Ncuti Gatwa’s second series is so far following a very similar blueprint to his first. This is something I discussed the other week, but both series started with a silly sci-fi opener, a 20th-century period romp, and a tense space-based thriller. 73 Yards, probably the most acclaimed episode of last year, was episode 4 and was a Doctor-lite affair, serving as a showcase for the character of Ruby Sunday. Although Lucky Day doesn’t share the same tonal shifts and abstract nature of 73 Yards, it serves a similar purpose to give more depth to Ruby, who we haven’t seen since Empire of Death.
Having a companion return in a mostly Doctor-lite story is a smart move – the re-appearance of Martha Jones in Series 4’s Sontaran two-parter leads to a somewhat crowded story (at least in my opinion), whereas without the rest of the main cast there it gives the companion a chance to shine and show off how they’ve changed as a person without the Doctor present. Those were my expectations, but Russell subverted even them – Lucky Day is a dark, politically-minded and large scale episode that lets us know of Ruby’s insecurities since leaving the Doctor, while opening up the world of the Gatwa-era to introduce us to a character even more detestable than Lindy Pepper-Bean.
I will admit, the first twenty minutes I felt were solid but a bit generic. The blossoming relationship between the companion and a new incidental character isn’t a new thing (Clara and Danny, Bill and Heather, Dan and Dianne), and the scenes showing Ruby and Conrad falling in love in a cutesy geeky way felt a bit ham-fisted. The idea of her finding a partner after life with the Doctor and settling down is a really nice one – I love the idea that a companion leaves the TARDIS and decides to just live a normal life – but I didn’t think these moments were particularly engaging.
What the first half did really well was explore Ruby’s life and mental state post-travels and we can see that, under the surface, she’s not doing too well. It’s a simple but well-handled exploration of PTSD that nearly gets lost when the episode shifts gears later on, yet the events of Lucky Day serve to further Ruby’s anxiety and PTSD – and after what happens in the second half, you really can’t blame her.
Story-wise, the idea of a young child briefly meeting the Doctor and having an obsession with him that extends into adult life feels reminiscent of Elton in the episode Love & Monsters, which is infamously disliked by most of the fandom. Personally, I’ve never really minded it and I think there’s some interesting qualities to it, though I will admit the presence of the Absorbaloff, a monster quite literally designed by an eight-year old who won a Blue Peter contest, really doesn’t help matters.
Luckily here the Shreek is a far more well-realised alien threat – writer Pete McTighe (who previously helmed Kerblam and Praxeus from the Chibnall era) was inspired by his childhood fear of dog-like creatures in the dark, and his fear manifested itself in a really cool way. It’s not a mega-original look, reminding me of other monster designs such as The Eaters of Light from Series 10, but it works really well here and the early scenes where Conrad runs into the Doctor and Ruby hunting one down are a lot of fun.
As far as other comparisons to Love & Monsters, Conrad is deliberately shown as less of a social outcast than Marc Warren’s Elton was – he’s got a podcast that a lot of people listen to, he’s sociable, he has a loyal group of friends back home and he and Ruby seem genuinely in love. Though I find some of the first half annoying, I loved the domestic scenes with Ruby and her family. They’re not outstanding or anything, they just feel like the normal conversations of a family that gets on really well with each other. It’s a similar deal with Ruby and UNIT – though we’ve only seen her meet them on-screen once in last year’s finale, the implication that they’re now really well-acquainted is a heart-warming one and it works really well when the tables turn big-time at the halfway point.
We’re 600 words into the review, so let’s just rip the band-aid off – Lucky Day is possibly the most politically-minded episode of the show in years. Many toxic reactionaries have attacked the show in recent years for tackling themes of racism, climate change and gender identity, but this is the first time the show has properly held a mirror up to these people, and the increasing amount of misinformation that purveys the internet nowadays.
In a really well-executed scene, Conrad is revealed to be the head of a group called Think Tank (who might as well be called WhoAnon), out to take down UNIT who are spreading lies about aliens and hiding technology from the public. Suddenly, the early shots of people listening to Conrad’s podcast on their daily commute take on a whole new meaning. They’re not listening to news or music, rather a conspiracy-peddling podcast, the likes of which are sadly all the rage right now (Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, hell, take your pick). And of course his relationship to Ruby was entirely a front to pull off this stunt, and he didn’t care about her at all. So screw this arsehole.
