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Spoilers for Lucky Day. When the writers for this season of Doctor Who were announced, one name in the roster put me instantly on edge. Pete McTighe may have a distinguished filmography but, in this house, hes known as the person who wrote Kerblam. Thats the Chibnall-era episode summed up as Space Amazon is great and the people protesting poor working conditions and mass-layoffs are the real villains. Imagine then, my delighted surprise when Lucky Day doesnt just get its politics right, but it does so with molotov cocktails in hand. James Pardon/BBC Studios/Disney/Bad Wolf Its 2007 and the Doctor and Belinda land in London as the clock strikes midnight on New Years Day. The Doctor, Vindicator in hand, gets another set of coordinates before realizing a small boy, Conrad Clack, saw the TARDIS land. He hands Conrad a 50 pence piece and tells him its his lucky day, before the boy sprints back to his mother. But shes not interested in his story about a magical blue box, striking the boy and saying shes had enough of his lies. Conrad next encounters the TARDIS 17 years later when he spots it parked down a dark alley. There's a nearby door with a broken lock and he ventures inside to a closed down department store, where hes stalked by an unseen monster. After a few seconds, the monster brushes past Conrad, leaving green slime on his neck which is how it marks its prey. When the creature, the Shreek, emerges into the open ready to strike, its zapped away by the Doctor and Ruby. From the shadows, Conrad watches the Doctor hand Ruby a vial of antidote as she, too, was marked as prey. He stalks them back to the TARDIS and overhears their conversation half an hour prior, she was hanging out with the Beatles, putting this just after The Devils Chord. He snaps a picture of Ruby and puts it online, asking the internet if anyone has seen this woman. He tracks down Ruby at some point after she stops traveling in the TARDIS, and invites her onto his podcast. Conrad tries to flirt with his guest, and a quick montage shows them date and start to get serious about each other. He even confesses he was present during that first encounter with the Shreek, and Ruby hands him a vial of antidote. She says the Shreek, which had tagged him with green slime, was preparing to return to this dimension to hunt him again. But UNIT the Doctors military allies here on Earth captured it (off-screen). The pair go to a countryside village where Conrad introduces her to his friends in a quiet pub. But, as night draws in, the lights begin to flicker, and the blink-and-you-miss-it blurs of scary monsters appear outside. One of Conrads friends, Sparky, goes missing, and Ruby calls UNIT who leap into action despite no signs of a Shreek incursion. Conrad confesses to Ruby he didnt take the antidote, wanting to prove to her he was as brave as the Doctor to win her heart. When UNIT arrives, soldiers face off with a pair of Shreek monsters until they reveal theyre just Conrads stooges in rubber suits. Conrad isnt an innocent caught up in a crisis he cant comprehend, hes a conspiracy theorist streamer claiming UNIT is a sham organization. Hes the type to engineer stunts and deceptively edit the resulting footage to smear his targets. I wont name the real world figures Conrad is inspired by as wed get angry emails from their lawyers, but Im sure you can work out who they are. Conrads encounter with UNIT was livestreamed, and theres another montage of people talking to their generic social media followers decrying the organization. Hes arrested, but quickly released, and given a welcome press tour by the British media, including a favorable BBC News report and a joke on the UK version of The Masked Singer. Conrad even gets consoled during an interview on The One Show a prime time talk / magazine show by its real presenter Alex Jones (not that one). UNITs overseers in the UK government and Geneva buckle to public pressure to put UNIT under close scrutiny. As its head, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart says, imagine the fate of the world if any dictator got their hands on UNITs arsenal of captured alien technology. Someone senior at UNIT demands the caged (and real) Shreek captured off-screen be removed from London and brought up to the helipad ready for transit. Meanwhile, Conrad has a man on the inside, who has been radicalized into believing his own employers are a sham, who helps him break into UNIT HQ. Kate refuses to lock the building down, insisting that its time the issue was solved once and for all. Conrad, with a stolen UNIT rifle in hand, tries to bait Kate into attacking her on camera with some vicious slander about her father, the legendary Brigadier. Kate is happy the Doctor isnt here, since he wont stop her from doing what the audience has been demanding she do for the last few minutes. She opens the cage holding the Shreek and lets it go for Conrad. Like all two-bit bullies, Conrad crumbles in the face of real danger and starts begging for mercy but Kate refuses. Sadly, Shirley hands Ruby a taser, which she uses to knock out the Shreek before it can bite Conrads head off. Now that his life has been saved, Conrad goes back to playing up for the livestream, boasting that UNITs special effects have gotten better. At which point the Shreek wakes up and bites his arm off. Theres a sharp cut, and next we see Conrad