TW Watches Doctor Who Lucky Day S02E04

Photos copyright BBC

Photos copyright BBC

I have to question the purpose of this episode in the overall grand scheme of things. I feel like I have suddenly hit a brick wall after watching Lucky Day; a pothole in the road being travelled by us, the Doctor and Belinda.

It focuses on Ruby Sunday and her life after the events of The Empire of Death. We get to see an unseen adventure she and the Doctor had after the battle with Maestro. They are hunting a Shreek in a warehouse and manage to stop it. Ruby has been infected with its pheromone which means she will be hunted by it if she doesn’t take the foul tasting antidote the Doctor gives her. We see the old fun relationship tjey had as if they had never stopped.

Their adventure is observed by and snapped by one Conrad Clark, who as a young boy on New Year’s Eve 2007, saw the Doctor and Belinda arrive in the Tardis. He was given a 50 pence piece the Doctor had found but he ran away, receiving a smack round the head from his mother for telling such an absurd story.

Years later, he tracks down and persuades Ruby to come on his podcast to talk about the Doctor. By this time, Ruby is working for UNIT and Kate Stewart not only has a new romance but has become a third mother to Ruby. At first, she is reluctant to tell detials to Conrad but as their relationship develops, she confides in him more and more until they are in a full blown relationship.

Lucky Day is in essence an examination of life after the Doctor. It is akin to PTSD and has been looked at before with Sarah Jane in School Reunion and Jo Grant in The Death of the Doctor. To an extent, we have seen it with Rose, Martha and Jack in her Torchwood adventures and Donna. While this was all well and good back then, these were longer seasons where you could take a breath. But the Gatwa seasons are only eight episodes long. The show is called Doctor Who. While Gatwa does appear, it is not to bring Ruby back aboard the Tardis which is the impression that was given in interviews promoting the season.

Indeed, Lucky Day should really be an episode of a UNIT spin off rather than smack bang in the middle of so short a season. We have a new companion to explore with a central mystery and unless Conrad is in fact part of the overall mystery, then it feels out of place.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s nice to see what happens after a companion leaves the Doctor and there simply isn’t enough of Cherry Sunday at all. She needs her own episode. Her Wicker Man paranoia made me laugh. And I have to say, I desperately wanted to see Lenny Rush back, not Anne Bingham; sorry Anne but Morris is a much better addition to the cast.

The central premise that Conrad who appears to be so twee, the perfect boyfriend material and all for Ruby is actually an analogy for abusive and manipulative boyfriends does bring a new element to life after the Doctor.

The twist that the reappearance of the Shreek is in fact staged and that Conrad is the ringleader is a shocker to say the least. He has been using Ruby’s pain of leaving the Doctor to get her to open up and tell him everything she knows about UNIT and the truth behind the aliens.

Conrad’s group does not believe that aliens are real and that it is all a cover up by UNIT via special effects to cover up something else.

Using live streaming Ruby and UNIT appear to the world as an evil secret government department that point guns at innocent influencers to protect their dirty little secrets and the fact they are spying and conditioning the public with fake alien invasions. As we saw in Torchwood’s Children of Earth, the government has no problem throwing the likes of UNIT under the bus to suit its own needs.

It is a nice commentary that brings to mind flat earthers and covid conspiracies. People are easily stirred up and manipulated by influencers into a frenzy. Suddenly Ruby and her family are under threat from mobs and have to move to a safe house. As has been mentioned before, the human race is the most dangerous creature in the universe.

I have to question the logic of Conrad and his podcasts. Would Ruby really not have done her research on his podcast before agreeing to go on it or check out his social media? He may have fake accounts you say; yes but could he really have stayed hidden so long without a hint of his paranoia?

Indeed, what about all those casualties from the Dalek invasion in The Stolen Earth and the Cybermen kicking peoples’ doors down in Army of Ghosts and Doomsday? You can see something like Atmos being glossed over as some mechanical issue and we all know Derren Brown gets the blame for everything but at least Kate sent him flowers the last time. And what about the time when the doglike Lupari arrived to save their own assigned human from The Flux?

The seventh Doctor once told Ace in Remembrance of the Daleks that the human race has a great capacity for self deception when discussing the Yeti invasion and the Loch Ness monster from Terror of the Zygons. Ace had never heard of them, yet it involved the total evacuation of London as far as the Yeti were concerned and the Loch Ness monster appeared in the Thames for all to see. The twelfth Doctor told Clara that the human super power was forgetting in the episode In The Forest of the Night.

Ruby is vulnerable at the minute as all she can think about is life now without the Doctor but would she really have been so easily fooled?

The Shreek appearance disrupts electrics and one of Conrad’s buddies who disappear is called Sparky. The clues are there. Conrad said his mother was dead but is alive and well in France where Conrad is paying for everything via the money he makes from his social media platforms.

Jonah Hauer-King is stunning as Conrad switching characters completely to be the evil genius that destroys Ruby. He is also the reason the Doctor went looking for Belinda. He is mad with power all because Kate Stewart turned him down for a job with UNIT. He is also mentally unstable, shooting his man on the inside of UNIT just so he can expose the truth to the world. But like Lux before him, Kate uses his own weapons against him by live streaming his attack and subsequent losing of the arm thanks to the Shreek. By showing the world what some of the dangers are that UNIT deal with, may also have put Kate’s position at risk.

Conrad’s confrontation with the Doctor shows just how maniacal he still is. He does not fear him and tells him to get off his world. He is cold and so set in his ideas not even the Doctor phases him.

Ruby goes off for a sabbatical while Conrad faces life imprisonment, arm restored, except for when the Governor turns up with the keys and wearing the face of Mrs Flood.

So, will Conrad be part of the season finale which destroys the Earth Odyssey 5 style or is a villain kept free for the future? If nothing else, his darkness is one that runs much deeper than the Master’s ever did, making him very dangerous.

I feel like I’m missing this week’s Doctor Who episode that has been replaced with something else. It’s fine but not up to the quality of the first three episodes. Could this be this season’s 73 Yards which ultimately played no part in the finale bar a mere mention?

With so few episodes, this episode shouldn’t appear. We need to see the Doctor and Belinda flesh out and develop, not go over old ground with Ruby. Maybe that’s a lesson there BBC. Restore these seasons to 12 or 13 episodes a year so there is room to breathe and find your way with character development.

Cry me a river, Ruby but sorry, it’s Belinda’s stage now.  

Can we please get back to the main story because I want to see more of Belinda and the Doctor.