Doctor Who is back for its new season, which kicks off a new era for the long-running series. Doctor Who stars Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor and MIllie Gibson as Ruby Sunday, with Russell T Davies returning as series showrunner for Doctor Who‘s first season on Disney+, with new episodes debuting on the streamer internationally on Friday nights before coming to the BBC on Saturdays. We’re here with the recap of the Doctor Who Season 1, Episode 2, “Space Babies.”
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SPOILERS follow for Doctor Who Season 1, Episode 2, “The Devil’s Chord.” Recap begins now:
The cold open begins in 1925, at a piano in a large empty hall, where a music teacher, Timothy Drake (Jeremy Limb) instructs a student named Henry (Kit Rakusen) on notes, tunes, and melodies. Drake plays Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14, explaining that the composer came up with it after learning he was going deaf, channeling his rage and frustration into something beautiful. Henry appears bored, so the teacher plays something called “the Devil’s Chord,” a tritone so chilling that the church banned it. The piano slams shut, and a being called Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon) climbs out. Henry – Maestro’s harbinger – vanishes. Maestro claims they are music, and they’ve been summoned by Drake, the greatest composer who ever lived, even clever enough to figure out the Devil’s Chord. Maestro tells Drake about the unsung songs wrapped around his heart. Maestro offers to set them free, and Drake accepts. Maestro begins playing the piano and music visibly flows out of Drake. Drake falls prone and Maestro consumes the music. Maestro looks toward the camera and plays the Doctor Who theme on the piano as the opening begins.
As the opening closes, the music comes from the Doctor’s TARDIS jukebox. Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) tells the Doctor she wants to see the Beatles record their first album in 1963. They head to February 11, 1963, dressing appropriately for the train 1960s outfits before strutting out of the TARDIS and across the crosswalk to Abbey Road Studios, known in 1961 as EMI Recording Studios.
They make their way to a studio posing as coffee people where they find the Beatles ready to record. However, the music they’re playing isn’t any recognizable Beatles tune, but a dull, literal, mundane song about a dog named Fred. They sneak into another studio and find Cilla Black (Josie Sedgwick-Davies) recording a similar dispassionate and unappealing song. In a larger studio, the Doctor and Ruby find an orchestra recording a dreadful rendition of “Three Blind Mice.”
In the cafeteria, the Doctor and Ruby are puzzled. No one is humming or tapping their foot. The Doctor looks at a newspaper and sees events that have never happened. Music is gone from the world and its absence has set history on a strange new path.
The Doctor approaches Paul McCartney (George Caple) while Ruby talks to John Lennon (Chris Mason). They ask about the music. Paul knows it isn’t good, but he’s pleased with that, saying that’s as it should be. Real music used to exist but stopped in the ’20s and ’30s when people started “seeing sense.” This is the last gasp, and the Beatles are turning a quick buck before settling into real jobs. The Doctor and Ruby probe until they get to the real music that’s still somewhere inside Paul and John, and they begin to get emotional. Paul begins to sing, and the world seems to slow. The Doctor drops his spoon and the Maestro appears in reflections. Paul and John storm off.
The Doctor has a piano installed on the roof of the studio. From the roof, the Doctor and Ruby see the smoke – not unusual for 1960s London, but this is darker. The Doctor notes that he’s in London living with his granddaughter, Susan, right now, having parked the TARDIS in London a couple of years prior, which shocks Ruby. The Doctor doesn’t know what happened to Susan, especially after the genocide of the Time Lords. (As a fan, I must wonder if this is a little Easter egg or foreshadowing something to come.)
The Doctor invites Ruby to play the piano, revealing that he saw her playing on December 23rd before they met. She plays a song she wrote for her friend Trudy after a girl broke her heart. The music draws people to their windows. That ends with a crash as Maestro emerges from the piano, giggling.
The giggle terrifies the Doctor, who tells Ruby he can’t fight whatever this is. They hide in a basement as Maestro pursues. The Doctor uses the sonic screwdriver to create silence around them. Maestro uses their tuning fork and a puddle of water to break it, but then becomes distracted by an elderly woman who, inspired by Ruby’s song, begins playing her piano. The Maestro finds and consumes her.
The Doctor tells Ruby that Maestro is part of the Pantheon, like the Toymaker, who pulled him literally in half. The Doctor believes Maestro is one of the legions the Toymaker warned him about. The Doctor is at a loss for how to deal with such a powerful being. Ruby thinks he’s overreacting since she’s alive and remembers growing up with music in the future. The Doctor shows him what her time looks like now. They travel to 2024 and find it in ruins. He explains that she’s not affected because she’s with him.
Maestro finds them there. Maestro remembers the Doctor from 1963. The Maestro reveals they’re the Toymaker’s child. The Doctor figures that if the Toymaker was a living game, then Maestro is the essence of music. With humans gone, Maestro can enjoy aeolian tones, or music without people, and feed on all the unsung songs that would have been until the universe ceases. Maestro reveals that Drake, a genius, found the lost chord that summoned Maestro. The Doctor deduces that this means Maestro can be banished with another sound. Maestro uses their power to control the TARDIS, leaving the Doctor with no choice but to return to 1963. The Doctor notices a strange noise before they head back to the studio.
The Doctor plugs the Sonic Screwdriver into the soundboard and begins tuning John Lennon’s guitar to find the right notes. Music that the Doctor believed was “non-diegetic” manifests and pulls Ruby away. The Doctor finds her being held aloft by the Maestro’s power in the orchestra studio. Maestro cherishes Ruby as the only human left with music in them. Maestro commands her to sing and she begins singing something that stops Maestro and the Doctor. Maestro says there’s a hidden song inside her and the music from the Christmas night when Ruby was born begins to play and snow falls. Maestro wonders how a song can have so much power, comparing it to “The Oldest One,” saying he can’t have been there. Maestro drops Ruby and says she’s very wrong.
The Doctor sits at the Abbey Road piano and challenges Maestro to a music battle. Maestro conjures a fiddle, and they begin to play, mimicking and challenging each other’s tunes. Ruby helps the Doctor by playing a duet until the Maestro’s instrument breaks. The Doctor realizes he’s close to the sound to send Maestro home. Drawing on the experiences of his long life, the Doctor begins to play the lost chord. Maestro reacts physically. The Doctor is one note away… but hits a bum note.
Maestro recovers and uses music to knock the piano out of the room and restrain the Doctor and Ruby. John Lennon finds the piano and the notes hanging in the air and begins examining them. Paul McCartney joins him, and they play the final note together. The Doctor and Ruby are freed and Maestro is dragged back into the piano. Before they go Maestro warns, “The one who waits is almost here.”
The Doctor and Ruby go out on the roof and hear music from all over. The Doctor warns Ruby that there’s always a twist at the end, and smiles and winks at the camera. Cut to a full-blown musical number, with people singing and dancing to “There’s Always a Twist at the End,” with Henry poking his head out of a door to observe briefly.
New episodes of Doctor Who debut on Fridays exclusively on Disney+.
