Doctor: Ncuti Gatwa
Companion: Millie Gibson – Ruby Sunday
Others
Golda Rosheuvel – Jocelyn Sancerre
Michelle Greenidge – Carla Sunday
Angela Wynter – Cherry Sunday
Mason McCumskey – Eric
Sami Amber – Voice of Eric
Sienna-Robyn Mavanga-Phipps – Poppy
Shola Olaitan-Ajiboye – Voice of Poppy
Cadence Williams – Voice of Sandra
Param Patel – Voice of Marcel
Lonnee Archibong – Voice of Adjani
Jesus Reyes Ortiz – Rico Trieste
Yasmine Bouabid – Lucia Colasanto
Robert Strange – Bogeyman
Susan Twist – Comms Officer Gina (uncredited)[1]
Production
Directed by Julie Anne Robinson
Written by Russell T Davies
Script editor: Scott Handcock
Produced by Vicki Delow
Executive producer(s): Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner, Jane Tranter, Joel Collins, Phil Collinson, Julie Anne Robinson
Music by Murray Gold
Series 14
Running time: 46 minutes
First broadcast 11 May 2024
The Doctor and Ruby Sunday travel to a spaceship where they run into a monstrous creature. They find an elevator and reach the higher level, only to discover that the ship is a baby farm, run by talking babies. The babies live in fear of the creature down below, which they have dubbed the Bogeyman, and their only caregiver is supposedly an AI named NAN-E. The Doctor traces NAN-E's programming to a storage room but discovers that it is actually a woman named Jocelyn. Jocelyn is the last of the ship's original crew who were forced to leave the ship and the babies behind despite their protests against it. The Doctor locates a refugee planet nearby and vows to send Jocelyn and the space babies to it.
One of the babies, Eric, summons the courage to face the Bogeyman, but the Doctor, Ruby, and the rest of the babies come to his rescue. The Doctor finds the Bogeyman's appearance mysterious as he has the urge to run away from it. After finding the ship's programming he discovers that the ship created the Bogeyman as part of its misguided attempt to entertain the children. Not only that, but the Bogeyman is made out of literal "bogies" as it took the command seriously. Jocelyn has the Doctor and Ruby lead the Bogeyman to the airlock so she can eject it into space, but Ruby points out that the creature appeared the same time the babies were born, thus it is actually one of them. Ruby stops Jocelyn while the Doctor rescues the Bogeyman, whom the babies recondition to behave like a dog.
Reworking the ship, the Doctor manages to get it up and running so that it can fly to the refugee planet. The Doctor gives Ruby keys to the TARDIS and invites her to come travel with him on the condition that they do not visit the night her mother left her at the church on Ruby Road. As they return to Carla and Cherry, the Doctor performs a DNA scan on an unsuspecting Ruby, as it suddenly begins to snow inside the TARDIS.
Space Babies