"I am fighting a battle on behalf of everyday people, who just want to get through their day, and feel safe, and warm, and fed. And then along comes this… noise. All day long, this relentless noise."
IN THIS ONE... Ruby Sunday faces life without the Doctor.
REVIEW: Are you freaking kidding me with the Doctor-lite episodes in 8-episode seasons?! One of many frustrations I have with Lucky Day, which really should have been a first episode of a UNIT series - it feels a lot like Torchwood, with Kate even acting like Captain Jack (and I don't just mean her office romance) - even if we've had other backdoor pilots for UNIT in the past couple years. So it's nothing against Ruby and her story of "Doctor PTSD", which I think is interesting to explore (Sarah Jane Smith had this without really putting a word to it on her series). And it's really nothing against UNIT - Kate is always good, but I'm most happy to see Shirley again (after being ridiculously replaced by child labor last season), who fares better than Trinity Wells, now a Fox News angry opinion peddler. Now if only somebody could blow up the Vlinx for me. But relegating the Doctor to the bookends, and even giving him one of 15's best speeches (and having it completely ignored by the receiver) is the pits.
I suppose the episode could never really bounce back from its sluggish, boring romance, taking up the entire first half. I find it unconvincing that Ruby would fall (and quickly, too) with someone who is essentially a conspiracy theorist podcaster. I can't even believe that, with UNIT ties, she still ends up on his show ready to tell, if not all, some of her journey. It seems like she's actually there to give him the antidote for the Shreek tracker, but wait until he invites her for coffee before giving it to him, so that's messy. And perhaps even MORE unbelievable is his heel turn, from nerdy, attentive boyfriend to right-wing, misogynistic, disinformationist with a gun, trying to expose UNIT as a fraud, slinging slurs at Ruby and the one disabled woman he sees. I'm not saying it's impossible, not in our world, but you're asking me to believe this monster had a deep cover as this one type of podcaster, while also being Tim Pool, or somebody. Further, this guy met the Doctor and Belinda when he was a kid, and THEN saw the Doctor and Ruby fighting the Shreek (and therefore the TARDIS both arriving and leaving) and instead of making him a believer, he became a self-serving denier. And all his friends are in on it, but great actors. And "in our world" is perhaps the source of my frustration here. We're already living through this, and the normal thing to do would be to satirize it in an episode in the future or another planet, with a sci-fi spin (in fact, they already did with Dot and Bubble). This is too close to home, and it actually turned my stomach, especially thinking of Ruby being used by him. Revolting. You could say, then it worked, but these aren't really feelings I want to have watching this show.
And Conrad really is a nasty piece of work. He's too much. After being an a-hole to Ruby, and a danger to UNIT, he also breaks into UNIT's Avengers tower with the help of a confederate (who's been inside and is STILL a denier?!), shoots that guy and walks into the control room with an automatic rifle asking for answers. HIS answers. Even after Kate looses the Shreek on him (which is obviously the play), he still denies its existence with a shit-eating smirk. Even after he gets his arm bitten off (is that what I'm supposed to get from that weird ring, that they cloned him an arm because it costs too much to remove it in post?), he still has the gall to stand up to the Doctor. What is even his motivation at this point? And Mrs. Flood breaks him out, possibly to cause the destruction of Earth, since that's where we're heading. So if he survives the Shreek attack, and UNIT gives him his arm back, and the Doctor's sermon doesn't leave a mark, and he's broken out of jail despite history saying he does in his cell at age 49, the character never gets his comeuppance (at least, not in this episode). McTighe also gave us the ethically-compromised Kerblam, so...
Come to think of it, great speech or not, does that ending make sense? If the Doctor learns Belinda's name from Conrad, and therefore has this moment before he meets young Conrad... Is he just playing along in that first scene, acting like he doesn't know all the evil this kid is going to do in the future? He seems very well researched on the guy, after all. Wouldn't those podcasts where he talks to Ruby already exist? Is this just timey-wimey with no explanation? Well, it's not like I'm questioning how Conrad finds himself in and out of the TARDIS (hypnosis, I say).
THEORIES: Are we to understand Mel's Australian mission (in the Sydney Harbour) is a reference to the UNIT vs. Sea Devils mini-series that may never come? McTighe was also writing "The War Between Land and Sea", so that seems likely.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium-Low - While we learn a key point and have some fair UNIT stuff enough for a Medium on WATCHability, I hate this one like I hated Dot and Bubble, except more, and have no wish to REwatch it.
Comments
As a creative, as well, I've cogitated for many years about the general ethics of writing which I've come to consider as inherently political in nature, a text being an appeal (whether consciously or unconsciously) to see the world in a very particular way. One of the main considerations being about whom exactly is the antagonist and what that choice reflexively says about its author.
I was reasonably intrigued by Chibnall's S11 experiment in reducing the Doctor's status to confront more realistic foes. It seemed like a vital, new approach to an otherwise aging format, if indeed, a problematic one. The choice ensuring that the Doctor has to occasionally stand around, soberly impotent in the face of complex real world problems (Rose, Demons of the Punjab and Dot And Bubble). I think it's fair to say that having your Protagonist sidelined is the antithesis of drama, but if it makes for an effective point, I feel it can be justified.
Anyway, back to the choices made here, Conrad is not merely the story's Antagonist, but its intended monster. No attempt has been made to represent the complex real world issues underpinning the phenomena, no attempt at contextualizing the phenomena, showing Conrad's family background, living conditions and/or prior experience. The same can be said for Alan Budd's cohesive controlling tendencies found within The Robot Revolution, and furthermore, Roger ap Gwilliam toxic politics in 73 Yards. Bad people, do bad things, apparently.
Undoubtedly, there are boundless real world analogues for these stereotypes, but they usually start out somewhere else reasonably benign. If these explorations are meant as an intended learning experience (moral warning) you delve into those complexities, those general failures of imagination. But instead, if you opt for moustache twirling villains as analogues, the stories are intended solely as polemics.
It's fair to say that I intuited Conrad Clark as problematic pretty quickly, in part due to the unrealistic notion of an entire episode devoted to a companion's intended happy ending, but also, due to a matter of established precedence. I touched upon the problematic characters above for another reason, to make a related point that by making the seemingly least contentious choice available isn't without (unintended) cumulative consequence.
And as to Conrad Clark's fate, alongside the final episode title of The Reality War, it seems that he plays some part in the finale. Alongside Russell T Davies' recent rather prickly comments in response to continued accusations about wokeness, it's hard not to perceive the Reality War as some kind of deep analogue for the Culture War itself. I hope that I'm wrong, I hope that some kind of deeper point about conciliation and mutual understanding is yet forthcoming, especially in light of ongoing ructions within fandom itself, but upon the evidence of this story’s formatting, the Doctor as Culture Warrior just might be waiting around the corner.