A playlist of videos covering the issues with the BBC and transphobic reporting: kzfaq.info/sun/PLmWFOeT2jEofVIDW9X3OL7GqWuX3Dxopu

Bet UNIT is feeing really dumb for laughing at the Doctor for knowing about S Triad, but then hiring a woman called Harriet Arbinger.

We've changed Prime Ministers so frequently recently that not naming them in the script was a smart move. We'll have a different one in two and a half weeks anyway.

Personally I feel like the Doctor was using the mystery of Ruby's mother to avoid dealing with the idea of Susan. Hence why he was so reckless and immediately pushed himself into investigating when that soldier died due to his reckless curiousity.

Not to theorycraft here but it made sense to me that Susan Triad showed up everywhere the TARDIS went, if Sutekh attached himself to the TARDIS and Sue is Sutekh's avatar/conduit. Sutekh went everywhere the TARDIS went, so his avatar showed up along with him.

The confusion of casual viewers is being overstated. They establish that he’s a god of death which is all you really need to introduce him. Also the idea that the Master reveal didn’t emphasise the villain’s name as something for viewers to recognise is wrong, they literally had an extended scene building up to Derek Jacobi saying “I am the Master”

I liked that the footage on the VHS for the time window was filmed by a camera that was 68 metres away. Because that's approximately...drum roll... 73 yards!

Honestly can I just say Gabriel Woolf is one of the best v/o’s the show has ever had I love his voice dripping with pure evil

I honestly found the framing around it to still be impactful. Zero idea who Sutekh was, but they just established him as A) being the head honcho of the crazier villains we saw, B) lurking all season by *charming the TARDIS*, C) killed a dude in a horrifying WTF fashion, an D) is a god damn 4-eyed jackal monster. Still blurted out "Who?" but that barely made a dent in the intensity.

At this point, I totally agree with you that this season is too short! This episode totally points out why more episodes were needed. It would've been cool to see more buildup of the gods and Susan's other alter egos. Anyway, this episode was nuts. I love that Carla was brought in to support Ruby. I can't wait to see how Part 2 goes.

The actor who plays Morris has been doing amazing things and getting a lot of awards recently so I’m excited to see if he’s going to be part of more stories

It’s gotten to the point where I anticipate your review as much as I anticipate the actual doctor who episode! Thanks for this 😊

Taking ruby to see how Maiestro destroyed to present was a clue to Sutekh becase the doctor Takes Serra to the future to 1980 to see the destruction of Sutekh.

As a fan who has only watched New Who, I think the Sutekh reveal landed for my sister and I when we watched the episode but only because we grew up loving Egyptian mythology. I had no idea Sutekh was a Doctor Who villain while watching, I had thought they just employed a version of Set as the character's name and liked it. I didn't realize Sutekh was a pre-established villain until I was looking up responses later.

The time window scenes were just beautiful. Ruby just breaking down into tears and then later on her just standing fighting against the snow cos of the wind. Just stunning cinematography this episode

They didn't name the Prime Minister because there was no guarantee that there wouldn't be 4 different ones in between the time of filming and airing

Just as little information nugget. RTD has confirmed that Shirley will return, the actress just wasnt avaiable for the episode, so RTD introduced another advisor. Considering we have already etablished there is more than one scientific advisor for UNIT I dont think its weird The Doctor isnt surprised not to see her - she could be on field work or even just be taking her yearly vacation.

i’m pretty sure shirley is meant to be in season 2. ruth madeley must’ve just been busy when they were filming this.

"The one who waits" is a common moniker for Death or the grim reaper, so i predicted that he'd be the god of death in the same way the toymaker and maestro were those of games and music respectively. I didn't predict sutekh, but while i had heard of him, i haven't seen classic who so...

