I enjoyed this episode its probably an 8/10 for me. Also its implied that conrad is the reason why the Doctor went looking for Belinda making this the second time shes involved in some sort of paradox (the first one being with alan), will this have something to do with the whole change/threat to reality they are teasing? I certainly hope so
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Just finished it, as a person who wasnât a fan of McTigheâs previous episodes surprisingly really liked this. Probably the best writing UNIT has got in this era so far, also loved the ending with 15. It doesnât happen often but heâs really good at playing angry
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I think that this was the best way he has been mentioned in a while (ever?). It was perfectly in line with the characters and did not feel like fan service at all.
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Well, wouldnât you be pissed off, too, if your father was someone who did a lot of important and great work during their career, and some random dude suddenly came in and badmouthed him? I would!
Itâs no more annoying than Gatwa crying all the time. Itâs just a way to show her legacy. We need to remember that there are viewers who havenât seen Classic 
Someone show them Galaxy Four, thatâs almost the episode described
Yup, and I saw someone theorise on Facebook that the Doctorâs crying is something that is manipulated by the big bad of the season and that this episode is proof of that. How? I have no idea.
No.
Yes, itâs called âno point in hiring all these actors to play all these characters in this one episode at the same timeâ
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I love how your post here was so unhinged.
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Mannnnn I love Kate and Ruby so much. Thatâs⌠all I have to say lmao, I loved the episode. Was nice having a Ruby episode even after S1. And The Governor? Was that just Mrs. Flood being witty and evil, or is that like, evil rogue Timelord name? Whatever, important thing is: Kate went â â â â â â â off letting that monster on Conrad and I love her for it.
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As someone who 1) has enjoyed this season thus far 2) LOVED last yearâs Ruby-centric Doctor-lite earthbound fourth episode I really hoped this one would be up my alley⌠sadly, Iâve come away thinking itâs one of the weakest episodes of the era.
A big part of that is just how flimsy the worldbuilding of the RTD2 era has been - up until this point weâve had zero frame of reference for the role UNIT plays in the world and its relationship with the public. Conradâs whole crusade is predicated on the idea that UNIT actually has been transparent with the public about alien life⌠which just rings completely hollow when their entire modus operandi for the last five-and-a-half decades has been the exact opposite! If youâre going to go down that route, then fine, but absolutely zero groundwork is laid before Conrad âexposesâ them. The public turning on UNIT feels absolutely meaningless because we have no idea what the public even thought about UNIT up to this point.
People have previously pointed out how uncritically this era has presented this extremely well-funded paramilitary organisation predicated on child labour - especially in comparison to how critical RTD1 was of it - but that was easy to sidestep because it was never really the focus before. Now we have a whole episode directly dealing with that perception and it still has largely nothing to say about that other than âstep aside and let them do their jobs, pleaseâ. Iâve seen a lot of people declaring that this script is Pete McTigheâs redemption, but this feels cut from the same cloth as Kerblam to me - making a valid point (âautomation being used as a pretext to undermine workersâ rights is badâ in the former, âright-wing grifters are badâ in the latter) but undermining that by uncritically deferring to authority.
And like Kerblam, I really wish it didnât fumble its moral. I am ALL HERE for an episode tearing down far-right grifters and their disinformation campaigns⌠but when do you it through the veneer of allegory you NEED to make that allegory airtight. When I make reference to the flimsy worldbuilding I donât mean in the sense of how comprehensive you can write a Wiki article around it - I mean in the tangibility of the episodeâs setting, and the believability of its conflict, and Conrad just does not feel like a real person. How do he and his followers reconcile their beliefs with having lived through the events of The Giggle or being atomised by Sutekh a year prior? Itâs nice we get a sense of how those events affected Ruby, but what about the rest of the world? Conrad citing The Web of Fear over anything from this era feels like a fundamental mishandling of priorities. Itâs such a stark contrast to RTD1, whose characters would react to the here and now, and which would provide meaningful shifts in the status quo in real-time. This on the other hand just doesnât work as an organic follow-up to any previous contemporary earthbound episodes.
I will echo the sentiments that Millie Gibson and Jemma Redgrave gave some of their best work in the show, and it was gorgeously directed - but I just couldnât connect with the story or the conflict as presented. 2.5/5
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Everyones memory reset every season 
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Okay, so I watched the episode and liked it well enough.
