Lucky Day
review

Holistic Review: Doctor Who tackles far-right radicalization in a timely and tightly-scripted episode that continually defies expectations.

I don't think any story in the history of Doctor Who has ever toyed with audience expectations — and certainly not to such a successful degree — as Lucky Day. For the first 15 minutes, though highly entertained, I was utterly perplexed as to what the story was even about.

The season trailer, you see, led me to expect that it would be a three-hander with the Doctor, Belinda, and Ruby, who was trying to protect her boyfriend from a deadly creature pursuing him. (Brilliant misdirection, might I add.) The Vindicator plot thread seemed to support this reading — in Lux, the Doctor said they might have to land "a couple more times" to get a fix on 2025 London, which neatly tied in to him potentially returning Belinda in this episode. But then why, I wondered, would Belinda be motivated to continue travelling in the TARDIS for the remainder of the season? And how could Lucky Day be set on present-day Earth when the TARDIS can't currently land there? As we soon discover, the fifteenth Doctor and especially Belinda just make a cameo appearance at the story's beginning, and for the remainder, Ruby takes center stage in his absence. (Incidentally, this is a great concept for a Doctor-lite story, and demonstates that a spinoff about former companions would have legs.)

What the story is "about", as heavily trailed in pre-airing interviews, is Ruby's adjustment to normal life post-TARDIS, as she learns to cope without the Doctor. In the classic series, this was never even touched upon: companions left and, in the rare event that they were ever seen again (like Susan and Sarah), they just picked right back up where they'd left off, with nary a mention of any difficulty getting reacclimated to regular Earthbound life. It wasn't until School Reunion that Sarah finally had an honest conversation with the Doctor about how getting dumped back on Earth, and (practically) never seeing him again, had in many ways stopped her from ever moving forward. But by the time she reunited with the tenth Doctor, that was years in Sarah's past, and she'd mostly healed. Ruby, however, has only just left the fifteenth Doctor, and while she has a wonderful life — reunited with her birth mum, who's still actively a part of her supportive family with Carla and Cherry — she can't shake the part of her that's now used to fighting evil at every turn.

I'm not Ruby's biggest fan, but I really like the concept of an episode that finally explores, more deeply than a few lines, what life would be like post-Doctor, so it's wonderful that Lucky Day takes time to delve into Ruby's psyche. Like Sarah, being dropped back on Earth and never hearing from the Doctor — shame on him for never picking up the phone at the Sandringham — has been hard on Ruby. She must feel utterly abandoned and forgotten about. Whether for positive or negative reasons, the Doctor has evidently, and unsurprisingly, been at the forefront of her mind for months. (When she begins dating Conrad, Carla realizes, "Do you know, she's not mentioned the Doctor in weeks.") In the wake of her whirlwind year with the Doctor, Ruby realizes that in order to move forward, she needs something different: normalcy and stability, two things that TARDIS travel never offered.

Therefore, Ruby's new boyfriend, Conrad Clark of podcasting fame, seems to provide exactly the sort of safe harbour she craves. He's kind and attentive, and he seems to value Ruby for exactly who she is ("I think you're amazing.") and cherishes spending time with her. For her part, Ruby — whose own family history is complicated and difficult — is deeply empathetic and supportive of Conrad's trauma, and this exchange (with a great delivery by Gibson) really sells their budding relationship:

It's that vulnerability and caring that provides the flashpoint for a deeper connection between Ruby and Conrad, and Ruby returns his trust and vulnerability with her own:

But, as lovely and interesting as this plotline was, it seemed rather flimsy to hang a whole episode on; surely it wasn't going to be just about Ruby grounding herself back on Earth by settling into a nice new relationship? I mean, 100% would watch, but was anything else going to happen?

Besides, it turned out that the trailer scene of a Shreek stalking Conrad was just a hypothetical, being narrated by Ruby and envisioned by Conrad. That threat — the Shreek hunting Conrad — had been neutralized before the episode even started. So if the story wasn't about Ruby saving Conrad from the monster that was after him, what was it going to be about?

Finally, 15 minutes in, the story seemed to gain a direction when Ruby noticed the electricity flickering in Colson, hinting at an imminent Shreek attack. This seemed like an impossibility — there was only one Shreek that had tracked Conrad in our universe, and it was in a UNIT holding cell — but Doctor Who has never, especially of late, been particularly hampered by impossibilities, so I didn't question its plausibility.

Within moments, the audience is led to believe that not one but two Shreek have escaped their dimension to resume their hunt of Conrad, who — in a naïve attempt to emulate Ruby's hero, the Doctor — has decided against taking the antidote, believing this will prove his bravery. "We're a team, like you and the Doctor," Conrad insists, so Lucky Day sets up a hypothetical plot direction — gently used, but enough like new — in which Ruby steps into the Doctor's shoes, with Conrad as her companion, and moves on by gaining the confidence to embody what the Doctor would do.