What I've seen from newer viewers is that despite not knowing who Sutekh was, they were still invested and scared because the buildup and reveal was so well done, and it was clear that this entity, whoever they were, was a dangerous adversary for the Doctor

Potential Sutekh foreshadowing in The Devils Chord. The Doctor and Ruby go forwards in time to see how the world will look if Meastro wins, which is also exactly a scene from The Pyramids of Mars, Sutekhs episode in the classic series. Both episodes deal with Pantheon members, so parallels are ripe.

I think the thing with Susan Triad is that Sutekh is currently fused with the TARDIS and has been since at least the start of Wild Blue Yonder. "Everywhere *I land*, a woman appears." She's not scattered across all of time and space and coincidentally running into the Doctor, she's being manifested by the God secretly riding the TARDIS.

RE: Susan - The Brigadier met her in the Five Doctors, so this story serves as confirmation that The Brigadier either didn't remember the events of the Five Doctors or perhaps never told anyone!

Glad you also thought of that moment with the doc saying he’d been a father before during 10th’s run, that’s exactly what I remembered

They really seem to be digging into Mel's characterisation during her brief time with the 6th Doctor rather than her time with the 7th - I totally believe that this is the same person who forced the Doctor to go on the exercise bike and drink lots of carrot juice. Also, from my own experiences, I'm finding that most people unaware of Sutekh were completely along for the ride and weren't bothered about it. The only time a friend of mine said it felt anti-climactic was not because it was Sutekh, but because Susan Triad wasn't anything to do with THE Susan

I think people are overblowing the need to have prior knowledge to appreciate the Sutekh reveal a bit. The episode establishes that he’s a death god, he’s done something to the TARDIS which is bad, and that he’s a big scary dog monster that possesses people and wants to kill everyone. Sure, the name reveal is given quite a lot of weight but beyond that you’ve got all the information you need. I did get a “who the heck is Sutekh?!” text from my sister who has never watched a single episode of classic, but she was also super excited despite having no idea who he was.

I didn't know Sutekh. I didn't even know they were recurring, I just knew that the Doctor recognized the name and it scared him. Also, there was tense music, Sue became all scary and killed a guy, along with the Tardis being a trap where the Doctor isn't there to save people. I felt I had plenty to latch onto to understand that this was a big scary evil, nothing less than other villain introductions.

The TARDIS is also acting up at the beginning of The Impossible Planet, with the Doctor mentioning that the TARDIS is queasy. The Impossible Planet also featured writing that was similar to what was seen on Wild Blue Yonder, and of course features Gabriel voicing The Beast.

Not a new viewer, but I had never seen Pyramids of MArs, and had never even heard of Sutekh before this episode. I think the episode does a decent enough job building him up as one of the Pantheon in the same vein as Maestro and the Toymaker. He's got plenty of threatening presence, and his design is beyond cool. So even though I had no idea he was a classic villain, this still hit for me.

I think that it was clearly explained in the episode that the whole Susan Twist thing was a TRAP. Sutekh was luring the Doctor to where he wanted to confront him.

My first reaction to the Sutekh name reveal was, "Damn, they're bringing in Egyptian gods to fight the Doctor? Fuck it, let's go!" Then I saw a KZfaq thumbnail showing classic era Sutekh and I realized, "Oh, THAT Sutekh! I think I have his episodes on DVD."

I feel like Sutekh is pretty self explanatory because in the episode they say he is the God of Death or known as Seth. I guess not everyone was taught about Egyptian Gods at school haha. If people still are confused then maybe the episode wasn't clear enough or they weren't paying attention 😂

i think the doctor’s conversation with kate will have inspired him to go and see susan at the end of the next episode.

Kate not knowing about Susan bothers me because there is a photo of her in the Black Archives. Even if they don't know who she is, they say they keep tabs on past companions so she must have met Ian and Barbara who would know Susan.

