We are thrilled to welcome Jamie Campbell Bower to Dublin Comic Con: Summer Edition 2025 for a one day appearance, Saturday only!
As Jamie’s time is limited, we will have limited signing slots and autographs available to prepurchase. The ONLY way to guarantee an autograph or photoshoot is to prepurchase. We cannot guarantee autos or photo ops will be available for walk ups on the day.
Known for his unforgettable role as Vecna/Henry/One in Netflix’s global phenomenon Stranger Things, Jamie has cemented his place as one of the most compelling villains in recent TV history. But that’s not all—fans will also recognize him from:
The Twilight Saga (Caius Volturi)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (Young Gellert Grindelwald)
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (Jace Wayland)
Sweeney Todd
This multi-talented actor and musician will be joining us for autographs & photo ops, across the weekend. Please note Jamie will not be doing a panel.
As Jamie’s time is limited, we will have limited signing slots and autographs available to prepurchase. The ONLY way to guarantee an autograph or photoshoot is to prepurchase.
I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.
When you think robots from the fifties and sixties you think of the Robot from Lost In Space and his warning cry of “Danger Will Robinson!” but before Robot became a hit as a comedy duo with Doctor Smith, there was another that captured audiences’ attention and quickly became labeled as the hardest working robot in Hollywood.
In 1956 the movie Forbidden Planet starring Walter Pidgeon and Leslie Nielsen was released. The movie poster showed a woman limp in the arms of a big human-sized black robot. It appeared threatening on the poster but the portrayal was far from menacing. Robby was a good guy with a great wit and willingness to help anyone out as the ship’s cook discovered when Robby delivered 60 gallons of whiskey to him. As one character remarks, Robby looks after them like a mother. He was remarkably strong and bows gracefully to Adams when they first meet. He can speak 187 other languages with their dialects and sub tongues while cooking at the same time. He is very careful to protect humans even down to telling them to fasten their seatbelts before driving off. If Robby was the template for the Lost In Space robot then it worked in spades.
Forbidden Planet was a huge movie for its time with no expense spared including the creation of Robby. MGM did not want the standard metal man robot. They wanted this to be special. Robby cost between $100,000 and $125,000 to make and if ever a studio got their money’s worth out of a robot this was it.
His conception came from a collaboration between Arnold Buddy Gillespie, Arthur Lonergan, Mentor Huebner Irving Block and Robert Kinoshita. Robby came in three parts and this proved to be easier for shooting him. He was voiced by Marvin Miller for the movie and was an instant hit. For me as a kid, I loved the domed head and you could see the internal mechanics which could be found lying around the house if you looked meaning you could be Robby. His front panel flashed when he spoke and he could put anything in his chest slot to analyse and replicate as he did with the alcohol. There had been nothing like Robby before especially when you discovered his kind and helpful nature. He could not harm humans and had internal weapons to protect Doctor Morbius (Pidgeon) and Altaira (Anne Francis).
It had been Morbius that had created Robby when the expedition first arrived at Altair 4. Robby and Altaira join the crew as Altair explodes at the movie’s ending and he is loving it being behind the controls of the ship. It is this comedic humanity that made Robby popular. Everybody wanted one.
If Robby had negotiated a wage for all his appearances, he would have been worth a fortune. He would appear in three episodes of The Twilight Zone as like the BBC years later with Blake’s 7 and Doctor Who, props were recycled to other shows much like Irwin Allen did for Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants. He would pop up in the Addams Family, Mork and Mindy, The Man From Uncle, Gremlins and the Thin Columbo to name a few but for me the battle of the giants was when Robot went head to head with Robby in the Lost In Space episode War of the Robots and later in Condemned in Space where Robby was a prison guard. This was an iconic moment and didn’t disappoint.
But in the Twilight Zone episode Uncle Simon, he appeared a little differently than we were used to. He was given a different headpiece due to the recycling policy maybe as an attempt to make it something new but most of the time he was as we remembered him from Forbidden Planet.
In 2004 Robby was entered into the Robot Hall of Fame where his legacy lasts right to this day. With every generation that watches Forbidden Planet or any of his shows then Robby’s fan base will forever grow.
Yes, you read that right. I gasped. Just like when we visited the Big Brother House and The Weakest Link, I knew this visit to this celebration of all things Eurovision song contest was not going to be straightforward.
