Why Lucky Day doesn't work.

Rob Ryan

The latest episode of Doctor Who titled Lucky Day is a frustrating and madding effort that like a lot of some of the worst episodes, I can so easily see how it could have worked, how it could have been profound and left a lasting impression, how it could've taken the show in challenging directions and make you think about the world you live in, this is in part why the show became such an obsession growing up as it gave me a understanding of why authority should always be questioned, why empathy is a strength, not a weakness along with some other sanctimonious platitudes about being the best you can be in a cruel world that I try to carry from day to day with varying degrees of success. But that potential can only go so far depending on the vision or lack thereof from who ever is helming the script and what ideologies, biases and cognitive blind spots they may carry, something that the show has fallen victim too many a time long before Russell T Davies revived it in 2005. Case in point, Lucky Day was written by Pete McTighe who has been involved in the promotion of various DVD releases, but his claim to fame regarding his involvement to the franchise was writing the episode, "Kerblam" which I like to give the alternative title of "Doctor Who's Pro-union busting episode" as the episode to cut a long story short, see's The Doctor defending an intergalactic delivery service which is meant to parody Amazon, the villain in question is a worker who wanted to prevent automation from taking over the galaxy and putting a bunch of workers out of the job, the killer line in the final confrontation comes from the 13th Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) preaching "The Systems aren't the Problem"

This episode released in 2018 was not only a bastardisation of some of the pro-union beliefs of the show-runners back in the 60's and 70s but it really has not aged well considering what we know today of Amazons unethical and inhumane practices with regards to workplace safety and deregulation. This doctor being pro-capitalism would set the stage for why the Chibniall era became so hated but not for the reasons that slop anti-woke you-tubers online would tell you. Seeing Russel T Davies bring McTighe back for this season on the one hand wasn't surprising considering his long lasting involvement with the brand but I was still disappointed that he would be helming an episode given his blind spots and his seemingly internalised belief in the institutions. While I did not hate the episode like I thought I would, it does demonstrate a flaw with modern Who that I don't think gets addressed too much.

But I'm getting a head of myself, We Follow Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) who is settling down nicely in London after her travels with The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) when one day she meets a young man named Conrad (Jonah Hauer-King) who a year prior, saw the doctor and Ruby defeat a dimension travelling carnivore called The Shreek that only kills its prey once it squirts a pheromone onto them and then hunts and kills that person at a later date, Conrad took a picture of Ruby entering the doctors traveling machine the TARDIS and put her image on social media asking everyone who she is, Ruby catches wind of this and becomes a guest on his podcast where she learns that he met the doctor and his reluctant new companion Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu) back in 2007 when he was just a boy and had become obsessed with finding him again ever since. Ruby assures Conrad that The Doctor is not a threat and that UNIT ,the military created to combat extraterrestrial threats founded under The Doctor are "here to protect us" (remember that line for later)

Ruby then joins Conrad on a date, but not out of recreation but because she knows that Conrad had been squirted with the Pheromone by The Shreek and it could come to hunt him down at any date unless he take an antidote that will prevent that. After when he seemingly does, it reveals that during their travels to a village in the English countryside he has not only not taken it, but has brought an army of Shreek's with him, Ruby calls Kate Lethbridge Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) now head of UNIT and daughter of Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart, UNIT's founder and previous commanding officer back in the 60s and 70s. for assistance and this is where the episode takes and interesting an peculiar turn. Up until that point the episode functions like a sci-fi rom com with Ruby and Conrad becoming boyfriend and girlfriend through their experiences with the Doctor, only then to reveal that the Shreek invasion of this small village was a prank enacted by Conrad who is part of an organisation called "Think-Tank" who made their first appearance in Tom Baker's first story "Robot" back in 1974 where they where a militarised group of scientists who wanted to start a nuclear war as they believed it would build a better world. Now Think Tank is a extremist group of reactionaries who believe that there is no such alien threat, that it's all a hoax and a front for UNIT to enact authoritarianism on the public. From reading this you can probably think of a few parallels to real life that McTiege is trying to emulate.

Conrad having betrayed Ruby's trust and pranked a military group into believing that there was a threat, gets arrested and even though he only proved that if UNIT believe that there is an Alien threat, they would come to the aid of the public to keep them safe, he none the less becomes a national sensation, even appearing on The One Show (I'm not an avid watcher of The One Show but I'm pretty sure that a member of a activist group is not the kind of person they would waste their time having on) and public perception starts swaying against UNIT.

