1.1. Space Babies
Season 1 - 2024
Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday
fromThe Doctor: What is it with you and babies?
Ruby: I was going to ask you the same thing.
Synopsis
For her first trip in the TARDIS the Doctor takes Ruby to Wyoming 150 million years years into the past. Ruby accidentally steps on a butterfly, which erases humans from the time line and Ruby becomes Rubathon Blue of the 57th Hemisphere Hatchlings. The Doctor revives the butterfly, restoring the timeline.
For her second trip the Doctor asks Ruby for a year. She says 21506 and the TARDIS asks R takes the Doctor and Ruby to a space station which appears to be run down, with a monster that scares Ruby, and unusually the Doctor. They escape into a lift and are taken to the upper levels at the Doctor realises the space station is a baby farm. in orbit around the world Pacifico Del Rio.
The Doctor wonders where the crew is when he and Ruby is met by a Eric from Birth Zone 6, a baby in a self-propelled chair. Excited Eric rushes away to tell the others. The Doctor and Ruby follow Eric to a control room where there are other babies, including Captain Poppy. Eric introduces the Ruby and the Doctor as Mummy and Daddy, until the Doctor breaks the bad news that he and Ruby are not their parents . Poppy tells the Doctor that they took over running the station when all the adults left.
As Ruby looks after the other babies the Doctor talks to Poppy, trying to work out why they had been abandoned. The birth machine had been left running meaning the babies grew up but stayed the same size.
Ruby is curious how the babies have managed to cope all on their own, and she is introduced to the Nanomatrix Electroform - Nan-E. As there are visitors Nan-E' tells the babies that they must blow their noses. A robotic arm emerges from each chair with a tissue, and after the nose has been blown the tissue is disposed of. When the Doctor asks about the monster the babies start screaming. Eric tells Ruby it's the Bogeyman. Ruby tries to calm the babies down - which isn't helped by the Doctor teasing the babies by mentioning the Bogeyman again.
The Doctor finds a headset so he can talk to Nan-E directly. He notices there is a pressure build-up in Hull 3B. Nan-E tells the Doctor to go to portal 357. Ruby follows the Doctor to a storage area, and on the way the Doctor asks Ruby if she knows anything about her birth parents. She says no - and the Doctor is transported back to when he glimpsed Ruby's birth mother (see The Church on Ruby Road) - but the memory changed, and in the space station it starts snowing.
They are interrupted by a person in portal 357 - Jocelyn. In the storage room Jocelyn shows videos of the crew signing off from Babystation Beta. Jocelyn explains that due to recession the Pacifico government closed the Babystation to save money, but the law says it is illegal to stop the birth machine. The station id badly in need of repair, and as Jocelyn is only an accountant who refused to leave, she does knot know how the station works. Jocelyn asks the Doctor if he has a way off the station. The Doctor plugs his sonic screwdriver into a console to recalibrate the system. When the Doctor asks Jocelyn why she was hiding from the babies Jocelyn explains the station is a closed system - with finite oxygen and food - and that she didn't want to see the babies die, or let them watch her die.
There is a planet near by, Mondo Caroon, a DuBarryDuPlessy world, which would take in refugees. The big issue is that in order to do that they would have to actually go to the planet - but the Babystation cannot move. The Doctor says the TARDIS could take them all - but that the Bogeyman is between them and the TARDIS. Jocelyn doesn't recognise the monster, suggesting it had been created on the station. Ruby realises it's like a children's story with babies, a nanny, and a monster. And every story has a hero... on a screen they can see Eric going to fight the monster after being told by Ruby there is no such thing as the Bogeyman.
Ruby rushes to find Eric, the Doctor following. They find Eric's chair, but there is no sign of Eric. Ruby and the Doctor start banging pipes to attract the Bogeyman. The Doctor, smelling a nappy that needs changing, finds Eric hiding. As the Bogeyman traps them in a dead end Poppy arrives with other babies, and a flame thrower, to scare away the Bogeyman. The babies all return to the upper levels while the Doctor and Ruby hunt down the Bogeyman.
From Jocelyn the Doctor and Ruby learn the Bogeyman appeared six years ago - when the babies were born. In the lower levels the Doctor finds some mucus from the Bogeyman. Jocelyn leads the Doctor and Ruby to a console to analyse it. On the way the Doctor warns Ruby the mucus, covering the walls and floor, is slippery - as she slips and gets covered in fresh mucus.
After analysing the mucus the Doctor realises it was the machine that made the Bogeyman for the babies after the education software went out of control and made a monster from a children's story. The Doctor also realises the machine has been literal: the Bogeyman is made of - bogeys taken from the babies when their noses were wiped. He can barely stop himself laughing when he and Ruby realise what Ruby has been covered with.
When the monster returns the Doctor and Ruby run. Thanks to the Doctor's sonic screwdriver Jocelyn has more control over the systems. On a screen she can see the Doctor, Ruby and the monster. She leads them to an airlock where she traps the monster. As the airlock de-pressurises the Doctor shouts to her that the monster is one of the children. He tells Ruby to go back to stop Jocelyn and he gets into the airlock and is able to seal the outer door before the Bogeyman is sucked out into space.
In the control Jocelyn shows herself to the babies, and the Doctor shows them that the monster is safe. He shows them an image of Mondo Caroon, but with no engines they cannot get there. However there is Hull 3B where all the used nappies have been stored, and where methane has been building up. By venting the methane the station is propelled toward Mondo Caroon.
As the Doctor and Ruby leave the Doctor hands her a TARDIS key and tells her they can go anywhere - apart from the church on Ruby Road at Christmas Eve.
Regular Cast
- Ruby Sunday: Millie Gibson
Guest Cast
- Bogeyman: Robert Strange
- Carla Sunday: Michelle Greenridge
- Eric: Mason McCumskey
- Voice of Eric: Sami Amber
- Poppy: Sienna-Robyn Mavanga-Phipps
- Voice of Poppy: Shola Olaitan-Ajiboye
- Voice of Sandra: Cadence Williams
- Voice of Marcel: Param Patel
- Voice of Adjani: Lonnee Archibong
- Jocelyn Sancerre: Golda Rosheuvel
- Rico Trieste: Jesus Reyes Ortiz
- Luisa Colasanto: Yasmine Bouabid
- Cherry Sunday: Angela Wynter
Original broadcast on the BBC
Channel | Title | Date | Viewers | Rating |
---|---|---|---|---|
BBC 1 | 1. Space Babies |
|
4.01M |