Doctor Who (2023) 2-04: Lucky Day

Episode:

888

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Serial:

316

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Writer:

Pete McTighe

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Director:

Peter Hoar

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Air Date:

03-May-2025

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, all I do is write about Doctor Who, constantly. This time it's the episode Lucky Day, from season 2. Or series 15, if that's how you're counting them. 41 is also an option.

I know something about this episode already (or someone, to be precise), because it was given away on the title reveal video... and in the thumbnail on iPlayer, but I'll not mention who because this bit up here is a spoiler-free zone.

I'll spoil something about Pete McTighe's previous Doctor Who episodes though: I didn't like them. Well that's not entirely true, as I thought Praxeus was harmless enough, it just fell short of what I expect from this series. And Kerblam! was actually pretty decent, except for the morally dubious resolution. Though both episodes were from the Chris Chibnall era, which could be a bit ethically wonky at times, so maybe this will be different. I do know that he's done a lot of work for the DVDs and Blu-ray collections, so his Doctor Who cred seems high.

This review will upload SPOILERS into your brain through your eyes if you aren't already aware what happens in the episode.

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Oh no, it's midnight again!

Hang on, this is only the second shot of the episode and they've already messed up. The episode begins on New Years Day 2007 and surprise we're back in London! Because RTD just couldn't stay away for more than two episodes, even in a season about the Doctor trying to get Belinda home.

That's not the mistake though. You see, the Doctor accidentally arrived 12 months late in series 1's Aliens of London and the show's 'present day' was a year ahead for a while. This means that the episode The Christmas Invasion took place in Christmas 2006.
 

Doctor Who (2005): The Christmas Invasion

And here's what Big Ben looked like a week earlier. They were still fixing it after the Slitheen drove a ship through it.

There's a obvious explanation for this: the cracks in time retconned the Slitheen away like they did to the Dalek invasions. Though the Sycorax attack in the screencap is mentioned in this episode so that still happened. There's another possible explanation: the person who tells them that it's 2007 is a habitual liar with a poor grasp of reality.

Young kid Conrad Clark witnesses the TARDIS materialising near the London Eye, as it often does, so he's the one who provides them with the year.

It's not the year Belinda was hoping for, but the Doctor still gives him 50p he found on the street and says it's his lucky day. The kid snatches it and runs off, and that's presumably the end of this adventure for the Doctor and Belinda! They can pack up their vindicator and head off without any harrowing high concept sci-fi rigmarole. We didn't even get the costume change scene from them this time, which is a bit jarring after three episodes that flowed together without any gaps.

Incidentally, I'm not keen on how Fifteen is kind of channelling the Fifth Doctor with that coat. Though I like how they're being lit up by the fireworks.

I just like these fireworks in general. They've got a beautiful display going on here.

Conrad runs off to tell his mother that the Doctor and Belinda Chandra just appeared in a blue box and then gets a smack for lying again. Actually it seems more like he was mostly hit for trying to get her attention while she was enjoying the fireworks. He just wanted her to come and see it for herself.

We've learned so much about this poor kid in just 13 seconds, that's some efficient storytelling! But his story continues as he narrates what happens next. How he kept hearing stories of the box from all across the globe and interviewed eyewitnesses. And now he's found someone who has actually been inside it.

It's season 1 companion Ruby Sunday! Congratulations to everyone who managed to avoid learning that she was in this, I know that at least a few people pulled it off.

So Conrad is actually a guy telling his stories of the Doctor to the internet just like Elton in Love & Monsters. But that story was all about Elton trying to get the Doctor's companion through her mother Jackie, while Conrad already found a companion before the opening titles!

I'm sorry this picture's so narrow, by the way. The shot pans over from Conrad to Ruby and I couldn't resist putting them in the same picture. It's funny how this starts with her being interviewed just like her first story The Church on Ruby Road. But her time with the Doctor has replaced the search for her mother as the biggest thing on her mind.

OPENING CREDITS

Hang on, this is all wrong. The TARDIS is swooping across the screen to reveal the names instead of flying through them. Also welcome back Millie Gibson to the opening titles!

This is a bit like how former companion Billie Piper returned to play a major role in the Doctor-light story Turn Left. Except this one is also companion-light, like Love & Monsters or Blink, so she's basically coming back to steal an episode from the regular cast. Well, her and Conrad, who actually seems to be the protagonist so far.

