So far, we’ve had the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) stepping on a landmine, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) spending a lifetime being stalked, social media and racism, Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu) becoming animated, and the return of a scary entity on the planet of Midnight. I’ve liked all those stories, but Lucky Day is the most I’ve enjoyed an episode of Doctor Who since 2017.
I went into it tentatively. For a while, this looked like another re-tread of the past. The Robot Revolution was similar in tone to Partners in Crime and New Earth; Lux was Tooth and Claw; and The Well delighted in past glories — would Lucky Day just be Love & Monsters, done a bit better? Doctor Who Series 15 so far has been solid enough, but a little sad, as if trying to remind the audience of a time when Doctor Who was massive and great, an acknowledgement that we’re creeping forwards into an uncertain future, waiting for something better to come along. It’s like it’s tiding us over. That’s what Lucky Day appeared to be too. Conrad Clark (Jonah Hauer-King) met the Doctor when he was young and became fascinated with him; so much so that he’s dedicated a considerable amount of his life to being within touching distance of the Time Lord’s sometimes horrifying life. He is Elton Pope, by another name. Or so it seems.
Conrad is a little dull. He’s likeable though, and I suspect how much you invest in the episode, and stick with it without tuning out or turning over, depends on your reaction to seeing Ruby again. I like Ruby enough to be glad that she’s come back. Anyone who found the episode boring likely isn’t especially pleased to see her return. It was a bold gamble because a casual audience might easily change channel. This is exacerbated by the audience rightly guessing that Conrad didn’t drink the antidote that would’ve bumped him off the Shreek’s menu. Of course he’s not going to have taken it. He says it’s because he wants to prove himself; at one point, I suspected it was solely so he could meet the Doctor. That’s probably what Elton would’ve done.
Ah, but this episode is all about the twist.
The enemy this week isn’t the boogey man or a god or a devil-goblin. It’s a bitter man who can’t face reality.
Pete McTighe writes this beautifully. You can see why many think he should be the next showrunner — not least because his love of Doctor Who shines through. He also understands the nature of TV really well; not a shock given that he’s an experienced screenwriter, not just a Doctor Who fan. That’s why we guess that Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) is going to unleash the Shreek on Conrad, and that that’s okay: after pulling the rug from underneath us so spectacularly, something predictable is perfect. It’s still scary. The emotion is still there. Because sure, Conrad’s been dealt with for now (for now), but we’ve all felt his betrayal and it lingers.
Why is it so hard-hitting? Yes, the writing and acting from all involved, but I’d also like to highlight Peter Hoar’s direction. There’s a lovely sequence with Conrad having drinks with Ruby: it’s shot and lit very intimately, with each character facing the camera during their respective dialogue, letting us look into our eyes too, letting Conrad lie to our faces. Hoar is a fantastic director — as evidenced not just on his previous Doctor Who, A Good Man Goes to War, but also across numerous high-profile programmes like Daredevil, It’s a Sin, and Cloak and Dagger — and we’re lucky he’s given his talents to Doccy Whom.
He also manages the impossible and makes that big, hospital-like, cold and empty TARDIS set look warm; welcoming yet moody. The Doctor isn’t in this episode much, and while I don’t think there’s any good justification for having another Doctor-lite episode (that’s three across two heavily truncated seasons), this time, it’s for the better. He’s annoyed me in previous weeks, acting very uncharacteristically, but this time, he’s got grit. He’s threatening and rather horrible, something we’ve not seen from Ncuti before. I love his pointing out essentially that some people are important because they’re not important. That in itself is noteworthy. Yes, it’s nice to hear your time-travelling hero say that everyone is special, but he doesn’t act like it. What about the doomed Ross in Into the Dalek? Or Mike Smith in Remembrance of the Daleks? Or even that often-remembered (at least by the fans) caveman whose head he was going to cave in with a rock in An Unearthly Child? In Lucky Day, the Doctor tells Conrad that he is nothing. I guess we’ll see how greatly Conrad disagrees in Wish World/ The Reality War…
Either way, the Doctor isn’t the only one showing considerable grit. Step forward Kate Stewart! I love Kate, but she’s not always been written very well. Russell T Davies has handled her a bit better than Chris Chibnall and Steven Moffat (I’m a huge fan of the latter, but he did make UNIT a bit stupid, especially in The Magician’s Apprentice). But McTighe gives me a lot of hope for upcoming spin-off, The War Between the Land and the Sea. I like it when Kate proves herself cut from the same cloth as her father, the man who bombed the titular creatures in Doctor Who and the Silurians. Kate is firing on all cylinders.
Ruby, however, isn’t. She’s on the back foot throughout, and her talk about PTSD gives us one such reason, not forgetting, of course, that Conrad dug his knife in deep. Millie is excellent, but in the past, Ruby’s not really been interesting enough. She’s grown since leaving the Doctor, although largely as she’s still dealing with the ramifications of travelling with him. That gives her character. That makes her more engaging. It somehow feels acceptable that she doesn’t do a great deal in Lucky Day, except save Conrad — she rescues him from the Shreek and proves herself better than him. That’s enough. That’s more than enough.
Despite loving Lucky Day, I do have quibbles. The Doctor’s speech at the end felt a bit preachy again, and it wasn’t needed — we all know what type of person Conrad is, what type of person he’s based on, so we don’t need a diatribe about the folk who buy into “fake news” narratives. It’s patronising and a staple of Davies’ second tenure as showrunner. Similarly, I’m not sure Conrad’s raison d’être is justified; the Doctor promised him a lucky day, but that never came, highlighted by his abusive mother. If he’s bitter that the Doctor decided not to take him travelling with him, that would be more understandable; as is, the second time Conrad saw the Doctor, he didn’t approach him, so his bitterness carrying him forwards through the years feels a tad forced. (We didn’t need those references to meeting the Beatles either: absolutely bring up some of your greatest hits, but not The Devil’s Chord, one of the worst episodes I’ve ever seen.)
And would the sort of people who back Conrad believe the denouement? No, they’d say it’s all special effects and fiendish ploys. Once the idea that UNIT is a lie and a waste of taxpayers’ money is planted in the general public’s mind, a live stream of an alien attack isn’t going to swing things. Let’s hope it means UNIT steps back into the shadows for subsequent appearances.
Despite those minor issues, Lucky Day remains one of the best episodes of the Fifteenth Doctor era — perhaps even since the heady days of the Twelfth Doctor…