My GF is New Who only. I stood up and screamed with glee. She looked at me like "what the fuck?' 5 minutes of explaning who Sutekh is took the fun out of it

Im a New Who fan and I haven't seen Pyramids of Mars. This ending was scary as f and Im hyped as motherf. All I need to know is that it is god of the gods, see Doctor's face and hear creepy things like "he is returning" to make me be hyped for this.

Without knowing who Sutekh was, I figure the Beast from Satan's Pit had made a reappearance, which... isn't necessarily wrong in terms of meaning and function if not origin (still waiting on that one), so the revelation would have still worked for me even without the background, personally.

I like to think that the reason Russell held off on naming the Prime Minister was just because at the rate we've had them...who knows who they would be by the time this episode aired lmao

I'm now pretty latched on to the Doctor's line about not necessarily knowing who his children are yet. Imagine the reaction if Ruby's Mother pulls down her hood to reveal... Jodie Whitaker!

1:10 My Adventures with Superman (almost typed “of Ruby Sunday” dear god) ended its most recent episode with a cliffhanger. Then I remembered it was episode 5 of a 10 episode season and realized it was a midseason cliffhanger stunt

To throw in my two cents as someone who had no clue who Sutekh was, the episode still largely worked for me because I thought it did such a great job ratcheting up the tension throughout. Then at the end I was like, ‘Huh?’ But then I got on Twitter and understood.

6:54 Technically that already happened in Big Finish with 8th doctor meeting Susan, just depends how you class big finish as canon.

Yes we will be seeing Shirley again because she has been seen filming season 2 with Ruby.

On a re-watch there were Sutek easter eggs back in The Devil's Chord. The Doctor taking Ruby to a future timeline that was destroyed, showing they need to deal with the bad guy was a repeat of the 4th Doctor taking Sarah Jane back to 1980 from 1911 to see destroyed earth in Pyramids of Mars.

My reaction to watching this episode was similar to the lack of enthusiasm you express about the idea of a second watch through. It felt like the episode was just running in place for a while until it could throw out a twist at the end. At one point, I wondered “is this moment actually all that dramatic and exciting, or is the music just doing a really good job at making me think it is?”

As someone who has not met sutekh before, I will forever hear it as sue-tech

For me, even as someone who has only seen ONE Classic Who story up until this point, I think the reveal of Sutekh did enough to sell the idea of how F**KED we all are with their presence

Overall I’d say the reveal works for both fans and non-fans. I’ve been a new-who fan and watched the odd classic episode so knew who Suetekh was and loved the reveal and I watched this episode with my boyfriend who’s only doctor who exposure has been watching with me since the 60th specials ( i actually had to wait to watch this episode with him since he’s now become a fan and is enjoying the season, which shows that this is still a decent jumping on point) and he also loved the reveal. Didn’t know who suetekh was but based on character reactions and everything else, he knew it was a big deal and is super excited for next week

Mrs Flood was detailed as a "slow burn" by RTD, and I suspect there'll be more teases of her to come in season 2, and at the end of that is when she'll have a bigger role.

I think one of the reason the Master reveal worked better than the Sutekh reveal is that the Master has a bit more name recognition among casuals. The Master was in like 20 stories of Classic Who, including the TV movie. Sutekh was in one. Still, it worked, but not as well as Yana did.

The finale has a LOT to live up to lol. What a terrific build up!

Something that caught my attention - is "The camera was positioned in a storage yard 66m away" that took the video that night on ruby road... and 66 meters is approximately - get this - 73 yards... It makes me wonder.

Totally agree that it isn't an anagram, but I do love the play on words that "Susan Triad Technologies" becomes "Sue Tech" which is a homophone for Sutekh.

As someone who never saw the original story sutek is from, I still really enjoyed the reveal. It was effectively tense and scary in my eyes. Finding out it was a returning villain made it even more interesting

I honestly just hope we get Susan's return while Carol Ann Ford is still with us. Shes reprised the role plenty on audio, but those are of dubious canonicity. She deserves the chance to properly pass the torch to a new regeneration, or simply appear for a small while for a reunion with The Doctor

I am a 50 year old who back in the day was a 4th doctor fan and I was like was that a Pyramid of Mars reference? I will say my 14 year old son sat down about halfway through and liked it it. He specifically asked me when the next episode comes out and to not watch it without him. So it caught his attention!

