I'm kind of indifferent to Ruby returning, especially considering the premise, but we'll see how it'll go. At least Kate Stewart is also back and that's always a joy.
Also, the above photo would make for a great Caption This!
Spoilers Lucky Day grade and discussion thread
- Thread starter The Nth Doctor
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I'm kind of indifferent to Ruby returning, especially considering the premise, but we'll see how it'll go. At least Kate Stewart is also back and that's always a joy.
Also, the above photo would make for a great Caption This!
Now that is the second time Mrs Flood appears in uniform. Though the old style key chain was a bit silly.
This episode was an interesting take on how a companion copes with life after the Doctor. We've had glimpses of this before, but not like this. Unlike Sarah Jane or Martha, Ruby is definitely not doing ok.
She has amazing support by her moms and gran, but she is still suffering from having to process all she's been through.
Meeting someone who at least believes her, and let her talk about everything even if they could never truly understand was so important for her.
It's understandable she developed attachment very quickly.
One really hopes that he gets in touch with the rest of teh living companions. Kate, give her Graham's number already!
That Conrad completely betrays her and treats her as a delusional means to an end, makes him utterly despicable.
He is completely devoid of empathy and is a worse monster than the shreak (or however that's spelled).
I have difficulty grasping his motivation, because his actions keep flying in the face of every experience and bit of evidence he sees and rejects.
He is a mixture of pure ego, the need to be right even if everything points him in the direction of being wrong and he is far beyond caring about how many people he drags down with him.
He is not particularly wealthy, but if he were I think we all knew how he would act and behave and the damage he would do would be so much worse.
The Doctor's actions at the end are a nice callback to how he enabled Rose to tell off Elton when he used her mom to get close to the Doctor. of course, Elton really meant well, just went about it the totally wrong way. Conrad in comparison truly seems irredeemable. The Doctor realizes that his intervention has no effect this time and leaves kind of defeated.
The highlight of this episode was Kate for me.
Once again she shows what a badass she is with her actions to turn Conrad's weaponization of publicity against him.
Kate is the other side of the coin in comparison to him.
She is every bit as ruthless as him, but keeps that character trait entirely in check through her endless empathy for others.
She is not righteous at all but weighs morality against the need of the many in maybe just the right dosis.
She was risking a fatal blow to the public image of UNIT by letting the "monster" lose on Conrad, but made the correct assessment that it needed to happen.
There was no Doctor materializing at the last minute. She did what she had to do.
I am sure many will cry "woke" at this episode and "too in your face" or something with the messaging.
But I am glad that Doctor Who is not sugar coating the reality of despicable people like Conrad anymore behind allegorical monsters or aliens.
This kind of monster exists and is all too real, and I hate that I ultimately find his portrayal realistic.
I hate that this storytelling is necessary in the world we live in.
The final scene seals the deal for me that Mrs Flood is not even ambigous anymore. What kind of person would align themselves with a person like Conrad?
I am afraid this is not the last we see of him.
This episode was an interesting take on how a companion copes with life after the Doctor. We've had glimpses of this before, but not like this. Unlike Sarah Jane or Martha, Ruby is definitely not doing ok.
She has amazing support by her moms and gran, but she is still suffering from having to process all she's been through.
Meeting someone who at least believes her, and let her talk about everything even if they could never truly understand was so important for her.
It's understandable she developed attachment very quickly.
One really hopes that he gets in touch with the rest of teh living companions. Kate, give her Graham's number already!
That Conrad completely betrays her and treats her as a delusional means to an end, makes him utterly despicable.
He is completely devoid of empathy and is a worse monster than the shreak (or however that's spelled).
I have difficulty grasping his motivation, because his actions keep flying in the face of every experience and bit of evidence he sees and rejects.
He is a mixture of pure ego, the need to be right even if everything points him in the direction of being wrong and he is far beyond caring about how many people he drags down with him.
He is not particularly wealthy, but if he were I think we all knew how he would act and behave and the damage he would do would be so much worse.
The Doctor's actions at the end are a nice callback to how he enabled Rose to tell off Elton when he used her mom to get close to the Doctor. of course, Elton really meant well, just went about it the totally wrong way. Conrad in comparison truly seems irredeemable. The Doctor realizes that his intervention has no effect this time and leaves kind of defeated.
The highlight of this episode was Kate for me.
Once again she shows what a badass she is with her actions to turn Conrad's weaponization of publicity against him.
Kate is the other side of the coin in comparison to him.
She is every bit as ruthless as him, but keeps that character trait entirely in check through her endless empathy for others.
She is not righteous at all but weighs morality against the need of the many in maybe just the right dosis.
