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Ruby Sunday
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 On a snowy Christmas Eve, a baby girl is left outside the entrance of a church. Leaving as quickly as she arrived, the mother departs - nobody seeing who she was. The only person witnessing this event was The Doctor.
Twenty years later, and seeming unrelated, a young woman called Ruby Sunday, who lives with her foster mother, Carla, and foster grandmother, Cherry, is an orphan and has been trying to find her birth parents. On the 1st of December 2023 Ruby is being interviewed by Davina McCall for a television programme that traces its participants’ lineage. It is revealed that Ruby was abandoned at a church on Ruby Road, hence her name. But this interview is ended early when, as Davina explains to Ruby about the realistic chance of identifying her birth parents, a chain of falling lights nearly crash into Ruby.
But this is not the end of the seemingly unrelated mishaps that plague Ruby as three weeks later, when Ruby is playing a small gig with her band, a small electrical fault interrupts their performance as The Doctor watches on from the outskirts of the pub. The next day she encounters him dancing at a nightclub, before turning around and seeing him catch a glass of water that she knocks over. The Doctor asks Ruby if she normally has bad luck, which she confesses that it has been happening for a while now. Ruby then departs the nightclub unaware that The Doctor has followed her outside as he watches her get into a taxi with some friends. But a bit further down the street the taxi is stopped by some red traffic lights. Its occupants are unaware that above them a large Christmas Snowman decoration, hanging from a nearby building, is poised to fall on the taxi. Using his sonic-screwdriver The Doctor changes the traffic lights to green so allowing the taxi to drive on, just as the snowman decoration falls onto The Doctor.
 | | The Doctor by the Church |
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The next day, Christmas Eve, Ruby returns to her home, a flat in Minto Road, to find that her foster mother, Carla Sunday, is fostering another newborn baby, called Lulubelle, over the Christmas holiday. Carla leaves Lulubelle in Ruby's care as she pops out to go to the shops to get some essentials for the baby. However, just after Carla leaves Davina rings Ruby to inform her that they have been unable to find any trace of anyone related to her. Ruby is saddened by this news, but accepts it. Davina then changes the subject and asks Ruby if odd things have been happening to her as it seems that bad things have been happening to Davina since she interviewed Ruby. As Davina, who is now stuck in a wheelchair due to her numerous injuries, mentions how terrified she is a nearby Christmas tree topples over towards Davina, with the star heading directly for her head - seemingly killing her.
With her phone call with Davina abruptly terminated Ruby, not realising what has just occurred, hears strange noises over the baby monitor and heads into the room, where Lulubelle had been left, only to discover the crib empty. Hearing a noise above her Ruby realises that Lulubelle has been kidnapped via the skylight and so gives chase on to the roof. There she finds goblins nestling Lulubelle in a basket and a long ladder reaching up into the clouds above. The goblins scamper up as the basket is pulled up and the ladder begins to retract, prompting Ruby to jump to it as it drifts away from the roof tops. Ruby is then surprised when she is joined by The Doctor who has bounded along the rooftop and has jumped onto the ladder as well. As the ladder retracts further the pair start to have difficulty holding on, so The Doctor pulls out a set of intelligent gloves - that can bear a much greater weight than the user - so allowing them to hang onto the ladder which effortlessly pulls them both up into a flying wooden ship. There they encounter a horde of goblins who capture and tie them up.
 | | Carla Sunday |
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The Doctor begins to decipher the goings on revealing to Ruby that the goblins are otherworldly beings who feed on coincidence and accidents, travelling through time to find babies to eat. Thanks to spending time with Harry Houdini, The Doctor manages to untie them both, but is unable at first to escape the room that they are locked in. With everything built with wood and rope his sonic screwdriver is not effective on these materials. But after spending a small amount of time with the rigging, which he likens to wires and circuitry, untying knots as one would flip switches, triggering the right one allowing them to escape from the room they are in and into a crawlspace.
Attracted by the sounds of the goblins singing they witness Lulubelle moving along a conveyer-belt as the goblins sing about how their king is going to devour her. In the crawlspace above Ruby watches horrified as The Doctor frantically tries to untie the right ropes. The Doctor makes a mistake, however, and causes them both to fall onto the conveyer-belt. Surprised by the sudden appearance of The Doctor and Ruby the goblins are unable to prevent The Doctor from grabbing the baby before he and Ruby make their escape by using a part of the ship’s rigging to descend back to the ground.
The Doctor and Ruby return to her home with the safely recovered baby just as Carla returns from the shops. The Doctor introduces himself which results in a concerned Carla not sure why they need a doctor. Frustrated, and trying to change the subject, Ruby tells Carla about the phone call she received from Davina and how they were unable to locate any of her family. As they talk things over a freak storm causes the house start to shake and a giant crack appears in the ceiling.
 | | A Goblin |
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The Doctor then realises that Ruby has vanished. He dashes around the flat and outside searching for her - but no one The Doctor questions has heard of her. On returning to Ruby’s home The Doctor realises that the flat is a far drearier place with no Christmas decorations, no pictures of Ruby or any of the other foster children. Carla is also a different person having changed into a cold and uncaring woman who has only fostered a few children, who resents Cherry, and is only concerned with money. Realising that the timeline has changed and deducing that the goblins must have gone back in time to take Ruby when she was a baby, The Doctor uses the TARDIS to travel back to the night to prevent them taking her when she was abandoned at the church.
There, The Doctor watches Ruby’s mother leave her by the door of the church and walk off into the night. As soon as she is out of sight The Doctor rushes towards the church just as a goblin snatches the baby. He chases after the goblin scaling the church with little Ruby, grabbing onto the ladder at the last second. He then uses his intelligent gloves in reverse mode to pull the ship downwards bit by bit, but finds it too slow to make a difference. In a last-ditch effort, he jumps off the roof, pulling the goblin’s ship down with him, piercing the Goblin King on the church steeple. With the Goblin King dead, the ship and all the goblins in it vanish. Catching the baby girl that falls from the sky, The Doctor places little Ruby once again on the church doorstep for the vicar to find her and so hopefully return the timeline back to as it should be.
The Doctor returns to 2023 and is relieved to find everything has returned to normal and that Ruby is back. After explaining to Ruby what has transpired, he dashes off to travel back in time to save Davina from the falling Christmas tree. However, as he enters the TARDIS, he is unaware that Ruby’s neighbour, Mrs Flood, is watching him from her front yard. The Doctor returns once more to the present day but then thinks better of it and decides to leave Ruby behind, concluding that he is a bearer of bad luck and that she would be better without him. However, in Carla’s flat Ruby works out that The Doctor must be a time traveller and dashes out the door. Looking around on the street, she asks Mrs Flood if she has seen him, and Mrs Flood points to the parked TARDIS on the road. Ruby enters it, after a wish of luck from Mrs Flood, to join The Doctor in his adventures.
As the TARDIS dematerialises Mrs Flood breaks the fourth wall and reveals that she has prior knowledge of The Doctor’s time machine when she asks the audience ‘Never seen a TARDIS before?’.
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