I enjoyed this but it was absolutely a classic rtd copout. Like i love crazy powerful beings like sutekh but how are you supposed to defeat them without taking away their scariness? You cant kill everyone and expect us to believe that theyll stay dead, this is doctor who!
I love the way mel is being used in the new series though, shes very strong, its great! Also i love that rubys mom is normal, like i get why people might be upset at that but i find it very refreshing after everything else needing to be some big reveal. I adore stories where ordinary people are unintentionally important.
Overall i think this is one of the weaker episodes this season, still good and fun to watch but with a weak ending, i think rubys mom and family scenes at the end made it much better though. But the rest of the series was pretty consistently good in my opinion. And i see you creepy mystery box mrs flood! I predict that people will theorize that mrs flood is either: the rani (of course), romana, susan, or CLARA OSWALD
I liked it.
It was a lot to take in so I will have to rewatch but I thought it was what this entire season has been: a good solid piece of this show that I absolutely adore.
They could have had the humanoid version of Sutekh would haved saved them a pretty penny also. Then a bungie cord from the memory tardis is used to drag poor Surekh hmmm I don’t like part which leads down to wtf was he smoking. I loved RTD1 but RTD2 is still up in the air. Either way can’t wait to see what next season brings.
That was great. It checked the boxes for me. I feel like I might be in the minority here (I usually am).
Susan Triad- answered
Memory TARDIS- answered
Ruby’s lineage- answered
Loved that Ruby was just a normal human. We viewers (and Sutekh) were desperate for her to be “more.”
Overall, season one was flashy, fun and a great start to the Fifteenth Doctor’s adventures.
More thoughts 
I am just left with a million questions after this season and with the exception of Mrs Flood I have little to no hope of those actually being answered.
But the question I want answered the most is that of Mel’s backstory! These little snippets about some great catastrophe or some such to befall her family and the Doctor helping her out and inviting her aboard the TARDIS? That is the good stuff!
Mel is amazing! She just gets s**t done and is being all rational about their situation.
Also, was this entire season just Susan baiting?
Sure he is an “accelerated genius”, but I really question the concept of putting some sort of high powered automatic weapons in a 13 year old’ Segway.
The Vlinx (what even is that) shooting lasers from it’s eyes. That looked rather ridiculous if I’m honest.
I have already seen people theorising that, yes, we know that Ruby’s birth mother is 100% human, but are we 100% about her father not being special… And no, I won’t be sucked into those delusions 
Are they going for a Lethbridge-Stewart romance?
Murray Gold makes great scores, but it is just way too bombastic for me.
The resolution with Sutekh was just so underwhelming. Bad doggo! You get a leash!
I need to rewatch to gather my thoughts, as I watched it at 12am (in the cinema) but generally I really liked it.
I’m a fan of Ruby’s mother being normal. That was a beautiful, touching message to say that sometimes things are special because they are normal.
I feel like people are very torn on that fact though so it comes down to the mystery box. I get that the moment became important because of the importance given to it (also a nice message) but don’t get how that translates into the magic snow and the Time Window not being able to see her and the Doctor’s memory changing etc. I need more information!
I do feel like it is a punch in the gut to frame a huge mystery around Susan and not have her involved. I am hoping Season 2 is where the Doctor finds her again.
The Memory TARDIS here was used brilliantly and I love that we have an origin story for it! That was clever.
But yes there are things I didn’t like. There are plot threads that didn’t work. The tone in the cinema afterwards was a bit downhearted, I could tell everyone was a bit like “…okay…”.
Mrs Flood was giving really Missy vibes on top of the roof with the umbrella. Is she cosplaying Romana? I’m confused if she’s some kind of fan that has been waiting, why didn’t she recognise the TARDIS when it first landed on the street. Need to think about that more.
I will have more thoughts when I’ve watched it again!
I loved this episode. I thought that it was interesting and fun. I liked that the mother was just an ordinary person. I liked the way, Ruby left the TARDIS even if I did not like that she left.
This might change with some distance but to me, this was the strongest season since Matt Smiths first.
More thoughts! Can’t keep them inside lol
I also liked how Ruby left. She wasn’t pining over the Doctor, or in love with him (that was definitely a platonic “I love you” and I wish the Doctor had said it back, now he’s supposed to have had therapy). Her normal life got more interesting than travelling with him. That’s a good reason to leave. She’s got his number, right?
She’ll be back next year.
Oh and as soon as we saw Kate and all of UNIT die I was a bit disappointed because I thought “big reset coming”. It was an “Everybody Lives!” moment. I wish we had some consequences.
The Doctor being sad that he has to stoop to killing someone, when he actually does that all the time and he “killed” Sutekh the last time he faced him, fell a bit flat to me.
The Vortex scenes were Disney money well spent. That was stunning.
I need time to properly get my thoughts in order about this one but, wow, such a LOT to think about.
For now though, I’m so delightfully happy that Ruby Sunday isn’t “the most special person in the universe”, that her mother didn’t turn out to be Susan, Clara, River, the Doctor, herself or anything else preposterous. For me, it is perfect that Ruby turns out to be entirely normal and absolutely human. I love that her mother was similarly normal. The power of the myth rather than the fact. It’s beautifully poetic and also very true. I’ve never been a big fan of super special companions. The ordinary person elevated to great actions is far more interesting than the alternative. It’s important the the companion really could be… anyone. It’s why, for me, Bill was always so superior to Clara.
Anyway, this episode will settle in my thoughts eventually and I’ll be able to say something more coherent but, for now, thank you Russell for making Ruby brilliant BECAUSE she’s utterly normal. 