waking up in a prison cell with a contraption around his arm, presumably keeping it joined to his elbow. Suddenly, he hears the TARDIS noise and is brought aboard for the Doctor to tell him that hes a bitter, sad person who will die in prison. But Conrad is unrepentant and says he rejects the Doctors reality. After hes returned to the cell, hes visited by Mrs. Flood, who confirms what he saw was real, and that shes letting him free as its his lucky day. Lara Cornell/BBC Studios/Disney/Bad Wolf It does appear as if I owe Pete McTighe a fulsome apology and must assume he isnt at fault for all of the reactionary politics of Kerblam. Lucky Day is both a worthy sequel to 73 Yards and a sign that, if Doctor Who is just weeks from an enforced hiatus, then its going out swinging. Its got a lot of targets, including the BBCs habitual reputation-laundering of unsavory characters. The notion of who is in the wrong is madeexplicitly clear here, too, and Conrad occupies the same political (and narrative) circles as Roger ap Gwillam (Albion TV gets a reference). Like a lot of this years run, the episode feels like an overstuffed script which was then cut down to fit a specific runtime. But the structural work underpinning things feel more solid here, so while a lot of the connective tissue is absent, its not to the detriment of the story. Kates decision to unleash the Shreek may have been well-telegraphed but its better than the solution appearing out of nowhere because theres five minutes left to run. Theres an element of the show playing to its strengths, and the genre savviness of its audience here as well. If you know the beats of a girl-meets-boy romance movie, then youll spot this is a cracked-ish mirror version of that. And we dont need much evidence of Conrads villainy calling the Doctor, UNIT and Kate a bunch of frauds to make money from his online audience since we know they are our heroes. Plus, anyone who slanders Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, after all, deserves to get whats coming to them. Lucky Day is smart about how it introduces us to Conrad, too, giving us obvious red flags from the get-go. Adult Conrad has no reservations about taking a picture of a stranger and sharing it online for the internet to identify on his behalf. Theres a hint of judgment in how he asks about her relationship to and with the Doctor, mirroring the way Alan Budd flirted with Belinda in The Robot Revolution. In fact, its an interesting counterpoint to that episode, since we get enough time with Conrad early on to learn to at least be wary of him, rather than it being a fairly unsupported third-act twist. If theres one downside, its that the episode leans on the trope that survivors of abuse perpetuate that cycle of abuse. Conrad gets hit in the head by his mother and while its hard to assume a pattern of behavior from one scene, it didnt seem like it was the first time. Much as we saw in Lux, there are limits to the storytelling possibilities inherent in a series about an immortal science clown traveling anywhere in time and space in a blue box. This episode is also focused on Rubys post-TARDIS life, which has left her in a vulnerable position. As she admits at the end of the episode, her time with the Doctor was spent in a constant state of panic and peril. Shes tired, shes alone and the first man she tried to form a relationship with turned out to be using her. Thats bound to leave a scar, but the after effects of a trip in the TARDIS is rarely discussed in the context of the series itself. The majority of the classic series' companions lacked detailed interior lives, while modern day ones often move on to other exciting things rather than back to a normal life. Mrs. Flood Corner BBC Studios/Disney/Bad Wolf It does appear as if the structure of the series isnt just Russell T. Davies relying on a familiar rhythm but something more deliberate. Lucky Day is the fourth in a row that shares themes and elements with the same numbered episode in last years lineup. Itll be interesting to see how much of next weeks The Story and the Engine, and the following weeks The Interstellar Song Contest shares with their counterparts from the first series. Its plausible that the time fracture that was featured in The Robot Revolution has, somehow, knocked the series off its previously-planned course. That either within the shows fiction or in its metafiction, were explicitly seeing parallel versions of those previous episodes. If you recall from that episode, too, the Doctor says he was told to meet Belinda by an unknown person. What if he was chasing down Conrads lead, and if so, would that be enough to create a paradox (even if the TARDIS can avoid such obstacles)? Then theres the fact Conrad says he explicitly rejects the Doctors reality, which feels like a telling way of wording things. Especially as this seasons two-part finale is titled Wish World and The Reality War, although that title is hardly a massive clue. After all, last seasons finale was Empire of Death, as opposed to The one in which it turns out Stuekh has been clinging to the TARDIS roof for God knows however long. Im not sure I want to read too much into Mrs. Flood releasing Conrad since that, like last week, could simply be a topper to the story. It may be that shes simply letting him out to wreak more havoc and undermine UNIT and the Doctors goals rather than anything specific. Not to