LUCKY DAY
Director: Peter Hoar
Writer: Pete McTighe
Main Cast: Ncuti Gatwa, Varada Sethu, Millie Gibson, Jonah Hauer-King, Jemma Redgrave, Ruth Madeley, Anita Dobson
Streaming Service: Disney+, iPlayer
“The three words that summed you up? “Don’t trust him.” – Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jemma Redgrave)
A “Lucky Day” in the Life of Ruby Part Deux
In a Doctor-lite episode, we see the return of Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) as she navigates her life in a post-Doctor world. Something we don’t get to see a lot of companions do onscreen (multimedia adventures are a whole other ballgame). After an opening scene where the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Belinda (Varada Sethu) meet a young boy named Conrad (Jonah Hauer-King) on New Year’s Eve before rushing off to their next adventure, we cut to the present day where an older Conrad has a podcast where he discusses his obsession with the Doctor, and ends up spying on a mission that Ruby and the Doctor finds themselves on; getting himself marked as food for the alien creature known as a Shreek in the process.
Upon meeting and interviewing Ruby about her life traveling in the TARDIS, the two begin dating, and we get a montage of some of their time together. She even gives him an antidote that would keep him safe from the Shreek. After a few months, Ruby goes away on a trip with Conrad and his friends, and while away, they get attacked by a couple of Shreek. UNIT, for whom Ruby is now working, comes to their rescue, but it turns out the entire attack is a sham conjured up by Conrad and co. to try and ruin the reputation of UNIT, which they see as a fraudulent organization. Conrad doesn’t actually believe in aliens and has been using Ruby to bring down UNIT by gaining her trust.
Of course, not everything goes to plan. While UNIT is temporarily smeared in the court of public opinion, eventually Conrad uses an insider he has in the organization to infiltrate UNIT where he plans to show everyone once and for all just how just ridiculous they are. After a bit of back and forth with Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, head of UNIT, she ends up releasing a real Shreek that they’ve been holding in captivity. It attacks Conrad, forcing him to admit that aliens are, in fact, real and live in front of all of his fans.
Later, the Doctor appears in a holding cell, having decided to confront Conrad over this ordeal. We find out this is a Doctor who hasn’t met Belinda yet, and Conrad is the man who ended up giving the Doctor her name that he mentioned back in the season premiere. Finally, after the Doctor leaves Ms. Flood (Anita Dobson) appears and lets Conrad loose…forming an alliance with him.
Commentary in the age of fake news
Conrad for all intents and purposes is a right-wing grifter. He’s an emboldened white, toxic male who stirs up his fans by creating drama in the guise of taking down the man, only to make himself rich and famous. He has no real beliefs, only that he can’t be wrong, and he’s willing to hurt anyone in his way in order to prove he’s in the right. And while UNIT is no innocent spring chicken—they are after all a military power—this isn’t a pro-fascist story either, with Conrad being the surely revolutionary who is stomped on by those more powerful.
Conrad and his cronies are the baddies. Primarily, I see this episode as a sort of commentary on the QAnon space of online conspiracy theory, except in this case, the aliens are real and Conrad is hoping to prove they aren’t. There’s other right-wing adjacent plotting in this as well with Conrad refusing to take what is essentially a vaccine (Mr. TARDIS has more to say about that on Twitter), and while I can understand how polarizing this episode can be for anyone who feels uncomfortable that UNIT is the “good guy” in this, I think it’s important to remember that UNIT have been around since the 1960s and are a major part of this universe.
They have absolutely been critiqued before and will again, but there was no way they weren’t going to come out of this any other way. This isn’t Pete McTighe being all “the military good actually,” he might believe that and okay if he does, but this organization has been around a long time, and they need an antagonist for Conrad this episode. Plus, apparently, parts of this episode set up the upcoming spin-off series The War Between the Land and the Sea, another reason UNIT was used.
Ruby shines bright like a diamond
The best part of this Doctor Who episode is, of course, Millie Gibson. She’s a great actress, and it’s unfortunate we only got one season of her as a companion. Parts of the initial announcement for the addition of Varada Sethu made it sound like the two of them and Ncuti Gatwa would be traveling in the TARDIS, and that would have been amazing. I’m happy we’re still getting more of her story, though, as I’m not ready to leave her behind. We also got to see her family again, which is always a treat.
Gibson puts on a great performance this episode and I like where her character is left by the end, wanting to find herself beyond the Doctor and beyond UNIT. Hopefully we get some Ruby Sunday Big Finish adventures one day or something, because she still feels like there’s a lot more to explore in this character.
I will say that one of the personal hangups I had about this episode is that I didn’t like the reveal that Conrad is the one who gave the Doctor Belinda’s name and that he’s seemingly going to come back again with Ms. Flood. He was a good villain for this episode, I don’t exactly know what he’d offer more to the story later down the line. I guess we shall see. I did like that we got to see Shirley Bingham (Ruth Madeley) again. We hadn’t seen her since the 60th anniversary specials.
I really do like “Lucky Day,” though. This season still hasn’t hit some of the highs of the previous season, but this is a good episode, and it accomplishes what it sets out to do. I hope more people come to see it that way as time rolls on.
