THE RANTING BRUMMIE REVIEWS: "DOCTOR WHO - "WISH WORLD" (S2 EP7)

In the frenetic, time-twisting tapestry of Doctor Who, last night’s episode, Wish World—aired May 24, 2025—arrives like a fever dream, all glitter and grandiosity, yet faltering under the weight of its own ambitions. This penultimate chapter of the season, penned by Russell T Davies, plunges the Doctor and Belinda into a warped 1950s-esque reality, a dystopian fairytale that owes a conspicuous debt to WandaVision. 

While the episode dazzles with its visuals and Archie Panjabi’s electrifying turn as the Rani, its plot creaks like a TARDIS with a loose bolt, overstuffed with ideas that never quite cohere. It’s a spectacle that thrills in the moment but leaves one longing for a tighter script, as if Davies has raided Marvel’s playbook without quite mastering its emotional finesse.

The visuals are a triumph, a kaleidoscope of retro-futurist suburbia and nightmarish flourishes that scream Doctor Who at its most audacious. The Harmony Arena’s bone palace, with its James Bond-esque dome, is a production design marvel, while animated sequences, dinosaurs stalking London, and a wish-granting baby’s eerie giggle evoke a Tim Burton fever dream. Director Alex Sanjiv Pillai crafts a world where every frame pops, from the Stepford-like streets to the Rani’s spiky leather swagger, a nod to Kate O’Mara’s original. These visuals, paired with a haunting score, make Wish World a feast for the senses, even if the narrative can’t keep pace.

Archie Panjabi, as the newly bi-generated Rani, is the episode’s supernova, chewing scenery with a relish that’s both camp and chilling. Her performance transforms the Rani from a niche Time Lord into a galactic force, striding through her bone palace with a punky menace that fits her like a glove. Whether taunting the Doctor with a disco ball dance or weaving a reality-shattering scheme, Panjabi commands every scene, her Emmy-winning gravitas lending depth to a character once dismissed as a Master-lite. Her interplay with Anita Dobson’s Mrs. Flood—a subservient Rani variant—is a delight, their dynamic a mix of menace and mischief. Panjabi’s Rani is a villain you love to hate, her every line dripping with theatrical venom, making her the episode’s undeniable highlight.

Varada Sethu, as Belinda Chandra, continues to shine, her nurse’s pragmatism anchoring the Doctor’s disorientation. Her scenes in the faux-domestic bliss of Wish World, particularly in moments of doubt, grounds the episode’s wilder swings, though she’s underused in the latter half.

Yet, the plot is where Wish World stumbles, a chaotic jumble that feels like a WandaVision photocopy run through a Doctor Who filter. The setup—Conrad Clark (Jonah Hauer-King) crafting a repressive utopia with the Rani’s wish-granting god-baby Desiderium—echoes Wanda Maximoff’s grief-fueled Hex. The Doctor and Belinda wake as a married couple with a daughter, Poppy, in a 1950s Britain rife with homophobia and ableism, a critique of tradwife totalitarianism that feels like Stepford with a sonic screwdriver. 

The WandaVision comparison is inescapable and not entirely flattering. Davies’ love for Marvel, evident in his nods to Loki and Star Wars this season, here feels like a direct lift, with the Doctor’s “John Smith” alias mirroring Wanda’s suburban delusion. The episode’s ambition is admirable, but its rushed pacing and reliance on Time Lord lore, like Omega’s looming return, dilute its impact. It’s as if Davies, enamoured with Marvel’s reality-bending playbook, forgot to ground his story in the emotional stakes that made his first Who run soar.

Still, Panjabi’s Rani and the episode’s visual flair keep Wish World afloat. The cliffhanger—the Doctor plummeting into the Underverse as Omega’s voice booms—promises a finale of epic scope, per Radio Times. It’s a bold setup, but one hopes Davies can weave these threads into a tapestry less derivative and more cohesive than this outing.

Ten Interesting Things from Wish World:

• Panjabi’s Punk Rani: Archie Panjabi’s theatrical menace as the Rani, swaggering in a spiky leather coat, reinvents the villain with camp and gravitas.

• Bone Palace Spectacle: The Rani’s domed base, a “James Bond set” is a visual stunner, with animated dinosaur skeletons prowling London.