mention that if Mrs. Flood is a dimension-surfing entity hell-bent on destroying the Doctor, shes hardly going to have much use for a schmucky YouTuber. This week, the BBC announced that The Reality War would not be getting its customary early in the day stream online. Instead, itll hit the iPlayer and Disney+ at the same time as the UK broadcast, and both episodes are being lined up for a small cinema release. Thats reserved for big event episodes, and it adds more weight to the rumor Gatwa has already left the show. Not to mention hes starring in the play Born With Teeth from August 13 through November 11 which would prevent him from shooting a season for 2026. Outside the mystery box elements of the show, this season feels as if its having a meta conversation with itself. Lucky Day, for instance, takes a similar premise as Love and Monsters, a Doctor-lite episode focusing on one of the so-called ordinary people who are peripherally involved in the Doctors adventures. Conrad is initially presented as one of the lost souls who are drawn to the Doctor you could almost describe them as fans but who dont shine brightly enough to get the Time Lords special attention. Oh, and I cant think of any reason beyond silly fan service that Conrads streaming outfit is called Think Tank beyond a deep cut nod to 1974s Robot. After all, theres almost nothing in common between the two entities and their goals are ostensibly in conflict.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/doctor-who-lucky-day-review-pete-i-owe-you-an-apology-190037017.html?src=rss
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Cue a new batch of Half-Life 3 confirmed memes. The latest rumor surrounding Valves long-awaited next installment in the Half-Life series claims that the game is currently playable, end-to-end and could even be announced in the summer, followed by a release in winter of this year. The speculation comes from Tyler McVicker, whos known for reporting on Valve rumors, during his latest Q&A livestream. According to McVicker, the game is currently playable from beginning to end, which he guesses could put it on track for an announcement and release this year. Besides McVickers hours-long livestream, there have been other recent hints about Valves progress on its highly anticipated title. In March, Valve concept artist Evgeniy Evstratiy claimed that he was in the room where Valve made Half-Life 3 on CG Voices Podcast. In the same month, another Valve leaker, Gabe Follower, claimed that Half-Life 3 would be the end of Gordons adventure, potentially signaling a non-cliffhanger ending to one of gamings best franchises. Outside of these rumors, internet sleuths discovered code referencing HLX, which is widely thought to be the codename for Half-Life 3, in major updates to Deadlock and Dota 2. While these rumors are unconfirmed, they are promising signs of life for Half-Life 3. McVicker said during his livestream that the HLX project wont be another virtual reality game like Half-Life: Alyx and that there are procedural generation features that arent for terrain generation or roguelike mechanics. Before you get your hopes up, remember that Half-Life 2 recently celebrated its 20-year anniversary, and we still dont have any official confirmation from Valve about a follow-up game.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/half-life-3-is-reportedly-playable-in-its-entirety-and-could-be-announced-this-year-183030499.html?src=rss
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Google Gemini is adding nannying to its chatbot skillset. According to a New York Times report, Google will make Gemini available to users under 13, so long as theyre under a parent-managed Google account using Family Link. In an email sent to parents, Google said that kids will get access to Gemini to ask questions, get homework help and make up stories. This expanded availability will come with guardrails for its new user base, Google spokesperson Karl Ryan told NYTimes, adding that it would prevent Gemini from offering up unsafe content to kids. In the email, Google acknowledged that Gemini can make mistakes and recommended that parents teach their kids how to fact-check Geminis responses. Along with double-checking, Google suggested reminding younger users that Gemini isnt human and to not enter any sensitive or personal data into conversations. Even with those measures, the email still warned that children could encounter content you dont want to see. With the staggering pace of AI chatbot adoption, concerns about underage users have been bubbling up to the surface thanks to instances of factually incorrect or suggestive responses. In a report published last week, Common Sense Media warned that AI chatbots were encouraging harmful behaviors, providing inappropriate content, and potentially exacerbating mental health conditions for users under 18. Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that Metas AI chatbots were able to engage in sexual conversations with minors. On top of dodging unsafe conversations, Google said it wont use any data from its younger Gemini users to train its AI models. For now, Google said its gradually rolling out access to Gemini for supervised accounts.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/kids-under-13-will-soon-get-supervised-access-to-google-gemini-164017036.html?src=rss
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