#14 (2.4): Lucky Day.

Ruby Sunday has a classic "meet cute" with podcaster Conrad Clark (Jonah Hauer-King).

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 46 minutes. Written by: Pete McTighe. Directed by: Peter Hoar. Produced by: Vicki Delow.


THE PLOT:

When he was just 8 years old, Conrad Clark (Jonah Hauer-King) had a chance encounter with the Doctor that shaped his life. He later observed the Doctor again, this time alongside his companion Ruby Sunday, as the two stopped a threat from "The Shreek," a creature that marks its prey so that it can hunt it down in the future - and on that occasion, the Shreek marked Conrad.

Now the host of a podcast about extraterrestrials, Conrad arranges an interview with Ruby. She's been struggling to adjust to a normal life after her time with the Doctor, and she's charmed by this awkward but kind young man. After he tells her about the Shreek, she arranged for UNIT to give him an antidote, so that he need never worry about the creatures again.

Conrad and Ruby begin dating, and one weekend he invites her to his hometown to meet his friends. While enjoying drinks at a pub, Ruby notices the lights flickering, which is one of the early warnings of the Shreek's approach. This should be impossible - Not only is the creature in UNIT's custody, they would only be tracking them if Conrad hadn't drunk the antidote.

Then Conrad reveals that he did not drink the liquid - a mistake that appears to have put him, Ruby, and his friends all in imminent danger!


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: He makes an indelible impression on young Conrad simply by materializing the TARDIS in front of him. He's kind to the boy, giving him a coin and telling him that it's his lucky day before leaving again as quickly as he came. He has three appearances in the episode, and all of them happen "out of order" from his perspective: He meets young Conrad while taking another Vindicator reading with Belinda; his second scene is, from his perspective, well before that, when he was traveling with Ruby shortly after the events of The Devil's Chord; and his final one is set between seasons, when he was traveling alone.

Ruby Sunday: She's been struggling with PTSD since leaving the Doctor. Conrad appears to be just what she needs: a simple nice guy who's supportive and willing to listen. She's appalled when he reveals that he didn't take the Shreek antidote, and she's quick to take charge when the pub comes under siege. Millie Gibson's last two episodes as a regular were also her worst, with weak scripts that resulted in generic performances. Lucky Day gives her much stronger material, allowing her to show restlessness, fear, happiness, and anger. It's a reminder of how good she can be when she's actually given something to work with.

Belinda: She's present only for the opening scene, in which she's still anxious to return home. The Doctor introduces her to child Conrad, which results in a closed circle when adult Conrad asks the Doctor about Belinda when he hasn't yet met her - which might =be the reason that he was searching for her at the start of The Robot Revolution.

Conrad: Jonah Hauer-King presents Conrad as instantly likable: just nervous and insecure enough to be appealing without seeming clingy or useless. We know early on that he's not telling Ruby everything about himself. He presents his relationship with his dead mother as a positive one, while the opening indicated that his mother was abusive and cruel... though in fairness, that's not something you're likely to bring up on a first date. These tidbits, his insecurity and the past that we glimpse at the episode's start, make it believable that he would engage in an ill-conceived effort to be fearless for Ruby.

Kate Lethbridge-Stewart: When Ruby calls her with her worries about the Shreek, she takes her concerns seriously, running a check both on the power grid and on the Shreek that she has confined. When both come up clean, she gently suggests that Ruby is "constantly on alert" (read: paranoid), and she manages to make the observation sound kind rather than judgment. She expresses concerns that the UK ministers would be only too happy to turn on UNIT, and she worries about the organization's technology leaking out if that happens. Jemma Redgrave gets possibly her series-best scene near the end, when Kate grows grim and angry while dealing with the mess of this situation.


THOUGHTS:

I managed not to be spoiled for The Well, which enhanced my enjoyment of that very good episode. Lucky Day is also a good episode... but unfortunately, this time I was spoiled about the big reveal. Ah, well: Such are the perils of waiting on new episodes until after the full season has dropped.

I enjoyed Lucky Day. It does a good job of playing with expectations. The opening deliberately echoes Love & Monsters, with Conrad - like that episode's Elton - encountering the TARDIS by chance and even stretching out his fingers toward the door before observing the end of an unseen adventure involving the Shreek. Like that episode's Elton, his brief encounters with the Doctor have clearly shaped his life - though Conrad has turned his enthusiasm into a podcast rather than joining a fan group.

All of this, and his amusingly clumsy "meet cute" with Ruby, prime us to like him even before the main story properly gets going. The point-of-view then shifts to Ruby and her difficulties with normal life. This also works, with us seeing her relax and enjoy herself again with Conrad as her family cheers her on. All of which builds effectively to the weekend, with the tone turning darker as the lights flicker and the first glimpses are caught of the monster outside...

The second half makes one more switch in viewpoint, with Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT taking center stage as the story moves toward its conclusion. I could gripe that UNIT's security appears to be poor enough to qualify them for service on the starship Enterprise, but I can handwave that because the story remains engrossing. The climax is effective, as Kate takes actions that she knows and states the Doctor would disapprove of in order to neutralize the threat, and Jemma Redgrave is outstanding when Kate shows her full fury. With the story resolved, I was preparing to award a strong "8."

