Spoilers Lucky Day grade and discussion thread

[jaime]

I have to admit it was a good ploy in the sense that when he insulted the Brigadier, it aggravated me. And agree they went that route to make you buy her actions. But that's like a cop beating a prisoner because he insulted your mom. I'm sure it happens but I'd also think Kate is better than that.

A realistic ending to the story would involve charging him with tax invasion as they implied he was doing in the story. That worked with Capone. Maybe not as satisfying storywise though!

The way to make it work is to have the thing escape because of his actions (not because it was waiting for an uber by sheer chance in that one set they have..) breaking in, it works its way up the tower, and then Kate giving the order to *not* help him. It’s what he requested. ‘I would not want to do anything with Conrad’s own consent’ and then it’s all pretty much fine. But they went for this instead, for… reasons.

 

[Starkers]

Meh, what does on between two consenting adults is their business.

She's literally his boss. Switch the genders around and see how that looks.

 

[Starkers]

First chance I've had to post about it and I saw it live!

Anyhoo. An odd one to call. I'll be honest, up until the twist I thought it was pretty poor (and I like Ruby).

I didn't see the twist coming, and it was way more interesting in the second half of the episode, though I still had issues with it. I get that sometimes episodes have to be on the nose, but this was so much of a sledge hammer I'd thought RTD had written it. Saw someone on Bluesky quote Garth Merenghi's "I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards!"

Conrad was a much better villain than, say, the guy in Rosa, but it does seem amazing no one had heard of Think Tank, and UNIT's vetting procedure is obviously terrible.

Loved Kate being a badass, and guessed exactly what she was going to do. Thought the Doctor popping in at the end was a good performance from both actors but soooo heavy handed.

And how come the Doctor doesn't then recognise Conrad at the start given he clearly knew all about him/his history?

Decent but the weakest episode of the season so far for me. And the first that hasn't been better than the corresponding episode of last season (and yet again RTD has a clear pattern.)

Episode 1. The lighter, comedy episode that's actually darker than you think. Robot Revolution is better than Space Babies.

Episode 2. The play with the formula, crazy fantastical episode, a musical last season, a partially animated episode this year. Lux was better than The Devil's Chord.

Episode 3. The dark, gritty, filmed in a quarry episode where people gonna die horribly. Can't believe I'm going to say this but I think The Well is (just) better than Boom.

Episode 4. The Doctor lite, Ruby heavy episode featuring UNIT. 73 Yards was way better than this.

Can't tell about episode 5 yet but episode 6 seems a slam dunk as the mirror image of last season, the episode riffing on a popular cultural phenomena (Bridgerton/Eurovision)

 

[The Wormhole]

She's literally his boss. Switch the genders around and see how that looks.

Granted it is a questionable judgment call, but I'm not going to clutch pearls over it.

 

[Richard Baker]

My favorite part was when Ruby was describing the Shreek and the diner darkened, lighting went red and it became night outside. When she finished everything popped back to normal, well done.
This season is better than the last IMO

 

[jaime]

My favorite part was when Ruby was describing the Shreek and the diner darkened, lighting went red and it became night outside. When she finished everything popped back to normal, well done.
This season is better than the last IMO

It’s possible that’s a way to make the Doctor/Belinda/Conrad scene as well as all the other scenes of Conrad in the past into unreliable narration.

 

[Chakoteya]

My favorite part was when Ruby was describing the Shreek and the diner darkened, lighting went red and it became night outside. When she finished everything popped back to normal, well done.
This season is better than the last IMO

That was him remembering the empty shop from a year back. When that couple came in and the bell by the door went ding, he was back in the room.
As far as I am concerned, anyway.

 

[jaime]

I see a lot of comments on YouTube giving the episode a high rating because they like the message. Which is sort of fair enough, and sort of… not really useful at the same time. Paradise Towers had a good message. It doesn’t make it good. Love and Monsters had a message. Kerblam! Had a message… anyway.
The presence of a message, that you agree with, doesn’t make a piece of art good.
It’s really about the execution, and in SF usually the power of the allegory. I’m not entirely sure one so thinly veiled as this (and open to misinterpretation, some reviewers have mentioned getting ‘just stop oil’ vibes from Conrad) even counts as allegory.

