Episode was released on streaming at 7AM UK time so early reviews can go here. Anyone waiting until this evening to watch is advised to avoid this post and return to it after the linear TV airing to save creating a new post just solely in order to discuss the episode

Pros:

I really liked the opening set up. Initially I thought it was New Years 2024 that it was set but the way it was introduced as being 2007 was great!

The scene with Conrad being marked by the Shreek was really well done and it honestly reminded me of The Last of Us with the scene reminding me of infected attacks in that show.

I liked the angle of Ruby being on Conrad’s Podcast alongside how we discovered what went on in her absence.

It was nice to see the poster reading ‘Lucky Day’ in reference to the episode title itself.

Nice to see Kate and Colonel Ibrahim back at UNIT with Mel being away though I do fear that Pete McTighe is trying to suddenly push them into a relationship due to the pair both working late and him getting that late night cup of tea for her with a huge beaming grin on his face.

I’m glad they made Jordan a mole for Conrad to dox UNIT as they didn’t even properly introduce him, yet I somehow didn’t see it coming that he would be a mole for Conrad and neither did I actually anticipate Conrad to work to double cross Jordan by turning on him!

Conrad wanting revenge on UNIT for not employing him due to Kate distrusting him actually felt as if it was decent motivation for him to be a villain.

I was amazed by Kate defending UNIT by releasing the Shreek on Conrad just solely to prove to him that he was the true liar. The fact that in a sense she was defending her late father’s honour by doing something 15 would’ve never allowed had he have been there just made it all the better in my eyes too.

It was heartwarming to see Kate & Ruby develop a stronger bond shall we say here? Like Shirley said Kate is practically a 3rd mother figure to Ruby due to how she defended her when Conrad wanted to shoot Ruby.

It was really nice to see 15 and Conrad’s confrontation within the Tardis but I’m perplexed as to where that scene was set as it was before 15 and Belinda met as he asked if the pair had met yet and 15 reprimanded him for giving out spoilers all whilly nilly.

Whilst I was initially confused by the Mrs Flood scene at the end, I did like the callback to the episode title which was seen on a poster earlier when she introduced herself to Conrad telling him that she was the governor and it was his lucky day.

Cons:

I don’t much like how they alluded to Conrad being abused as a child only to just drop it after just briefly showing it. If they wanted to do that, they should’ve shown how his childhood abuse affected him and his personality. I especially don’t like how later on despite the fact she visibly struck him after accusing Conrad of lying about seeing the Tardis, Conrad later lied stating it was just him and his mother and she died of Liver Cancer as it makes their relationship randomly turn sympathetic despite the fact it wasn’t depicted as that at all earlier! To make matters worse the reveal that he set her up to live in a southern French villa didn’t sit quite right with me neither.

Aside from the opening scene with 15 & Belinda, I’m annoyed how they’ve pulled a 73 Yards yet again and had this be yet another Doctor lite fourth episode.

I’m perplexed as to how the 15 & Ruby Shreek encounter could’ve happened between The Devil’s Chord & Boom as there was no indication that there was any gap between either of the two episodes!

It felt far too random that Conrad retained the coin 15 gave him as a child and now wore it as a necklace as an adult.

So did Ruby invite her biological mother Louise around or is she now suddenly living with Carla and Cherry?

I would’ve said that I quite liked the design of the Shreek when several of them were outside in the dark but I despised how Conrad fooled Ruby into calling UNIT so as to livestream them and highlight what he believed were lies via his social commentary though I did like him tossing up his disbelief of so many entities that the doctor and UNIT had faced.

The bit with Conrad on a bunch of talk shows felt like a carbon copy of Roger Ap Gwilliam doing the same in 73 Yards. Additionally that Masked Singer scene felt really forced and out of place as Joel Dommett doing social commentary there felt like complete & utter sheer nonsense!

My Rating: 4 / 5 Stars (Whilst there are far more pros I have down than cons the whole confusion about Conrad’s relationship with his mother made it lose but a singular star for me).

