Doctor Who’s finale takes inspiration from Star Wars… but not in a good way

Doctor Who the season of revival is now over. The rebooted series stars Ncuti Gatwa as the titular Time Lord and features former showrunner Russell T. Davies back at the wheel, working with a major budget injection from Disney. Even still, it was a very mixed bag. From the brilliance of episodes like “73 Yards” and “The Legend of Ruby Sunday” with poorer offerings like “Space Babies” and “The Devil’s Chord,” the series featured flashes of genius mixed with less inspiring moments.

The highlight of the season was the larger storyline involving Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) and her family. In the Christmas special episode, we learned that Ruby was abandoned outside a church by a mysterious hooded figure on Christmas Eve. Ruby, named after the road she was abandoned on, grew up never knowing who her mother was. However, in the season finale, it’s revealed that her mother isn’t the sinister person we all predicted. She’s just Louise Miller, a perfectly normal NHS nurse.

This revelation that Ruby’s mother was simply a troubled teenager abandoning her child to protect her from an abusive home was a sweet twist. It turns out that Russell T. Davies was inspired to write this plot after being bored by the Star Wars sequel trilogy. “That’s kind of my reaction to – bear with me now – the Star Wars movies. I don’t remember their titles anymore but, in the last trilogy, (The Last Jedi) said (Daisy Ridley’s Rey) was nothing special. There was nothing special about his parentage,” he said in BBC commentary on Empire of Death.

the force awakensthe first film of the new Star Wars trilogy, set up a mystery around Rey’s parents. In the following The Last Jedi, we learned that they didn’t matter. But then the third and final film, The Rise of Skywalkerreversed course and revealed that Rey’s father was actually a clone of Emperor Palpatine, one of the most important figures in history. Star Wars myth. “That she just received the Force… an ordinary person with the Force. And then, in (The Rise of Skywalker), they changed everything so that she was this child of the emperor… and I really loved the version where she wasn’t special,” Davies mused.

This led Davies to create his own version of the story set in the Whoniverse, and it certainly worked in his favor. The Ruby Sunday storyline was one of the highlights of the season!

The new season of Doctor Who is now streaming on BBC iPlayer and Disney+. Season 2 is officially on the way, with the return of Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson alongside a new companion played by Varada Sethu. Russell T. Davies remains at the helm.

To stay up to date on all things fantasy, sci-fi, and WiC, follow our complete Facebook page And Twitter accountRegister for our exclusive newsletter and check our YouTube channel.