I usually agree with much of what you say, but not here. I thought the introduction of Sutekh was handled marvelously. Ncuti's reaction tells it all. I watched it with someone who was not familiar with Classic Who, and she was left wondering why he was reacting the way he did. It was yet another mystery to be unveiled. She loved it. Great video nonetheless.

"That's good" Engagement! Like Andrew Stanton said: "The audience wants to work for their meal, they just don't want to know they're doing it. Don't give me 4, give me 2 + 2"

Glad I'm not the only one who noticed the whole "wrong anagram" was a bit of a cheat, as they changed one of the letters, thus not making it an anagram

Calling it right now, the mystery of Ruby's mum is there to distract us from wondering who her dad is.

When they made the reveal, I knew who he was not because of doctor who but I knew of him because I know that's just one of the names of Set. I like Stargate and egyptian lore. It took my wife telling me that he was Villain from the fourth doctor.

I wish Susan would turn out to be Jenny's daughter, given that the Doctor doesn't know that Jenny is still alive. It'd give her a timey wimey aspect.

As someone who hasn't gone back to watch any Classic Who, I didn't know who Sutekh was, but I could tell from context/acting that this was bringing back an old villain. I felt like the reveal didn't hit as hard as it could have if it were at all forseeable without that background knowledge, but I still enjoyed the episode. And I was absolutely sold on the threat level of this enemy just from the voice alone. I get that they couldn't hint too much at it during the season without giving it away, so I'm not sure what the right balance would have been here. But thinking about it afterwards, I think a Classic Who flashback (like they did with the reintroduction of the Toymaker in The Giggle) would have been very helpful.

As a New Who viewer, the moment did pull me out. Only because all the other members of the pantheon presented so far had been generic and I’m familiar with Egyptian gods, so I was thrown off by the specificity. The fact that he was clearly a past threat would have been less strange to me, I’ve run into moments like that in New Who finales before, if it hadn’t been a “twist.” But because so much time in the episode was devoted to setting up Susan being Susan, and hiding the reveal, all the lore they dropped at the front of the episode was pretty pointless (unless they do bring in Susan which … ehhhhh). Some of that space would have been useful for seeding anything to give new viewers information about the actual threat. Or maybe it’s just more evidence of the season being way too short. If we’d had more episodes, they might have been able to seed some hints into more episodes pointing towards this eventuality. Some more stuff like the indigestion, but lore related, that didn’t seem important at the time but would make sense at the reveal. Incidentally I am that kind of nerd and immediately searched KZfaq for lore and found your review for Pyramids of Mars so thank you! It was helpful, I’m unlikely to go back and dig up classic Who, I have a hard time getting reliable access to it so your reviews are always a treat.

I think the problem you're talking about could have been addressed by also fixing another problem you've discussed before: Not having enough episodes in the season to establish a status quo. Imagine if there had been more episodes where The Doctor and Ruby were just off having standalone adventures. They could have little moments of him casually telling her about some of his previous adventures. Stuff like "Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I fought a werewolf?" or "You wouldn't believe what happened when my companions and I met the Aztecs." Then, in the middle of one such adventure, the writers could have him say something like "You know, this reminds me of that time I battled Sutekh. He was a real bad one", possibly followed by having him fill in some of the details (though not so many as to be obvious foreshadowing). That way, new viewers wouldn't be completely in the dark when this reveal comes up. At the very least, we'd have the context of "This is a bad guy that The Doctor has dealt with before and is now returning."

Lenny Rush who played Morris also voiced one of the babies in Space Babies.