• WandaVision Echoes: The 1950s dystopia, with the Doctor and Belinda as a married couple, blatantly channels WandaVision.

• Belinda’s Poise: Varada Sethu’s Belinda, radiant in retro attire that subtly flatters her form, grounds the chaos with quiet strength.

• Desiderium’s Creepy Giggle: The wish-granting baby, a “terrifying” god, adds a fairy-tale chill with its eerie laugh.

• Conrad’s Dystopia: Jonah Hauer-King’s Conrad crafts a repressive utopia, a “tradwife totalitarianism” that remains chillingly plausible.

• Ruby’s Resistance: Millie Gibson’s Ruby, teaming with Shirley (Ruth Madeley), forms a resistance that feels underused but potent.

• Rani’s Bi-Generation Dynamic: Panjabi and Anita Dobson’s interplay, with Mrs. Flood as a subservient Rani, is a barrel of laughs.

• Omega’s Looming Return: The cliff-hanger tease of Omega, voiced but unseen, promises Gallifreyan high stakes for a character not seen since the Peter Davison episode "Arc of Infinity".

• Social Commentary: Davies’ critique of conservatism and thought policing, while heavy-handed, resonates in 2025’s fraught climate.

PATRICK O'FLYNN (1965 - 2025): AN OBITUARY

Patrick O’Flynn, who has shuffled off this mortal coil at an age he’d likely have described as “none of your business,” was a journalist and politician whose pen was mightier than the sword, though he’d have argued the sword was underused in modern politics. A man who wore his nationalism and conservatism like a well-tailored tweed suit—slightly out of fashion but impeccably cut—O’Flynn spent his career skewering the pompous and the progressive with a wit so dry it could desiccate a bog.

Born in 1965, O’Flynn emerged from King’s College, Cambridge, with an economics degree and a suspicion of elites that would define his work. He cut his teeth at the Daily Express, rising to political editor, where his columns thundered with the kind of righteous indignation that made readers nod sagely over their morning tea or choke on their cornflakes. His was a voice that could make a Labour leader sound like a Buddhist monk at a Vegas casino—utterly out of place and faintly ridiculous.

O’Flynn’s flirtation with the UK Independence Party (UKIP) saw him elected as an MEP in 2014, a role he embraced with the zeal of a man who’d just discovered the EU was taxing his pint. His defection to the Social Democratic Party in 2018, citing UKIP’s dalliance with less savoury characters, was less a political pirouette than a stomping exit from a party he felt had lost its way. “I joined the SDP,” he declared, “because it espouses broad and moderate pro-nation state values,” which was his way of saying he preferred his nationalism with a side of civility, not a knuckle sandwich.

At The Spectator, where he scribbled regular columns, O’Flynn’s prose danced a jig between satire and sermon. He took aim at Keir Starmer with the precision of a darts player in an old Camden pub, calling him “vain, out-of-touch, humourless,” and suggesting Nigel Farage could have him “on the ropes” at PMQs. His disdain for multiculturalism’s failings and his warnings of “white identity politics” were less dog-whistle than foghorn, sounding alarms that echoed from Westminster to the West Country.

Like Clive James, whose satirical verse he might have envied, O’Flynn had a knack for exposing the absurdities of the powerful while maintaining a twinkle in his eye. His writing was a protective reef around the Britain he loved—one of sovereignty, scepticism, and the occasional pint. He was no mere hack; he was a craftsman of cantankerous charm, wielding words like a fencer with a foil, sharp and precise, but never cruel.

O’Flynn leaves behind a legacy of columns that read like love letters to a nation he feared was unravelling, and a warning to future scribes: if you must tilt at windmills, do it with style and a smirk. He is survived by his wife, Carole Ann, his son and daughter, as well as his readers, who will miss his mordant wit, and by politicians, who will sleep easier without it.

SELL-OUT STARMER AND THE QUIET DESKS OF DISCONTENT

In the grand tradition of British stoicism, we find ourselves once again sipping tea through gritted teeth, muttering darkly about the state of things while doing precisely nothing about it. Cornwall7000, a voice of the ever-exasperated on X, posed the question on May 18, 2025, that has been brewing in the minds of many a disgruntled citizen: “What’s the tipping point for nationwide mass demonstrations against this awful government? I feel it’s close.” Oh, the optimism! 