I saw some of you rate it a 9 or a 10 - I donât see how itâs as good as Lux or The Well, which are modern classics. Itâs a step down for me, but I still enjoyed it. Probably an 8/10 right now.
Went in knowing very little. Conrad started out sweet, but I had the feeling that he was a bit too off. Kind of liked the similarities to Al. Itâs good to show that these kinds of people exist for real and are dangerous. RTD2 is truly doing a great job with the human villains!
An episode about conspiracy theorist podcasters spreading fake news and sowing distrust into established societal structures is relatable and, sadly, very realistic. This was the right way to make such an episode and see how it could affect even the likes of UNIT. Such a great way to mix reality with fiction.
Ruby was great, but seeing her back showed me that I enjoy Belinda more. I appreciate the fact that they went the PTSD route with her. Thatâs not something weâve seen a lot. I also felt bad for her because she clearly liked Conrad, and then he turned out to be a jackass. I wouldâve kicked him very hard in his private parts at that moment; I admire her restraint!
I loved how eager Carla and Cherry were that Ruby had a new boyfriend. Giggling like schoolchildren!
Liked the Shreek. A good monster of the week, but a bit underdeveloped. I didnât catch the fake Shreek. And we got another meta-level nod with Conradâs mates wearing Shreek suitsâthatâs how the showâs been doing the monsters since the start!
UNIT was on fire, and I really like the continuity weâre getting with this team. This feels like a real family, which hasnât been the case since the Pertwee days. Kate shined in this episode, and her unhinged way of dealing with Conrad in the end was absolutely brilliant - maybe the best Kate moment yet? Her thing with Ibrahim feels forced, and he, Shirley, and the Vlinx have nothing to do. The new guy felt like a disposable character from the beginning, and he turned out to be the inside man.
The scene in the TARDIS at the end is one of my favourite Gatwa moments so far. He showed a very different, dark and serious side to his Doctor, and I loved it. But I agree with @BillFiler that his acting in the pre-titles sequence really wasnât good at allâŚ?
Also, it felt like something of a mashup of Love & Monsters and 73 Yards. It really had thematic elements of both but without the cheesiness of the former or the strong atmosphere of the latter.
Damn spellcheck! It wants me to correct âShreekâ to âShrekâ all the time! 
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I was gonna say I read your review as Shrek for a moment and was really confused 
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I think I would actually place this above âLuxâ, but below âThe Wellâ.
This story hit me just right 
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Well that was an episode of Doctor Who I guess. Although a Doctor-Lite one again in an 8 episode season! I didnât think weâd have any in S2. That really needs to be addressed in future seasons. Itâs just not good enough.
Anway, thereâs a really interesting episode to be made about an anti-UNIT movement but this wasnât it. Despite some interesting ideas in the latter half it was quite a boring episode for quite a while, not helped by some very generic characters. I would have preferred a version of this story without Ruby, just focus on Think Tank & the resultant drama, much more could have been made of this. Here it was all surface level stuff & broad caricature.
& a note to anyone writing UNIT episodes in future, please can Kate just be her own person without mentioning The Brigadier. Itâs a familiar problem with modern Who, referencing the past - we also of course have a Mel mention here for anyone that cares. Iâm still not sure what this version of UNIT is, tbh it feels very ill-defined. That really doesnât help when viewing them through the lens of a conspiracy movement. How much does the public know about UNIT? Are they a paramilitary organisation? A peacekeeping force? It seems like now the public knows all about aliens etc. As for Ibrahim, sorry no shade to the actor but he doesnât really have a personality, just generic UNIT soldier so hard to invest in the hints at his relationship with Kate.
Oh & nice of the monster to just sit & wait for Kate to pontificate a while rather than just sink its jaws into Conrad; I would have preferred it if Kate had gone dark & just let him be killed but of course he was fine as was the inside man. Everybodyâs fine!
The final scene with Doctor Who, like putting a hat on a hat as the Doctor mostly just told us things we already knew, spelling out the message of the episode for anyone that didnât get it. Conrad gave us some bonus dialogue easter eggs from the past for reasons, & of course Mrs Flood - at least she seems to be interacting with events within the episode now rather than just looking at us & saying hi! Still not interested.