...And then came the Doctor's third appearance. I like the idea that an offhand remark from Conrad accidentally guides the Doctor to find Belinda, essentially setting the stage for the entire season. I'm less fond of the scene's centerpiece: a heavy-handed speech in which the Doctor lays out The Moral of the Story. I appear to be in the minority in not liking the speech. It's good as a speech, and I agree with almost every word ... but the episode's themes had already been conveyed by Kate and Ruby. This is pure heavy-handedness, hammering it home on the theory that we're too dumb to have gotten the point.

Since I don't particular enjoy being lectured, even when I agree with the lecture, this was enough for me to deduct one point from my final score - leaving Lucky Day still at a solid...


Overall Rating: 7/10.

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#11 (2.1): The Robot Revolution.

Nurse Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu) is kidnapped by robots from another world.

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 47 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies. Directed by: Peter Hoar. Produced by: Vicki Delow.


THE PLOT:

When she was a teenager, Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu)'s received a bizarre gift from her boyfriend (Jonny Green): a certificate officially naming a star after her. 17 years later, Belinda is now a hospital nurse, living a busy but thoroughly ordinary life.

That is, until a spaceship lands near the house she's renting with several flatmates, and giant robots emerge to kidnap her. The robots insist that they are taking her to "Missbelindachandra One," a planet orbiting the star in her name. She is brought to a world ruled by robots, with the humans serving as little more than slaves, and told that she is to be their queen - and that she must marry their ruler, the AI Generator.

As she struggles to process all this insanity, a man steps forward to explain. This is a "designated historian," who calls himself the Doctor. After detailing the current state of the planet, the Doctor leads a group of rebels in rescuing Belinda.

But why has this planet evolved into this state? How did the robots obtain the same exact star certificate that Belinda carries? And why does the robots' certificate appear to be thousands of years old...?


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: A friend who has helped him on Missbelindachandra One dies early in the episode, during Belinda's rescue. The Doctor processes that death quickly, taking a couple of seconds to feel all the grief at once. He then moves immediately to the task at hand, proclaiming, "She's dead. Right... we have got a world to overthrow." Aside from that scene and the epilogue, he serves as the Designated Deliverer of Exposition, but Ncuti Gatwa mostly makes it work through sheer energy.

Belinda: The first companion in a long time who would really prefer not to be. She has no interest in traveling the stars. Even the teen version of her seems unimpressed with the gift of a star named after her, though she does keep the certificate. In the present, she mainly just wants to get home. She does her best to use her nursing skills to help the wounded at the rebel base, and she feels guilt for those who were hurt or died saving her. But when the Doctor tries to persuade her to join him in his travels, she refuses, labeling him as "dangerous" and insisting, "I am not one of your adventures!"


THOUGHTS:

The first half of The Robot Revolution is rather good. We share in Belinda's disorientation as, in quick succession, she is: whisked away from her life by the robots; declared queen of a planet named after her; and informed that she must join with their AI. The fact of a rebellion is efficiently introduced when she witnesses the robots violently suppressing a distant riot. Then the Doctor steps forward as the "designated historian" to fill in needed backstory and to demonstrate the robots' weakness. At the midpoint, as Belinda hides in a rebel bunker while explosions rock the area, this episode seems on track to be a terrific season opener.

Then the script decides that we don't really need a proper Second Act. There are elements that might have been used. Belinda sees the injured and immediately starts acting as a nurse, but this occupies all of about two minutes. One rebel, Manny (Max Parker), resents her, blaming her for those who died rescuing her. When she protests that none of this is her fault, he sneers: "Is that a royal decree? You're as bad as the robots." Absolutely none of this goes anywhere, save to spur Belinda doing something remarkably stupid that in a more interesting script would likely have backfired spectacularly on all of the characters.

But instead of developing any of these pieces, the episode just skims through one quiet scene and then has the Doctor and Belinda captured again so as to rush straight to the confrontation with the AI Generator. Meaning that, yes, it would have been structurally cleaner to have the Doctor's rescue fail, with the exposition being dropped in a prison cell while waiting to be taken to the planet's mechanical ruler.

The big confrontation also feels rushed, though there is one clever conceit that I didn't see coming and that binds stray bits of the story together. Unfortunately, elements that should have remained subtext are rendered into direct text, with Belinda at one point invoking some Internet terminology to make sure "da kids" aren't missing The Moral of the Story.


OVERALL:

The Robot Revolution opens extremely well... which makes it all the more frustrating when the second half squanders that by skimming over what might have been interesting plot and character elements and finished by becoming heavy-handed.

I can't help but wonder if the main episode didn't suffer for needing to accommodate a five minute epilogue that's there to set up the season arc. In fairness, the final moments are intriguing. But after last season, I have zero expectations that I'll be satisfied by the eventual answers, and it's unfortunate that what was on track to be a pretty good episode seems likely to have been compromised for the sake of an arc tease.

Still, while this is flawed, it's at least entertaining, which means that it's a whole lot better than Space Babies.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

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