It really amuses me that they got TARDIS from S. Triad, but they somehow completely missed that H. Arbinger was a Harbinger. That's not even an anagram, it's just _right there!_ Is there a smarter 13 year old they can hire? lol

I've watched Dr Who since 2005. I've seen a few of the classic Who but not many. When the Sutekh reveal happened, I was left with "Huh?" I think the issue was the heavy focus on the name for the reveal. If the name happened, the Dr was like "Oh no... Sutekh." You could have one of the companions ask who that is, then have him say "He's the god all god fears. I faced him once but... We need to run." I dunno. Something to give a bit of context. Then cut back to the avatar cloaking over the TARDIS and have that as the cliffhanger. It may have hit better that way because the emphasis isn't on the name itself but the situation.

similar thoughts honestly, but that 2 minute build with Sutekh, Susan & Harriet was PHENOMENAL, we had exactly the same reaction

My Mother and youngest Nephew really enjoyed the reveal even without the knowledge because they built it up with the speech.

Actually, The Brigadier would have known about Susan, since the two of them met in The Five Doctors, although given that School Reunion and Death To The Doctor imply that Sarah Jane didn’t remember meeting the 5th Doctor or Tegan during that adventure, you could headcanon it that everyone besides the 5th Doctor and his companions lost their memories after being sent back to their proper times and places at the end of that episode.

Meh, I had no idea who Sutekh is, but this still really hit for me. It was built up well enough, the realization this entity had been riding on the Tardis since WBY, its very obvious power and malevolence... I wasn't so bothered, even if he was built up as a return. The name thing was kinda silly but I was fine with it saying oh okay it wasn't what they thought, it's a twist, he's being announced just the way the Maestro did as a new god. My biggest gripe was the linking of the Susan Triad mystery to Ruby's mom

I mostly agree with you but for me, a fan who didn't know who sutekh is, the reveal worked. Maybe not that moment with his name but only that. That doesn't mean I wouldn't ask someone who is a classic who fan for more information but please don't turn new fans into people who need to be shown everything and explained three times to enjoy it

16:15 also also, I just watched pyramids of mars to... well... undertand who Sutekh is, since I haven't watched the classics yet, and the exact same sound also happens when Sutekh's mind projection thing breaks the TARDIS in the beginning of the episode. obvioulsy much better quality, but they did match it VERY closely

I don’t watch a ton of fan theory videos but I did see the confused adipose video on sutekh due to the thumbnail so I watched cause I wanted to see his reasoning. As soon as he said Susan technology will be sutekh I knew it was happening. That’s 100% something RTD would do. I knew there was no need to speculate further, so I went in 99.9% expecting it to be sutekh. Still happy though and I was surprised the original voice actor came back!

I was actually a little confused and disappointed when the reveal didn't turn out to be "the beast". I still think that would've worked better personally. It all seemed to be heading in that direction and I don't think that would be as alienating to new viewers as having the literal devil appear after several gods seems to make sense. Idk

I'm loving the cliffhanger of this episode! XD It's making me theorize like crazy. My official theories are- -Mrs. Flood actually took Cherry Sunday downstairs into her Tardis to keep her safe. -Mrs. Flood is SUSAN! She reacted so strongly to the Tardis the first time because she realized it was the Doctor. -Ruby is a trap set for Sutekh by the Trickster. Sutekh referred to him as the "God of Traps". With the Trickster's past motivations, I don't think he would want the universe to die. I bet Ruby's power to rewrite time in "73 Yards" came from the Trickster. He planted her with The Doctor because he knew The Doctor would be there to face Sutekh. Also, I get a big Trickster vibe from the hood of "Ruby's Mother".

