back to 2004. Standing in the biting cold, he uses the TARDIS’s sheer mass to impale the Goblin ship on the church steeple, destroying the King and saving the infant Ruby. He watches from the shadows as his past self—the one who just dropped Ruby off—walks away, ensuring the timeline holds.
This paradox is the core of the episode: Ruby Sunday is the one who abandons herself. Doctor Who 2023 S01E00 The Church on Ruby Road ...
These aren't comical sidekicks; they are temporal parasites. They feed on "coincidence" and bad luck. They exist outside of normal time, allowing them to erase people from history by eating them before their birth. The Goblin King, voiced by Murray Gold (the composer himself doing a bizarre vocal cameo), is a puppet nightmare—half rubber suit, half CGI—that harkens back to the dark fantasy of Labyrinth . back to 2004
Doctor Who 2023 S01E00 The Church on Ruby Road, Ncuti Gatwa, Millie Gibson, Ruby Sunday, The Goblin Song, Mavity, Russell T Davies. This paradox is the core of the episode:
This is a deliberate marketing and production choice by showrunner Russell T Davies. When the show returned in 2005, Series 1 started with Rose . Davies is effectively hitting the reset button again. By labeling this as "S01E00," the production team signals that:
, newly regenerated and full of an manic, joyous energy that belies his ancient eyes.