Doctor Who's Christmas Special, "The Church on Ruby Road," introduced the Fifteenth Doctor's new companion, Ruby Sunday. Played by British actress Millie Gibson, we found the character on the hunt for answers about her parents, only to later learn that there's no record of them.
The Doctor and Ruby later clashed with the Goblin King, with his machinations forcing the Doctor to travel back in time to rescue her as a baby after a cloaked figure abandoned her at a church. There's almost certainly more story to be told there and theories range from the mysterious person being Ruby herself to the Doctor somehow already knowing who it was that abandoned her.
Talking on Doctor Who: Video Commentaries, showrunner Russell T Davies confirmed Ruby's mysterious origin story will play a key role in the long-running sci-fi series as we head into the show's new season 1 (a.k.a. season 14).
"The story that we’re kicking off here about the adoption and having been fostered and then adopted and being a foundling actually runs through the entire series," he teased (via SFFGazette.com). "This one's quite a fable - the foundling on the church doorstep in the snow."
"That story then continues into the series - we come back to that church," Davies continued. "There's all sorts of things...there were people in those scenes you don't know were there. There's a lot more to come."
Many fans were surprised to see the lengths the Doctor went to to save Ruby, particularly as the Goblin King ended up being impaled on a church spire. When producer Chris May put it to Davies that we were seeing a "vengeful Doctor," the showrunner responded, "It's why he needs a human."
We know the Doctor tends to head down a dark path when he's on his own (a theme Davies explored when the Tenth Doctor declared himself "Time Lord Victorious"), so that would explain why he ended up going back for Ruby after initially choosing to leave her behind.
A new clip from the next batch of episodes has also been released which shows the Doctor and Ruby exploring a spaceship as some sort of alien creature closes in.
Doctor Who is the longest-running action-adventure television series in the world spanning 60 years and winning over 100 awards. This quintessentially British show has a massive global following, with 9.6 million fans across social platforms/channels and 100 million video views on YouTube in the last year alone.
You can watch that new clip ahead of Doctor Who's return this May in the X post below.