It’s been nearly seven years since The Last Jedi sparked the flames of a culture war Star Wars still , and nearly five since The Rise of Skywalker managed to...
well, make things a lot messier beyond that. But never, in all that time, would I ever thought we would continue to be in such a grip that it would end up inspiring a season finale of Doctor Who. “Empire of Death,” this weekend’s eighth and final episode of Doctor Who’s latest season, finally put an end to the questions behind companion Ruby Sunday’s true parentage—which had been teased and woven throughout the show since last year’s Christmas special as the big mystery subplot of the season, aside from why Susan Twist kept showing up.
At last, we got the reveal of Ruby’s birth mother: Louise Miller, a completely ordinary young woman who became pregnant as a teen, fled an abusive home, and left her newborn child on the doorstep of a church on Ruby Road. Doctor Who’s big mystery was that there was no mystery at all. And that also, like a lot of people, showrunner Russell T Davies had some thoughts about the Star Wars sequel trilogy.
“This is kind of my reaction to, bear with me now, the Star Wars films,” Davies said of the reveal about Ruby’s birth mother on an audio commentary track for “Empire of Death” .“I can’t remember their titles but in the last trilogy, [The Last Jedi] said that Daisy Ridley was nothing special. There was nothing special about her parentage.
That she just got t.