Doctor Who Reviews: "Lucky Day"

This series of Doctor Who thus far has been characterized by an undercurrent of cynicism somewhat unusual for the show, mostly in its approach to relevant social commentary. It was certainly there in the last series as well, but here it has a bit of a harder edge -that we are seeing especially in its approach to entitled young men. And I think there is something very pertinent in addressing that, though I am cautious about Russell T. Davies’ attitude around it. Perhaps he is attuned because there is a vocal toxic subset of the Doctor Who fandom (and it is predominantly male), and he has seemingly chosen more often than not to lean further in to everything they complain about. They think the Doctor cries too much, well he’s going to make sure there are tears every episode -that kind of pseudo-trolling. And there is some anger being taken out on these types of people through characters like Alan in “The Robot Revolution” and Cassio in “The Well”. I sympathize immensely with the desire to want to call out these kind of men and to not be very flattering in so doing, but there is a degree to which that could go too far. Accountability is fine, but mean-spiritedness should have no place in Doctor Who.

“Lucky Day” has a few overtures of that late in the episode, but doesn’t cross the line -at least not yet, as it presents its story and target of ire in interesting ways. It is also this series’s Doctor-light episode, coming at the same halfway point as last year’s “73 Yards”. And like “73 Yards” it prominently features Ruby Sunday, who makes her return this episode as we check in on the world that the Doctor and Belinda are still unable to get to, and which seems nearer to the catastrophe hinted at.

We do get a brief glimpse of the continuing efforts of the Doctor and Belinda -they manage to touch down in London on New Year’s Day 2007 (where elsewhere in London his past self had just met Donna Noble for the first time), and briefly interact with a kid who had wandered into the alley. For giving them the date, the Doctor gives the young boy a fifty pence coin he found on arriving, and the boy rushes it back to his mother. But enamoured with the TARDIS’s materializing, an adult Conrad Clark, played by Jonah Hauer-King -Prince Eric from the Little Mermaid remake and giving a much better performance here- has turned that mystery into an obsession with alien activity on Earth, even coming to host a podcast on the subject. It is reminiscent of the conspiracy theorist from way back in “Rose” who had a website compiling the various sightings of the Doctor throughout history -and in perhaps a conscious acknowledgement of that episode we first meet him in this context in a warehouse full of cloaked mannequins. A monster called a Shreek is on the loose, and leaves a kind of green bile on Conrad before being captured by the Doctor and Ruby (this happening just after the events of “The Devil’s Chord”) without noticing him. He did however snap a picture of Ruby before leaving, and a year later having posted it online finds her coming onto his podcast as a guest.

These kinds of characters have shown up in Doctor Who before -the eager fanboys who catch glimpses of the Doctor or one of his adventures and wrap their personalities around that mystery (one of the show’s most notorious episodes was about a collective of such characters). What’s different here is seeing how open he is about it and how it dovetails well with a modern cultural environment. The Doctor Who universe for ordinary people is always a little bit messy -it always has to reflect our world in a way that is incompatible with a continuity of several decades of alien invasions or encounters in London, so it’s never quite clear just how much extraterrestrial awareness the average person has. This episode presumes at least a modest public understanding of alien threats in the U.K., allowing Conrad and his podcast to occupy a decent middle ground where this stuff can still be sensational. In any case, Ruby’s appearance can’t amount to much, given her various NDAs with UNIT, but she is able to reveal some nice things about the Doctor and what he does. In the aftermath of the interview, Conrad boldly asks her out.