Still. It’s an interesting way to think about it.

I therefore declare Battlefield to be the greatest Who serial of all time, as it features a level of political correctness that I am absolutely fine and on board with (Black Woman Brig, Chinese Girl, Old Men Everywhere, a Powerful Woman Sort-of-Villain, and a Blind Person! I am sure people had a fit of the vapours…) and the best message ever (War Bad, Especially War with Weapons of Mass Destruction!) It also had very low viewing figures, so that’s worth an extra gold star.

(I am likely not even joking. I actually do love Battlefield, it’s let down only by Ben and Fiona not having a clue how to use/say ‘shame’ and some odd cheap production design choices. And it might even contend for my favourite. It’s just also an excellent example of everything some groups don’t like about modern Who, and other groups do like about Modern Who, except Battlefield actually does it all right.)

 

[matthunter]

I see a lot of comments on YouTube giving the episode a high rating because they like the message. Which is sort of fair enough, and sort of… not really useful at the same time. Paradise Towers had a good message. It doesn’t make it good. Love and Monsters had a message. Kerblam! Had a message… anyway.
The presence of a message, that you agree with, doesn’t make a piece of art good.
It’s really about the execution, and in SF usually the power of the allegory. I’m not entirely sure one so thinly veiled as this (and open to misinterpretation, some reviewers have mentioned getting ‘just stop oil’ vibes from Conrad) even counts as allegory.

Still. It’s an interesting way to think about it.

I therefore declare Battlefield to be the greatest Who serial of all time, as it features a level of political correctness that I am absolutely fine and on board with (Black Woman Brig, Chinese Girl, Old Men Everywhere, a Powerful Woman Sort-of-Villain, and a Blind Person! I am sure people had a fit of the vapours…) and the best message ever (War Bad, Especially War with Weapons of Mass Destruction!) It also had very low viewing figures, so that’s worth an extra gold star.

(I am likely not even joking. I actually do love Battlefield, it’s let down only by Ben and Fiona not having a clue how to use/say ‘shame’ and some odd cheap production design choices. And it might even contend for my favourite. It’s just also an excellent example of everything some groups don’t like about modern Who, and other groups do like about Modern Who, except Battlefield actually does it all right.)

Sadly, we do seem to be back in the era of "Some Anvils Need To Be Dropped".

Star Trek's ep "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" (to segue from your post) has been ranked as one of the best TOS episodes and even quite highly as a Trek episode overall, despite having all the subtlety of hitting the audience with a brick with a slice of lemon tied to it.

 

[jaime]

Sadly, we do seem to be back in the era of "Some Anvils Need To Be Dropped".

Star Trek's ep "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" (to segue from your post) has been ranked as one of the best TOS episodes and even quite highly as a Trek episode overall, despite having all the subtlety of hitting the audience with a brick with a slice of lemon tied to it.

I dunno, compared to Who’s approach of late, it’s a gentle whisper of silk ribbon compared to the anvil. And I like Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.

Huh. Maybe Who just needs Battlefield in the title more to help.

Also I presume that was a gold brick?

 

[Starkers]

Sadly, we do seem to be back in the era of "Some Anvils Need To Be Dropped".

Star Trek's ep "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" (to segue from your post) has been ranked as one of the best TOS episodes and even quite highly as a Trek episode overall, despite having all the subtlety of hitting the audience with a brick with a slice of lemon tied to it.

Yes and given election results in the UK on Thursday the lack of subtlety was probably even more relevant sadly

 

[jaime]

Yes and given election results in the UK on Thursday the lack of subtlety was probably even more relevant sadly

I disagree. Not least as because of time passing between production, and because of the *attempt* at subtlety (the anti vax was subtle, so subtle it gets lost because all the other fluff, especially The One Show) the message is getting garbled anyway. (Or to be fair, it’s possibly a recognition that stupid pundits who lie to push their message is not the domain of any one flavour of politics. There’s even a dash of Harry & Meghan in Conrad.)

