Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Ncuti Gatwa, Millie Gibson, Varada Sethu, Jonah Hauer-King, Anita Dobson, Jemma Redgrave, Ruth Madeley, Benjamin Chivers, Kirsty Hoiles, Gethin Alderman, Kareem Alexander, Michelle Greenidge, Angela Wynter, Faye McKeever, Madison Stock, Paddy Stafford, Blake Anderson, Aiofe Gaston, Paul Jerricho, Michael Woodford, Alexander Devrient, Tina Gray, Trinity Wells, Reeta Chakrabarti, Alex Jones, Lachele Carl, Joel Dommett, Calypso Cragg, James Craven, Selorm Adonu, Aiden Cook, Nicholas Briggs.
An opinion is a dangerous thing to have. We have seen the desire to pass on a judgement with little or no discerning facts to back the person’s belief, and whether it is done with bluster, a smile cloaked with a dagger, or with the kind of venomous attitude that makes you notice the repeating past, an unfounded view in which you can somehow mesmerically, Pied Piper-like, have people clamouring to support you with violence in mind should be one that is shut down immediately and without remorse.
One of the instincts of science fiction is that it must reflect a current position that is being debated in the world, and in the Doctor-light episode of Lucky Day, the examination of our political leanings and interpretation is unveiled and it is one that will stick in the throat as memories of recent health and electoral machinations crawl and spread disinformation and propaganda resurface and reignite many a row, a conflict in waiting.
Doctor Who has never shied away from putting a voice to the opinion and beliefs of the writer, the long standing fan will remember with fondness some of the exciting tales brought to the screen by the likes of Malcom Hulke, Robert Holmes, and of course the immortalised Terry Nation as he brought his fears of the evils of Nazism from his youth to the terror realised in the early Dalek stories, the long running serial has found a way to bring into the public’s imagination the mirror of their souls, and perhaps shown some to have judgements that are ugly and threatening to peace.
In an episode where the Doctor and his current companion Belinda Chandra have little screen time, it falls to Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday and the ever reliable Jemma Redgrave as the returning head of Unit, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, to fill the gap, and in some style, and faced off against one of the Doctor’s more fearsome adversaries’, the ambition of human ignorance, the episode works with intimidating persuasiveness.
It is in the actions of Jonah Hauer-King’s Conrad Clark that the episode hangs, and it is one that the softly spoken actor pulls off with insidious effect; the lies spread, the truth unspun and manipulated; the viewer is pulled into the disbelief and objection with a long rope, one designed with a barbed-wire finish that colours the senses and aggravates the heart.
To have an opinion is a part of human existence and the pursuit of free speech but to have one that you are proud to have as it stinks of dangerous rhetoric and flammable derogatory statements is dangerous, is critically unsound; and as the long tradition of commenting on the current situation of the political landscape, Doctor Who has unveiled a greater threat to our future that we may have considered.
Ian D. Hall