Ruby’s return, even after such a short time, is a welcome one, and on hearing she was going to be coming back I wasn’t entirely convinced it would be. But Millie Gibson is a compelling actress and I appreciate the choices made in showcasing just a little of her life post-Doctor. Particularly how and if she is adjusting, something we have seen in so few companions. In clues like Carla’s enthusiasm over Ruby’s date or the fact that Kate Stewart is someone who she will frequently call, we get a good impression of where Ruby’s life is at and the struggle she has had since she opted out of further TARDIS adventures. And it’s not that she misses it all (though she certainly misses the Doctor to some degree), but that it has left her paranoid and constantly on guard -a part of her always fearing some new alien threat is right around the corner. The idea of some kind of PTSD as an effect of being a companion to the Doctor has been hinted at before -notably “Resurrection of the Daleks” saw Tegan Jovanka leave the Doctor in trauma for what she had experienced. But this episode is the first to address it more openly, with Ruby’s mental health clearly effected by her time with the Doctor, much as she also loved and is grateful for that time. It is a fascinating thing, and Gibson performs its subtlety well; I only wish the episode could have devoted a little more time to that theme.

Instead we see a country getaway for the couple interrupted by the apparent presence of two Shreeks -Conrad having not taken the antidote that Ruby gave him that would have prevented them from tracking him through that residue of vomit. And we see his insecurity on display as he immediately takes ownership of his mistake and tries to foolishly combat the creatures with Ruby, desiring to be as “brave as the Doctor”. And this would have made for an interesting bit of character in its own right, suggesting an inferiority complex or even jealousy towards the Doctor (pretty early he asked Ruby if he’d been her boyfriend). But then UNIT arrives and corners the creatures, only for them to be revealed as two guys in costumes there on the direction of Conrad himself, part of a grand scheme to discredit UNIT and the very notion of alien threats on Earth as mere conspiracy to hide “the truth” from the public. His whole relationship with Ruby had likewise been a scam.

Without quite saying it aloud, Conrad is an alt-right grifter, a more competent British Tim Pool, and it does take you by surprise. Much as I’ve criticized Hauer-King elsewhere, he does a good job disguising any malevolence of this character, even where you would be prone to suspect something given the formulas of this show (I did, but in a somewhat more innocent direction). The romance seemed fairly earnest in the direction from Peter Hoar -a nice lingering shot on their held hands, some dialogue (courtesy of writer Pete McTighe) that felt genuine to the rhythms of young couples. But he does feel more comfortable as the asshole, and Gibson really sells the weight of that emotional manipulation over weeks. Then the episode makes a point of showing the aftermath of his stunt and the fairly alarming response by the British public and media alike, as Conrad through his rhetoric and increased platforms quite successfully stokes public antagonism towards UNIT -to the point even Parliament takes it up in some hauntingly familiar parallels. Montages of news programs and social media (a fairly conscious call-back to “Dot and Bubble”) demonstrating the media culpability and his particular sway with youth -it all paints a very stark and accurate picture of how culture war is manufactured and spread. Of course, the heroes are implicated a little bit as you have to ask why Ruby never vetted the podcast she appeared on or how UNIT could have been pulled into this trap when they knew perfectly well they had the Shreek locked up; but it doesn’t so much matter in the point to bluntly illustrate this kind of sensation and this kind of person, whom Russell T. Davies might not have even been able to conceive of twenty years ago.

There is something quite amusing though in the notion that, while in our world the conspiracy goons will spread narratives of a cabal of aliens living among us, here it is the concept that aliens are in fact not real and that their effects through the series have just been elaborately faked to cover up deep, dark, human conspiracies. Conrad and his organization, Think Tank, don’t have mush real merit -even in the staged live-stream of a psi-op; but it doesn’t make the effects any less believable. And there is where this new outlook of cynicism comes into play. The public just needs a scapegoat, a “grudge dressed up as a movement” as the episode smartly states, and for now UNIT fits the bill. To hammer home even more how tangible it all is, McTighe is sure to include a moment where Conrad turns his camera on wheelchair-bound Shirley Bingham to insinuate that she is ‘stealing’ British health benefits from the public.

And the episode just continues to take any plausibly redeeming or sympathetic aspect to this character and running it over. Ruby’s attempts to psychoanalyze in reference to Conrad’s late mother turns up from Shirley the fact that he lied even about that. And then, he even shoots his mole within UNIT upon getting access to his gun in an attempt to infiltrate their base and further ‘expose’ them. And when he makes it in, dressed casually in a sweater and ball cap but armed with a very heavy machine gun that can’t help but evoke the aesthetics of Capitol Hill rioters or more specifically Kyle Rittenhouse, it is very troubling -combined with his declaration, again for his live-stream, he is just ‘defending himself’ as preemptive justification for violence.