I’m with you on this. Yes, all in all, some pretty stellar stuff! Still thinking as I have a lot to process and much I wish to articulate once I can get my thoughts oroperly in order. But on the whole, loved the ride. Sad it’s over for another 6 months.
My first impressions:
There were 2 or 3 strong story beats and superb acting, especially by Ncuti, but the storytelling was fundamentally lacking.
The exposition dump at the beginning of the story took too much momentum out of the narrative. It could probably have been handled better, with less reliance on info-dumping. However, I assume that if I were to binge-watch this episode along with the first part, it would fit better.
The different story beats were not very well interconnected, imho.
In my opinion, there were too many different stories crammed into this one episode. It could probably have been a mini-series on its own (perhaps not quite 8 episodes, but maybe 5 or 6?).
At times, there was just too much pathos, although it was brilliantly acted by Ncuti. This reminded me of comments on the forum suggesting that RTD needs someone to rein him in to truly shine. There was good material amidst the mess; it just wasn’t conveyed effectively.
The resolution to Sutekh’s Empire of Death felt like a letdown. So, a negative multiplied by a negative equals a positive? What?
The resolution to the enigma of Ruby’s Mother was a good message, definitely a typical Doctor Who message.
However, the entire story seemed to build towards something else, and the message wasn’t sufficiently interwoven with the overall narrative. In my opinion, there should be a difference between just shouting out a message and conveying a message through storytelling.
This reminds me of a verse from Ursula K. Le Guin’s interpretation of the Tao Te Ching: ‘That’s why the wise soul does without doing, teaches without talking.’
Brilliant stories often manage to convey a message without explicitly stating it. Good stories at least ease the audience in before spelling out the message.
Guiding the audience to expect one solution and then abruptly spelling out a different message, is not good storytelling and probably doesn’t help the message come across as intended.
All that said, while watching the episode, I was able to mildly enjoy it. At times, I even got drawn into the story, goosebumps and all.
I do hope that reading the maybe more positive opinions of other people will soften my view, and re-watching the entire RTD run in the coming weeks will make my own view of the episode more positive.
Regardless, I’m still looking forward to the next season, albeit a little more skeptical than at the beginning of RTD’s second run
It wasn’t conveyed very well in the episode, but she was doing the important scientific/analysis stuff while everyone else (including the scientific advisor 
) was just shooting at Sutekh/Harbinger with no effect. At least that’s how I interpreted the one shot of her doing nothing but looking at her tablet.
Wait didn’t RTD say someone would die this episode?! And people thought it was going to be Cherry.
I know technically everyone died but not permanently. Except for Harriet. RIP. Killed by TARDIS defence laser.
Agree with the comments that Mel was brilliant in this one. I hope she is in the next series and hope her backstory gets fleshed out a bit too, but doubt it.
Enjoyable second part with a cracking villain, nice character moments but it was let down massively anticlimactic ending. Making Ruby’s mother ordinary was a good move, but then there needed to be some kind of exciting story beat to give the story a whoosh at the end.
I would have liked an explanation for the snow and the song in Ruby (i thought most of these mysteries were to be tied up in this episode?!)
7/10 for me.
I enjoyed this one a lot.
I really liked that Ruby’s mother was just some random person because it kind of diverted the expectations. Though I do wonder if I missed something or was there really no actual explanation for why it kept snowing except it just being a memory, because that doesn’t really explain anything? But other than that I really enjoyed it.
Well I managed to get down all my many thoughts on the episode into really quite a long review and yeah, 90% of this episode is great and then it just goes off the rails, a sentiment that has been shared by a number of episodes in recent memory.
Everybody is on top form in a bleak, harrowing tale with one of the most genuinely shocking opening scenes I’ve seen in years with some of the best performances we’ve had since Capaldi.
Unfortunately, Sutekh is degraded to a joke villain by the end and, I do not care if it made you tear up, the conclusion to Ruby’s arc is just really dumb and absolute wasted potential.
Full thoughts in the review linked below:
Season One (Series 14); Episode Seven - “Empire of Death” by Russell T. Davies
Thought, since I’m here, I’d put my ranking of RTD2 so far down on paper:
- 73 Yards - 9/10
- The Legend of Ruby Sunday - 9/10
- Wild Blue Yonder - 8/10
- Boom - 8/10
- Dot and Bubble - 8/10
- Empire of Death - 8/10
- The Devil’s Chord - 8/10
- The Giggle - 6/10
- Rogue - 6/10
- The Church on Ruby Road - 5/10
- The Star Beast - 5/10
- Space Babies - 3/10
Yes! And her outfit in the rest of the story was quite Clara in Face the Raven.
Given the end I’m wondering where she’s going to turn out to be Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory (IE storytelling)?
I’m enjoying reading everybody’s thoughts. Much of interest said (for and against) this episode. It’s beginning to settle as I mull over disparate elements, but there are a number of things starting to coalesce in my mind now.
I know it won’t be to everyone’s taste and I do see many of the points raised. That said, there’s a lot going on under the surface that I very much enjoy. I also have enormous respect that:
a) …this story completely avoids being a retread if “Pyramids”; whilst
b) …daring to do something different but honouring the original material.
Moreover, there are some clear parallels, both to elements pivotal in “Pyramids” AND to elements that i very much enjoyed from earlier in this season (with a particular shout out to a certain scene in The Devil’s Chord).
Again, still thinking about this and I’m going to say more, I’m sure, over the coming days but, for now… it’s a thumbs up from me 
Key elements I expected to be resolved by the episode’s close were done so. Threads I anticipated being left open for next season are dangling and ready. I’m on board with this. 
The only part of this episode that I’m absolutely refusing to accept. They’re just gay besties.