I have to admit that eleven minutes in, I messaged my buddy and told him if the rest of the episode was as awesome as the first eleven minutes, I’d be a very happy man. From the very first sequence, I was smiling. I’m not a Eurovision fan but I know people that have parties for it. It got so political, it drove me away. That’s not what it is about and this episode reminds us it is all about fun and bringing people together.
There are so many easter eggs here for Euro fans and even a nice museum with Graham Norton serving as the holographic host. Rylan has somehow managed to escape the destruction of Earth to go into deep freeze only to be revived to host the contest each year. Rylan milks this episode and is a treat to watch. He is such a down to earth person anyway, he is seamless. The Tardis isn’t big enough for him and Ncuti (though it would be fun to find out). This time the contest is being hosted aboard the Harmony Arena, a space station in an air bubble. It is also sponsored by the Corporation that brought you Poppy Honey.
But this contest is highjacked by Kid and Wynn, Helians whose planet was reduced to ash and practice cannibalism and witchcraft. At least, that’s what the rumours say. With an audience of three trillion watching and over 100.000 people in the audience including Mrs Flood who is watching the Doctor’s every move and recording his vindicator readings for herself. This tells me that she cannot get back to May 24th either which means that she may not have been the reason for its destruction.
Within ten minutes, Kid and Wynn have taken control of the robot guards, popped the air bubble and nearly everyone is sucked into space to die including the Doctor. Only a few people are safe including Belinda, a singer named Cora, partners Gary and Mike and a few others. Belinda believes the Doctor is dead and that she is now alone and panics before Cora calms her. But the Doctor being the Doctor, he realised just in time that something was wrong and switched it so everyone is actually in suspended animation. The effects here are stunning as the bodies float upwards like something out of a horror movie. Kid and Wynn are played so well and their horns made me realise, there aren’t enough aliens with horns. Hmm, I think the Time Warriors books are about to get a few new species.
Kid is angry as the galaxy treats the Helians like lepers to the point they are banned from singing. Kid and Wynn are here to reveal the truth about what happened to their planet and the lies the Corporation spread to drive his people into the shadows. Nina, who is running the contest broadcast, calls Kid a monster. He replies that he has been called that all his life and that he is only doing what they think he does anyway. This simple sentence speaks volumes about what has led him here. The reveal that the Helian planet was destroyed by the Corporation who own Poppy Honey is raw. The Helians were branded monsters just so the Corporation could take the poppies from their world to flavour their honey and make it a best seller. When Cora reveals she too is a Helian who cut off her horns so she could sing her song, that we see they have genuine cause but no justification for their actions.
Frozen in space, the Doctor is called to by a familiar face seemingly from inside the Tardis. And I gasped and clapped at the same time.
Susan is finally back after being teased for so long with the Sutekh business. She keeps popping up in his head urging him on so he does what the Doctor would do. He grabs a confetti cannon and flies to an airlock where he, Gary and Mike work together to bring everyone back. I loved Gary and Mike being puppy dogs as they both fall for the Doctor. And of course, it’s done to the classic Making Your Mind Up by Bucks Fizz. You can see the pain and joy in his face as the very possibility of his granddaughter just may be alive after all and connected to him. So good to have her back but will Susan appear in the finale or is this an illusion caused by freezing in space, a near death experience. Brilliant.
Ncuti Gatwa is stunning once again in this episode as we see him slip to a part of his nature that frightens Belinda. His threats towards Kid are terrifying because Kid has put ice in his heart. When we learn that the potential murder of over three trillion people triggered memories of Gallifrey dying in a second and that he doesn’t realise Belinda is safe, the dark Doctor comes to the fore. As the twelfth Doctor warned Ashildr that if Clara died, nowhere would be safe from him because the Doctor is no longer there once she dies. Belinda knows enough to get to him and bring him back from the edge before he truly does kill Kid. Only this time we see it as the Doctor intends to pummel Kid to death by hurting him three trillion times using a hard light hologram. It is only the sight of Belinda that brings him to his senses and not even Susan pleading with him to stop works. This says so much about the pain within the Doctor. People ask why he cried at the end of Empire of Death. Because he thought he was about to get part of his family back but Ruby got hers instead. Now, here Susan is, calling to him.