Just when we think we know where the story is heading, the rug suddenly gets pulled out from under not just us, but (devastatingly) for Ruby, when Lucky Day unmasks its true plot: the Shreek in Colson are just actors in rubber masks, hired by Conrad in an attempt to lure UNIT to the village so that he can confront them in person, and accuse them — on a livestream — of lying about alien threats in order to misuse taxpayer money.

This revelation sends the episode spinning — and when I say 'spinning', I mean a very controlled, intentional spin — in multiple directions, with multiple (related) targets in its sights.

Primarily, Conrad's treachery impacts Ruby, who is suddenly confronted with the dawning realization that — after putting her trust in Conrad, and being completely open and vulnerable with him — her boyfriend has been lying to her, and manipulating her, for the entirety of their (fake) relationship. He never really believed anything she was saying; he only pretended so that he could gain her trust, and manipulate her into summoning UNIT. What's irreparably heartbreaking is that he wasn't just lying to Ruby about his true motivations; he was also gaslighting her the entire time about his level of interest in her:

This scene is really hard to watch. I can't remember the last time I had such a visceral reaction to a companion being betrayed and bullied. Conrad's cruelty is extremely similar to the way Lance dumped (and mocked) Donna at the altar, but Donna was being portrayed at the time as a difficult woman to live with, so Lance's relief at being rid of her didn't come across as being so out-of-the blue, or unnecessarily hurtful, as it does here. To be fair, some elements of Ruby's experience in this story hit uncomfortably close to home with my own life this past year, so I suspect that's why my heart absolutely sank for her. Talk about pulling the rug out: Ruby thought her relationship with Conrad was so secure, and building to something wonderful, so the way he mocks her must absolutely devastate her self-esteem. How she holds it together, I don't know.

And then, as Conrad continues to rant, the point of the episode becomes clear. Lucky Day does a great job of repeatedly wrong-footing the audience in order to surprise us with its actual target: it's not truly about companion PTSD, or Ruby becoming the Doctor, and it's certainly not a throwaway Doctor-lite episode. No, Lucky Day is actually about radicalized white men weaponizing hate using (as Kate says) "an echo chamber of disinformation" in order to undermine truth and social order, and rebuild the world in a way that caters to their desires. It's no coincidence, I think, that Conrad, our central villain of the piece, is a straight young white guy who dresses in a grey hoodie, a blue cap emblazoned with a forehead logo, and a big imposing manly gun, echoing the attire of both MAGA and school shooters. (All he's missing is the trenchcoat.)

Historically speaking, one of the traditional goals of Doctor Who was to educate. This week, Doctor Who is crackling with righteous energy in order to deliver a powerful lesson.

The script by Pete McTighe reflects so many modern-day divisions, driven by social media and culture wars, that on one hand it seems to be critiquing years of societal ills, and on the other hand, parts of it seem so timely that I wonder how on earth it could've been written before last week. At this point, I should qualify my pending analysis by saying that, while Lucky Day targets movements that are unbalancing countries worldwide — with the UK and Australia experiencing particularly heated rhetoric, along with nations like France, Germany, Brazil, and (of course) Hungary — my own perspective, as a US citizen who's spent years watching my country sliding gradually in the direction of authoritarianism and state-sanctioned cruelty, is going to greatly color the parallels that I perceive between the story's message and real-life news. Which is to say, I apologize in advance that nearly all of my commentary is US-biased; I realize McTighe was probably setting his sights more on UK policies, but goshdarnit if his script doesn't skewer the USA with equal effectiveness. (Then again, the parallels are so direct that perhaps I'm overthinking this, and McTighe really does have US politics squarely in his crosshairs.)

Conrad's rants about special effects are reminiscent of allegations that the moon landing was faked, whereas his mention of actors echoes both crisis actors, a term that was popularized after the Sandy Hook shooting, and the claim that any people who are perceived as disfavored — like January 6 rioters storming the United States Capitol, or even the crowds of anti-Trump protestors — weren't what they appeared to be, but were actually members of the opposition party being paid to make others look bad. (It's a bit surprising that Conrad would admit to so many phony potential excuses on camera while his supporters are watching, but if we know anything about the right wing, it's that they'll happily swallow those excuses if they believe in your cause. Conrad could probably have shot someone on Fifth Avenue on camera, and his followers still would've knelt at his feet.)

The second dialogue is especially potent, because as Conrad spews lies, Kate calls out his lack of remorse, which has been a defining feature of right-wing rhetoric over the past decade or two. They don't care that their policies are hurting, ruining, and even costing people's lives. In many cases, the cruelty is the point. They celebrate when trans people are forced into hiding, when DOGE eliminates jobs at the Veterans Administration and organizations that provide lifesaving aid, when they come up with the idea to deport immigrants to a prison in a war zone. Witnessing the cruelty of their actions doesn't cow them, it emboldens them.

This vile sentiment reflects right-wing bias against immigrants (undocumented and otherwise, but nearly all non-white people) and the recent anti-DEI invective, which — along with disabled people — targets efforts meant to benefit LGBTQIA+ people, non-white (especially, in the USA, Black) people, and women. Just recently, in the US, accusations like this have led universities to shutter their Black Student Union groups and women's centers, and has caused our nationwide LGBTQIA+ suicide crisis hotline to be shut down. The deliberate cruelty and gleeful marginalization of anyone who's not a straight white Christian man — and the pride with which these people boldly proclaim their prejudice — is, frankly, evil to behold.

