It’s time for a Doctor-lite episode that shows us how Ruby has been doing. Uhhh…
Recap
It’s New Year’s 2007, and Conrad Clark (Benjamin Chivers) is an eight-year-old kid who witnesses the Doctor and Belinda exit the TARDIS and use the Vindicator on their next stop. The Doctor offers the kid 50p he found in the street, saying it’s his lucky day, and Conrad runs off to tell his mother what he’s seen. She accuses him of lying and smacks him in the head for spoiling her night. Years later, Conrad (Jonah Hauer-King) runs a podcast and is interviewing Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) for it. He details how last year, he saw the blue box for the second time, and walked into an empty department store, getting his hand covered in green slime. A monster with red eyes gets zapped away from his location, and he sees the Doctor and Ruby. The Doctor gives Ruby an antidote—she’s also been covered with green slime, which is how the creature known as a Shreek (Gethin Alderman) marks its prey.
During the podcast, Conrad asks about what the Doctor and Ruby did together, wondering about aliens they’ve encountered. Ruby can’t tell him much, but notes that everyone knows aliens are real, and that UNIT is doing great work protecting folks, despite the trolls online who insist that it’s all a coverup for something else. The interview ends, and Conrad asks Ruby out for coffee, telling her that he met the Doctor once. They go out on another date, and Carla (Michelle Greenidge) and Cherry (Angela Wynter) are excited—Ruby is finally getting on with her life. On the date, Conrad admits that he only had his mother growing up, and she died of liver cancer. Ruby tells him that he was marked by the Shreek the day that he saw her and the Doctor, but thankfully she’d got the antidote, and UNIT captured the Shreek anyway, so he’ll be safe.
A little while later, they go on a weekend away to a town where many of Conrad’s buddies still live. Ruby admits that Conrad is her boyfriend, and he seems pleased about that. At the local pub with his pals, the lights start flickering—a sign of an impending Shreek attack. She goes outside and calls Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jemma Redgrave), who’s working late at UNIT. Kate finds no activity in the area and suggests that maybe Ruby is experiencing PTSD or something similar after her time with the Doctor. Ruby thanks her and hangs up. She tells Conrad about how she’s been feeling and he’s sympathetic. Then the lights go out and two Shreek appear: Conrad didn’t take the antidote, wanting to be brave like the Doctor. He apologizes, and Ruby rushes off, calling UNIT to the scene. She goes outside to confront the creature and Conrad joins despite being marked as prey; he wants to help after making such a big mistake.
UNIT arrives as they get cornered by the two Shreek, and Ruby realizes that… they’re not real Shreek. The two creatures stand and take off masks: They’re people in costumes, and this whole thing was a set up: Conrad reveals himself to be part of Think Tank, a group that work to “expose” the lies of UNIT, and they’re live-streaming the entire event. Conrad admits that getting to know Ruby has been a chore and his only goal is to show how their tax dollars are being wasting paying for their lies. When Shirley Bingham (Ruth Madeley) offers to show him proof of alien existence, he accuses her of personally stealing tax dollars due to her disability while lying. They group are arrested and news goes wild about how this brave young podcaster stood up to UNIT and confronted them about their work; he’s quickly released and doxxes all UNIT employees. Ruby is at UNIT talking to Shirley about how Conrad was likely desperate for attention because he got none from his now-dead mother. Shirley tells her that Conrad’s mother is alive and living happily in a French villa he pays for: Conrad is wealthy from his subscribers and also a tax dodger.
Conrad breaks into the UNIT building with help from a man on the inside, Jordan Lang (Kareem Alexander). UNIT figures out that Jordan is their inside leak too late, and Commander Christofer Ibrahim (Alexander Devrient) asks Kate to order a deadlock seal on the floor, but Kate insists that they confront him. Conrad is live-streaming again, has stolen a weapon, and demands a confession from the group about their lies, insulting Kate’s father—Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart—as well. They learn that Jordan has been hurt by Conrad and Kate decides to show Conrad what they’re protecting the world from, releasing the Shreek to go after it’s prey. It hunts Conrad down, and he begs them to stop it, admitting everything he said was a lie. Before it can kill him, Shirley hands Ruby a taser and she stuns the thing; Kate was unmoved to do anything, furious at the man for lying for profit.
Conrad stands, insisting that it was probably all faked, and the Shreek bites into his arm. The next day, Commander Ibrahim tells Kate that Conrad is fine, Jordan is out of the ICU, and that she went way too far this time. Kate is unbothered, but very worried for Ruby, who realizes that she’s in limbo and needs a real change. Kate tells her that she should do what she needs to do, and that she’ll always be there to talk. Shirley teases that Ruby keeps collecting mothers. In prison, the TARDIS materializes around Conrad and the Doctor tells him off for all the stupid things he’s done. Conrad laughs at him and gives the Doctor spoilers about Belinda being his next companion, so the Doctor returns the favor, letting him know that he’ll die alone and unimportant, forgotten by history. Conrad says that he rejects the Doctor’s reality and tells him to get off “his” world. Conrad is back in his cell and a guard approaches with keys—Mrs. Flood. He asks if that was real, and she tells him it was… and that she’s releasing him.
Commentary
This episode could have been so good, and I can’t decide if this is down to eight episode seasons and not having the time to develop things? Or if folks are just letting things slide when they shouldn’t. This reveal could’ve been built to over time! It could’ve taken all season, and would have likely been so much better for it.