But the big reveal as to who Mrs Flood really is comes and she turns out to be the Rani, the evil Time Lady that battled the sixth Doctor and caused his regeneration into the seventh Doctor. Played by the late Kate O’Mara, she was a powerful adversary. And in an added twist, Mrs Flood bi-generates just as the Doctor did. Mrs Flood is now a literal yes woman to this new Rani played by Archie Panjabi.
Is this what we have now? The Doctor’s bi-generation was a myth, a legend and now the Rani does it too? I feel that this is a plot device for the next episode. So could the Rani’s downfall be the time Mrs Flood spent as a neighbour among humans giving her a conscience? One thing the Rani never was, was a mouse. Her reveal was for me, a disappointment. It’s been rumoured since Mrs Flood first appeared that she was the Rani. What causes a flood? The rain. Rearrange into the Rani. I feel it’s a bit anti-climax to be honest but I have a feeling there is another villain in the wings behind the destruction of Earth. If I am right then even the Rani is a pawn of someone else’s game.
We will wait and see. In the meantime, what a cliffhanger as the Tardis doors exploded inwards as the Tardis plunges into May 24th 2025; the day the Earth died.
Absolutely brillaint and another cracker. Where was this quality in season one?
I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.
2002 saw the release of Dog Soldiers, written and directed by Neil Marshall. A group of soldiers on a training exercise in the Scottish Highlands find themselves trapped in a life or death battle with werewolves.
It was a massive hit and quickly became a fan favourite. As well as being a great movie, there is nothing like it. Part of its success is down to the cast and their flawless chemistry throughout the movie. You believe they are really a team with all their moans and groans but all dedicated to their duty. They were led by Sarge who was played by Gotham’s Sean Pertwee.
Sean is a wonderful actor and doing a hard-nosed soldier with his cockney accent is almost like breathing to him. I met him back in 2022 at a convention in Lisburn outside Belfast and that was another off my bucket list. I never got to meet his dad, Doctor Who and Worzel Gummidge star Jon Pertwee but this made up for it. He was charming, talkative and genuinely interested in his fans.
As Sarge, Pertwee brings a life to him that you can identify with. He is glad his friend Cooper (Kevin McKidd) didn’t make the Special Forces selection run by Captain Ryan (Liam Cunningham). His squad are like family to him and he will protect them with everything he has. But he will kick their arses at every opportunity to make them the best that they can be. Sarge is an everyman and loves his football. The thought of never seeing his wife again terrifies him and when he speaks you listen.
This is best demonstrated in the campfire scene when he tells the story of a mate getting a devil tattoo. Eddie Oswald was his name and done to commemorate their first trip to Kuwait to mop up the last vestiges of resistance there. As a religious man Eddie knew God had his soul but his flesh was beyond redemption. So he got a laughing devil on his arse as Satan might save his skin. A few days later he was killed by an anti tank mine. Having to scoop his remains up with a shovel and put them in a bin bag affected Sarge deeply. But they found a piece of skin perfectly intact with the laughing devil. In a way Eddie was right, Satan did save his skin, just not all of it. Sarge has kept an open mind ever since.
When the werewolves attack, Sarge is slashed across the stomach, his intestines falling out. In agony he desperately tries to put them back in with Cooper’s help. They are conveniently rescued by zoologist Megan (Emma Cleasby) who takes them to a nearby house. Cooper gets the Sarge upstairs and manages to glue him back together after getting him drunk and punching him unconscious. A drunken Sarge tells Cooper he loves him and they beat back a werewolf that tries to come through the window.
When they discover the role Captain Ryan has played in all this and that Sarge and his team were only bait to lure out the wolves, Sarge attacks Ryan demonstrating his loyalty for his men. But he gets a taste of his future when Ryan turns into a wolf before them. Despite this, Sarge is determined to kill every wolf out there.
But it soon becomes clear that Sarge is healing too fast and now infected with the werewolf gene. He knows he is going to die but goes down fighting when Megan reveals she is also a wolf and lets her back in. He knows he is done for so forces Cooper into the cellar and cuts the gas line. He instructs Cooper to prove this happened for him and his lads. Even in his last moments, Sarge is more concerned for his men. He begins to transform as the wolves burst in and the whole house explodes.
Sarge has some classic one-liners in the movie like when Megan gives them her sob story that she never wanted to run with the pack and hoped Cooper would save them. She begins to transform after her pity party so Sarge shoots her in the head deadpanning “Somebody had to put it out of its misery.”
