TL;DR: Millie Gibson crushes it in a Doctor-lite remix of “Love & Monsters” meets “73 Yards”, while Doctor Who goes full throttle on fake news, hoax culture, and the weaponized vibes of men with microphones. It’s creepy, timely, and occasionally too real for comfort.
Doctor Who season 2
Welcome to “Lucky Day,” where the Doctor plays Where’s Waldo, UNIT is under siege by clickbait-fueled mobs, and Ruby Sunday is stuck in yet another rural bottle episode that doubles as a psychological horror about identity, misinformation, and being very online. If this season of Doctor Who were a mixtape, this would be the B-side to “73 Yards”—same haunting tone, same vaguely Welsh vibe, but this time with more Alex Jones and less Celtic dread.
Our central antagonist? One Conrad Clark, an influencer-podcaster-conspiracy-theory-merchant who makes Joe Rogan look like Brian Cox (the science one, not the Succession one). Played with delicious smugness by Jonah Hauer-King, Conrad is what would happen if the Truth Social algorithm gained sentience and decided to go after UNIT.
Ruby, still recovering from multiple existential timelines, finds herself at the center of Clark’s viral exposé campaign, where everything—from the TARDIS to the Sycorax—is a false flag operation. Honestly, it’s a miracle the guy didn’t scream “THE MOON LANDING WAS STAGED BY ZYGONS!”
This episode does not so much flirt with topicality as it sits you down, grabs your cheeks, and whispers “this is about the real world, dummy” in your face.
We’ve got:
- Doxxing of UNIT personnel (eerily prescient).
- Livestreamed police standoffs with commentary in the corner like a Fortnite stream.
- Think Tank, a pseudoscience grift mill that feels like a cross between early-2000s Infowars and a Facebook “health” group that sells crystals to cure anxiety.
It’s Doctor Who meets The Social Dilemma, filtered through the satirical lens of Black Mirror. And yet, it doesn’t feel preachy—it feels plausible. That’s what makes it unsettling. As a millennial who remembers watching “Love & Monsters” and being like “what even IS a forum?”, watching this episode felt like stumbling into your uncle’s YouTube history. Terrifying. of the Week: Jonah Hauer-King as Conrad Clark
Look, if the Shreek were meant to be this week’s Big Bad, they were completely upstaged by Jonah Hauer-King’s Conrad. This guy weaponizes charisma the same way right-wing influencers weaponize memes: recklessly, effectively, and with a smug face that makes you want to throw your sonic screwdriver at the screen.
He’s part Andrew Tate, part Lex Luthor, and 100% loathsome. But he’s not cartoonish. That’s what makes him work—he believes what he’s saying, even when he knows it’s a lie. That nuance is what separates a Who villain from a pantomime baddie.
Millie Gibson is the beating heart of this episode. With Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor largely sidelined (though popping in like a ghost in the machine), this was her moment—and she nailed it. Again. If “73 Yards” was her audition for carrying an episode solo, “Lucky Day” is the callback. And she got the job.
Watching her navigate the emotional minefield of being gaslit by a podcast bro while literally being hunted by online mobs felt… alarmingly familiar. The way she holds her ground, even when her own timeline is being dismantled, reminds you why companions are often the real heroes of this show.
Also, her line—“go and get some fresh air, big man, and see what happens”—belongs on a T-shirt.
Let’s talk about the twist: The Shreek were just men in rubber suits. Literally. Not metaphorically. Not “they look like men in suits.” They are men in suits—paid actors, filmed to scare the public.
If that doesn’t make your mind melt in a good way, I don’t know what will. It’s so meta, so fourth-wall adjacent, that it almost feels like the show is trolling its own monster-of-the-week formula.
Also, name-dropping old Who like it’s a TikTok trend? Yes please:
- The Yeti from “The Web of Fear”
- The Sycorax from “The Christmas Invasion”
- And a sly nod to “Robot” with Think Tank being infiltrated by literal mad scientists.
Chef’s kiss.
“Lucky Day” works best if you lean into the vibe: it’s not an action episode, it’s a cultural anxiety episode. It’s Doctor Who doing an impression of an Adam Curtis documentary, with a little Scooby Doo thrown in for good measure.
While it might not have the rewatchable charm of something like “Boom,” it delivers on character development, cultural relevance, and one of the most timely villains we’ve seen since The Master ran for Prime Minister.
