“Empire of Death” brought Doctor Who, Season 1 to a dramatic conclusion as questions were answered and the legend of Ruby Sunday was brought to a close. Since Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor first met Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday in the 2023 Doctor Who Christmas special, “The Church on Ruby Road,” she had been searching for her birth mother, having been abandoned on the steps of a church as a newborn baby. In the Christmas special, the Doctor returned to the night Ruby was left at the church on Ruby Road to save her from time-hopping goblins, preventing himself from returning to that night again in the process.
Throughout Doctor Who Season 1, the mystery of Ruby’s true parentage persisted, following her and the Doctor throughout their travels in time and space. The memory of the night Ruby was abandoned re-emerged through Ruby in explicable ways. She had a strange ability to make it snow and, when captured by Maestro, the God of Music, Ruby revealed a song hidden deep within her from that night. In “Empire of Death,” it was revealed that Ruby’s birth mother was no god or Time Lord, but an ordinary human woman. The finale was one of Doctor Who’s beautiful celebrations of the extraordinary nature of the most ordinary person, but this revelation also left many mysteries unresolved.
‘Empire of Death’ Gave Ruby Sunday Rey Skywalker’s Original Backstory
In “Empire of Death,” the Doctor realized that returning villain Sutekh, the God of Death, had chosen this moment to emerge from hiding in hopes of finally learning the true identity of Ruby’s mother. Sutekh revealed he had been bound to the TARDIS ever since his first appearance in 1975’s “Pyramids of Mars,” seeing all of time and space through the Doctor’s travels. However, the one mystery that eluded Sutekh was the identity of Ruby’s mother, driving the god mad. The Doctor took Ruby to a version of 2046 that had been destroyed by Sutekh, but preserved in time as one of the places the TARDIS had previously landed. At this point in history, Prime Minister Roger ap Gwilliam had made it mandatory for all UK citizens to have their DNA tested and cataloged.
Ruby’s mother had managed to stay hidden in the past, but in 2046 she had no choice but to have her DNA logged, meaning the Doctor could use these records to identify her. Initially, Ruby used the fact she had identified her mother to lure Sutekh into a trap that saw him destroyed in the Time Vortex. However, once time and space had been saved from the God of Death, UNIT were then able to track down Ruby’s mother in the present day. She was revealed to be a woman named Louise Alison Miller. Louise had given birth to Ruby when she was just 15 and then gave her away in order to protect her child from her own abusive stepfather.
At the end of the episode, Ruby tracked down Louise and finally reunited with her. Ruby thanked her birth mother for keeping her safe and brought her back to her home, with Carla and Cherry Sunday. Louise admitted that she had never stopped thinking about reaching out and tracking down Ruby, but had always been scared of finding out her daughter hated her for what she had done. “Empire of Death” ended with Ruby leaving the TARDIS, as she prepared to find her father as well, starting a new life of her own on Earth. The Doctor shed a tear, but promised Ruby she would see him again, and writer Russell T Davies has confirmed that the story of Ruby and her birth family is not yet over.
In the video commentary for “Empire of Death,” available on BBC iPlayer, Davies spoke about the inspiration for Ruby’s story on Doctor Who, citing the Star Wars sequel trilogy. He referenced the revelation in Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi, which appeared to resolve the mystery around the parents of new Jedi, Rey, by revealing they were nobody, and she was not descended from any central figures in Star Wars’ Skywalker Saga. However, this was retconned in the following film, Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker, which revealed Rey was the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine. Davies claimed he preferred the version of the story in which Rey’s parents were just ordinary people, and so he opted to make this the case for Ruby Sunday. The power surrounding her mother came from other characters’ investment in the mystery, not from any inherent significance in who her mother was.
