Jaw-droppingly bad. Misogynistic. Racist. Rage-inducing. Absolutely abysmal. They literally put Belinda in a box for half the episode so that the white companion could be a part of the main action (after Belinda had absolutely nothing to do all season!). Then, in a scenario from a horror story, they forcibly made her into a mother for a child who isn't real. Like... what can you even say.

yeah the rani metatextually joking about exposition didn’t make the fact that this episode is 85% boring exposition any better

Another episode of tasteless, offensive messaging. Coming just two weeks after the mess that was Lucky Day, it’s somewhat concerning. But, in my opinion, Lucky Day’s optic missteps pale in comparison to the inherently anti-resistance messaging that The Interstellar Song Contest is rife with. And no matter when the episode was written, it is nearly impossible to not view it today as a hamfisted allegory to the genocide in Palestine.

Framing individuals who suffer through violent colonization and racism as villains with a cartoonishly evil plan (three trillion people!) is ignorant at best, downright harmful at worst. In this story, resistance is terrorism; and the harmful status quo isn't questioned, it is merely stated. The fact that the Doctor never even condemned the corporation, didn’t try to destroy it, and then at the end sat back down and watched the rest of the contest? Unbelievable. (And the trope of ‘singing a song to make it all better’ was grating and childish.)

I’m all for the Doctor going to dark places, it’s part of what makes them an interesting character. However, the scene of actual physical torture in this episode felt wildly out of the blue. It makes me think back to another time the Doctor resorted to physical torture: in Dalek, the Doctor electrocutes the dalek out of an intense emotional reaction from coming face to face with a species that tried to commit genocide against the Time Lords. That moment was completely earned and, crucially, interrogated by the narrative itself; the Doctor realizes himself by the end of the episode, with Rose’s help. In this episode, the Doctor only stops the torture when Belinda walks in—he feels a sense of shame, I suppose, for showing this side of himself to her, when he’s been busy putting up a ‘travelling with me is fun’ front. But it isn’t really brought up after that? We’ve got people who saw the Doctor—a stranger to them!—literally torture a person then say to him “I’d go anywhere with you.” It makes no sense. There should have been far more reaction to this moment, from the Doctor and every other character in the room.

There’s a lot more to be said about this one, but I’m tapping out here. I don’t care about the Rani, whatever. Susan’s appearance was neat. The visuals were solid. Some individual lines were quite amusing. A few good moments here and there. But, honestly, there’s really nothing to redeem the episode—I don’t think there ever could be.

A jumble of interesting ideas with a somewhat messy delivery. The episode relied a bit too much on people standing around and expositing; it felt rather tensionless and, at moments, slightly dull. I wish that the script had been more refined, and that Ellams’ unique ideas had been given more room to breathe.

The visuals were wonderful, though—I quite liked the story window, the brain+heart machine, and the episode’s overall setting and color scheme. I’m also intrigued with where they’re going with this stories create reality theme that RTD2 has so far been building itself around. In terms of that theme, the episode worked very well.

I wish I had enjoyed this one more; it just has some basic flaws that keep it from being as good as it could be.

What an odd episode; the optics of this one are botched at best.

UNIT, a heavily militarized organization that mirrors real-world military and police, was simply not the correct vehicle to tell this story. In-universe, it makes sense! Because aliens are real, and they are a threat—thus the right wing conspiracists are pushing the agenda that aliens are not real. But as a viewer, it was quite uncomfortable to be expected to immediately and easily side with the armed military organization that literally was pointing guns at unarmed people in a village. Kate’s decision at the end was an attempt to add a bit of challenge to the expected audience reaction (siding with UNIT and Ruby) by offering a moral quandry: should Kate kill this man? That was one of the better parts of the episode, and my favorite Kate moment in the show (this is actually the only episode where I’ve actively enjoyed her presence). That was a genuinely interesting beat in the story, and I wonder what the end result of that scene would have been had Conrad not been livestreaming. However, that single scene does not outweigh the poorly thought-out delivery of the story as a whole.

I did, however, love the character work in this one. The depth and texture given to Ruby was excellent. Her explicitly bringing up PTSD, and having those feelings and reactions be clear and obvious in the choices she makes, was really refreshing to see. I appreciate when the Doctor’s impact on past companions (and others) is brought to the forefront; it really makes the story and characters feel more tangible. Millie’s performance was great as always, too.

I also loved the Doctor’s speech at the end of the episode, absolutely one of 15’s best moments for me. Ncuti has been shining this season, really hitting his stride in this role—which is why I am disappointed that this was the third Doctor-lite episode in his currently short run. But he was incredible for the few minutes he was onscreen in this one.

Overall, there’s a decent amount to like about Lucky Day, but its muddled messaging and the bad taste of its optics sours the experience.