Here we've got sympathetic media coverage of (majority-group) criminal offenders over (minority-group) victims, as we've seen in the past when white school shooters get news stories in which friends and family say "he was always so nice and quiet", and everyone wonders what could have possibly gone wrong, and they show pictures of him looking happy with his family; whereas a Black teenager murdered by police for daring to walk down the street after sunset is portrayed, in photos and narrative, as a thug who probably had it coming. Trinity's coverage is also reminiscent of the rise of propaganda news stations, like OANN and Newsmax in the USA (and, many would argue, Fox News), which go to great lengths to spin criticism of, or consequences for, criminal and/or unethical behavior by right-wing figures as unjust and prejudiced.

Naturally, following this news coverage and the resulting public pressure, Conrad is released with no charges and no accountability. In fact, he's practically held up as a hero — like Kyle Rittenhouse — while the people he traumatized, aka Ruby, are forced to watch him being granted sympathetic national TV interviews.

Honestly, was this just written a couple of months ago?!? Because this directly criticizes the Trump administration's decision to bully universities (like my own institution) and even states (like Maine) into enacting their illegal regulations under the threat of withholding federal funds. (The fact that some universities, like Harvard, and indeed Maine itself, are standing up to these threats and causing the administration to back down is a clear illustration that you can't capitulate to bullies; the only way to change their minds is to fight back.)

In his attempt to defend himself — by redirecting the blame — we also see Conrad engaging in a time-honored right-wing tradition: doxxing (or swatting) people who disagree with their views, in order to intimidate them into silence, if not pose a genuine threat to their lives. (Is it bad that I'm also kind of sad that we don't learn Mel's address onscreen?) I hasten to add that doxxing is far from the exclusive provenance of the right wing, but it does seem to be more frequently weaponized by the far-right.

We like to think that our democracies have guardrails, but those guardrails can so easily fall if they're wilfully ignored — or dismantled — by people in power whose personal interests run counter to the best interests of the country.

This sequence alludes to another powerful sentiment, that the UK used to be a safe place to store dangerous technology, but now — because of political sentiment that's actively dismantling safety precautions — it no longer is. On one hand, this perspective makes me feel slightly better that it's not just my country reckoning with this feeling that things are no longer safe and secure, and that our freedom is no longer guaranteed. But maybe that realization should make me feel worse.

Awfully rich of the guy who's manipulating, and weakening, the country for his own ends to accuse other people of being the real traitors, and yet that's exactly what powerful right-wing figures have been doing, accusing the left-wing of being traitors for demanding that trans people be granted equal rights, recognized as valid, and allowed to live their lives. Or for enacting common-sense epidemiological precautions in the face of a deadly worldwide pandemic. Or for demanding that our elected leaders be held to the same laws as everyone else. Et cetera, et cetera.

In the episode's climactic confrontation(s), Lucky Day takes a powerful swing at people who knowingly lie for personal and/or political gain.

Here, Conrad is manufacturing a confrontation that's designed to make UNIT look bad no matter how they respond, in the knowledge that he'll be perceived as a sympathetic victim by the viewing audience, who will excuse his every offensive action.

The plot point of an armed man breaking into a facility to threaten the employees with a loaded gun while searching for nonexistent evidence to support his false narrative reminds me really strongly of Pizzagate, a 2016 conspiracy theory (which some of my friends full-throatedly believed) in which rumors abounded that Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington DC was involved in a satanic child sex trafficking ring, and was holding children hostage in a nonexistent basement. This rhetoric so fired up its believers that, along with triggering a barrage of death threats toward the owners and employees, an armed man with a hero complex charged into Comet Ping Pong that December and fired a rifle at a locked storage door, assuming it led to the basement where the children were being held captive. (Predictably, even after seeing for himself that there was no basement and no children, the shooter refused to admit that the story was false.) So of course, when I was in DC myself in June 2017, I had to go support the business, where they served me a tasty cauliflower, squash blossom, spinach, and ricotta pizza. And I made sure to share the photos with all my friends on Facebook in the hopes that it would make some of them examine their beliefs.

Ruby gets to the heart of Conrad's issues (and Trump's, and so many others') with this powerful line:

But my favorite line of the story is this one, which hit me powerfully:

In real life, it's obvious that so many bad actors wielding disinformation in order to gain power are completely aware that their claims are total lies, and will even admit as much in private, but because those claims whip up their base into more frenzied and unquestioning support — which equals more power — they double down, and dig into the lies even deeper.