When they find the Special forces camp wrecked covered with blood and body parts, he tells them that if Little Red Riding Hood turns up with a bazooka and a bad attitude, he expects them to chin the bitch.
There is a great humor in the character especially when he is trapped in a toilet with an aerosol and a lighter fending a wolf off with his homemade flamethrower.
“I’m in the khazi!” he yells when Cooper calls for him. The wolf is tearing at the door and Sarge is burning it where he can. This is funny but also a possible in-joke as when his dad became Doctor Who he said there was nothing scarier than finding a yeti sitting in your loo. Now his son years later is fighting a werewolf in the loo.
Pertwee brings a huge amount to the character who provides the comic relief as well as being the backbone for his squad. They have been nothing more than fodder for a secret project. Good soldiers, his family, have been reduced to sacrificial lambs and all his hopes lie with Cooper now to expose it. You can be sure of one thing. Sarge will forever be looking down pushing for the truth to be told.
A barber’s shop where people go in and never come out, a wrathful God and the return of an old, familiar face that creates a plot hole.
From the beautiful opening where a story is animated in windows, the very first thing that this story brings to the fore is how being a person of colour now has affected the Doctor. In Lagos, he is treated like family and the barber shop , Omo’s Palace belonging to said Omo, is home just as his previous incarnation found a home with the Nobles and his third persona found it in UNIT. This is a nice reminder on how your colour reflects peoples’ attitudes. This is important not only for the audience but for the character of the Doctor himself.
In reality, we have spent so little time with this Doctor, that his time between stories and seasons should have been filled with countless adventures which we get to see when he puts out a forest fire in the opening animation. You can picture this happening and the home he found because of that is vital. The eleventh, twelfth and tenth Doctors’ eras all played on this, indicating a lifespan and more adventures than we are privy to. The Doctor has lived a long life outside of what we see as demonstrated by last week’s Shreek story.
Having the barbershop being in two places at once under the control of The Barber and his cohort, Abena is cool especially when the Doctor opens the door and is almost sucked into the Nexus, the Barber’s world wide web, on the back of a giant spider. There is a mythological stance here like Atlas holding the world on his back. But the Barber is quite insistent that he gets his stories and the Doctor is the greatest source of that yet leading to a nice Midnight nod.
When Omo says the Barber can let the others go now he has the Doctor, the betrayal the Doctor feels is palpable. Omo is no Clara whom was once asked by the Doctor, do you think I care so little for you that betrayal would make a difference? But I kind of wondered about this plot point. Omo did not summon the Doctor. He arrived by accident so the Doctor’s rage is questionable. Omo is throwing him under the bus to be sure but it could so easily have been that, only for the Vindicator being super powered by Lagos that he was ever there in the first place. Or is that part of the overall plot?
Another problem for me was the Doctor recognising Abena but not sure where from. Now I love an episode which sees the past Doctors all feature but the arrival of Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor is very welcome but very confusing at the same time. When the Barber is shown as a false god but a once human that has built the Nexus to sever the gods from humanity forever, it is then the Doctor relaises who Abena is. The Barber was the ultimate storyteller whom spread stories about the story telling Gods and with each story increased their power until he was cast aside. He has collected stories from pubs, barbers and confessional boxes and put them all in books making the Gods all powerful. They owe him but gave nothing. Now he wants revenge, to be the ultimate storyteller by killing every god which includes Abena.
The Doctor lost a bet with the god Anansi to trick him into marrying one of his daughters. Abena was that daughter and in an unexpected move, the camera turns to reveal our Doctor replaced by the Fugitive Doctor. She says it was unfair for Anansi to offer the bet and that she was a fugitive back then so could never take Abena with her. Abena lived in fear of being passed off by her father in a bet and she took her chance with the Barber. It’s great to see Jo Martin back but it causes a problem.
At the start of the episode, the Doctor says this is his first black body which the appearance of Fugitive Doctor negates. The fact that it is this version that Abena was relying on to save her also makes no sense as the Doctor has no memories of that incarnation. Does this mean he now has full memory of his time in that body or is it a clever misdirection to wink at the viewers? As I said, I loved to see her back but it raises too many questions. But as we see, the Barber’s story engine is powered now by all the Doctor’s incarnations who appear on the screens, some quoting lines, some not.