Perhaps it feels a touch overkill at this point, the systemic destruction of any kind of moral centre for a guy who was the episode’s original POV character. But it is matched in good order by a major fracturing of the moral centre of Kate Lethbridge-Stewart who, having once turned down his application for UNIT, decides to deal with him by recklessly unleashing the reel Shreek -an act she at least admits the Doctor would never let her do. I think it is telling and reflects well on the younger woman that as Kate does this and the Shreek comes at Conrad, Ruby pleads for it to stop. After everything, she still wants to save Conrad because it is simply the right thing to do. It’s a dark point for Kate that I’m not sure the show justifies, and creates a real complication in the fact it is being recorded that she is setting this alien on Conrad in the expectation of it killing him -it may not quite capture the narrative he wants but it is certainly a narrative that would have drastic public repercussions for UNIT and Kate specifically. She intentionally doesn’t have the Shreek neutralized until she goads a confession out of Conrad that it is indeed real, ostensibly destroying his credibility (though of course in reality it wouldn’t be nearly that easy). Conrad is freaked out enough by the ordeal, and that would have been enough comeuppance in a different era of Doctor Who -but that mean streak comes back and the show allows for a bit of petty vengeance by having him lose an arm to the Shreek at the last minute upon the reveal the incident did not effect his attitude in the least.

Only here does the episode come back to that discussion of Ruby’s trauma, as she resolves to take some time away from UNIT. And I hope that if she is seen again this series that that is explored more fully. In the meantime the show isn’t done with Conrad, who while in prison with an artificial arm finds the TARDIS materializing around him, and the Doctor having apparently heard of what happened to his friend, reads him the riot act -and by proxy any viewers who similarly stir up hate and grievance. It’s a real soapbox moment, almost feeling like a PSA, that ends with the Doctor brutally asserting that Conrad will die in prison unloved and inconsequential. It is some of the harshest language the Doctor has ever struck, and it did put me in mind to begin this piece the way I did. There is something to be said for the show being unambiguous about these traits of the manosphere and shutting them down. But there’s a certain unbecoming meanness the Doctor is starting to demonstrate towards such individuals that is a far cry for instance from his determination to rescue the people of Finetime despite them being racists. The fact that he is open about seeing no hope for this man stands out, and I would actually be interested by it if there were any indication the show was doing it consciously. At this point though it doesn’t look like Russell T. Davies is -I don’t expect it to actually be addressed and this attitude may well just uncritically grow, which would be a shame on a character who should be better than that.

But to be fair, Conrad is quite an asshole, and by this point clearly doesn’t care what is real or not -only the influence he can have and the fear he can manufacture. And it would appear the Doctor is quite wrong about his fate, as once he is returned to his prison, he is released by ‘the Governess  -who else but Mrs. Flood. Clearly he’s going to cause some trouble to come. But he is also responsible for something good: the Doctor who came to him was from some time before “The Robot Revolution”, and Conrad remembering the companion he met as a kid, asks if the Doctor has yet met Belinda Chandra -thus setting in motion both why the Doctor was looking for her to begin with and why his expectations about her were so high.

We will be back with her next week. As for “Lucky Day”, while the depressing reality of its subject matter doesn’t make it much of a fun episode, it is a very interesting use of the Doctor Who world nonetheless for cogent commentary, the passion of its criticism and argument firmly articulated, its attack certainly meaningful. The episode could have benefited from centring Ruby more than Conrad -who kind of dominates the show- but her comeback is charming and what we get of her own story is quite enticing. It’ll be interesting to see exactly what the fallout from this episode means for what we see next of 2025. But I’ll be happy to have a few more, hopefully nicer Doctor-Belinda stories first.

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