One can almost hear the kettles whistling in unison, a prelude to the revolution that never quite arrives. And then Marks Safaniya, with the weary cynicism of a man who’s seen one too many promises broken, replies: “We are a nation of oppressed people who are so busy and tired feeding and caring for our families that we have no appetite to respond. The government are going to sign us back into Europe against the majority vote and 9yrs of struggle and we will do exactly nothing.” Here, in this exchange, lies the quintessential British tragedy—a yearning for revolt so palpable you could spread it on toast, yet a resignation so deep it might as well be the national anthem.

Let us rewind, shall we, to the heady days of 2016, when the British public, in a rare moment of collective decisiveness, voted 51.9% to leave the European Union, according to the Electoral Commission. It was a decision that sent shockwaves through the corridors of Brussels and Westminster alike, a middle finger to the technocrats who thought they knew better. For a fleeting moment, it felt like the people had spoken—loudly, rudely, and with the kind of conviction usually reserved for queuing etiquette. But oh, how quickly the dream soured. Nine years of struggle followed, a Kafkaesque nightmare of withdrawal agreements, backstops, and betrayals, each more convoluted than the last. And now, in 2025, under the iron grip of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government, the whispers of rejoining the EU grow louder, a betrayal so brazen it could only be British in its execution—delivered with a polite smile and a cup of lukewarm tea.

Starmer, of course, is a man of principles, which is to say he has none that can’t be adjusted to suit the mood of the room. As the National Centre for Social Research reminds us, back in 2019, Starmer was the poster boy for a second referendum, a knight in shining Remain armor, ready to lead Labour back into the loving embrace of the EU. Fast forward to 2024, and the man who once campaigned for Europe with the fervor of a televangelist now declares, after securing a majority, that reopening the Brexit debate would bring “turmoil and uncertainty.” How noble of him to spare us the chaos—never mind that two-thirds of his own voters, 66% to be precise, think there should be another EU vote within the next five years. The remaining 26% who don’t are presumably too busy trying to afford their heating bills to care. Starmer’s moral compass, it seems, points firmly in the direction of power, a North Star that never wavers, even as 78% of Labour voters in 2024 would vote to rejoin the EU if given the chance. Democracy, it appears, is a dish best served cold and ignored.

But let us not lay all the blame at Starmer’s feet. The British public, bless them, have played their part in this farce with the kind of apathy that would make a sloth look industrious. Marks Safaniya’s lament on X—that we are too tired, too busy, too broken to rise up—is not just a personal cri de cœur but a national diagnosis. The LSE Public Policy Review paints a grim picture: real wages in the UK have stagnated for the longest period in two centuries, a decline so persistent it’s practically a cultural artifact. Since 2008, average earnings growth has limped along at a measly 0.2% annually, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies in 2024. Inequality festers like damp in a Victorian terrace, and the labour market institutions that once promised fairness now seem as outdated as a fax machine. Is it any wonder, then, that the British people, once the proud architects of empire, now find themselves too knackered to storm the barricades? The revolution, it seems, has been postponed due to exhaustion.

And yet, the yearning for a “very British revolution” persists, a quiet, simmering rage that bubbles beneath the surface of every overpriced pint and every delayed train. Cornwall7000’s question—“What’s the tipping point?”—is less a call to arms and more a desperate plea for someone, anyone, to light the fuse. But who will do it? 

Not the public, apparently, who are too busy Googling how to stretch a tin of beans into three meals. Not the opposition, who are as effective as a paper umbrella in a hurricane. And certainly not the government, who seem to view the will of the people as a minor inconvenience, like a spot of rain on a bank holiday. The Labour government’s rumored plan to drag us back into the EU, against the 2016 vote and nine years of struggle, is not just a betrayal of democracy—it’s a masterclass in moral cowardice. They know the public is divided; a YouGov poll from 2024 showed 55% now favor rejoining, a shift from 2019 when a petition to revoke Article 50 garnered 6.1 million signatures. But to act without a mandate, without a vote, is to treat the electorate like children who can’t be trusted with sharp objects.