In the end, The Story and the Engine is my favourite episode so far because it is so beautifully written and serves Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor well. It’s just a delight to see everything resolved. Everybody lives. Given we have fought so many gods since The Giggle, it was in danger of being overkill between Lux, Maestro, Sutekh and the Toymaker. But to have the Doctor be able to see that for all their faults, humanity at this point is still reliant on them as part fo their very psyche, that he must save them for a change.
Doctor Who began all those years ago as an educational programe and Abena’s braid story I never knew about. I love when I leave understanding another culture a little bit more. Hopefully, this will inspire people, not just kids, to explore this further. But what I really came away with is the fact we are all the same. It doesn’t matter about what you look like on the outside. We all have a story. We all smile. We all cry. We all pee. We are all a pillar for others even when you don’t know it. Community breeds in the unlikeliest of places like the pub, like a barbers, like a bus stop. Stories keep us going every day whether it’s in a canteen or out having a smoke break. Stories can inflate egos. Stories can bring same egos crashing down. Stories enhance life and display tthe human tendency to exaggerate. Stories keep those we have lost alive and vibrant. Stories entrance young ones generation after generation.
If you are alone right now, you have a story. Reach out and tell it on whatever platform you have or maybe to the person in the chippy waiting for their fish supper. Every one of us make the world go round and it keeps us together in the end.
Everything is tied up and no twist this time; just simple good old fashioned story telling. Amy Pond once said, we are all stories in the end and this episode is not only a timely reminder of that but a subtle hint to read more. We have kind of lost the oral tradiions of the past save a few cultures and with heads in phones immersed with social media, we don’t talk any more. Not really.
Aside from my minor issues, this is as perfect as it gets. Beautifully written with words that embed in your brain and make you think.
By the way, who was the kid in the alleyway Belinda saw?
This week we face off against werewolves in the Scottish countryside. Is Dog Soldiers as good as we remember or does memory cheat? Join the craic, you won’t look back!
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
I am not sure if Seaquest was meant to end after the second season or not but it certainly seemed so given the cataclysmic events of the season finale Splashdown. Seaquest seemed to struggle to gain viewers, created its identity with production movements and behind the scenes cast terminations and resignations.
The first season was a more adult scientific show with the odd jaunt into the sci-fi realm with episodes like Such Great Patience. In season two the producers went for a much younger crew and a huge jump into sci-fi.
This included the introduction of a new human species the Daggers, created to be the ultimate soldiers but it all failed miserably. When a Dagger gives birth, which should be impossible, they rebel demanding equal rights. A Dagger joined the crew, Dagwood played by Peter DeLuise. He was by far the most fascinating character with a lot of depth to explore and Dagwood became the most well-rounded character on the show.
Seaquest over that season would meet killer plants, Greek ghosts, aliens, mad psychics, be transported to the future and evil clones. Every cliché was covered but the cast were young and energetic and fun enough to keep you watching regardless of how dumb some of the stories were. In one episode, to save the past and the future they free two teenagers from a life dependent on computers. They are then left to repopulate the planet with no guidance. Did no-one see the problem with this idea in repopulating the world? In the episode it is mentioned that there were other clusters of teenagers but they were now dead. While it’s an allegory to Adam and Eve, how will these two children deal with childbirth and all that comes with it, never mind day to day living and learning. Had nobody watched Wrong Turn to see what happens with in-breeding? The computer begged Lucas to be turned off so stuff like this meant audiences left with ratings dropping badly.
Lead actor Roy Scheider went public about how he hated the show as it was not the show he was promised it would be. His contract meant he could not quit and had to return for a few episodes in Season Three. In that season he was replaced by a new Captain; Oliver Hudson, Michael Ironside.
But by the end of Season Two it may have been they were not getting a third season and wanted to end on a bang. The Colbys did this by Fallon being abducted by a UFO. But Seaquest went one better. Why not kill off the entire cast, bar a couple?
Earlier in the second season Mark Hamill played Tobias, a genius who was blind and being hunted by a vicious alien. It turns out he was also an alien living in human form in secret on Earth for years. The arrival of a Stormer that can possess a body forces him to reveal his secret. He is from a world called Hyperion that is forever at war and because Tobias tried to preach peace he was seen as a criminal and fled to Earth for safety. His oldest friend and Bridger’s buddy, astronaut Scott Keller, played by Galactica 80’s Kent McCord, is shocked. The Stormer defeated, Tobias leaves to travel the universe in his ship along with Scott on the opportunity of a lifetime.