So Kate, brilliantly, engineers a situation in which Conrad is confronted, face-to-face, with one of the man-eating monsters that he claims doesn't exist. Once his own life is on the line, will Conrad still maintain the façade, and claim that a hoax is devouring him alive? Or will he admit the truth if it saves his own sorry hide? The answer, of course, is: he can't keep up the lie when it starts to affect him personally. This is exactly the same criticism that the left wing keeps levelling at the right wing: that they're perfectly fine with, say, denying rights to other people, or deporting populations that they don't like, until someone denies rights to themselves or their family, or deports their best friend, or their business costs skyrocket because so many of their workers have been shipped off to a prison in El Salvador with no due process. In other words, they're fine with other people's lives being ruined, and the only thing that causes them to re-evaluate that position is when it impacts them personally (ie the "I didn't think the leopards would eat my face" principle). As human beings, we should be able to have empathy for everyone, not just for ourselves and the people we personally know and love.

The resolution to this climactic pursuit reinforces a theme that we've seen time and time again: that people who make a living off disinformation don't suddenly play nice once their bluff is called. As commentators often observe, there is no lowest bar; just when you think they've hit rock bottom, they reveal even deeper depths to their depravity. For example, even after he was bankrupted for defaming the victims, and InfoWars was (temporarily) bought by the Onion, Alex Jones didn't change his tune. These people are so committed to hurting others that no amount of polite convincing seems able to persuade them to just be nice. So yes, Kate finally gets Conrad to admit — on camera — that his slander of UNIT was all a lie:

But the minute he thinks he's out of the woods, Conrad reverts right back to his old schtick. He's smug and completely unapologetic, having learned absolutely nothing and grown not at all, displaying not so much as a crumb of remorse:

So it's VERY SATISFYING when the Shreek rears up next to him and chomps down on his arm. Am I horrified? Not particularly.

Even later, onboard the TARDIS, having had time to reflect on his actions and their consequences, and without any audience listening in, Conrad can't admit he was wrong. It's as if he's made these lies his entire identity, and he can't admit to them without his entire sense of self falling apart, so he just clings on, and entrenches himself in hatred.

So even though the Doctor's episode-ending speech doesn't pull any punches — hammering home the episode's moral lesson in a way that some people probably find sledgehammery — it's all stuff that needs to be said. And I, for one, felt the Doctor channelling my own rage and frustration and incomprehension. "Exhausting" is, most definitely, one of the best words for it:

What a wonderful message this story forcefully argues: that sometimes, the worst Doctor Who villain isn't a megalomaniac or a mad scientist or a power-hungry leader; sometimes it's the right-wing podcaster down the street who knowingly peddles lies and tramples other people's civil rights, in exchange for money and the promise of creating the kind of world they want, where only people like them are favored.

Whew. Pete McTighe, bravo. And what a way to come back swinging! I enjoyed McTighe's first two episodes for Doctor Who, but when I really fell in love with him was on the "Behind the Sofa" commentaries for the season 26 Blu-ray box sets, in which his wholesome enthusiasm for the show was just so endearing. Ever since then, I've been strongly biased to like any future McTighe episodes, so I'm thrilled that he's re-entered the fray with such a powerful story, and one of the strongest scripts of the past two seasons (thus far). This is the first story in season 15 that I've really needed to watch a second time before starting to take notes, because there are so many plot twists and the script is so beautifully methodical.

McTighe does a brilliant job of seeding important details throughout the story without it ever feeling like foreshadowing, which I think is really impressive, especially since all of these details forestall objections that would've otherwise arisen:

  1. The mention that Ruby's antidote will knock her out for 8 hours, which is why she doesn't insist that Conrad drinks his right there at dinner.

  2. Ibrahim's clarification that the Shreek's containment cube has been relocated to the helipad outside because it's being transferred to Geneva, given emerging concerns about the future security status of UNIT London. This leads directly into the final confrontation, which would've been impossible if the Shreek were still sealed in the UNIT vault. (It also provides a helpful clue to how UNIT manhandles these dangerous aliens all the way down to the vault: the containment cubes are independently mobile.)

  3. Shirley's revelation that Conrad is, and has always been, a liar and, unsurprisingly, a grifter. ("His mother's not dead. [...] And of course, he's a tax dodger.") This helps to underpin what might otherwise look like an abrupt personality shift, and helps to explain why Conrad is so dogged about clinging to the lies he's peddling (not that we really need an in-story explanation for that, when there are so many comparable real-life examples).

  4. Early on, it's established that Conrad is the only prey that the Shreek has marked, so he's the only one that it's pursuing for the moment. Sure, after it kills him, it'll go on to devour the entire village, but for now it's single-minded. This makes the dénouement possible, in which Kate unleashes the Shreek on UNIT central command because she knows that, for now, Conrad is the only one in danger. This makes the scene of Conrad fleeing from it almost as satisfying as a certain scene from Game of Thrones that I won't mention for fear of spoilers, but which I made my friends rewind twice because it filled me with such unbridled inappropriate joy.

  5. My thought on first viewing was "gosh, they really are leaving Conrad's rescue to the last second; it's amazing that the Shreek doesn't pounce on him immediately!" But on repeat viewings, I remembered that Ruby is very clear that the Shreek likes to build the fear and adrenaline in its victims before eating them. Again, super scripting, done so subtly that you don't realize McTighe is explaining away a potential plot hole in front of your eyes.