The EU itself, of course, is no innocent bystander in this melodrama. For years, it has played the role of the jilted lover, alternately wooing and scolding Britain with the kind of passive-aggressive energy that would make a soap opera writer blush. The technocrats in Brussels, with their clipboards and their regulations, have never quite forgiven us for leaving, and now they sense an opportunity to reel us back in, like a fisherman with a particularly stubborn catch. But the EU’s moral failings are as glaring as Labour’s: a bloated bureaucracy that prioritizes its own survival over the needs of its people, a monolith that lectures on unity while ignoring the voices of those who dare to dissent. If Labour’s sin is betrayal, the EU’s is arrogance—a belief that it knows best, even when the evidence suggests otherwise.

So here we are, in May 2025, teetering on the edge of something that might, in a parallel universe, be called a revolution. But this is Britain, where revolutions are more likely to involve a strongly worded letter to the council than a march on Westminster. The discontent is real—Cornwall7000 and Marks Safaniya are but two voices in a chorus of millions—but the action is lacking. Perhaps it’s the weather, perpetually grey and uninspiring. Perhaps it’s the economy, which has left us all too poor to afford the pitchforks. Or perhaps it’s simply who we are: a nation of grumblers, not fighters, who would rather endure a thousand betrayals than risk the embarrassment of making a scene.

In the end, the “very British revolution” we yearn for may never come. Labour will likely sign us back into the EU, or at least try to, and we will, as Marks Safaniya predicts, “do exactly nothing.” The EU will welcome us back with open arms and a laundry list of conditions, and Starmer will smile for the cameras, secure in the knowledge that he’s dodged another bullet. And we, the great British public, will shuffle on, muttering into our tea about the good old days when our votes meant something. 

It’s a tragedy, to be sure, but it’s our tragedy—a uniquely British blend of frustration, resignation, and the faintest flicker of hope that one day, just maybe, we’ll find the energy to care. Until then, the revolution remains a dream, as distant and unattainable as a sunny bank holiday. Cheers to that.

THE RANTING BRUMMIE REVIEWS: "DOCTOR WHO - "THE INTERSTELLAR SONG CONTEST" (S2 EP6)

In the glittering, giddy whirl of Doctor Who’s latest escapade, The Interstellar Song Contest—beamed to us on May 17, 2025—this episode pirouettes onto the screen like a sequined comet, all camp and calamity, only to plunge into a darkness that leaves the heart pounding. Set aboard the Harmony Arena, a space station hosting a galactic Eurovision, it’s a riot of colour and chaos, with animation that pops like confetti and a narrative that dares to bare the Doctor’s teeth. 

Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor delivers a performance that’s both a revelation and a reckoning, particularly in a harrowing confrontation with Freddie Fox’s villainous Kid. Yet, the episode’s surprises—Susan Foreman’s ethereal return and the Rani’s divisive re-emergence—add layers of delight and debate to this interstellar spectacle. It’s Doctor Who at its most audacious, a high note that occasionally wavers but never fails to thrill.

The visuals are a dazzling triumph, a love letter to Eurovision’s flamboyant excess, reimagined 900 years hence. The Harmony Arena, with its neon-lit stage and alien contestants, is a feast of CGI wizardry. Animated sequences—think Rylan Clark’s cryogenically preserved host bursting from a pod, or Cora Saint Bavier’s haunting Hellion ballad—evoke a Saturday morning cartoon spun through a cosmic kaleidoscope. The animation of bodies floating in space, frost-kissed and silent, is a chilling counterpoint to the episode’s glitter. Director Ben A. Williams wrings every ounce of spectacle from Juno Dawson’s script, blending camp with catastrophe in a way that feels quintessentially Who.

Gatwa, as the Doctor, is the episode’s supernova, burning with a ferocity that redefines his tenure. His Fifteenth Doctor, usually a whirlwind of charm and “babes,” unleashes a darker side that’s both thrilling and unsettling. The confrontation with Kid, a horned Hellion terrorist played with smouldering menace by Freddie Fox, is the episode’s jagged heart. Believing Belinda to be among the 100,000 spectators ejected into space, the Doctor’s rage erupts in a chilling monologue—“You’ve put ice in my heart, darling”—before he subjects Kid to hard-light hologram torture, Gatwa’s shift from nonchalance to unrestrained malice is a masterclass in emotional range, evoking the Time Lord Victorious at his most vengeful, making the Doctor’s moral lapse feel both shocking and earned, a testament to Gatwa’s ability to balance camp with cruelty. 

