Doctor Who Series 15 Episode 4 Review: Lucky Day

Warning: contains spoilers for Doctor Who episode “Lucky Day”.

As the Doctor and Belinda work to find their way back to 2025, we catch up with previous companion Ruby Sunday and her new boyfriend, the very nice, normal and unproblematic Conrad. Meanwhile, having previously triumphed against Daleks, Autons, Cybermen and rogue Time Lords, UNIT faces its most dangerous enemy yet – podcasters. Spoilers ahead.

A creative challenge born of production necessity, so-called ‘Doctor-lite’ episodes – in which the title character is marginalised in some way to keep budgets down and free up the lead actor’s schedule – are inevitably about the absence of the Doctor. What happens to the misfits and oddballs who don’t get to travel in the TARDIS? What if the Doctor died and never had the chance to change the companion’s life? How might a companion deal with the Doctor’s sudden disappearance?

The second Doctor-lite episode to focus on Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) after last year’s ambitious, divisive “73 Yards“, ‘Lucky Day’ finds a new variation on the concept – what does a companion do when they’ve amicably parted ways with the Doctor and have to go back to normal life, armed with all that amazing, terrifying knowledge? We’ve seen the idea poignantly explored through classic series companion Sarah Jane Smith in the Tenth Doctor episode “School Reunion”, though the Doctor was very much involved there, whereas here Ruby has only recently left the TARDIS, and under very different circumstances. It’s still a potent idea – in theory. But despite a typically committed and engaging performance from Gibson, the episode struggles to find a compelling take on it.

Part of the issue is that Ruby seems pretty together, all things considered. She’s got her gran and two loving mums (three if you count Kate Lethbrige-Stewart, as Shirley points out in one of the episodes’s best lines). She’s tentatively pursuing a new relationship, which is arguably a healthy thing to do, even if this particular one doesn’t exactly end well. Even her ‘fight or flight’ state of mind, which she ascribes to PTSD, is well founded and isn’t shown to be disrupting her daily life – she’s not constantly jittery, finding aliens and monsters round every corner. All we really see is her responding to an elaborate prank in a way that feels completely logical given her experience.

Unfortunately, this ends up undermining the emotional throughline of the story. What is Ruby’s character arc meant to be? Seeking out others with some understanding of her experiences makes sense, and the episode doesn’t seem to be suggesting that she is trying to fill the Doctor-shaped hole in her life in an emotionally unhealthy way. Conrad seeming like a bit of a Doctor fanboy is the only real red flag, but he’s sweet and attentive otherwise, and you can see why she falls for him. So while her monologue at the end of the episode about needing to be on her own for a while certainly makes sense as a reaction to what she’s been subjected to by Conrad, it doesn’t really feel like a payoff to what’s set up at the beginning.

Which brings us to Conrad himself. In a way, Conrad is a more successful version of the villain the show tried to give us in “The Robot Revolution“, though the misogyny is more subtextual here. The performance is much stronger, which helps, and Jonah Hauer-King effectively sells Conrad’s mid-point heel turn with that casually malevolent “nailed it”. The twist is pretty effective, as it initially seems like Conrad’s Doctor obsession is what’s going to drive a wedge between him and Ruby – it’s certainly a better example of subversion than the show inadvertently coming out as pro-Amazon in “Kerblam!“, also written by Pete McTighe.

However, once the episode has pivoted to show Conrad’s true colours, it runs into the curious problem of being simultaneously too specific and too general. In the hellscape that is 2025, we are unfortunately far too aware of the various types being explored here – the amoral grifter exploiting people’s insecurities, the true believer conspiracist soaking in dangerous misinformation, and the furious reactionary driven to commit terrible acts of violence. The problem is, the episode can’t seem to decide which of these types it wants Conrad to be, so it tries to make him all three, which doesn’t really work. Not because there could never be any crossover between those types, but because the episode doesn’t have the time (or, seemingly, the inclination) to dramatise the progression.

So by the time Conrad is breaking into UNIT, stealing a gun and shooting people, it’s hard to parse his true motivations. Is it about money and self promotion? Is it revenge because they didn’t give him a job? Has he actually started to believe his own hype? During his climactic conversation with the Doctor, which Hauer-King plays with cold psychopathy, I was half convinced he was going to turn out to be the Master, publicly speed running online radicalisation for a laugh. There’s a version of this that could have worked – feinted at with comically underdeveloped UNIT stooge Jordan – where Conrad’s thoughtless grifting ends up radicalising somebody else into doing something horrific, but having one character embody every facet of the issue just ends up making him feel inconsistent.

The uneasy balancing act of translating these topical real-world dynamics to the world of Doctor Who also applies more broadly to the episode’s engagement with conspiracies, disinformation and online witch hunts. I’m generally of the mindset that it’s wise not to get too invested in continuity and canon when it comes to a 60-year-old show in which time travel is a major factor, but it’s difficult not to wonder how, in a world that has seen so many alien invasions, the anti-UNIT meme could take off so fast and have such immediate and catastrophic ramifications. Governments overreacting to public opinion and doing something stupid? Believable! People convincing themselves that a world-shaking event – like, I dunno, a pandemic – didn’t actually happen? Also believable! But in the context of this specific fictional universe, it just raises a few too many distracting questions.

Based on all this, you might be thinking that the episode is a dog’s breakfast, but there’s good stuff in here! As stated, Millie Gibson is great, even if she’s not always best served by the writing – her pain at Conrad’s betrayal feels raw and tangible, and her climactic “go to hell” is satisfying. Shirley’s dry sense of humour is always welcome, and as with “73 Yards“, it feels like the show has finally found the best use for Jemma Redgrave as Kate. She works really well as a mentor figure for Ruby, both actors believably selling the affection between the two, and the moment where she shouts “Don’t you dare point a gun at her” hits hard. Kate taking things too far with Conrad and the Shreek is also dramatically compelling, especially as everyone around her seems visibly uncomfortable. It feels like an interesting new angle for the character, and something that could put her on a collision course with the Doctor.

And while the Doctor-Conrad confrontation does feel a bit like McTighe (or, one suspects, an uncredited Russell T Davies) turning directly to camera to deliver a rant, it’s hard not to feel some satisfaction when Ncuti Gatwa gives the guy both barrels. More steely, seething contempt from this Doctor please, he’s rather good at it.

Overall, then, an interesting if messy experiment with lots of compelling ideas, even if doesn’t ultimately hang together. Engaging with the current moment is something Doctor Who is going to need to do if the show is to remain relevant – though hopefully in future that engagement will be a bit more deft.

Doctor Who continues with “The Story and The Engine” on Saturday May 10 on BBC One and iPlayer in the UK, and on Disney+ around the world.

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