Doctor Who - Lucky Day

Suit Pursuit

Doctor Who - Lucky Day
UK/USA 2025
Airdate: 3rd May 2025

Warning: Very light spoilers.

Well, like I said in my review of the first episode of the current series of Doctor Who... these are probably going to be no more than very short capsule reviews for this new iteration of the show from hereon out. Mostly because the miss part of the hit and miss element of any bunch of episodes of a TV show has been somewhat elevated for this show for a few years now and, certainly with this latest story, Lucky Day, while better than last week’s shenanigans (reviewed here), it kind of winds up in the miss camp once again.

This one starts off with a boy, played by the excellent Benjamin Chivers (from The Devil’s Hour, reviewed here and here), although the IMDB is not listing him as being in this episode as yet, it seems*. Anyway, he stumbles upon The Doctor and then, because of his obsession with the encounter, grows up into someone who, it turns out, is just a wrong ‘un. Unfortunately, Chivers only plays the part for a couple of minutes before being replaced by an actor playing a grown up version of him for the remainder of the episode.

Now, this one is a Doctor lite episode and so I was kinda looking forward to this one because, two of my all time favourite episodes of the modern era of Doctor Who were similarly Doctor lite. Those being the wonderful fan favourite Blink and the equally wonderful, fan reviled Love And Monsters. So I was expecting more from this one, which is yet another story of the aftermath of an old companion getting left behind... and this time it’s the turn of this Doctor’s previous companion from last year’s series, Ruby Sunday (played once again by Millie Gibson).

And I don’t think I want to give any spoilers away on this one. It’s a clever story idea up to a point, with a central twist that you’re probably going to see coming a mile off and some questionable ways in which the story is pushed forward (in terms of future continuity of the show, I reckon). One of the bits of business in this episode shows two men in suits pretending to be aliens. Alas, when I first saw the real aliens, before this minor twist, I also thought they looked like men in suits so... yeah, where did all that Disney money go in this episode? The monsters look kind of pathetic, it has to be said.

Gibson was good in her role though and had good support from Jemma Redgrave as regular UNIT chief Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and a few of the other regular UNIT members. It was almost a good episode but... yeah, it just didn’t cut it and, if you care about what happens to the Ruby Sunday character, then you’re probably not going to be happy with the direction of her story arc in this one. I can only assume that we will be seeing her again in this year’s series finale (show finale?) because there are a few elements to this one that look like writers just positioning building blocks to set up for later use... including, of course, the now regular appearance of Anita Dobson as Mrs. Flood, once again turning up in places she shouldn’t be.

And that ‘s me done. Like I said, the best I can say about Lucky Day is... it’s not as bad as last week’s episode. I just wish Doctor Who could find a credible way to recover from what the show has now become. I guess I’ll keep watching ‘til the bitter end now.

*Okay, they’ve put it up this morning? Why was it not on there months ago? It’s not a spoiler.