It’s a moment that redefines Gatwa’s Doctor, making him as complex as Tennant’s, and sets the stage for a finale fraught with consequence. Varada Sethu, as Belinda Chandra, remains a radiant counterpoint, her nurse’s pragmatism grounding the Doctor’s fury. Her pained desolation, especially when witnessing the Doctor’s rage, is palpable, and her chemistry with Gatwa crackles. Interactions with Cora (Miriam-Teak Lee), a Hellion hiding her identity, add emotional depth.

The surprise return of Susan Foreman, played by Carole Ann Ford, is a lump-in-the-throat moment for long-time fans. Appearing in visions as the Doctor floats in space, her ethereal plea—“Go back and find me”—is a poignant nod to 1963’s An Unearthly Child. Ford, the last surviving original cast member, imbues Susan with a haunting grace, it’s a magical inclusion, overshadowing the episode’s other bombshell: the reveal of Mrs. Flood as the Rani. Anita Dobson’s bi-generation into Archie Panjabi’s steely Rani, riffing on Kate O’Mara’s camp villainy, is a thrilling twist for some, but for every fan cheering the Rani’s return after 1987’s Time and the Rani, another finds it overshadowed by Susan’s emotional heft, leaving the reveal feeling like a sparkler next to a firework.

The episode’s flaws—a rushed resolution and an overstuffed narrative, as Newsweek and the m0vie blog note—don’t dim its shine. The Interstellar Song Contest is a bold, bruising adventure, with Gatwa’s darker turn and Susan’s surprise return stealing the show. The Rani’s comeback, while divisive, adds intrigue, and Sethu’s luminous Belinda—curves and all—grounds the cosmic chaos. It’s Doctor Who at its most daring, a song that hits both high notes and haunting lows.

Ten Interesting Things from The Interstellar Song Contest:

• Gatwa’s Rage Unleashed: Ncuti Gatwa’s chilling confrontation with Kid, using hard-light holograms to torture, showcases a terrifying Time Lord Victorious.

• Animated Space Horror: The visual of 100,000 spectators freezing in space, rendered with frosty CGI, is a stark contrast to the episode’s camp.

• Susan’s Haunting Return: Carole Ann Ford’s ethereal Susan Foreman, urging the Doctor to “find me,” is a tear-jerking nod to 1963.

• Rani’s Divisive Reveal: Mrs. Flood’s bi-generation into Archie Panjabi’s Rani is thrilling but divisive.

• Belinda’s Emotional Depth: Varada Sethu’s Belinda, stunning in futuristic attire that subtly flatters her form, anchors the episode with pained desolation.

• Kid’s Sympathetic Villainy: Freddie Fox’s Kid, a vengeful Hellion, is charismatic but lacks menace,  making the Doctor’s reaction feel outsized.

• Rylan’s Camp Cameo: Rylan Clark’s cryogenically preserved host, quipping “Back from the dead? sums up my career,” is a camp delight.

• Cora’s Hellion Ballad: Miriam-Teak Lee’s somber song, revealing her Hellion identity, is a fairy-tale moment.

• Graham Norton’s Hologram: A hologram revealing Earth’s destruction on May 24, 2025, adds urgency to what is set to be a devastating finale.

• Cliffhanger Chaos: The TARDIS’s cloister bells and exploding doors, post-Norton’s reveal.

THE RANTING BRUMMIE GOES TO EUROVISION

The 2025 Eurovision Song Contest, held in Basel’s St Jakobshalle, was less a musical competition than a geopolitical pantomime dressed in sequins and lit by a thousand wind machines. It was, as ever, a spectacle that could make a cynic weep and Noel Gallagher reach for the gin. Switzerland, having won in 2024 with Nemo’s operatic tantrum The Code, hosted this 69th edition with the grim determination of a nation that knows neutrality is its only export besides overpriced watches and chocolate. The result was a three-night carnival of camp, chaos, and the kind of earnest ballads that make you wonder if Europe has collectively forgotten what a melody is.