The next scene is a flashback to an unseen Doctor and Ruby story taking place in 2024, but it's told from Conrad's point of view as he stumbled across the TARDIS by accident and went to investigate the weird snarling noises nearby.

Hang on, is he trying to dress like the Doctor? This is basically what Fifteen was wearing in the teaser, except in different colours. Also he's missing the hat.

Conrad heads into a room filled with mannequins, so right away I was wondering if this was going to be a surprise Auton episode (we hardly ever get Autons!) And honestly, that's perfect for this episode. Anyone who saw Spearhead from Space or Rose during their time with the Doctor has learned to see mannequins as a threat, just like how Ruby would now be scared of... double basses and landmines I guess.

But nope, these are not Auton noises, they sound more like big cats. And Conrad gets slimed by something, which is also not their typical MO.

It turns out this story took place about half an hour after The Devil's Chord, so the Doctor and Ruby had only just finished dancing back to the TARDIS and getting changed. Ruby's gotten slimed by the monster herself, which turns out to be a bad thing! Not because it's a bit like vomit, though that's also bad. Poor Ruby, this kept happening to her. It's bad because the pheromones get into your blood and mark you as the creature's prey.

Fortunately the Doctor has an antidote on him! So that's convenient. He lies and assures her that it doesn't taste disgusting, which isn't setting a good example for anyone watching! Though the person spying on them doesn't take the opportunity to run over and get some antidote of his own.

He does look Ruby up on his phone though and now he's talking to her on the Lucky Day podcast! So that worked out.

Hey, there's all those newspaper clippings from the episode title reveal trailer! That's all I knew about this episode going in, well except for Ruby being in it.

The episode's in a bit of a tricky place here, because even though this is episode 888 of a series that's been running for 62 years, I don't actually know what Ruby is allowed to be saying on a podcast. I don't know what the public knows about aliens and what's been retconned out of existence. I don't know if it's okay if she mentions the Doctor or the TARDIS, or what UNIT's been up to.

She does say that aliens are real and they all know that, so that helps. He brings up that some trolls say that UNIT is using monsters as a cover story for something else, but she says that nope they're definitely saving us from the monsters.

Also he's being really clumsy, knocking over his cup, dropping all his papers. He's matching her awkwardness and nervousness.

At first I thought she was going to notice something suspicious in the papers, something that would push the plot forward. But nope, they're not important. This is just a bit of a 'meet cute', which is the extremely technical term for the bit in a romantic comedy where the two leads are introduced to each other in interesting circumstances. Or at least that's what Conrad is going for, as he invites her out for coffee.

The two of them have a chat about the adventure he witnessed, and she tells him about the Shreek. It comes back every year to hunt its prey and it would've been hunting him except UNIT already caught it.

Ruby explains how the Shreek hunt and we get an imagined demonstration as they talk. She tells him that the creature allows itself to be glimpsed in order to create fear in its victim. Hang on, they just did this with the Midnight entity last episode!

The director did some good work here, as day turns to night, the lights start flicking, and the creature can be seen lurking outside as the camera turns. Though whose imagination are we seeing? I assumed it was Conrad imagining his fate but now I'm thinking it was probably Ruby. Either way he's remembering everything she says.

Fortunately she's got an antidote for him to take, presumably produced by UNIT, seeing as they've clearly been in touch with her. Conrad reveals what he got from the Doctor all those years ago: he's wearing 50p coin around his neck. The meeting clearly made a genuine impact on him, he's not faking that part.

Then we get to see Ruby's mother and gran again! Ruby left the show but they still get to make an appearance this season. I guess we've left Conrad's POV and now this is Ruby's story.

Cherry and Carla have checking the internet and he seems legit. So they at least tried to look for red flags. I'm not sure how a guy with such a large online following and such online opinions has managed to be so covert, but he's apparently managed to keep his name and his Lucky Day podcast separate from all the other stuff he openly does.

There are no red flags in the music or direction either as they go out for a proper date.

The only thing that put me on edge here is the fact that this is a Doctor Who episode and we've gone 13 minutes without a threat. There's no hint at what's going to happen, but something's going to happen and the longer Ruby's sweet romance continues the bigger the chance that it's going to happen soon.

Hey Ruby's other mother is hanging out with them! It's nice to see they're all getting on so well, especially considering that this is clearly this season's 73 Yards. It was messed up how Carla abandoned her in that story. And Kate!

