Doctor Who: The Church on Ruby Road
by Russell T. Davies; dir. Mark Tonderai (BBC, 2023)
Davies scripts a bonhomous if heavy-handed, found-family Christmas special that rattles along while re-treading old ground (his own Whoeuvre plus a sing-and-dance tribute to Labyrinth). Ncuti Gatwa takes the Doctor’s zest for life and channels it into a more tactile, people-friendly persona.
Labyrinth
dir. Jim Henson (1986)
Henson tries to capture the same sense of whimsy as Alice in Wonderland, but—like most adaptors of that work—underwhelms. The delightful visuals and kooky ideas (and Bowie!) are offset by a rambling story and child acting lamentably of the 1980s.
Return to Labyrinth, Vol. 1
by Jake T. Forbes; art by Chris Lie (Tokyopop, 2006)
A continuation of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, rebooted here as a thick (200+ pages) but cramped (panel size and text) black-and-white manga album. Whereas the film’s flaws are replicated, its muppet-inspired magic is diminished amidst the colourless, cluttered and only occasionally diverting hodgepodge.