I was laugh-crying in delight and surprise when the reveal came. I did not see it coming AT ALL, and I ADORED it!!! Pyramids of Mars was a story I saw on PBS in the 90s and loved. It isn't one of my all-time favorites, but I remember being terrified by Sutekh - Gabriel Woolf's voice is perfect - and thinking the ending left room for him to come back (which he's apparently done in Big Finish? I don't keep up with them.). RTD gave us the reddest of red herrings this season, though, and had the characters say what we'd all been thinking right up front to get the theorizing out of the way so we could just enjoy the story. I am so here for this. My wife hadn't seen PoM, and didn't know who Sutekh was, but she could tell I did and that it was a big deal - I think she got more enjoyment from my reaction than the end of the episode itself. There were so many little moments in the story I loved as well - Mel's character moments, especially the ones with the Doctor, Rose and Ruby becoming friendly so easily, the "how's your uncle?" line, Kate doing anything, the mocking that Susan Triad did to the Doctor, Rose interning or working at UNIT at all and how happy she was to see this version of the Doctor, the Doctor picking up and whirling around all his old friends.... All that being said, I don't think we'll get the answer to the biggest mystery of the season next episode: Will Cherry EVER get her cup of tea?!

When the 10th Doctor talk’s about his children, perhaps he meant some, who where not the parents of Susan and the parents of Susan are not born jet…..???

Shirley is in Geneva in-universe due to filming constraints, think it was DWM or SFX that mentioned it, she's back next series confirmed by RTD. I thought the TARDIS groaning sound was pretty clear in every appearance so interesting you didn't realize it was happening The Doctor saying he doesn't have a kid in this episode was a little bizarre considering the resolution of Boom was literally a dad-to-dad thing

I only watched the 2005 reboot and the reveal still was fun and cool for me. The build up was solid, the Sutakh was chilling and also the way TARDIS was involved makes it even more cool and scary. Can't speak for others though. Edit: also, i might not have any emotional connection to Sutakh, but Doctor does and if he is terrified then i am as well.

My pondering on Mrs Flood are centered around water: ponds, rivers, floods and snow. Amy POND, RIVER Song, Mrs FLOOD. Ruby's snow. And what about the connections to music in the names Melody and Song? I don't know if these mean anything.

I have extremely mixed feelings about this episode, and the discussion from 24:15 kind of hits upon a large part of it (actually, the talk about all the setup and some things being dragged out also hits upon other issues I had). I only know NuWho (outside of some general knowledge of classic), so my immediate response to the reveal was "who?". I appreciate this video's comparison of the reveal within Utopia, as I think it's quite apt. I may not have known a lot about Doctor Who when I saw that episode, but I did generally know one of The Doctor's biggest enemies was/is The Master, so the name was able to hit decently, but the delivery of Sir Derek Jacobi and the story surrounding it (as well as the focus on The Doctor being the last of his kind over the last 2 seasons, but especially that one) really helped to hammer in the danger. I appreciate the defence of the viewer and accessibility. I've been wanting to watch Classic Who, but I have the problem of not wanting to start in the middle of things: New Who at least started like a reboot, not requiring a lot of knowledge of its past, and did a decent job rolling out things and giving enough context when it brought back stuff that I didn't run into an issue - but I started with Rose and went chronologically from there, I didn't just jump in on any random episode. I tried watching First Doctor stuff but there is that issue of missing serials and such that I fell off very quickly, nevermind how much there is to check out that way (and the quality is...not always high). I think part of the issue with Sutekh is just that it didn't feel well-seeded, even in hindsight. And I don't just mean within the episode, but over the season - there was a focus on the more "mystery box" elements (Ruby's origin, Ms. Flood, Susan Twist) and not enough of a thematic or continued throughline about the villain. Let's compare to other RTD finales: yes, Bad Wolf didn't say much, but the pain of the Time War and hatred and fear of the Daleks were important elements of the season, as well as the manipulation and future of humans, that it worked; the Cybermen/Dalek fight worked partly because it played on the Cyberman setup earlier; the Master worked because there was that aspect of the Doctor feeling alone that was so continuously emphasized, along with the Doctor almost ignoring modern Earth by going on these adventures. It just felt...sudden and the wordplay didn't work for me, either (for one, I thought it was just Triad or S Triad Technology/ies, not "Susan Triad Tech" or "Sue Triad Tech"), nevermind I've thought the "H-Arbinger" wordplay is absolutely the worst. You'd think UNIT would've been a little more concerned about someone they employ with such an ominous name, it'd be almost as bad as "Theodore Hemaster" or something. ALL OF THAT SAID: I am really willing to ignore most of these problems *depending on how the actually finale lands the story*. It needs to tie up threads well, roll out threats and resolve them well, it's a tough situation for them. There were some great glimmers in this episode (Ruby & Rose are a nice pair, would be nice to see them do something together in the finale), but the parts I have problems with really soured my finale reaction and make it hard to look back on it as a great episode.

