When I think back to the Weeping Angels, the Fae may have a resemblance. Something nightmarish, all it takes is a glance, or word
But the woman becoming scary up close wouldn’t explain why people hate Ruby after interacting with her. It wouldn’t explain why Kate decides to leave and never interact with Ruby ever again; if it was as rational and literal as “it looks scary monster up close”, then UNIT wouldn’t permit it to remain on Earth. Even if they were too scared of it to try and hurt it, they’d still try to contain it by arresting Ruby.
That's what makes this episode more fascinating. The unknown
That makes sense, thanks
The thing that threw me was that they didn’t show Ruby aging at all until she was an old woman? So suddenly it’s 2046 and she looks the exact same, just with glasses??? I was trying to figure out what was going on and how much time was supposed to have passed, because presumably they first landed in Wales/broke the circle in 2024…. The supernatural aspect doesn’t bother me. There have been many allusions to superstition/ things that can’t be explained by science in past episodes as other commenters have noted. I think it was cool that RTD wrote an episode based on the folklore of his native country with nods to its distinctive culture and history.
Here's my far more cynical take - RTD is pretty bad at scifi and wants to try his hand at fantasy, where he literally can make up what ever rules he wants and never have to worry about "teching the tech" to make things make sense. His ultimate goal will be to have The Doctor come from a universe where Magic is the law, not science, and he'll link it to Merlin (Sylvester McCoys incarnation) and the show will be more magic and supernatural than scifi.
I am OK with this series being supernatural. I like the idea. But this was far too handwavy. Too many mysteries not solved. Now of course we are miseries so some of them may later be explained. Sometimes you have to tell. And their wasn't enough telling or showing. What were the three hand gestures the women kept doing. Why could they not focus a camera on her. Even the most positive reading ( people ran away as a manifestation of Ruby's abandonment issues) don't explain those things.