Doctor Who Is NEW!: Lucky Day

Welcome to Doctor Who Is NEW! where I post about the latest new episode of Doctor Who.

This week puts the spotlight not on the Doctor and Belinda but on Ruby Sunday.

There may be spoilers, honey! 

Lucky Day

by Peter McTighe 

Yes, it's a Doctor-lite episode but the Doctor is present more than he was in last years "73 Yards".  

(Side note: according to Doctor Who Unleashed, "Lucky Day" was being shot simultaneously with "The Robot Revolution". Hence the reduced presence of Ncuti Gatwa.) 

The episode opens with the Doctor and Belinda Chandra still trying to find a way to get Belinda home to Earth in May 2025.  Well, it's Earth but it's New Year's Eve 2007.  Their arrival is witnessed by a 7 year old boy named Conrad.  

17 years later, Conrad's path crosses with the Doctor as the Doctor and Ruby Sunday are in pursuit of an alien creature called the Shreek. This time the Doctor is unaware of Conrad's presence. 

A year later, Ruby is moving on with life without the Doctor and she gets an invite to be on Conrad's podcast about this mysterious Doctor.  

Ruby and Conrad develop a relationship and she's in a good place for the most part. She's has her adoptive and birth mothers in her life (and it seems she's met her dad) and she has a boyfriend. 

A boyfriend who may be the target of the Shreek. 

A quick check in with Kate Stewart at UNIT confirms the Shreek the Doctor caught before is still in containment but something is lurking out there and appears to have killed one of Conrad's friends. 

Except...

No!

It's all part of a particularly cruel and elaborate prank by an online conspiracy theory group called "Think Tank" led by Conrad to expose UNIT as a fraud, live streamed to the world.

And Conrad never liked Ruby Sunday. His contempt for her is unmistakeable.  Everything Ruby said to him is stupid. Her face is stupid.  Her name is stupid. 

Ruby is left humiliated, hurt and betrayed and the object of a nation's scorn. She has become a focal point of Britain's sudden anti-UNIT hysteria.   

And Conrad ain't done. 

He invades UNIT (Really? This guy? Yeah, somehow he does.) and live streams a confrontation with Kate, Ruby and the UNIT staff from the heart of their HQ to expose them as a tax wasting fraud perpetuating a campaign of fear and deception.  

Kate releases the Shreek from containment and even though he was nearly killed by this alien predator, Conrad still says online that UNIT's special effects are getting better. 

Then the Shreek bites Conrad's arm off. 

The social media tide turns. #WeStandWithUNIT is trending.

Conrad's in jail with a re-attached arm when the Doctor pays a visit. The Doctor is at first all smiles and charm for a moment then it drops and a darkly furious Doctor makes it clear that he is not at all happy with what Conrad did to his friend Ruby.

Conrad is not at all impressed, still resolved to his own self delusion that this is all a vast conspiracy of deception.  And he questions the Doctor's loyalty to Ruby when he mentions Belinda Chandra. 

(The Doctor has not met Belinda yet. Wibbly wobbly.) 

The Doctor tells Conrad his future, that it will be confined to a prison cell where he will die. 

And the Doctor vanishes.

Mrs. Flood has other ideas as she unlocks Conrad's cell and tells him he's free to go.  

...

...

What the hell?

So there is a lot to unpack here.  

The idea that a former companion might experience some PTSD is a good one but Ruby seems to have her life pretty together before Conrad comes along to fuck with it.  

Any chance to see Jemma Redgrave back as Kate Lethbridge-Stewart is always welcomed but damn she does push things a bit too far allowing a deadly alien creature loose just to prove a point. But damn, Conrad was a total bastard who deserved whatever hell he's got coming to him.

Oh Conrad.  His heel turn when he reveals that everything he's said and done in Ruby's company has been a lie is....

Perfectly predictable. I'm sorry but the would be writer in me would not let go of the suspicision that when someone is too good to be true, they usually are.  

But the depths of his deception, his disdain, his contempt for Ruby and her life story was very dark. 

Conrad's conspiracy riddled perspective would seem a bit over the top except we live a real world with addled minds perpetuating to a capitulating media their own fact denying delusions. 

(Yes, Donald Trump, the "MS13" on Abbrego Garcia's knuckles was photo shopped and current real evidence shows no such marks on his knuckles. But guess who still insists "MS13" is on whose knuckles?)  

As Andrea put it, "I watch Doctor Who to escape from this sort of thing."  

If Conrad's consipiratorial take down of UNIT and Ruby Sunday seems a bit much, welcome to real world hell we currently live in.

My credulity was a bit strained that Conrad (even with help on the inside) was able to stage a one man raid on UNIT.   

"Lucky Day" is a thought provoking and heartbreaking episode.

Damn! I hope next week is a bit more fun.