It’s a common flaw though — if a message is not subtle, the people you want to get the message to will not be watching. And Who is rapidly entering that territory of echo chambers and preaching to the converted. The point in widely-popular pop culture and SF doing messaging is that it has greater reach. If you’ve alienated parts of your audience, told them to go touch grass or what-have-you, then your platform for messaging — allegorical or otherwise — is lost. Doctor Who as-was had reach. Doctor Who as is does not. Precisely because of the anvils. (People are avoiding the wear hard hat areas I guess.)

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Yeah, science fiction often uses allegory to past people's defences and biases and get them thinking about things in a different way. The more obvious a story gets about the points it's making, the more it risks preaching to the choir.

Personally one of my problems with it was you've got characters saying "These organisations are just doing their best to keep you safe, so stop complaining about them", which works very well when you're talking about UNIT or folks getting vaccines to people, but those aren't the people getting caught out on camera in real life. The message is too indiscriminate, too easy to apply to people trying to fix problems instead of just the ones getting rich off spreading lies and fuelling anger.

 

[jaime]

Yeah, science fiction often uses allegory to past people's defences and biases and get them thinking about things in a different way. The more obvious a story gets about the points it's making, the more it risks preaching to the choir.

Personally one of my problems with it was you've got characters saying "These organisations are just doing their best to keep you safe, so stop complaining about them", which works very well when you're talking about UNIT or folks getting vaccines to people, but those aren't the people getting caught out on camera in real life. The message is too indiscriminate, too easy to apply to people trying to fix problems instead of just the ones getting rich off spreading lies and fuelling anger.

Yup. ‘I reject your reality’ aside from being a Tom Baker quote from DA, is awfully close to ‘my truth’.
And UNIT can’t *say* it is the UN (though hooray —Geneva! Where presumably there’s a refectory tea table with a memorial plaque to the one true Brig on it in honour of all the times he had to go there for meetings) so that gets a little muddled, and then the problem with even trying this with UNIT is sort of twofold (1) UNIT as is at the moment looks like nothing so much as a PMC with incongruous and ridiculous London real estate, which does give weird dissonance when we’re supposed to be siding with the people with the guns and (2) way back when, no less than Sarah Jane-Smith was the journo looking for the expose on Unit to some degree.
Journalism has changed and mutated into YT weirdness with an allowance for bias so large that I’m surprised the head of North Korea hasn’t decided to have a direct dabble.

And to an extent this is allegedly what this episode is about. But what it’s also about is Doctor Who fans (fans of the Doctor… as Conrad outright sells himself) having a dig at the acronymed organisation that Doctor Who calls home, while they’re just doing what they think is right for everyone.
That anvil landed just fine, two weeks after some stereotyped Who fans said they would cease to exist without the Doctor, I am sure.

One of the YT channels (not one of the angry fan ones, though as with football, you have to respect the right of fans who support the team lifelong not being happy with the manager, the way they’re playing, or the star striker…) pointed out they got as much Just Stop Oil as anything else from Conrad and his surprisingly large and well funded gang of streamers.

By the same token, things like WhoCulture and the Official Doctor Who podcast very much toe the party line (or tow, if you like) and Who basically has its own ‘propaganda wing’ over there. Who are much as Conrad was depicted in the first half of this episode.

So… we’re back in the mixed messaging of Kerblam basically, from a writer who is known as a good fan, who does great vignettes.

 

[marillion]

I really enjoyed this one, but I will agree that there seems to be a trend of trying to pack too much story into 45 minutes. Things feel just a bit too rushed.

The uncaring conspiracy/counter culture YT "journalist" trope is getting a lot of mileage these days. There was just an episode of "The Rookie" that dealt with the same kind of thing. Characters with no empathy, only driven by clicks and views, who see themselves as the people with the real power. It makes me want to throttle these people by the throat.