Weirdly I think RTD himself did this "reveal of a classic villain" thing much better for new audiences just last year in The Giggle. When 14 realised the quirky shop-owner was the Toymaker, the moment was interspersed with colourised flashbacks to the Hartnell story so even for people who don't know who he is, they understand the kind of reveal the show is going for. I'm surprised they didn't do that again but with Pyramids of Mars. I think one way to salvage this would be to have the finale open with a "previously on Doctor Who" that shows us moments from Pyramids of Mars instead of The Legend of Ruby Sunday, much like Twice Upon A Time did with The Tenth Planet. I hadn't seen Pyramids of Mars but I knew who Sutekh is, so I was able to quickly explain to my family and they still said they loved the episode, but obviously our experience is not going to be universal. I by myself watched Pyramids of Mars later that night and the moment in that story where Sutekh claimed one of his names had been Satan definitely shoved me towards the "Sutekh and the Beast are two aspects of the same being" theorist camp, though I noticed Satan wasn't among the alternate names for Sutekh given upon his return so maybe not. Either way, I enjoyed Pyramids of Mars way more than I expected to. Tom Baker and Elizabeth Sladen were and are true gems.

40 mins of plodding then 5 mins of a brilliant cliffhanger ....oh my days felt like non stop exposition then boom now to resolve this arc in 50 mins

I assumed Sutekh was an old villain but I didn't need to know more than they gave us. (I didn't know he was from Pyramids of Mars, I've actually seen that one and just don't remember any of it)

Of course new viewers do understad who Sutekh is or what they mean for the Doctor, because they are not some complex concept that needs years of lore and/or fan explaining to be understood… they are the God of Death, as simple as that, and that’s a pretty much universal concept that any kid can catch. As the final big bad villain this season, the concept of the Pantheon has been well introduced, we know the Doctor is really scared of them, and we know Sutekh is an even bigger menace than Toymaker and Maestro because a) they are explained as that inside the episode b) they kill three of four humans in mere minutes, and that it’s pretty self-explanatory as a big menace. I would say, this episode alone presents a more understandable background for Sutekh as father/mother/other of all the mean gods of the universe than what Pyramids of Mars did introducing him as an alien. New viewers don’t need to know any of that to enjoy Legend of Ruby Sunday. Really, don’t worry about them, they are fine.

I still think there's a chance that Susan is _The_ Susan. Her having human DNA and the Doctor not recognizing her could be explained away with any technobabble/magical excuse. I think Sutekh used her as bait for a reason.

Totally agree with you about the deep-cuts to the Classic Era, vis-a-vis Sutekh -- while I, as an old-school Whoer (started watching in the early 80s, with Tom Baker repeats on my local PBS station), totally "got" why this all made sense, it likely indeed left many new viewers scratching their heads, likely wondering if they missed something over these handful of episodes (which of course they didn't, in this regard).