Speaking of 73 Yards, Ruby's going off to spend some time in a village in this as well. She's spending a weekend with Conrad, hopefully somewhere far from any fairy circles.

The story is still all about their relationship, so if you don't want to see two people sitting down in a variety of rooms and having drinks this is not the episode for you.

Though there is a hint that something could happen any time now, as Ruby spots the bus stop sign glitching out as if it's been affected by the background radiation of a Shreek. So either the episode's about the Shreek hunting Conrad or it's about Ruby jumping at shadows and waiting for something to go wrong. Or it could be something else. They've already showed us a monster so they've ticked that off the list; there doesn't have to be an alien threat at the end of this.

There's a clue immediately afterwards as Conrad introduces Ruby to his friends. Like Sparky the electrician who rewired his kitchen. And has 'Sparky's Electrics' written on his hat. We never find out, but it's not hard to connect 'electric sign glitching' and 'guy who's good with electrics'.

Well now that all the exciting flickering sign drama is over they can get back to drinking at a table.

I think this was filmed in a real pub and it seems way nicer than the one in 73 Yards. I mean the people are nicer, with how they don't gang up to troll visitors with ghost stories. Though the flickering lights are a bit of a concern.

Also the pub landlord is the Castellan from Arc of Infinity and The Five Doctors.

Ruby decides that she'd better go make sure that the plot isn't about to start and heads outside to make a phone call to UNIT.

This location almost seems like a deliberate in-joke. In real life this is Welsh pub and it's on a road called... Church Street. She's the Ruby on Church Road.

It's late at UNIT HQ and the only person in the office is Kate (and Colonel Ibrahim...), so Ruby has the boss herself helping her out on the computer. Turns out that they're detecting no quantum echo and no sign of faults in the power grid either.

Hey she's got a photo of the Brig on her desk! And they're back in that giant UNIT set. I suppose we'll be seeing a lot of this in the spin-off UNIT miniseries as well (co-written by the same writer!)

Both characters realise they could be concerned about nothing, especially as Conrad's taken the antidote and the Shreek is locked up. Ruby is on alert all the time now as any moment her life could turn into a Doctor Who episode again.

But as Ruby ends the call, Kate hears some distortion in the audio and decides that it's her turn to be paranoid.

Well the Shreek's still where they left it, in containment. In the spooky hallway. How can a room have so many lights and still be so dark? Also Kate has to get right up to the window to see the Shreek, setting herself up for a jump scare. I suppose that's just how this kind of thing works though. I mean the Shreek works by popping out for a moment to scare its prey, I'm not talking about horror clichés or anything like that...

Back in the pub, Ruby admits to Conrad that she's suffering PTSD from her experiences with the Doctor and every day for her is fight or flight. She fought actual gods, and she was eaten by a double bass, and she was kidnapped by goblins. Damn, season 1 was kind of weird wasn't it? It's no wonder someone might think she was stretching the truth a bit.

And then halfway through the episode the lights go out.

This is just like Ruby described earlier, with the lights flickering and the creature lurking around outside in sight just long enough for them to catch a glimpse of it. My first thought was that it could be her imagination again and the scene was going to snap back to her sitting there with Conrad. Nope!

Either someone has used what she told Conrad earlier to put on an elaborate prank, which let's face it is not unusual for village pubs in this show, or there's another Shreek on the hunt.

Conrad admits he didn't actually take the antidote. He wanted to be brave, like the Doctor. Ruby's not impressed.

Hey it's... her! That woman from that other story! She was only in two episodes two years ago so I have no idea what her name is, but it's nice to see some familiar UNIT agents showing up in UNIT HQ.

Shirley Anne Bingham, that's her name, I just looked it up. UNIT scientific adviser #56.

Kate gets the nearest ground team heading to the village so it'll look really dramatic when they join them and arrive at the same time in their helicopter. Meanwhile, back at the pub, Ruby establishes herself as the one in charge by telling the guy who has a problem with it to go get some fresh air if he wants to see what will happen.

Though Sparky's missing, so she decides to grab a poker and heads out to look for him alone.

And then Conrad sneaks up on her with a cricket bat while she's busy being terrified!

Dude, are you trying to get killed? When an alien predator is hunting you specifically that's the wrong time to go out and give your girlfriend some backup. And this "I just want to be brave like the Doctor" thing is getting creepy.

Fortunately UNIT arrives to give her some proper backup, though they've left their theme music behind this time. Which sucks. Hopefully they'll be more useful here than they were in 73 Yards when they just abandoned her.