Peter McTighe wrote “Lucky Day,” and also the thinly-veiled Amazon commentary episode “Kerblam!” a few seasons back. Many folks found “Kerblam!” similarly overwrought, and while I was (mostly) a fan, this episode takes a lot of the same weaknesses and dials them up past the point of credulity. I simply cannot get over the fact that the setup of Conrad’s little social media empire makes no sense. At the very least, it makes every one of the Doctor’s friends look utterly brainless.
To start: If this is Think Tank’s big reveal to the public, then Conrad wouldn’t have the level of followers he’s attained, and certainly wouldn’t be rich already. But if this is just the first big antagonistic move by an already sizable platform then… what podcast did he put Ruby on, exactly? Is it the Think Tank podcast, or a fake one he created to make her look like a fool, one where he pretends to be a more moderate guy? If the whole podcast had turned out to be fake, it might have made a little more sense, but we know that’s not true because we see his listeners tuning in, Jordan Lang included. Sure, he’s trying to bait Ruby, but this kind of scheme demands way more forethought than the episode has built in.
Ruby looks him up on the internet! They talk about his Instagram! He’s not using a fake name, so all of his alt-truth fear mongering should have turned up in that search, especially if he’s got enough followers to make a considerable amount of money off of them. More importantly, if he’s reaching enough people, UNIT should have already flagged and tagged this guy—so now they look like idiots, too.
Moreover, using UNIT as the scapegoat we’re supposed to ally with exposes a horrific flaw in the mechanics of Doctor Who’s universe: Sure, the audience knows that UNIT is (eh, mostly) doing good stuff. But that doesn’t change the fact that shadowy militarized government organizations that hoard technology, keep off-the-books prisoners, and operate largely without oversight are bad. We all know they’re bad, right? We are aware of that, yes? But the viewer is meant to trust UNIT, and know they’re the good guys in this instance, which is always how military/police/intelligence agency propaganda works in entertainment. “Sure, maybe that wouldn’t be okay in real life, but these are my shadowy agents and I love them.”
As a viewer and a critic, I’m usually willing to accept those mechanics because I am capable of separating fiction from reality, and accepting different parameters in each. But making UNIT the heroes in a plot line designed to interrogate the post-truth information era is a sizable misstep in this.
That’s all without even getting into the fact that UNIT originally stood for the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, but was later changed to the Unified Intelligence Taskforce when the real-world U.N. expressed displeasure at being associated with the militarized fictional force in 2005. And even so, Doctor Who has suggested that UNIT still answers to the U.N. somehow? But also is maybe funded by U.K. tax dollars? And the U.N. isn’t demanding that UNIT develop alien tech for the betterment of humanity, they’re just allowed to warehouse these things and keep it to themselves? Sorry, this could warp into a much longer tangent, I’m just fascinated by the fact that they chose to shorthand this conflict in a way that actively makes Conrad’s point for him.
And I understand the impulse to let the Doctor have the last word with him, but this is one situation where it doesn’t really make sense. Ruby should have been given that moment, or even Belinda, but again, rules for this season prevent that. Humans are the ones affected by Conrad’s lies more than the Doctor could ever be. It’s a point where the desire to let the actor deliver this important lesson is superseding the character. And I want Gatwa to do everything, but this didn’t ring true the way it needed to as a result.
Hauer-King’s performance gets better once the reveal takes place, but the episode couldn’t be more obvious in how it telegraphs that he’s lying to Ruby. No guy is this tuned in and precious on a first cup of coffee. We can all tell something’s up, and again, it makes Ruby seem dim for not seeing it coming. Which is, in turn, extra insulting in an episode that is also trying to tackle her PTSD??
The fact that this is shoehorned into an episode that’s meant to be about something else entirely is such a shame. The woman is literally targeted and trapped by people who use her trauma against her, and there’s only time for lingering closeups of the heartbreak on her face. I’m still glad that Kate is making it her personal mission to be there for the Doctor’s former companions, but she’s drowning, y’all. Help a girl out.
All in all, this episode was trying to make a lot of very important points, but botched the execution entirely. I really wish we’d been given time for Think Tank to build steam, like the “Vote Saxon!” days of old.
Time and Space and Sundry
- Cherry is worried about small towns because of
racismthe bees, because she’s just watched Wicker Man. My love for the Sundays overflows with every new scene they offer up.
- There’s something strange happening in the harbor in Sydney, huh? Hope Mel is okay. Wonder if that’s coming back…
- Yeah, I really love the idea that Kate is staying late for work because she’s maybe got a thing going with Ibrahim. And that said thing might be a little rocky now that she’s done something morally squiffy. It’s a standard flip of the usual power dynamic in this sort of situation—normally the guy would be in charge and a female subordinate who is into him would be talking him down. They’ve even got the (typical, annoying) sizable age gap included on the flip! Not saying that age gaps are suddenly fine when they’re gender-reversed, just that it’s always fun to see a trope inverted.
- Conrad mentions yeti in the Underground when he sites all the things UNIT has ostensibly made up. Always mention the yeti, Doctor Who. (It’s from the Second Doctor story “The Web of Fear,” which also marked the first appearance of Kate’s dad, the Brigadier.)
Next week, everyone! See you then!