Because the story is so well-scripted, I only came up with a few lingering questions, nearly all of which I suspect could be explained away fairly simply:

  1. Through his "Lucky Day" podcast, Conrad has cultivated a public image of himself as an eager investigator of the truth, and his show is pitched as an innocent information-gathering exercise, not as a right-wing rantfest. Sure, Conrad dabbles in conspiracy — the Doctor surely must seem like a conspiracy theory, even to a planet that's inured to the existence of alien life — but his podcast still feels more like "let's scientifically prove the existence of ghosts" than "poltergeists abducted my dog and the government is responsible". When the topic comes up on his podcast, Conrad even publicly distances himself from the viewpoints he later espouses. ("But some trolls online say UNIT, all this talk of monsters, is just a cover story for something else.") So without having cultivated an online conspiracy presence, how does he get to be the leader of Think Tank? The days of KKK hoods seem to be long gone, even among some white supremacists; in modern times, far-right influencers are expected to be bold and proud of their beliefs, as indeed Conrad's post-unmasking smug persona suggests that he is. Does his existing audience really buy into what must seem like a sudden pivot to extremism? Or has he secretly been cultivating a secondary audience all along, much like many people involved in white supremacist militias confine that aspect of their identity to the dark web?

  2. Where did Conrad get his recording of — or how did he successfully recreate so accurately — the Shreek vocalizations?

  3. Not so much a plot hole, I think, as frustratingly-unclarified backstory: what turned Conrad so cynical? Is it just his sociopathic nature? Because he saw the TARDIS vanish into thin air, twice! So it seems a bit odd that he of all people would doubt the existence of the Doctor and extraterrestrial shenanigans. (Though, as the episode points out, his doubt is a sham; so the real question is, what's made Conrad so manipulative and deceitful? Maybe — given how sneakily he grabbed the coin out of the Doctor's hand in 2007, and legged it away — he's been that way all his life, influenced no doubt by his mother's emotional abandonment.)

  4. Regarding Ruby's PTSD: isn't this exactly what the companion support group was designed for? Why isn't Ruby meeting with them, and why doesn't Kate suggest it at the story's end? At the very least, Ruby should be having some deep chats with her new friend Mel, who — along with Donna, presumably — is the one other person at UNIT who can 100% understand what she's going through.

As a small aside, I love the time-hopping nature of McTighe's script, which is executed so smoothly that we're never confused about which time period we're watching. Yet the story jumps between London at New Year's Eve 2007 (where, following on from The Well — albeit finally with a gap between stories! — we catch up with the Doctor's attempts to bring Belinda home), London 2024 (during Ruby's travels with the Doctor, as Conrad spies on them defeating the Shreek), and London 2025 (present-day for Ruby, as she meets Conrad for the first time).

It says a lot about the quality of the writing that, even in a Doctor- (and Belinda-)lite script like this one, both regulars are still strongly characterized.

In contrast to his usual performance, with his high-wattage smile and irreverent informality — which Gatwa shows off in his first two appearances of the story — the final scene gives him a chance to demonstrate his Doctorly gravitas, and yowza, does he ever give a blistering performance as he channels the audience's annoyance in his dressing-down of Conrad. Gatwa always has an indefinable watchable quality that keeps your eyes glued to him whenever he's onscreen, and that natural charisma makes his barnburner of a speech even more powerful. There's a wonderful subtle moment at the very end, too, as the Doctor silently acquiesces to Conrad's hostile demands, and snaps his fingers to return Conrad to his cell. Aside from that whole scene, I also really loved Gatwa's delivery of "It's more like vomit."

For Belinda's part, this episode has made me consciously realize that one thing I'm really loving about her is the way she embodies a grounded presence which provides a really complementary contrast to the fifteenth Doctor. As we see in flashback, the Doctor and Ruby are like a pair of pinballs, caroming off one another energetically, shrieking with laughter, then bouncing away to face their next threat. At times, their constant jokiness (and Ruby's giggliness) could feel almost inappropriate, as if they weren't taking matters seriously, much like the tenth Doctor and Rose winding up Queen Victoria. But Belinda does take things very seriously, and gets mildly annoyed when the Doctor doesn't. Unlike Ruby, Belinda responds to the Doctor's antics by saying things like "Can you try and focus, please?" Against her more cynical nature, the Doctor's frenetic energy, ebullient joie de vivre, and positivity shines a little bit brighter, and so the two of them balance one another out really nicely. Besides, in interviews, Doctor Who actors are always quick to point out that you can't send the show up; you have to play your part with utmost sincerity, even if your character is mentally controlling vines of ivy to strangle the planet (and the Doctor's companion) while simultaneously ranting about controlling the world. Belinda provides that gravitas to this TARDIS team in a way that Ruby didn't.