Outside they find Sparky's hat, a shoe, and two Shreeks looking pretty great in those headlights. That's how you light a practical suit and make it look good.

That's how they did this, by the way. These two creatures were actually performers in monster suits.

I mean in the episode that's what they were. UNIT just got trolled!

Behind the scenes, these suits were apparently created by a designer who looked at the proper suit once and then worked from memory in order to create an authentic look. They did a bloody good job.

This twist continues the theme of Doctor Who's reality being chipped away as now even the monsters are taking their masks off and laughing at the absurdity of it. I can't really complain though, as Doctor Who did the same twist in the First Doctor's second season and it worked pretty well back then as well.

The biggest twist, the one the episode doesn't even hint at, is that Conrad was the one behind the whole thing! He runs a group called Think Tank that's presumably unrelated to the other group called Think Tank from the Fourth Doctor story Robot. This one is made of conspiracy theorists who think aliens aren't real. They're dedicated to proving that UNIT is running a hoax, and he's live-streaming this whole thing to his followers. I'm not sure how Ruby's mother missed that in her Google search.

Interesting that the coin he used to prove that aliens exist to his mother is visible over the shirt. The dude knows it's real.

He also pulls a Lance from The Runaway Bride, telling Ruby that he never loved her and he hated having to put up with her. He even insults her name. Though when Lance did it to Donna I could see where he was coming from as Donna could be a bit loud. I can't see anyone hating Ruby though, she's just too nice and they had nothing but good times together. It makes me wonder if he only really turned on her when she didn't respect his show of courage.

Though this stunt was pretty much going to end that relationship either way, as he's accusing her of being a liar. Everyone in UNIT in fact. He tells his followers that there are no Shreek, no Cybermen, no Sycorax, no Yetis in the Underground. We don't get flashbacks to go along with this, but I've got you covered:

Yetis and Cybermen attacked London in the Second Doctor stories The Web of Fear and The Invasion respectively. Web of Fear is notable as it's the story that introduced Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, and The Invasion introduced UNIT. The Sycorax were the enemies in The Christmas Invasion, which introduced UNIT to the modern show (and gave us the UNIT theme that this episode refuses to use).

Okay, so the public knows about all these things then? Alright, I'm learning something here.

I'm kind of fascinated by how bizarre Conrad's plan is. It's like faking a fire to bring in the fire service and then saying "Hah, tricked you, the fire you came here to put out doesn't exist... and you're lying to the world that it does!" But I can buy that people would see this as a gotcha, especially if they're conspiracy nuts. Conrad shuts down Shirley's offer to show them evidence by accusing her of taking benefits. It's about emotions rather than logic.

Conrad accuses UNIT of screwing with people to keep them scared, which is ironically what he's doing right now. It's how the Shreek operates as well now that I think about it. But Kate shows them how UNIT actually operates by having them all arrested.

Cut to Trinity Wells reporting on "Fascism on the streets of Britain" as an "innocent podcaster is in custody after a harmless stunt". Et tu, Trinity? She's not even under the influence of the Giggle this time.

The episode goes full RTD here with clips from different TV shows reporting on what happened. Including a random clip of Jonathan Ross. The trouble is that television is so clear and HD these days that it's hard to tell the difference between Doctor Who and the other things they're showing!

A very smug Conrad got released after public protests, so he's now the one being interviewed, getting his message across to a bigger audience than ever. I was worried at the start that Ruby was accidentally going to blow UNIT's operation wide open, but Conrad's blown it wide shut.

This is the kind of betrayal that requires the sympathy of two mothers, as poor Ruby is suffering right now. I hope they took his photo off the fridge.

On the plus side, this shows that whatever happens here is still going to be a million times better for Ruby than what happened to her in 73 Yards. In that timeline everyone abandoned her, including her own mother, but here she's got everyone's support. Well, except for the people outside throwing eggs at her car when she gets in.

Things definitely suck for all the members of UNIT that just got doxxed, their names and addresses published on the internet. This new version of UNIT came out of the shadows with their big shiny skyscraper and now they're getting punished for it.

It's not impossible to guess his inside man, the guy was listening to his podcast at the start and he's the only UNIT member lurking around we haven't met before, but I'm not sure it's even supposed to be a mystery. Though it is a mystery how they pulled it off and got away with it.

It doesn't destroy my suspension of disbelief that someone on the inside could acquire and leak this information, but it feels like it was too easy and UNIT are too clueless about who did it. No one's asking "Who had this access to this information?"