Enter Austria’s JJ, a Viennese vocal acrobat who, with Wasted Love, turned an operatic ballad into a club banger with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. It was as if Puccini had been reincarnated in a Berghain basement, and Europe lapped it up. JJ’s win—Austria’s third, following Udo Jürgens and Conchita Wurst—was less a triumph of music than of sheer lung capacity. His reprise, dripping with tears and a plea for “more love,” was the kind of moment that Eurovision thrives on: absurdly sincere, yet impossible to take seriously. One could almost hear the ghost of Terry Wogan chuckling into his whiskey.

Israel’s Yuval Raphael, finishing second, was the night’s lightning rod. Her performance, briefly disrupted by paint-throwing protesters, was a reminder that Eurovision’s “United by Music” mantra is about as binding as a Labour Party manifesto. The European Broadcasting Union, ever the spineless referee, suppressed audience boos and prayed Austria’s victory would spare them the nightmare of hosting in Tel Aviv. The protests outside, complete with tear gas and water cannons, were a stark contrast to the glitter inside, where politics is supposedly banned but always the loudest guest.

Estonia’s Tommy Cash took third with Espresso Macchiato, a faux-Italian piss-take that had Italians clutching their espressos in outrage. Cash, a provocateur who loves “anything trashy,” delivered a song that mocked national stereotypes with the glee of a toddler in a sandpit. It was gloriously stupid, and one wished it had won just to see Rome host next year’s contest in a fit of pique. Sweden, the bookies’ favourite with their sauna-obsessed Bara Bada Bastu, landed fourth, proving that even accordion-led odes to sweating in a wooden box can’t always sway the televote.

The UK, as is tradition, sent Remember Monday—a girl group with a musical theatre background and a song called What The Hell Just Happened?—to continue its proud record of Eurovision futility. This 1970s pastiche, stuffed with tempo changes and barrelhouse piano, was like Queen covering the Andrews Sisters in a Nashville dive bar. It was theatrical, yes, but so is a pantomime dame, and the result was predictably dire: another bottom-half finish having again won no points from the public vote, with only Sam Ryder’s 2022 fluke to remind us that Britain once knew how to write a tune. The BBC’s decision to pick acts via backroom deals rather than public votes remains a mystery, like asking a tone-deaf choirboy to headline at Carnegie Hall.

Elsewhere, the contest was a parade of the gloriously unhinged. Finland’s Erika Vikman rode a spark-spewing golden microphone for Ich Komme, a techno-rave ode to, well, let’s call it “arrival.” It was the kind of performance that makes you check the subtitles twice and hide the remote from your grandmother. Malta’s Miriana Conte, forced to rename her song Serving to avoid a naughty homophone, still oozed camp defiance. And Latvia’s Tautumeitas, with their glitch-pop curses and monkey tails, looked like they’d wandered in from a pagan ritual gone wrong.

The hosts—Hazel Brugger, Sandra Studer, and Michelle Hunziker for the final—were as polished as a Swiss bank vault but about as memorable. Interval acts included a satirical Swiss stereotype skit and a Céline Dion video message, teasing a return that never materialised. One suspects she was wise to stay away; even her Titanic heart couldn’t survive this shipwreck of taste.

Clive James, were he still with us, would have skewered this as a “gladiatorial contest with music as an afterthought,” and he’d be right. Eurovision 2025 was not about songs but about moments—JJ’s soaring notes, Vikman’s golden phallus, Cash’s gleeful trolling. It’s a world unto itself, sealed off from pop culture, where ABBA remains the lone gold standard in 69 years. 

As Graham Norton’s wry commentary tried to keep up, one could only marvel at the absurdity: a continent united not by music, but by its willingness to embrace the ridiculous. See you in Vienna, or perhaps Salzburg, where the hills are alive with the sound of nul points.

CORBYN: THE BEARDED BLIGHT BRITIAN BANISHED

Oh, Jeremy Corbyn. Dear, dear Jeremy. The man who looked like he’d been knitted by a well-meaning auntie—grey beard, wonky glasses, and that eternal cagoule, as if he’d just wandered off an allotment with a trowel in one hand and a copy of Das Kapital in the other. 