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I also thought âhmm sounds like a Time Lord nameâ. I actually went back just now to check something. I turned on subtitles and indeed, the âgâ in Governor is capitalised. I donât know whether the subtitles have been trustworthy in the past, but if they are then I think she did just give us her name? Maybe, perhaps, possibly
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I quite like having one a season, Iâve missed not having any for a few years!
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If we had more episodes per season Iâd be fine with it, but with only 8 episodes. Why canât he be in all of them? Lazy man lol (Iâm being sarcastic thereâŚkind of)
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Iâll agree that if this scene isnât a big part of the seasonâs âpuzzleâ then it was really kind of pointless, but I do get the feeling that thereâs more to come there, what with Conrad âshacking upâ with Mrs Flood at the end here.
I had the opposite reaction here I guess, seeing Ruby and the Doctor in action together once more kind of made me think that Iâm not that invested in Belinda yet. Not that Varada Sethu isnât great, itâs just the bouncing ball of curiosity and energy that Millie Gibson provides is fantastic 
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All of this, yes - you articulated everything I thought very well
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Thought this one was real good, The Doctorâs speech at the end of the episode was probably my favourite 15 moment so far, rare to see this incarnation full of disdain like that. Also, RTD has really put the work into making Kate a character beyond âah you remember the Brigadierâ which I appreciate lol. I usually wouldnât have liked the heavy-handedness of the politics but sometimes straight forward works well enough and in this case, it did.
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I get that! Honestly each to their own, Iâm in the minority thatâs happy with 8 episodes
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I think one of the things I find most interesting about this episode is that it sort of plays with genre. In some other show this episode could be about Conrad trying to prove aliens are real (although I am confused by the fact that UNIT is apparently transparent about their covert operations). But since aliens have been known about since Series 1 (even though people get amnesia every few seasons) itâs actually the other way around which I thought was super fun. I do feel he got a bit cartoonish especially around the middle, one of the little tiktok video even compares his scheme to a Scooby-Doo villain with the rubber monster suits.
Like a lot of people have said, this is a great showing for Kate and Ruby, and really made me care for them even more. I think UNIT works really well in this episode too, even though, like some other people have said, theyâll hire just about everyone. I think by reducing the amount of UNIT characters that show up here, even though the ones that are around really donât get a lot to do was a good move.
I think that this eraâs UNIT in general could do with reducing the team to maybe just Kate (in the Brig role), Ibrahim (in the Benton/Yates role), and Shirley (in the Liz/the Doctor role, although she leans more into the tech side than the science) so that each of them can be more developed, and not every other UNIT appearance. I love 70s UNIT and thatâs why I was really excited for a UNIT focused episode, and while some of the stuff (like the whole Avengers tower thing and UNIT being public knowledge) doesnât work for me, other parts definitely do. Kate is so iconic in this episode, and I like how they leaned into the gray morality. Jemma Redgrave is utterly brilliant here.
Also, Ruby is so good in this episode, I was unsure of how this would land for me because I donât feel extremely attached to her, but Millie Gibsonâs performance was so good, I found myself tearing up a little at the reveal, and when she admits to not being okay. I love seeing the consequences of traveling with the Doctor, and I just want Kate to get her in touch with the companion support group! Also I literally was like âwow Ruby, how come you get three moms?â when Kate hugged her and then Shirley commented on it!!! Return of the UNIT family letâs go.
Like several people have said over the past few episodes, the Mrs Flood stuff is just not interesting to me. Itâs also so formulaic that she appears at the end of the episode rather than being sprinkled throughout, although that would make her even more like Susan Twist. I donât like that they imply Conrad is going to come backâ he works in this episode but I donât see him being interesting beyond this. It feels like you canât really guess whatâs going on with Mrs Flood, and so itâs not really a real mystery, just a âlook thereâs something going on!â which ig is par for course for RTD but it feels like such a major part of these episodes rather than just âwe say bad wolf every episodeâ. Idk, I guess weâll just have to see what the payoff is to see if itâs worth it.
Overall an enjoyable episode even though it might not be one I go back to often.
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