Anyone noticed how relating to the pathenon 25 in years seems significant , toymaker and maestro were released in 1925,and lux in 1952 , where the last two digits are the reverse of 25 , we know 2025 is happening as well

Episode was release on streaming at 7AM UK time so early reviews can go here. Anyone waiting until this evening to watch is advised to avoid this post and return to it after the linear TV airing to save creating a new post just solely in order to discuss the episode.

Pros:

That was sweet how Alan bought Belinda a star and how it was able to cause the plot of the episode as a whole though unfortunately his environmental consciousness was rather grating.

The time jump was an effective way to connect Belinda to 15 but I hope we don’t just get this thrown in with every single new character.

Although it’s random how Mrs Flood is around nearby Belinda it is nice to see her back and I seem to remember Anita said she has a much more prominent role this series, I guess she could’ve changed address since we last saw her hence how come she’s here now?

I liked the more so intense music that we got after the opening credits.

Nice callback to 15’s first line from Belinda, all she was missing out on was the word ‘Here!’ in order to complete it.

15’s theme being re-used for the first time this series was timed rather well.

I’m so glad that the cleaning robot just got switched off rather than destroyed unlike the little car in Wild Blue Yonder which I still haven’t fully recovered of the destruction of.

The way that 15’s connection to Belinda worked, though the way they randomly shoved in a flashback to Boom to highlight it felt strange.

Despite the plot twist failing in my eyes, it did in a sense make sense for an RPG gamer who was possessive to turn into an absolute dictator. Though come to think of it on a deeper level this could well be perceived as the BBC further perpetuating their overtly negative stereotype of irregardless of whether or not they choose to pay them in moderation all gamers are coercive and there’s a risk of them potentially becoming dictators if they ever got into power anywhere!

Whilst it was nice to see 15 get his Tardis back from the robots, it was perplexing as to how she knew what a Tardis was upon seeing as it 15 never described how it looked to her when he spoke to her about it earlier in the episode.

Cons:

Does Belinda live at some kind of group accommodation nearby her workplace? It irks me how it’s not formally explained.

How dare the robots kill that cat!

Why does that one robot sometimes sound a bit like Richard Ayoade but he doesn’t always?

I feel seeing the riot play out from the off would’ve been better than us just being told there’s one ongoing but at the same time, I guess why would they need her unless it was to attempt to stop an impending one?

This plot feels very much Flash Gordon meets Star Wars and I’m dismayed there’s no Brian Blessed to be seen here.

Why is 15 crying again? We didn’t even see his friendship with Sasha 55 play out on screen but he’s still crying because she’s just died in front of his eyes as per usual with his incarnation.

What a way to date your episode by adding a Kylie Minogue reference although Padam Padam was rather literally released just two years ago.

That kaboom line that 15 used twice felt like a more so forced indirect reference to Boom and I didn’t much like it either time!

The apparent twist of Alan being the AI didn’t work for me as it was obvious it’d be him from the moment he asked Belinda if she were married.

The whole ninth word is the truth thing felt random as outside of the ticking thing it didn’t feel like it had all that much of a proper build up.

Alan effectively being unborn wasn’t the most satisfying way of defeating him.

So is 24th May 2025 the date of the finale? If so why does she want to rush on home to the finale.

My Rating: 3 / 5 Stars

What is, in your opinion, the best season of every Doctor?

Stories like Smugglers, Tenth Planet, Twin Dilemma can either not be counted at all or be counted as part of other seasons. So example Twin Dilemma would be part of Season 22 and the other two in Season 3.

For me it's:

Hartnell: Season One

Troughton: Tie between Five and Six, but I think Six is a little bit better.

Pertwee: Season Seven

T. Baker: Season Thirteen

Davison: Season Twenty

C. Baker: Season Twenty-Two

McCoy: Season Twenty-Six

Eccleston: (obvious)

Tennant: Series Four

Smith: Series Six

Capaldi: Tie between Nine and Ten

Whittaker: Series Thirteen

Gatwa: Series Fifteen (season Two) - haven't seen it but I already have a strong feeling it's going to be an improvement over Series 14 (season 1).

Leave your choices down in the comments below!