A man who, for a brief, terrifying moment, convinced a chunk of Britain that he was the messiah of fairness, the patron saint of the downtrodden, the allotment-tending grandad who’d fix it all with a cup of tea and a nationalised railway. What a spectacle he was. Socialism in a student hoodie, reeking of patchouli and unwashed idealism, strutting onto the stage of British politics like a geography teacher who’d accidentally stumbled into a revolution. And thank the heavens—those same heavens he’d probably tax for being too lofty—that Britain, in a rare moment of clarity, told him to sod off.

Corbynism, you see, wasn’t just a political platform. It was a cult, a fever dream, a middle-class tantrum dressed up as compassion. It was the politics of people who’ve never built a damn thing—never run a business, never balanced a budget, never so much as assembled an IKEA shelf without weeping into the instructions—telling everyone else how to run everything. It was a philosophy built on the charming notion that if you’ve got more than your neighbor, you must’ve stolen it, and the solution is to tax it, seize it, and wreck it, all while wearing a beatific smile that says, “I’m doing this for the poor, you know.” 

Free housing, free uni, free money—oh, what a Marxist Santa Claus he was, promising gifts for all, with no sleigh, no reindeer, and certainly no plan to pay for it. The magic of Corbynism was that it didn’t need pesky things like arithmetic. Why bother with numbers when you’ve got moral superiority? Why worry about economics when you can just print money until the presses catch fire? Venezuela tried that, by the way. Now they’re eating their pets. But let’s not spoil the fairy tale with facts.

Let’s talk about Jeremy himself for a moment, shall we? The man who grew up in a Shropshire manor—yes, a manor, with ivy on the walls and cars in the drive that weren’t held together with duct tape—yet somehow styled himself as the voice of the working class. The hypocrisy of the man is so thick you could spread it on your crumpets. Here’s a chap who’s never known a day of real struggle in his life, a privately educated son of a mathematics teacher and an engineer, who decided to spend his days sipping herbal tea with terrorists while sneering at the very idea of Britain. 

Patriotism? To Corbyn, that was just racism with a Union Jack. Unless, of course, you were waving a Palestinian flag—then you were a hero, a freedom fighter, a comrade in arms. Never mind the grooming gangs he stood silent on, the Islamists he sucked up to, the antisemitism that festered under his watch like a bad rash. No, Jeremy was too busy kneeling to Hamas while giving the side-eye to anyone wearing a poppy. A snapshot of Corbynism? It’s a man who’d rather hug a Hezbollah operative than salute a British soldier. And we nearly made him Prime Minister. I need a drink.

But the real poison of Corbynism wasn’t just its leader’s sanctimonious posturing. It was the ideology itself—a socialism so pure, so untainted by reality, that it could only survive in the petri dish of a university seminar. It didn’t love the poor; it needed them, like a vampire needs a neck. Keep them dependent, keep them angry, keep them voting red. Aspiration? That was the enemy. Success? A crime. If you dared to want more, to work harder, to climb the greasy pole of life, Corbynism was there to yank you back down, whispering, “Not so fast, comrade—we’re all in the gutter together, and we’re staying there.” 

It loathed Britain, despised its history, and saw its institutions as punching bags for every grievance under the sun. The monarchy? Trash it. The army? Gut it. The markets? Let them collapse under the weight of a thousand nationalisations. Open the borders, empty the coffers, and watch the country burn, all while chanting, “This is fairness!” It wasn’t fairness. It was control. It wasn’t opportunity. It was obedience. And behind every smiling, Lenin-quoting grandad was a mob ready to torch Britain to the ground just to feel morally superior for five minutes.

Imagine, if you will, a Britain under Corbyn. Picture it: a land of open borders where the population swells faster than the NHS waiting lists, a market so collapsed that even the rats are on the dole, an army so gutted that we’d be defending ourselves with pitchforks and harsh language. The monarchy? Gone, replaced by a People’s Committee for the Redistribution of Crown Jewels. We’d be Venezuela in a cagoule, queuing for bread while Jeremy, from his newly nationalised manor, lectures us on the virtues of sharing. Inflation would hit numbers so high you’d need a wheelbarrow to buy a pint, and the only thing growing faster than the national debt would be Piers Corbyn’s conspiracy theories. It’s a dystopia so bleak that even Orwell would’ve said, “Steady on, mate.” And yet, in 2017, he came close. Too close. The man who couldn’t win a raffle nearly won the keys to Number 10. Britain, you dodged a bullet. A big, red, hammer-and-sickle-shaped bullet.