In the finale Scott appears to some of the Seaquest crew telling them to meet him at the Christmas Tree as he needs their help urgently. It is his term for a canyon they rescued him from previously named so because it had so many branches. They are ripped from the ocean by a spaceship and transported to the planet Hyperion.
They are attacked and forced to destroy a hostile sub. They meet Tobias again whom can now see. They witness the KrayTak execute Scott live on air despite Bridger’s pleas. Tobias pleads their case and brings representatives from the native Hyperion people who beg for help. The KrayTaks flooded the planet and have a space station in orbit but the natives want to use their tractor beams to knock a comet into the space station.
While they work on that, they need the Seaquest crew to defend them against underwater attacks. With their underwater knowledge the crew can help the natives win the war. They are introduced to refugees among them a little girl before deciding what to do. Bridger has doubts and sends Piccolo and Darwin out on a mission to see what they can find. They find Scott alive and well who reveals the truth.
They have been played and it is in fact the KrayTaks the Seaquest have been dealing with and Tobias is in fact a Stormer from counter-intelligence. Stormers are the foot soldiers of the KrayTaks who have stolen all the tech they have and are nothing but politicians. What the crew thought was a colony is a docking station. They intend to crash the comet into the planet destroying all resistance. They need to get to the mothership and take it over to prevent that from happening.
Leaving Ford (Don Franklin) to command the Seaquest with orders to self destruct if necessary, Bridger takes a team to the station where they rescue Tobias and plant explosives to take out the tractor beams the Kraytaks intend to use. There is no way home if they do this. Unlike Captain Janeway in Voyager, this is their only option. However they are attacked by the KrayTaks and their Stormers in an epic battle, Star Wars like fire fight cutting them off from the shuttle. Things get worse when the Stormers firebomb the shuttle. There is no way off. They are being overrun by the KrayTak forces. Bridger warns Ford of their situation and tells him to destroy the mothership by any means necessary.
Lucas is entrusted to Dagwood (Peter deLuise) and forced off the ship along with Darwin. Ford sets all weapons on the mothership but before they can execute, the KrayTaks launch an underwater barrier mine. In a lovely character moment, communications officer O’Neill (Ted Raimi) clutches his crucifix knowing they are all about to die. The Seaquest is blown apart leaving Bridger with only one option. He tells Lucas to never let them take away what he believes and to tell what happened today.
Gripping Henderson’s (Kathy Evison) hand, Bridger closes his eyes as the enemy swarms in. They are consumed by a massive explosion leaving Lucas and Dagwood alone. Lucas vows to get their story home. In the meantime they have to find survivors and rebuild. The legacy of the Seaquest now lies with a teenager shunned by his age group for his intelligence and abandoned by his father and a Dagger that is hated where he comes from because of his skin he is yet trusted by Bridger to protect a boy he considers a son. Not forgetting Darwin of course.
The camera pans up from the two of them in a dingy to an alien sky and we fade out.
Now if that had been the end of the Seaquest story forever, it would have been a cracker. Well, it still is a cracker but we know most of the crew are returned for Season Three.
However, this does not take away from the tension and excitement of this ending. Regardless of what you think of the other episodes there is a humanity and vibrancy among the crew that makes you want to be part of it. There is no way the first cast would have made this as exciting it was. As with every hero’s death you start speculating on how they can come back from such devastation. In this case as it stood, they would not.
The KrayTaks are actually pretty devious. Their appearance is one of humanoid while the Stormers are monsters. It is a classic tale of don’t judge by appearances. They claimed that they had no underwater technology given the planet has been only recently flooded. So the shock on Ford’s face at seeing the mine is well acted. There is no time to move out of the way as they see their own deaths before them. The director Anson Williams, did a great job on this one cutting between battles to ramp up the excitement and the moment Bridger closes his eyes, you know all hope is lost. The special effects are top notch and if ever you want to go out in style this is the way to do it.
This time we look at the remake of the classic Steve McQueen movie, The Blob. Did the makers improve on the original or was it just a mess to be shovelled up?
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.
The Twilight Saga (Caius Volturi)
When: August 9th–10th, 2025
Where: Convention Centre Dublin
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Tickets available now at www.dublincomiccon.com
The Time Warriors and Beyond 