She was risking a fatal blow to the public image of UNIT by letting the "monster" lose on Conrad, but made the correct assessment that it needed to happen.
There was no Doctor materializing at the last minute. She did what she had to do.
I am sure many will cry "woke" at this episode and "too in your face" or something with the messaging.
But I am glad that Doctor Who is not sugar coating the reality of despicable people like Conrad anymore behind allegorical monsters or aliens.
This kind of monster exists and is all too real, and I hate that I ultimately find his portrayal realistic.
I hate that this storytelling is necessary in the world we live in.
The final scene seals the deal for me that Mrs Flood is not even ambigous anymore. What kind of person would align themselves with a person like Conrad?
I am afraid this is not the last we see of him.
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This was a really good episode. Though I liked Ruby well enough last year, I was mostly ambivalent about her returning, not anything against the character, I just felt her story was done and there wasn't any need to revisit her. That said, having her as the central character in a Doctor Lite episode was the perfect way of bringing her back without "tainting" the ending of her arc last year, and it was good fun to see her mother and grandmother back.
A common complaint everyone makes over the year about modern Doctor Who is the fact that everyone always acts so shocked when they learn of the existence of aliens, despite there having been several extremely public alien invasions and other incidents involving aliens happening on the show. This episode provides an explanation to that with their being fringe elements in society who actively disbelieve this as lies being perpetrated by UNIT and the government, which sadly in light of recent real world history might be one of the most believable things to be depicted in this show. Indeed, in some ways this episode is commentary on how Twitter "truthers" are permeating our society. And while the Doctor's sermon to Conrad at the end did border on being a bit too preachy, I'll accept this is the kind of situation where the subtle approach would have made it a bit too easy to dismiss. As it is, I'm sure there are many who will still miss the point.
Not that I want to be "That Guy" but Conrad turning out to be a piece of shit was obvious before the episode even aired. As soon as I found out Ruby would have a love interest and that love interest would be a white male, (half jokingly) commenting "Ruby's with a white man? He's obviously up to no good. We can't have decent white men in today's woke world." And what do you know, that turned out to be true. For the record, I'm not bothered by the show (or any others) "vilifying" white men, I'm just pointing out an obvious and predictable trope.
Badass Kate was certainly a highlight to this episode. And while I was pretty certain Conrad wasn't actually going to be killed (Doctor Who is aimed at a child audience after all) that scene did leave me guessing all the same.
One minor quibble, I thought Conrad's friends cosplaying as the alien monsters looked scarier than the actual alien monsters did. Mostly the cosplay monsters looked "real" while the actual monster was obvious CG. But meh.
A common complaint everyone makes over the year about modern Doctor Who is the fact that everyone always acts so shocked when they learn of the existence of aliens, despite there having been several extremely public alien invasions and other incidents involving aliens happening on the show. This episode provides an explanation to that with their being fringe elements in society who actively disbelieve this as lies being perpetrated by UNIT and the government, which sadly in light of recent real world history might be one of the most believable things to be depicted in this show. Indeed, in some ways this episode is commentary on how Twitter "truthers" are permeating our society. And while the Doctor's sermon to Conrad at the end did border on being a bit too preachy, I'll accept this is the kind of situation where the subtle approach would have made it a bit too easy to dismiss. As it is, I'm sure there are many who will still miss the point.
Not that I want to be "That Guy" but Conrad turning out to be a piece of shit was obvious before the episode even aired. As soon as I found out Ruby would have a love interest and that love interest would be a white male, (half jokingly) commenting "Ruby's with a white man? He's obviously up to no good. We can't have decent white men in today's woke world." And what do you know, that turned out to be true. For the record, I'm not bothered by the show (or any others) "vilifying" white men, I'm just pointing out an obvious and predictable trope.
Badass Kate was certainly a highlight to this episode. And while I was pretty certain Conrad wasn't actually going to be killed (Doctor Who is aimed at a child audience after all) that scene did leave me guessing all the same.
One minor quibble, I thought Conrad's friends cosplaying as the alien monsters looked scarier than the actual alien monsters did. Mostly the cosplay monsters looked "real" while the actual monster was obvious CG. But meh.
The only reason Kate stayed late, to get that call from Ruby, is because she was either planning or just completed a workplace interlude with Christofer, which is just an HR nightmare waiting to happen.
Meh, what does on between two consenting adults is their business.