Worth noting there's a new Tales of the Tardis on Iplayer and bbc four on Thursday at 8pm so I imagine a lot of viewers will watch that as its the Pyramid of Mars episode so will fill in some lore for people

My Dad described this is the first proper Doctor Who episode we've had all season (which he hastily added, didn’t mean he disliked the rest). Which led to a debate as to which Sutekh design was better, my dad said the giant cgi monster looked silly, whilst the original was scary, and in fact the skull faces for Susan and Harriet were properly scary…. Whereas I thought the skull faces was the silly part, "God of Death, therefore Skulls. Woooo!" And I loved the giant Jackal head. Either way it was a great build up, and a great reveal. I punched the air with joy when it was revealed. Would I have had this reaction if I didn’t have a decent understanding of Classic Who? Possibly not. But don’t automatically assume people asking known experts about Sutekh means they had a negative reaction. Some could have been asking in a "who the f*ck was that?" way, but others might have been in an eager, "i genuinely want to know more about this character," way. I used to get lots of questions about classic who at school because I was the resident expert, and it was mostly the latter.

8:35 it’s funny because the brig would have known OF Susan since he met her in the five doctors, but he wouldn’t have known she was his granddaughter because they never mentioned it😂

The warning sound the tardis makes shows up in the old serial

Honestly even as a big fan of the 4th doctor I do think Sutekh is overhyped within the fandom. If there was one thing I'd call this season I'd call it "self-indulgent" for good and bad. RTD seems to have decided that he's going to make Who for himself first and foremost when he got brought back. I guess we'll see if it worked next week.

VHS tape from camera 66m away. Which is, near as dammit, 73 yards.

I'm glad you called out the issue for new watchers because I was very taken aback by this episode on my first watch. I've watched all the new stuff and the 4th doctor was my dad's favorite but I still didn't know who Sutekh was lol. it felt like they'd ignored the other setups in favor of some random new thing and it totally lost me until I saw some youtube shorts about Sutekh and Baker. It would have been nice for them to tease that something from the doctor's past was coming like they did with the toymaker IMO. I like the episode retroactively more after this but I still wish it hadn't been out of left field.

I didn’t really know Sutekh all that well, but I caught wind of the speculation. Especially in the news that a Fifteen-Ruby Tales of the TARDIS is Thursday telegraphing a tie-in, that meant the relevant episode was repeatedly mentioned. As a Stargate fan I immediately latched onto “This is their Apophis”

I didn’t watch classic who but really loved the reveal of Suetekh, not because I knew the character previously but because I feel like they set the stakes well, they revealed the most important fact that this character is the god of death because saying something is the god of death sets the stakes high. we got the who they are( Suetekh) the what they are (god of death) and their ambitions (to bring death to all life) all in that short ending of the episode. If you know classic who maybe you have more details on the why but for a reveal I felt it did good in setting up the character for the finale I would love to see Carla become a permanent presence at UNIT because it could be a very interesting approach to the companions family. Perhaps this was done in classic who but for new who at least the companions family has sort of always been just normal people with average jobs not really knowing what’s going on with their kid as they travel but having a companions direct family member know all about the aliens and what adventures the doctor gets up to could be a interesting approach, the most these family members get is either right in the midst of an invasion or a single adventure with space dinosaurs. I also think the fact that they kept having Susan show up and the snow appearing around Ruby created a bit of a shield for the Tardis Groaning mystery box because it distracted everyone with the upfront mysteries that you forgot about the mysteries that were always there but didn’t get attention, because I know if people weren’t speculating about Susan and the snow then everyone would have focused on the Tardis groaning and centered all the theories around it.

The Doctor learning everyone’s name reminded me of when captain Pike took command of Discovery in Star Trek and one of the first things he did was get all the bridge crew to tell him their names.

Both the Toymaker and the Maestro's endings felt a little rushed and now, with 2 episodes to battle Sutekh, RTD waited until the end of the first episode to reveal him. Now yet another super powerful god is going to be quickly defeated in the last few minutes of the episode in a way that completely undermines the danger they pose. I hope to be proven wrong, but doubt it.