There are some killer lines here that Ncuti delivers with a great attack – his look of sheer hatred when he says that people like Conrad “stamp on the truth, choke our bandwidth, and shred our patience” is priceless, and it’s great to see his Doctor have this much fury, the kind of which Eccleston harnessed when unleashing his rage onto Henry van Statten in Dalek
This rant has clearly been boiling inside the show’s creators for some time now, as he watched both the show get attacked by reactionaries, and general politics get invaded by people who value misinformation and vitriol against truth and debate. The timing of this episode was unfortunately spot-on, as Reform recently ran away with it in local elections and the President of the United States continues to ignore basic facts to get his own way, but it’s not just the timing and the commentary that this episode gets right – it’s the presentation. Jonah Hauer-King really seizes his chance to shine as Conrad in the second half, with his malevolent grin and dismissive expressions really enhancing what McTighe has written. I could have done without the appearances from Jonathan Ross and Alex Jones (not *that* one, I mean The One Show presenter), but the scene where a heartbroken Ruby watches her ex-boyfriend tarnish UNIT’s reputation with a condescending demeanour on live TV hit really hard for me, as did the revelations about Conrad’s past.
A brief scene at the start of the episode implies that his mother abused him and while I wish there was more on this, it is a family show so I can understand why it can’t go into it here. As it stands, it already goes far enough. We realise his mum didn’t die from cancer like Conrad said, but she’s rather living the life of luxury in a French villa paid for by Conrad – who of course is a tax-dodger. It’s also revealed that he applied for a role at UNIT in 2016 but got rejected – Kate even wrote a note saying ‘Don’t trust him.’ And as it turns out, she’s very right – he leaks confidential information about UNIT employees thanks to help from an inside man, then kills that inside man to get into UNIT and parade around with a gun, insulting everyone and everything – including Kate Stewart’s late father, the iconic Brigadier. Big, big mistake.
After over a decade’s worth of appearances, Jemma Redgrave finally gets some really good meat to chew on – Kate’s always been a fun character but she’s never been pushed to the extremes like she is here. So what happens when an alt-right lunatic tarnishes UNIT’s reputation, releases confidential information about her employees and slanders the legacy of Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart himself? She gives him a taste of her own medicine. She releases the real Shreek, which UNIT has contained, to show Conrad what they really have going on behind-the-scenes. It’s not a performance to rival Tennant in Waters of Mars or Capaldi in Face The Raven, but this is probably Redgrave’s best moment as the character and, while Conrad is still an utterly detestable piece of shit, I genuinely got scared thinking Kate was actually going to let him be eaten by this alien. So when he stands down, you’re thankful for at least a bit of de-escalation – until he casually smiles and quips that UNIT’s special effects are getting better, to which even the Shreek has had enough of conspiracy nonsense for one day and lunges on him.
This to me is truly the moment that makes the episode. Not the twist that Conrad was evil, not Kate Stewart going too far, the moment where Conrad sees the truth right in front of him and still denies it. It’s as subtle as a sledgehammer, and I know that has annoyed some people, but honestly I think the blatant approach works in the episode’s favour. In the episode’s best scene, the Doctor materialises Conrad inside the TARDIS to essentially just rip him a new one. There are some killer lines here that Ncuti delivers with a great attack – his look of sheer hatred when he says that people like Conrad “stamp on the truth, choke our bandwidth, and shred our patience” is priceless, and it’s great to see his Doctor have this much fury, the kind of which Eccleston harnessed when unleashing his rage onto Henry van Statten in Dalek.
But of course, these words are like water off a duck’s back, and Conrad continues to stand there with the same smug look as the Doctor’s words completely wash over him. He simply tells the Doctor that he rejects this reality (clearly McTighe was too scared to do a Deadly Assassin reference), and coldly requests that he get off his world. In the long run, this is probably a setup for the upcoming finale called The Reality War, as behind-the-scenes details allude to Conrad playing a role, but in the moment it’s a brave and cynical ending that only this era would do. It feels similar to Dot & Bubble, where this callous xenophobe won’t even talk to the Doctor, but it feels even more bleak than it did in the former episode. Dot & Bubble was on a distant planet, this is close to home and directly connected to the Doctor and his companions. And of course Mrs Flood shows up at the end.
It really says a lot that an episode that cuts right to the heart of the world of online misinformation and reactionaries can’t even have its spirits lifted by the always-chirpy Anita Dobson.
Lucky Day is definitely not perfect – it wasn’t as tight as last week and 73 Yards and Dot & Bubble have already set the standard pretty high for Doctor-lite episodes this era. But it feels like the episode that the show has been waiting to make for at least five years, and now that it was finally ready it delivered an incredibly powerful second half that pushed everyone and everything involved to their limits. I just wish the first half had done more to engage me, built it was still perfectly watchable and acted as the calm before the socially-charged, bleak and pointed storm the episode whipped up later on. Despite its flaws people seem genuinely interested in this one, which is always a good sign, so it’s now up to the second half of the series to bring everything (and Belinda) home.
Doctor Who (2025) Lucky Day is available to stream on iPlayer (UK) and Disney+ (Internationally)
Alex’s Archive – Doctor Who (2025) Lucky Day
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