Rose left me scared of mannequins, The Devil's Chord taught me to be wary of pianos, and now I guess I'm learning that Dot and Bubble taught me to beware a screen full of faces. Especially when each of them has been convinced to hate the heroes. Run and hide, the monsters are coming: the human race.

One of them says that this is legit like an old episode of Scooby Doo, though they might be thinking about the wrong episode as we did the haunted cinema a couple of stories ago. Someone else says "Conrad literally took on the army to wake us up" and that's an interesting phrase.

Part of the problem I have with the episode is that it's not just showing how much harm can be done by people spreading disinformation, it's also kind of vilifying people protesting an organisation based on footage they saw online. Swap the context so that Conrad released a clip of actual police brutality and this scene of people getting woke and trying to fight for change would have a very different tone.

Parliament is debating the UK's contribution to UNIT, which wouldn't be a killing blow to a global organisation, but definitely doesn't help! If there's one thing I've learned from video games is that you do not do anything that will lead to XCOM getting less funding. That's the path to the bad ending.

The UK HQ's security status has already been downgraded and this could apparently lead to their tech going public, somehow. So they are keeping secrets, but it's okay because they're the good guys.

Shirley has (finally) learned that 8 years ago, Conrad applied to join UNIT and didn't make the cut, so her assumption is that this whole thing is just payback. Ruby thinks it's about power and attention as his dead mother never gave him any. Shirley reveals that he's been lying about his mother, she's not dead and he's bought her a villa with all his vast sums of cash. So that complicates the 'this is all because he wasn't raised right' theory.

They still need to find the mole, so they (finally) do a search looking for employees with links to Conrad, coming up with two results: Ruby and a guy called Jordan Lang. The dude's been subscribed to all kinds of dodgy podcasts, immersing himself in an echo chamber of disinformation.

Jordan isolates security guards behind doors to make a path and gets Conrad inside the building. Funny thing is, both these people know that aliens are real but they're still taking crazy risks in order to prove they don't.

This is the point where the episode starts to lose me a bit. Conrad is winning, he's got more supporters than ever, he's making vast sums of cash, so what's motivating him to throw it all away by doing something this blatantly illegal on camera? This feels like the desperate final gambit of someone who got thoroughly outplayed in the second act.

Though he hasn't turned the camera on yet, so no one sees him take the assault rifle from the unconscious soldier. No one except for Jordan, who thinks bringing a gun is a step too far. The two of them wrestle for the weapon, a shot goes off, one of them walks away.

Going from prank, to leak, to armed assault in less than 5 minutes of screen time is a bit bizarre, especially as no matter how this goes down, with all these cameras on him the only place he can go from here is prison.

Kate allows Conrad to enter the command centre, armed, because we need to finish this! She's got plenty of her own folks with guns and their bullets will work on him, it's fine.

Conrad walks in with his camera on and demands that they show everyone watching his live stream the fake alien suits and their advanced technology. You know, the stuff created to track and stop aliens.

He goes through the 'what will piss Kate off most' checklist, including pointing his gun at Ruby and insulting the Brig. You don't have to be a fan of the classic show to realise that you do not disrespect the Brig. Oh plus they find out that he shot one of her people. He says that maybe "he was an actor or he never existed", which is actually true, as this is just a TV show.

Kate's way past the point where she respects Conrad's right to continue living, which she demonstrates by very slowly releasing the Shreek from the containment cube! It takes a minute for the creature to finally come out, but once it does the hunt begins.

Kate's really going too far here. I mean I know she tried to nuke London that one time, but this is on camera! We're trying to prove that UNIT is acting in our best interests here.

I feel like there should've been more awareness of this in the script, like Kate knew that she was sacrificing her career to save UNIT. Because it's still a crime to release a lion on someone even if they don't believe that lions exist. I think.

Maybe Ruby could've stopped her and proved that the world is weirder than some people believe by making it snow right in front of him. She could've made it snow all over London, something all the protestors outside the building could experience first hand. It would've made more sense than trying to live-stream a creature that interferes with electricity. And then they could've brought the Shreek out to show the public afterwards.

Funny thing is, this actually proves that Conrad didn't take the antidote, he wasn't lying about that. Even though he's one of the few people to have witnessed the creature. But it doesn't make any sense. Why wouldn't he have limited the threat to his life by taking a vaccination... never mind, I figured it out already.