But that was old, carefree, happy-go-lucky Ruby. These days, poor Ruby's sparkle has dulled a bit, as the neverending thrill ride of joy that was her life with the Doctor has evaporated, leaving Ruby stranded on Earth, trying to cope with everyday life, and — although the episode never outright says as much, but strongly implies — suffering with depression as she tries to adjust to life without her best friend. There seems to be a universal shared perception that, as you mature into adulthood, life kind of grinds you down and robs you of your innocence and optimism. In my own life, I can certainly point to key moments over the years that completely altered my personality from being outgoing, enthusiastic, and goofy, to becoming more restrained, cautious, and slower to trust. And as sad as that is, it makes me identify with Ruby a lot in Lucky Day. This more somber characterization also gives Millie Gibson a lot more to work with, and she turns in a comparably restrained performance that I think is her best work in Doctor Who to date.

Ruby's been the lead before, in 42 Yards, but I find Gibson's performance here to be much more powerful. Last season, I felt like I didn't pull out many of her line deliveries for special praise, but this week I was drowning in them: "Aliens are real. We all know that.", "Like the Doctor.", "Because it likes the taste.", "Yeah, well, lucky for you, it has a happy ending.", "Well, he did that a lot. To be fair, I saved his a few times.", "Aww!", "This happened at the bus stop.", and Ruby's reaction when she drinks the antidote. (The only moment that felt like old Ruby to me was the awkwardness of "Oh! Now?")

About a third of the way into the story, around the time that Lucky Day is trying to sell us on the plotline being 'Ruby must become the Doctor', the script gives Gibson some really strong moments, as Ruby — the only person in the Colson pub who's actually encountered extraterrestrial monsters before — instinctively takes control, directing the patrons to safety while bravely arming herself to venture outside in a solo attempt to vanquish the Shreek. We've never seen Ruby so confident and commanding as when she instructs Conrad, "No, they're after you. And once they're done tearing you to pieces, the Shreek will wipe out this entire village. Just stay here." After this scene, Ruby takes more of a back seat again at UNIT, but she still gets to strike the moral victory — in more than one sense — when she single-handedly takes down the Shreek with a taser, saving Conrad's pitiful life despite his foul treatment of her. (Also, Ruby looks great in her leather jacket, and I love her very cool thumb-ring.)

Mind you, once the action shifts to UNIT HQ, the role of lead shifts over to Jemma Redgrave as Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. Gibson isn't the only one who turns in her best-thus-far performance in Lucky Day; Redgrave, whose character is usually boxed into a fairly narrow leadership role (albeit with a bit of chummy relaxation now that RTD has taken over), gets to sink her teeth into some really meaty dialogue this week, and I think it's also her series-best performance. And that's saying a lot for a woman whose mere presence onscreen automatically lifts the quality of any episode.

It's this (arrestingly delivered) line where Kate pivots from "stiff-upper-lip commander of UNIT" to "mad as H-E-double-hockey-sticks and not gonna take it any more":

From that point onward, Kate has had it with Conrad, and seems to wash her hands of him. It's in her power to stop him, and — like the Doctor — she gives him multiple opportunities to turn over a new leaf before she finally shrugs and allows him to suffer the consequences of his own actions.

Of course, she also happens to be the person who inflicts those consequences on him — which is a delightfully dark turn of the script — by releasing the Shreek. But the script also makes it clear that Kate's back is to the wall, and she can see no other way to both scupper Conrad's plans and publicly undermine his credibility all at once.

This new facet of Kate's personality, in which she allows herself to vent her irritation (which is putting it mildly) by being a bit reckless with Conrad's well-being, is where Redgrave's performance really goes to the next level, in her delivery of lines like "A man's life is hanging in the balance, and you're not even sorry!" (a truly spectacular, hard-hitting line), "It's coming, Conrad! And it's after you.", and "It won't leave. Not while he's here." There's some real darkness in her voice, and I love it.

As Ruby's paramour Conrad Clark, Jonah Hauer-King turns in an absolutely crackerjack performance. This is the kind of part that's probably a gift for any actor: initially, Conrad comes across as sweet, nerdy, and eager for affection, totally suckering us all in, before he reveals his true nature partway through. I must admit that I wish we'd gotten some subtle hints about Conrad's malevolence in the early part of the story — see above, re: his public distancing from his true views — so that his sudden about-face didn't feel so abrupt, but then the abruptness of it is exactly what pulls the rug out from under our feet, so it's a difficult criticism to level when the story plays out so well as is.

As sweet Boyfriend!Conrad, Conrad reminded me a lot of Clive from Rose: digging into conspiracies about the Doctor, trying to draw all the threads together, and investigating him motivated by admiration and fascination. In this phase of the script, Hauer-King gives a charming performance on "Yes! Aliens! Oh, sorry, rrr.", and "I'm your boyfriend!"

And then — to borrow one of my mother's phrases — we meet RatfaceJerkfaceWeaselface!Conrad, who has gone, electrifyingly, off the deep end, and is a total sleazeball scumbag. The pretense of being a "nice guy" has totally dropped; instead, Jerkface!Conrad is cocky, smarmy, and boiling over with fury. As much as this is Ruby's episode, it's the confrontational scenes between Conrad and Kate where Lucky Day becomes truly gripping. Loved Hauer-King's delivery of "The grownups are talking!", "What's that?", and "You've had plenty of friends."