This was indeed excellent (and such a step up from McTighe after the lacklustre, to put it mildly, Kerblam! and Praxeaus) and so far the most uniformly adult one, and I did get some Torchwood vibes in the UNIT HQ finale there. I was actually surprised Conrad would be THAT much of a bastard, but I did expect he'd be a liar though. Still, the biting commentary that goes with it might be too nuanced for some (unless its intended to be a blast only to the far right, which is fair, obviously) but it really works and it really works beautifully. As for Ruby, unlike some of you, I loved her from the very first special, as she was like Rose, a perfectly penfuctonary companion (without the later love interest for the Doctor, obviously) that was elevated by the actress' impressive performance (Piper and Gibson, respectively). So to see her again was a treat for me, obviously, and as good as Belinda is thus far, she's likely to remain my fave 15th Doctor companion.
Overall, pretty effective, and a pretty incredible run of four episodes, and four stories in particular (or five, if you count as I do the Christmas special). Lets hope it keep up!
Overall, pretty effective, and a pretty incredible run of four episodes, and four stories in particular (or five, if you count as I do the Christmas special). Lets hope it keep up!
In a perfect world with trustworthy adults, sure.
Did you learn nothing from Conrad's betrayal?
This was a very strong episode, possibly my favourite in what has been an excellent series so far. Millie proved last season that she can anchor a Doctor-lite episode, so the return of the UNIT crew only added to that.
I didn’t see the twist coming and I thought the message, laid on with a trowel as it may have been, to be timely and necessary. Enjoyed the Doctor bookends; I was wondering how he could suddenly visit 2025 but of course it was wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey and a bit like the Blink bookends being non-sequential too.
So was Conrad the mysterious person who sent the Doctor to find Belinda?
Two final thoughts: the monsters reminded me of the ones from Ghostbusters. And Jonah Hauer-King, Conrad, has more than a little of a young Paul McGann about him (perhaps with a mix of Derry Girls’ Dylan Llwellyn). Line him up to do a David Bradley for Eight for, oh, the 70th anniversary or so.
I didn’t see the twist coming and I thought the message, laid on with a trowel as it may have been, to be timely and necessary. Enjoyed the Doctor bookends; I was wondering how he could suddenly visit 2025 but of course it was wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey and a bit like the Blink bookends being non-sequential too.
So was Conrad the mysterious person who sent the Doctor to find Belinda?
Two final thoughts: the monsters reminded me of the ones from Ghostbusters. And Jonah Hauer-King, Conrad, has more than a little of a young Paul McGann about him (perhaps with a mix of Derry Girls’ Dylan Llwellyn). Line him up to do a David Bradley for Eight for, oh, the 70th anniversary or so.
Just like real life conspiracy people
For a couple seconds I thought one of the people in that social media collage scene was Ellie from WhoCulture YouTube channel. She wasn’t, but looking on social media, I wasn’t the only one to do a double take
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It's pretty on point for American news right now.
Yes, it was uncanny.
This was a great episode.
I was always a little worried when we found out that Ruby was getting a boyfriend who was interested in the Doctor, but I did expect the twist with what he was up.
It was kind of fun twist on the alien conspiracy story, instead of a hero trying to prove aliens were real in a world where people don't believe in them, we had a bad guy trying to convince people aliens don't exist in a world where people know that they do.
It's kind of sad that we've reached a point where a story like this is necessary.
We've seen a few stories revisiting Companion who's left the Doctor, but I thought this did a good job of digging into the positive and negatives of the experience.
Shreek was a pretty creepy. I do have to wonder if it really would have been so easy for a people like Conrad and his friends to make such a perfect costume of it though.
The UNIT stuff was great, and Kate was especially awesome. I wonder if she would have let the Shreek kill Conrad if Ruby hadn't stepped it?
What did Shirley say at the end about the hashtag after Conrad was locked up? I couldn't understand her.
I was always a little worried when we found out that Ruby was getting a boyfriend who was interested in the Doctor, but I did expect the twist with what he was up.
It was kind of fun twist on the alien conspiracy story, instead of a hero trying to prove aliens were real in a world where people don't believe in them, we had a bad guy trying to convince people aliens don't exist in a world where people know that they do.
It's kind of sad that we've reached a point where a story like this is necessary.
We've seen a few stories revisiting Companion who's left the Doctor, but I thought this did a good job of digging into the positive and negatives of the experience.
Shreek was a pretty creepy. I do have to wonder if it really would have been so easy for a people like Conrad and his friends to make such a perfect costume of it though.
The UNIT stuff was great, and Kate was especially awesome. I wonder if she would have let the Shreek kill Conrad if Ruby hadn't stepped it?
What did Shirley say at the end about the hashtag after Conrad was locked up? I couldn't understand her.
#taserlady
Haha! Even Ellie's mom apparently thought that she appeared in the episode!