A Christmas Episode where The Doctor and their companion travel back to Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States of America in the year 1937, and expect to meet a town filled with so much love and joy, that surely nothing can go wrong right? Maybe even have The Doctor say something like “Ah, No town does Christmas quite like Hershey! If I’m correct, tonight we should hear carols coming from that hill over there with the mansion on it.” But as The Doctor and insert companion name here wonder around town, it’s all… sad? Like the Christmas Spirit has been sucked straight out of the town. Cue whacky adventures, that ends with The Doctor and companion singing Christmas Carols amidst a crowd, holding a candle.

Well, there we are. After nearly a month of polling, the results are in. And just in time for the Series 14 finale!

== Background ==

31 polls were taken to discover what readers and editors on TARDIS wiki consider the strongest and weakest series of NewWho (2005-2022). What started as just determining what was considered the best in each era has evolved into a full polling assessment of the entirety of Series 1 in 2005 right up to Series 13 in 2022 Based on the average number of participants, a poll had to get up to 30 votes to count (or have such a momentous landslide in one direction that, even if the remaining voters to reach 30 all voted against the current winner, the winner would still win).

Some interesting facts to note:

* There was an average of 40 votes per poll.

* At the time of writing, the most voted on poll was Series 13 vs 11 with 61 votes.

* Series 4 vs 2 had the biggest landslide victory, with Series 4 winning by 90%, but Series 13 vs Series 10 saw the most landslided votes at 11-89% with 55 votes.

* Series 1 vs Series 10 had the tightest margin, with Series 1 narrowly winning 48-52% on a 44 votes poll.

* Series 6 vs Series 9 was also close, coming in at 49-51% on 41 votes.

* Series 10 vs Series 5 was the next closest, polling 49-51% on 37 votes.

Anyway, on to the rankings.

== Series Rankings ==

First off, the order for the Series within their own eras is the clearest and simplest to discover. A note on the presentation: ''x > y'' means that x was considered stronger than y. ''x >> y'' means that x won so decisively (something like 30-70% minimum swing) that it was clearly stronger and so had no chance of losing.

The series are categorised for these groups as:

* RTD 1 [Series 1-4, 2005-2010]

* Moffat 1 [Series 5-7, 2010-2013]

* Moffat 2 [Series 8-10, 2014-2017]

* Chibnall 1 [Series 11-13, 2018-2022]

RTD 1: S4 >> S1 > S3 > S2

Moffat 1: S5 > S6 >> S7

Moffat 2: S10 > S9 > S8

Chibnall 1: S13 > S12 >> S11

== Polling the Groups ==

However, the real fun begins when polling the groups against one another. Now one could have just done RTD 1 v Moffat 1, but then it would not reliably scale where each specific series is ranked. After all, based on the groups individually, Series 4 is a big bonus for RTD 1 while Series 11 is a huge detriment for Chibnall 1; the associated series within their groups are disproportionately benefitted or harmed by them. Therefore, the fairest method was to do it the longer but more rewarding way of pitting each individual series against the other. Now, after these long weeks, we have those results.

I have used a Tier List to display the results to accommodate for how close some polls were against each series (some near a dead draw of 50-50 even after 40+ votes on them!) Naturally, the higher the tier, the strongest the series is in the list. Where multiple series are in the same Tier, their overall performance within the tier is represented by their position in the box. What this means is that the Tiers follow the same rule as the ''x > y'' displayed above; the further towards the left a series is, the higher it ranks within the tier.

Determining where the series went in their tier, given how close the head-to-head results were, came down to multiple polls (i.e.: Series 6 v 9 was practically a dead draw, but Series 6 performed better against Series 2 than 9 did, so Series 6 is considered the marginal winner).

Very important note: the labels of T1, T2 and so forth are a reflection of how vast the series’ victory was in the polls against the other series. The labels are not a reflection of overall quality; the polls scale the series against each other rather than determining if a series is actually high quality. What this means is: Series 11 is at the bottom but could still be deemed objectively good television while Series 4 is at the top but could be seen as objectively terrible entertainment. The polls only reflect Series 1-13 in competition against each other.

Thank you to everyone who participated across these numerous polls. It is great going back and seeing how many voters kept turning out for them. Such wonderful participation because, without you voting, this would not have been possible. We may now have an official list from the community that is pretty accurate to what the consensus believes.

== The List ==