This is where the episode won me and lost me again as everything after that reveal is so haphazardly edited and full of random exposition dumps about Conrad's impact, that we are not given any time to get a sense about what people find appealing about his ideology nor how the political climate under UNIT has caused the public consciousness to be antagonistic towards them, something they could have really explored if they weren't limited to 45 minutes. The biggest problem with the episode however is the framing of UNIT as ultimately righteous with no room for nuance whatsoever, the thing about extremist groups and how they flourish in the first place is because they always start with a hint of truth, "Big Pharma only cares about the profit motive" "The CIA wants to control the world" "Joe Biden is a war criminal" etc. Its the conclusions with these points that people come too is how you often you get fringe groups in the first place. McTighe's failure to reckon with this makes the end conclusion morally questionable at best as he is choosing a military group to be the centre of rage by reactionary and right-wing groups, a group that is responsible for genocide against The Silurians no less back in the episode titled "Doctor Who and the Silurians" in 1970. This could have worked if McTighe had reckoned with this and had not gone for a cowards ending that insures that UNIT"s role in this show should not be questioned in anyway shape or form. After all like Ruby said, "They are here to protect us" which has an air of "The military invades Foreign nations in the east to defend our freedoms in the west"

There is a hint of all of this critique at the climax, that indicates that a more challenging episode trying to escape. Conrad, with the help of a double agent inside UNIT breaks into the base in Canary Warf and holds the control room hostage with a machine gun he nabbed and killed said double agent with, why he only came by himself without anyone to back him up? I don't know, but after demanding physical proof of this monster to his audience which he's live-streaming to, Kate seemingly snaps and releases a Shreek that she has kept in a cell. Conrad tries shooting at it to no avail, all the characters including Ruby try to tell Kate to stop but she doesn't listen and the Shreek is only stoped after Ruby tasers it. Nothing about Kate's trigger happy nature is addressed again, if Conrad had say been killed, or had his arm decapitated by the Shreek and Kate prevented anyone from helping, then she would be revealed to be a murderer in front of thousands of people, UNIT's reputation would be tarnished, and she would have to face the consequences, this could have made more sense and be more reflective of our real world as military can also be driven by vengeance and power, and gives credence to the arguments made by Conrad and his followers.

UNIT's secrecy (Or lack thereof since they occupy a skyscraper in London now) has fanned the flames for people like Conrad to take advantage of, much in the same way the government and various organisations keep secrets, failure to reckon with this is a failure to reckon why extremist groups are now more prominent, the conclusion that the episode can only come to at that point that theses people only emerge because one man just wanted to be special and that's it. Then there's the final confrontation between Conrad and The Doctor where it's only purpose is to establish how he heard about Belinda in the first place and that's it. Other than that, wouldn't it have been more satisfying that instead of confronting Conrad for being a petty opportunist that hurt his friend, he concludes that he's too weak and pathetic to waste any of his infinite time giving him the time of day. Perhaps McTighe's intentions with this moment was to give a triumphant speech dedicated to "Anti-woke fans" who can't muster a black person or a woman taking on the role but it all feels too grandstanding to be triumphant.

Lucky Day could have worked if McTighe had explored the concept of extremism in more detail and realise that it's not so cut and dry. Yes they are wrong, and are safe haven's for some of the worst people living today, but without reckoning that "The Systems ARE the Problem" the vision created for the show by some very progressive minded people (mostly) for the time will be more tarnished than it already has been. This problem is not limited to McTighe though, the glorification of UNIT especially in this era where they are essentially SHIELD from the MCU does not do this show any favours when the protagonist of the show is an outspoken pacifist and who in the past only took their respect for them so far. Now he seems to have no problem with their methods and actions and their place in the world. The show in the past was, if not critical of UNIT at the very least shows that their methods of defeating the enemy where very limited at best and that withdrawal was often the best corse of action in order to mitigate the bloodshed. Those days are long gone.

This is why that scene with Kate releasing the Shreek is the most fascinating as it shows a hint of what UNIT essentially is or once was. That when push comes to shove like any military, they will kill civilians, to make a point, not because it's moral, but because they can. The message is clear, remove your faith in our military institutions and always question those in authority, Conrad may be a coward but does that make Kate a better person, because she's of higher rank than he is? Kate is a beneficiary of this system which explains why she takes this action that she does, because for the first time in her life, her authority is being threatened, not by some man eating alien, but by a human who's only crime is simply asking, "Who put you in charge" albeit for nefarious reasons. If Lucky Day was honest with these facts, we could be seeing a vision for the show that is more palpable to a more angry, radical, open minded and intern a more accepting show that it clearly wants to be. But until Davis and crew unintentionally or otherwise stop drinking cool aid of modern liberal capitalism, the internal message of the show in the future will be a more white washed version of "The Systems aren't the Problem"

YES THEY ARE!