Doctor Who Ncuti Gatwa Review: Ruined By The Woke Message

The BBC and Disney+ (yes, Disney is fully involved) released the Doctor Who Christmas Special showcasing the first full episode starring Ncuti Gatwa but unfortunately, the episode’s underlying story and theme is ruined by the woke message.

Yeah, we all get Ncuti Gatwa is black and gay, and that Russell T Davies is gay, and you know what? I don’t give a crap. I don’t need to be constantly reminded about it. I don’t need Doctor Who to be Davies and every other person involved with the show’s revenge for whatever happened to them in their life or used as validation for their existence. I didn’t do it. I didn’t bully them. I didn’t ostracize them. And 99.9% of us out here didn’t do it, either.

However, now that they’re in positions of power, they’ve become exactly what they hate: bullies. Every chance they get, they shove the woke message in people’s faces. Hahaha! I got you! Well, when the ratings come in, who’s laughing last? Instead of simply giving us a good story – who cares if the actors are gay or what have you – it’s more slap in the face wokeness.

Houdini is gay, men are bad, blah blah blah

Now this episode isn’t a blatant slap in the face, as say the David Tennant specials, but it’s there.

Now Houdini is gay, the episode goes out of its way not to include men, and the three male characters that are thrown into the episode are either evil or complete doofuses. There’s also that end scene which is just simply cringe AF — it’s another haha! I got you! moment.

Ncuti Gatwa and Mille Gibson have great chemistry

Regarding the acting, I liked it a lot. Ncuti Gatwa is a really good actor. Mille Gibson is fantastic as Ruby Sunday.

They have great onscreen chemistry. I don’t know their backstory and I am not familiar with them, but watching the episode it seemed as if they have been lifelong friends.

The story is decent

The story is also a good one for Christmas, sort of a take on Gremlins and Labyrinth.

Goblins kidnap babies and feed them to the Goblin King and create accidents to make them tastier. Well, they kidnap a baby who is being fostered by Ruby’s own foster mother. The Doctor intervenes, the goblins end up going back in time to kidnap the baby, Ruby. There are some real heartfelt and quality moments. The Doctor is alone which he shares in common with Ruby, etc. I also didn’t mind the singing scene, again which I felt was a nod to David Bowie and Labyrinth, a great movie.

Enter wokeness

However, Russell T Davies, who is a really good writer and knows exactly what he is doing, goes out of his way to include the woke message.

The Doctor is dancing with dudes just to show off he’s gay. The male neighbor who the old lady doesn’t like is an idiot. The goblin king is of course male and evil and a fat ass and incapable of doing anything himself let alone moving.

Then there is the male cop that The Doctor runs into. He’s questioning The Doctor and wants to take down a report. For some reason, The Doctor mentions the cop has a diamond ring on him and that since it’s Christmas, that must mean who he is going to ask to marry him is female. I was left scratching my head: Gay people don’t get engaged during Christmas? The scene was totally pointless other than to throw in that jab at a male cop. Why include it? Oh yeah, because he’s male and a cop. There’s also the reason that gay people don’t get engaged during Christmas because they are with their families who they are hiding from, right? More self-insert. It’s really a jab at Christmastime and families.

Where are the dudes?

There’s also that Ruby has no male characters in her life.

The episode starts off she is being interviewed by that female talk show person about her DNA. She lives with her black foster mom who lives with her black foster mom. So Ruby lives with her black foster mom and black foster grandma. No father figures. The Doctor also doesn’t seem like a father figure to Ruby, it’s more that they are besties — the typical “female girl who has a gay best friend” type of thing.

Old lady cringe has double meaning

So The Doctor saves the day and fixes everything. He’s ready to go off in the Tardis. Ruby realizes that The Doctor is special, a time traveler or what have you, and she goes to find him on the street.

Enter the cringe old lady. The cringe old lady (I guess she’s a take on Scrooge) now has the Christmas spirit, tells Ruby to go with The Doctor or what have you, and is cool to her loser dude neighbor. Okay. Cool. Nice ending. Nope.

The old lady looks at the camera and says to the audience, “Never seen a Tardis before?” Eye roll. We all know what she is really saying. It’s Davies questioning the audience, “Never seen a gay Doctor before?” wink. However, as the old lady knows what a Tardis is, that must mean she knows something. I’m hoping she’s The Master. wink

There is also the fact that in the scene, Ruby doesn’t describe The Doctor to the old lady as a black guy – because that would be racist – but Davies and the scene make a point of setting up exactly that scenario to convey The Message.

What could have been a really great heartfelt episode filled with the Christmas spirit instead goes sour with the woke-infected message. Humbug!

Update: The ratings are the lowest of the Christmas Specials.