Kate's apparently not going to do a damn thing to save Conrad, even when he confesses his lies. So Shirley passes a taser to Ruby and she goes over to sort the creature out. It's a nice resolution, to have her face her fear of an actual real threat and deal with it. It doesn't work though, the creature gets back up and bites Conrad's arm, so perhaps she wasn't as concerned as she should've been!

But on the plus side Conrad is now in serious pain and they live-streamed the creature physically interacting with him and leaving a wound as evidence. He was already starting to mock them, saying that their special effects have gotten better, so this probably helped. Also their special effects have gotten a lot better, as this looked a lot more convincing than the Slitheen or the werewolf in the early seasons of the revival.

Conrad's going to live, Jordan too, so this is one of those 'everybody lives' episodes. Though Colonel Ibrahim thinks Kate went way too far and implies there may be consequences from Geneva.

There are two new hashtags trending, #IStandWithUNIT and #HotTaserLady, though Shirley can't confirm if it's referring to her or Ruby. Man, RTD sure likes encouraging fans to interact with social media.

Kate shows her compassionate side by going to check on Ruby, who realises that she's been stuck in limbo waiting for the Doctor to come back, or the end of the world (that's May 24th, not long to go now). So she's going to be going away for a while as she tries to sort herself out.

The episode cuts to Conrad in prison, with a sci-fi device around his wounded arm, and then the Doctor materialises the TARDIS around him!

Damn, the console room is looking nice today.

The Doctor just dropped by to give Conrad a bit of a lecture about how he's trying to fight on behalf of ordinary people and folks like him aren't helping with how they weaponise lies, turn fear into currency, and fill the air with noise. I'm usually not keen on TV shows getting preachy at the audience and writers venting their frustration by yelling at the world, I think sci-fi works best when it's allegorical. But I think it kind of works here because this time some of the people it's aimed at might be watching the show.

But it only kind of works, as the Doctor does his whole speech and Conrad just doesn't care. Huge shock. There is no catharsis here, he's just given him the attention he craves. Even when the Doctor reveals that he's not the Ghost of Christmas Future here to change his life and Conrad's going to die in prison age 49, Conrad just rejects it. Rejects the Doctor's whole reality. And then tells him to get off his world.

So nice job Doctor, great use of your time. Though he did get one thing out of this meeting: a name. It turns out that this Doctor is from right after Sutekh, and Conrad was the one who told him about Belinda Chandra! That is not where I expected this to be going, so nice job Doctor Who.

Doctor Who (2023) 2-02 - Lux

This puts a bit of a spin on their scenes in earlier episodes as it means that the Doctor wasn't trying to find Belinda because she was a mystery to solve or because she was important, he was trying to find his friend! The Doctor already knew she was his companion so it makes sense that he'd seem a little too keen for them to go on adventures together. He had no idea that she was with him reluctantly and wasn't really into the TARDIS lifestyle.

Incidentally it's really unusual to have an episode where the Doctor's appearances are out of order like this. Blink is the other one that jumps to mind.

And then the omnipresent Mrs Flood makes her appearance right on cue. The character has done nothing but annoy me since The Church on Ruby Road, but this time she actually does something, or at least it's implied that she will: she's going to let Conrad out of prison to join her team! The episode won't even give us the satisfaction of Conrad dying in captivity.

Some people have wondered why this episode exists in a season about the Doctor and Belinda trying to get back home, but if Conrad's going to be important, then its themes are relevant too. Conrad's so detached from reality that he has to ask if he imagined his visit to the TARDIS and she subverts reality by jumping between scenes and talking to the camera. Really they were made for each other.


CONCLUSION

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You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: they don't alter their views to fit the facts; they alter the facts to fit their views. That's something the Fourth Doctor says in The Face of Evil but it's kind of appropriate for this episode as well.

The first half of Lucky Day is all about Ruby and Conrad falling in love and it doesn't let anything slip about what he's really up to. You can rewatch it looking for clues, trying to find a hint of a suspicious expression or the sinister bit of music that gives it away, I don't think you'll find anything. The closest is him looking up Ruby on his phone which he admits from the start. This has a side effect of making the first half kind of boring. Ruby meets someone who gets what she's been through, they go on some dates, they take a trip to a village and hang out with his friends. The dialogue is nice without being all that funny, there's no drama. There's not much anything. It forced me to be patient and wait to see where it was going.

