Doctor Who: 73 Yards Review - 6 Ups & 4 Downs

Last week, I had a little moan about Ruby being sidelined two-thirds of the way through, and still not being given her own moment.

If only I'd known.

Having a Doctor-lite episode so soon into an era is a bold choice, and giving us an episode entirely focused on a relatively new companion could've backfired spectacularly, but Millie Gibson rises to the occasion.

So far, we've seen Ruby do a lot of 'excitable and bubbly', with brief saunters into 'reckless and fearless', but here, we get some serious range. We start the episode with the Ruby we know, as she tries to keep her head despite being abandoned in the middle of nowhere and stalked by a haunting figure.

But throughout the episode, as Ruby grows, this performance changes. Gibson gives us a restrained take on Ruby, distant and stoic, still unsure of herself but presenting confidently and planning every action carefully.

Gibson sells the passage of time in this episode, even if she is slightly let down by the makeup department not really aging her up at all (glasses and a big glass of wine aren't quite enough).

She came into her own in a major way this week, and quite frankly, I'm a little sad that this version of Ruby, for all intents and purposes, no longer exists.