Over at UNIT Tower, hooraaaaaaayyyyyyy Shirley (Ruth Madeley) is back, and in fine form! I so missed Shirley's wisecracking Hebe vibes in The Empire of Death, and her return is exceedingly welcome. Loved her delivery of "His mother's not dead." It's nice to see Christofer Ibrahim (Alexander Devrient) back too, though his character still doesn't really get fleshed out at all. Similarly, the Vlinx (Aidan Cook, voiced by Nicholas Briggs) has essentially a cameo appearance, with no new hints about his background whatsoever, but he proves a useful information-gathering ally.

UNIT analyst Jordan Lang (Kareem Alexander) makes for a really enlightening case study of what happens to people who ally themselves with narcissists. As we see constantly from certain US presidents, you only stay in their good graces as long as you bend the knee, but the minute you display even the slightest hint of public disagreement, they'll turn on you in a heartbeat, no matter how much of an obsequious boot-licking sycophant you've been up to that point. Here, Jordan breaks the law and breaches UNIT security in order to let Conrad into the building, but when he objects to Conrad arming himself with a UNIT gun, he gets shot — and nearly murdered — for his loyalty.

In Colson, we meet Conrad's friends, though their backstory is vague; that's probably intentional, since the suggestion is that they're not really Conrad's "friends" but rather his co-conspirators. At any rate, my initial assumption was that Conrad was taking Ruby home to meet his friends, but from the dialogue, it sounds like Conrad didn't grow up in Colson; rather, Sparky (Paddy Stafford) moved there after rewiring Conrad's kitchen. So maybe the whole friend group has decided to come out to Colson for the weekend to visit him? We don't get much of a sense of Sparky, though; he has one line raving about Alfie's beer before he goes off to play Shreek dress-up. Meanwhile, Elsa (Madison Stock) seems really familiar with the pub's quirks, implying that she spends a lot of time there; whether that's because she did grow up there, or she's been dating Sparky, or she's been doing a lot of recon in Colson to set up their prank, who knows. Of Conrad's friends, she gets the most personality; Elsa seems to be forming a nice bond with Ruby, but she's quick to anger when the power goes out. Stock gives a great performance, trying to wheedle information out of Ruby and grousing at Alfie. Conrad's other two friends don't really get to make an impression; Jack (Blake Anderson) only has one line offscreen before disappearing (to zero fanfare, unlike Sparky) to play a Shreek, and Michelle (Aoife Gaston) only has one line partly onscreen.

Among the patrons, Tina Gray is great fun as Audrey, who runs into the pub screaming after spotting a fake Shreek stalking the village: "Biscuit got the fright of his life!" And, good heavens! Behind the bar, Alfie is played by Paul Jerricho, formerly the Castellan on Gallifrey?! What a delightful surprise! There's also Michael Woodford as Derek, who I think must be the patron who scoffs at Ruby trying to take charge? (Her comeback made me smile.)

Benjamin Chivers immediately conveys that young Conrad is a wary, mistrustful boy; he seems reluctant to speak, he doesn't smile, and he races off after grabbing the Doctor's coin, as if he expects the Doctor to try to wrestle it back from him. His desperation for his mother's approval comes across strongly, too. Crucially, he doesn't come across as a bad kid — though obviously the episode hints that he's troubled — which means we don't question his adult transformation into Ruby's doting boyfriend. We only briefly glimpse Conrad's mum Moira (Kirsty Hoiles), but in just a couple of lines, we get a clear picture of her as a woman who regards her own child as a millstone around her neck, holding her back from true happiness. No doubt she ignores Conrad as much as possible while parading a string of unsuitable men through their home. The moment when she smacks him upside the head (as my friends in North Carolina used to say) is so deeply sad. ("You're spoiling my night!")

I had somehow forgotten that Carla (Michelle Greenidge) was of course due to show up this week, so I bounced in my seat a little bit when she appeared onscreen. Loved her delivery of "Let me be excited!" and "Yeah, maybe not." But I was even happier to see Cherry (Angela Wynter), especially when she gets to sit at the kitchen table rather than staying in bed all episode! (And she even, finally, gets her mug of tea!!!) Wynter milks every last drop of glee from every scene she's in; her reaction shots are hilarious as Cherry surfs Instagram for a glimpse of Conrad's abs. Faye McKeever only gets a couple of lines as Louise, but it's nice to see that she's still actively a part of Ruby's life.

In Lucky Day, Anita Dobson's Susan-Twist-persona-of-the-week is, intriguingly, the prison governor, and she's evidently letting Conrad free for some as-yet-unspecified reason. This suggests that we'll see him again in the finale, but what purpose Mrs Flood has in mind for him is left intriguingly vague. Will he just be her violent lapdog, or is she planning to wind him up and let him loose in some destructive manner?