But I think that was the right choice and I think it works. If you've seen Doctor Who before then you know there's a metaphorical bomb under the table, and that puts you in Ruby's shoes. Her story is as much about her PTSD as it is about Conrad, and it's easy to relate with her when you're seeing the same signs and genuinely don't know what it means. Doctor Who always has a monster, but it gets that out of the way at the start with the flashbacks, so this really could have been an episode about her dealing with life after travelling with the Doctor.

And then there's the second half, where Conrad reveals that it was a con and the monster she should've been wary of was him. Fortunately she had a support system to help her fight him too, she's not entirely abandoned this time. And the episode doesn't forget about Ruby after Conrad's defeated, her anxiety isn't just part of the misdirect to be discarded when it's served its purpose.

The trouble I have with the second half is that it's all about characters doing really extreme things that make no one look good. Like UNIT's response to someone pranking them is about as pitiful as their cybersecurity. I can understand them struggling to respond to the online movement, but they kind of come off looking inept here, which is a problem when the episode relies on them being the trusted guardians of our alien technology. Then Conrad decides to break into UNIT with a rifle, which is pretty much a losing move in any country with rules against breaking into military facilities and pointing guns at people, so that's the tension over. Kate responds by releasing a space tiger on him, which would've been an awesome move in self-defence, but not so much as a stunt to destroy his credibility, as afterwards even her team thinks she's gone too far! Afterwards I was left thinking 'what the hell just happened in this story?'

And Conrad's movement itself is a bit awkward. The episode is by the guy who wrote Kerblam! so I was on guard for a good story with a bit of a wonky moral message, and that's pretty much what I got. I mean it is unambiguously against grifters who spread disinformation and rile people up to get a following. It is absolutely sick of them dragging our world into shit. And Doctor Who has shown us that when a man uses the media to spread fear and lies to single-handedly undermine our institutions things aren't all sunshine and rainbows afterwards.

In fact you tend to get a monster taking control afterwards and building missiles to conquer the galaxy. #HarrietJoneswasn'tthatbad

But until the world is a shiny Star Trek utopia there's always going to be a need for people to take on the status quo and fight to make things better. We know UNIT is good... mostly, but what if they hadn't been? If Conrad had been telling the truth this would've been a very different story and I feel like there should've been just a little more in there to clarify there's a difference between people doing investigative journalism and catching scammers, and liars spreading conspiracy bullshit to support a harmful agenda. The episode has characters basically saying 'These organisations are just doing their best to keep you safe, so stop complaining about them', which works very well when you're talking about UNIT or folks getting vaccines to people, but those aren't the people getting caught out on camera in real life.

A couple of lines like "You've got people convinced that you're the one giving them the truth, but the truth isn't on your side so you had to invent something more appealing," or something would've clarified the target.

Conrad himself is a bit confusing in his motivations and beliefs but that makes sense to me as his defining trait is that he's a liar. You can't trust anything he says, you can't take his actions at face value, you can only guess at what's driving him. I found that interesting, as the episode could've just made him the Bad Podcast Man, or the guy who was smacked by his mother as a kid for telling the truth for once in his life. Instead he's a mystery that we may not have enough clues to solve.

I think the biggest hints are the things he does that don't benefit him. He wears the coin, his evidence of the Doctor, under his clothes all the time. He didn't take the antidote, even though he saw the Shreek first hand. He can't stand people not thinking he's good enough to join in, lashing out at Ruby and UNIT when they turn down his help. Maybe after hearing all the eyewitness stories of the Doctor he just felt left out and decided that if he couldn't be part of it he'd tear it all down. One thing is certain: he's the most frustrating villain that Doctor Who's had for a while. But I'm not angry about him apparently being set up to come back.

Oh no, I've just had a horrible thought. What if we have to pull a Robot Revolution and listen to every ninth word to hear his truth?


RATING

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Both Conrad and Kate broke my own personal sense of reality with their choices at the end, so that loses it points. Plus the episode kept the deception up for so long that it's a nice-but-kind-of-dull romance story all the way up to the halfway point. But it's got enough substance to its themes and characters that my brain went out of low-power mode to process them and that earned it some points back. So in the end, it gets:

6/10

It was fine, I liked it. Could've been better if it'd put a bit more thought into its message.

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NEXT EPISODE

Next on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm visiting Satellite Five for The Long Game!

But if you'd rather talk about Lucky Day, now would be a good time. The comment box below hungers for your words.