Ruby Sunday’s Birth Mother Leaves a Lot of Questions Unanswered
While the reveal that Ruby Sunday’s birth mother was an ordinary woman gave Ruby a happy ending and served as testament to the significance of every single human — something Doctor Who has always celebrated — it left many of the season’s most pressing questions unanswered. For one thing, it is not clear how Louise managed to remain so well hidden from Ruby. Davina McCall’s efforts to track down Ruby’s mother on TV fell flat, even though Louise had gone on to get a degree and become a nurse, meaning she was not exactly living in hiding or living off the grid. Louise had also expressed how often she had thought about looking for Ruby, suggesting it was unlikely she would have gone to great lengths to prevent her daughter finding her.
Beyond the difficulty regular people faced in tracking down Louise, even UNIT’s advanced technology initially struggled. The time window that the Doctor and Ruby used to look back on the night Ruby was left at the church saw the hooded figure of Louise glitching and remaining stubbornly hidden from any kind of detection, suggesting she was somehow capable of hiding her identity across the ages. While walking away from the church, Louise stopped and pointed — seemingly towards the Doctor, but actually towards a road sign, giving Ruby her name. The Doctor claimed that this moment kept changing in his memory. Originally, Louise had not pointed, implying time had been rewritten. However, if Louise and Ruby were both fully human, it is not clear how this moment in time was changed.
Similarly, Ruby’s apparently supernatural abilities were left unexplained by the reveal that she and her mother were fully human. Throughout the first season of this new era of Doctor Who, Ruby Sunday was seen making it snow. While the power was one Ruby did not fully understand and could not control, she summoned the snowfall from the night she was abandoned every time she thought back to that night. Even the Doctor commented on how inexplicable this ability was, telling Ruby in “Space Babies” that in all his travels through time and space, he had never seen anything like it. In “The Devil’s Chord,” Maestro discovered a song buried in Ruby’s heart, “Carol of the Bells,” which was playing when she was left at the church. Ruby’s seemingly supernatural connections to the night she was abandoned were left entirely unexplained when her mother’s identity was finally revealed.
The episode “73 Yards,” which saw Ruby trapped in a timeline without the Doctor, where she was haunted by a woman who was always 73 yards away, also added to the mystery surrounding Ruby in a way that was left unexplained by the finale. In the episode’s conclusion, it was revealed that the 73-yards woman was an aged Ruby, who then traveled back into her own past and managed to prevent this cursed timeline from ever coming into being. Fans initially assumed Ruby had this power to change time because of her unearthly parentage, but now “73 Yards” has been rendered even less clear and the true workings of its story seem less apparent. The fact that Ruby has maintained vague residual memories of this timeline also doesn’t make sense. If she is only human, it seems like reversing this timeline’s existence should have erased it entirely from Ruby’s memory.
Will the Mystery of Ruby Sunday be Resolved in Doctor Who Season 2?
Doctor Who Season 2 is set to introduce Varada Sethu as the Doctor’s new companion. Sethu previously appeared in Season 1’s “Boom,” as Mundy Flynn, though is set to play a new character in the new season. However, Sethu’s character won’t be the Doctor’s only companion in Season 2. Millie Gibson is set to return as Ruby Sunday and Russell T Davies has teased that Ruby’s birth family will continue to play a role. This could mean that some of the mysteries still surrounding Ruby will be resolved in Doctor Who Season 2, suggesting there could be more to the snow, the song in Ruby’s heart and the changing timelines of “73 Yards” than has been revealed so far.
While Ruby is currently stepping away from the TARDIS to reconnect with her birth mother and to track down her father, it may well be the mysteries surrounding her that bring Ruby and the Doctor back together. Perhaps whatever allowed Ruby to create snow and alter time is still active and waiting, continuing to use Ruby for some yet-to-be-revealed plan. While they might be entirely human, it’s possible that Ruby’s biological parents are also a part of these lingering mysteries, perhaps being used as pawns by some external alien force. With many questionsleft to be answered and Ruby Sunday returning in Doctor Who’s second season, it is likely that all will be revealed in 2025.
Doctor Who, Season 1 is now available to stream on Disney+ and BBC iPlayer.