Lucky Day sees the return of Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), who disembarked from the TARDIS in the season one finale Empire of Death.
As with 73 Yards, Gibson excels in a standalone Doctor-lite episode. This time exploring TARDIS companion life post the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa). What seemingly starts as a life-affirming exploration of Whovian fandom, as seen in Lux, is brutally subverted and takes a darker Torchwood twist.
The revelation that popular podcaster and Ruby's romantic interest, Conrad Clark (Jonah Hauer-King), founded the far-right Think Tank gave me chills.
An earlier iteration of Think Tank was featured in the Fourth Doctor’s (Tom Baker) first full story, Robot. The organisation clashed with UNIT, led by Kate Stewart's (Jemma Redgrave) father, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney). The titular robot was a tragic figure in a retelling of King Kong. The Denys Fisher action figure stood sentry, alongside the Six Million Dollar Man and a Cyberman, by my bedside in a children's hospital (circa 1977) in the wake of a life-changing injury that culminated in a permanent disability and societal prejudice as a member of an unseen underclass. Therefore, this episode deeply resonated with me.
Irredeemable human monsters are always scarier than a creature of the week. And through this lens, Lucky Day cleverly confronts the Doctor’s callousness, too. Something is very wrong, and that discordant tone was established by Belinda Chandra’s (Varada Sethu) demand to get home in The Robot Revolution.
Talking of Belinda, Conrad knew about her. Will we see him again as a companion of Mrs Flood (Anita Dobson) or the Rani, as I remain steadfastly sure is her true identity!
Lucky Day is another stellar season two story and teases the upcoming UNIT spin-off series, The War Between The Land And The Sea. Is Ruby going to play a pivotal role alongside Kate? If not, give her her own series.
New episodes of Doctor Who drop every Saturday on BBC One, BBC iPlayer and Disney+ outside the UK and Ireland. Season two is available for pre-order from Amazon (affiliate link).
Have you watched Lucky Day? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below.
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