While last week’s The Well was a sequel to Midnight, this week’s Doctor Who adventure feels like a spiritual successor to Love and Monsters: a Doctor-lite adventure focused on a new character detailing their experiences in the Whoniverse. Penned by Pete McTighe (writer of Jodie Whittaker-era episodes Kerblam! and Praxeus), Lucky Day has all the makings of a great episode yet struggles to develop its ideas into something fully cohesive.

After rushing through a whirlwind romance between former companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson reprising her role, and as great as ever) and Conrad Clark (a fantastically unlikable Jonah Hauer-King), the episode seems poised to transform into a folk horror before pulling the rug out from under the audience. If I had a nickel for every fourth episode that was a Doctor-lite adventure centred around Ruby Sunday which seemed like it was going be a folk horror tale before revealing that it’s all a trick from the supporting cast, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice. The twist of conspiracy theorists faking an alien attack is a great idea, but the episode doesn’t really do anything with this. It’s easy to imagine Lucky Day as a two-parter, with the first instalment ending on the reveal that the aliens are fake. Unfortunately, with only eight episodes this season, this was never going to happen, resulting in a great plot twist and nothing more substantial. Classic Who fans will no doubt be delighted to spot Paul Jerricho (famous for his delivery of “no, not the mind probe” in The Five Doctors) in the village pub.

It’s nice to see the series following up on the development of UNIT becoming a public-facing organisation after setting this up in The Star Beast, although the lack of clear world-building means that a story about exposing UNIT doesn’t have much grounding, and the narrative of Lucky Day is so rushed that it doesn’t have the time to establish the context before the twist. Perhaps this will be developed further in the upcoming spin-off series The War Between the Land and the Sea (co-written by McTighe), but that may be too little too late as far as this episode is concerned. Love and Monsters showed the events of previous Who episodes from the perspective of its protagonist Elton, contextualising the events of the story. Lucky Day, meanwhile, simply name-drops different events, like Yetis in the underground, the Sycorax and singing goblins. Quite how Conrad and his Think Tank would explain away the events of Empire of Death – in which the entire population of Earth disintegrated as if snapped away by Thanos – is brushed over.

While the ending of Lucky Day is clearly setting the stage for this season’s finale, it was nice to see the main characters stand up to Conrad’s monetised lies and disinformation, resulting in a cathartic final act. Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) pushing things too far with the Shreek at UNIT Tower made for an interesting character beat, and one that would be good to see explored further either later this season or in the spin-off series. It’s a shame that we’re already on our third Doctor-lite episode in two seasons, but it was incredibly satisfying to see the Doctor confront Conrad after everything. Ncuti Gatwa brought the kind of commanding screen presence rarely seen in the last two seasons, pushing aside the charm and humour and feeling more Doctor-y in the process. Not to mention that the lighting in the TARDIS looked fantastic, almost evocative of the incredible set from the Peter Capaldi era – can the TARDIS look like this every week?

Ultimately, it’s easy to admire what Lucky Day is going for, and maybe it will reward on repeat viewings, but the story is so rushed and muddled that it’s difficult to engage with it beyond its concept. It’s nice to see Ruby return, and I particularly enjoyed the cameos from Cherry and Trinity Wells (it’s also surprising that we didn’t see any monsters cameo in that UNIT vault, considering this era’s propensity for fan service), although the episode as a whole is something of a mixed bag. On a more positive note, next week’s episode The Story and the Engine looks to be an exciting and unique adventure from writer Inua Ellams, so fingers crossed for a great new episode.

Doctor Who returns to BBC One next Saturday at 19:10

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