Whee, after her triumphant return in The Empire of Death, our old newcaster friend Trinity Wells (Lachele Carl) is back! But, gosh, I wish we were happier to see her. Between her ranting about the Zeedex in that story, and her victim-blaming angle here, it really feels like the Trinity Wells Show must be airing on one of the rage-baiting propaganda networks I mentioned earlier. (She's backed up by real-life presenters Reeta Chakrabarti, Joel Dommett in an awesome blue jacket, and Alex Jones, all of whom gamely play versions of themselves who are equally sympathetic to a malevolent terrorist! And aww, hi Jonathan Ross!) Tip of the hat, too, to the three social-media influencers — Selorm Adonu, Calypso Cragg, and James Craven — who give believably riled-up performances.

Watching the posture of the two fake Shreek in the village, I couldn't help but think, gosh, you'd have to be pretty athletic to crawl around in that position for any length of time. So bravo to Gethin Alderman for doing it! He gives the Shreek a convincingly predatory animalistic gait, while staying challengingly low to the ground! As a presumably one-shot monster, the Shreek's menace doesn't really extend beyond the usual 'flesh-eating wild animal' behaviour, but it has some interesting abilities, and there are aspects of the costume that I really like: its dinosaur-like spine plates, its gigantic fangs, its Andorian-like mobile facial protuberances, and especially its brightly glowing red eyes, which look fantastic in every single shot, and give the costume real presence.

On the topic of the Shreek, let's talk about the story's best, and most inconspicuous, effect: the man-made rubber Shreek costumes. I was wondering how Conrad and his buddies had managed to replicate the Shreek so perfectly, when Conrad barely even glimpsed the creature. So I was delighted to learn that, when creating those costumes, the effects team asked a prosthetics artist to look at the original costume once, then sculpt a new one from memory. What an absolutely perfect way to create a costume authentic to what Conrad would've been able to replicate. Hilariously, in the dark lighting and from a distance, both versions of the costume look equally good on-screen, hence my wonderment at Conrad's very successful recreation. But even if the comparative flaws aren't immediately evident onscreen, I'm super happy that they put in all that effort for verisimilitude.

The effects used to realize the Shreek are great in general; I loved the shot of the Shreek in UNIT confinement slithering around the window in its door. And in the final scenes, I really like Conrad's very Adam-from-Buffy armband, which suggests that the Shreek really did chomp his arm off, but UNIT surgeons have reattached it.

Again this week, Murray Gold's music is wonderful. It may not be showy, but it's very effective. In particular, there's spooky Fenric-esque music as the lights go out in the pub, which is one of the highest compliments I can pay. I also really liked the music as Conrad ventures into the closed store and touches the green goo on his face. My only criticism is the over-egged score which soars triumphantly as UNIT helicopters (hello, Disney money!) land in the village.

Gosh, between Peter Hoar and Amanda Brotchie, we've really been spoiled for directors this year, haven't we? Hoar makes Lucky Day incredibly atmospheric. He starts off the story with a languid panning shot from the fireworks exploding over the Thames down to the alley where the TARDIS arrives. He's also fantastic at milking tension from his shots: along with the eerie sequence of Conrad imagining Ruby's story come to life (with great camerawork as we pan around from Ruby, past the window, to the Shreek emerging behind Conrad), we've got a really creepy shot of a backlit mannequin at the top of the escalator (and, for that matter, all the shots of Conrad gingerly walking past plastic-drapped mannequins), the out-of-focus shots of the Shreek stalking Conrad in the store, and many spine-tingling shots around the village of the Shreek appearing in the distance. There are some really sweet shots, too, like Conrad and Ruby staring into each other's eyes, and a gorgeously-lit angle on Ruby as she sits across the table from Conrad. I also really liked the angle of young Conrad being revealed behind Belinda, the atmospheric misty shots of the Colson streets at night, and the startling editing as Conrad appears behind Ruby. But my favorites, I think, were the amazing smash-cut back to daylight as Conrad surfaces from Ruby's immersive story when the doorbell jangles, and of course the sumptuously-framed shot from above as the Shreek bites down on Conrad's arm while he screams in pain.

One of Hoar's most horribly effective shots, for me, was the camera slowly pulling away from Ruby, emphasizing her sudden jarring abandonment and isolation, while Conrad and his friends laugh and taunt. At that point, I was about ready to sob on her behalf. I don't know if this was intentional, but I was heartened by the parallel shot as the episode's coda fades in, with the camera slowly zooming in on Ruby as she stands outside the UNIT hangar doors, lost in thought as she finally realizes what steps she needs to take to begin to heal.

This week, I took a little weekend trip out to the small city of Jackson, Michigan, where I wound up staying awake until 2 am anyway, so I figured I might as well just power through and watch cat videos until Lucky Day premiered!

Minor points:

Gosh, Lucky Day was both therapeutic and cathartic to review, on so many levels. This is a thematically rich story which takes aim at no shortage of deserving targets, and efficiently skewers all of them in an easily digestible, relatable fashion for viewers at home. One can only hope that the people who are living out their real-life villain fantasies will watch this story, and perhaps feel the tiniest twinge of conscience and remorse. In the meantime, while we're collectively venting our deepest societal frustrations, could Pete McTighe please tackle the unholy bedfellows of religion and governmental power next?

posted: 09 May 2025

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