But here’s the rub, the bitter twist in this tale of near-misses and national sanity: we dodged Corbyn only to sleepwalk into something even worse. Enter Keir Starmer, the Fabian human rights lawyer who spent his career defending Britain’s enemies, now playing Prime Minister like a man who’s just discovered the instruction manual but can’t find the on switch. Starmer, the man who makes Corbyn look like a beacon of transparency—at least with Jeremy, you knew what you were getting: a bearded catastrophe in a flat cap. Starmer? He’s a shapeshifter, a man so devoid of principle that he makes a weather vane look resolute. 

He campaigned as a moderate, a safe pair of hands, only to govern like a man who’s been taking notes from Corbyn’s playbook in secret. National insurance hikes, welfare cuts, a Labour Party that feels less Labour and more like a Kafkaesque nightmare—Starmer’s Britain is a joyless slog, a place where voters are abandoning ship faster than you can say “Reform UK.” Labour MPs are in despair, activists are vanishing, and the Red Wall is crumbling faster than a sandcastle at high tide. We thought we’d escaped the abyss with Corbyn’s defeat, but Starmer’s dragged us into a different one—a grey, soulless pit where the only thing nationalised is misery.

So here we are, Britain, in 2025, looking back at the bullet we dodged and the quicksand we stumbled into instead. Corbynism was poison, yes—a toxic brew of envy, control, and economic illiteracy that would’ve turned Britain into a socialist wasteland. But Starmer’s Labour? It’s a slow-acting venom, a death by a thousand cuts, a government so uninspiring that even the pigeons in Trafalgar Square have stopped showing up. 

We rejected Corbyn because, deep down, we still remembered who we were: a nation of pragmatists, dreamers, and doers who don’t take kindly to being lectured by a man who thinks “profit” is a dirty word. But Starmer? He’s made us forget who we are, lulling us into a stupor of mediocrity while the country creaks at the seams. We survived the Corbyn cult, but the Starmer experiment might just finish us off. Pass the gin, darling—I’m going to need a double.

THE RANTING BRUMMIE REVIEWS: "VIRGIN ISLAND" (CH4)

Channel 4’s Virgin Island, it's first episode airing last night [14/05/25], is a televisual abomination so shamelessly grotesque it makes one long for the refined elegance of a public flogging. This is not a programme but a crime against decency, a lurid pantomime where human vulnerability is fed into a woodchipper of crass sensationalism for the amusement of viewers who’d rather ogle strangers’ misery than scrape the mould off their own fridge shelves. 

Picture twelve adult virgins—yes, virgins, a word the show swings like a croquet mallet to ensure no brain cell goes unbludgeoned—shipped to a Croatian island for an “intimacy course.” One might, in a fleeting fit of optimism, expect tender explorations of emotional connection. But this is Channel 4, where “intimacy” means shoving fragile souls into a gladiatorial arena of sexual stunts, psychological stripteases, and public shaming, all to keep the nation’s sofa-bound voyeurs from switching to reruns of QI on Dave. 

The premise, if one can call this cynical grift a premise, is a masterwork of exploitative alchemy: gather a dozen young people, mostly in their twenties, who’ve yet to punch their V-card, and dump them in a Mediterranean resort under the tutelage of “sexologists” Celeste Hirschman and Dr. Danielle Harel. These self-proclaimed oracles of the bedroom, armed with credentials from the Somatica Institute—a name that sounds like a knockoff energy drink peddled on late-night TV—promise to guide their charges to erotic enlightenment via “experiential practices.” 

In reality, this means a sadistic gauntlet of workshops, ranging from the merely degrading to the outright dystopian, where participants are prodded toward losing their virginity to a “sex surrogate” while cameras slaver like hyenas over a fresh kill. Nothing says “empowerment” like having your most private milestones turned into a Tuesday night circus for gawkers placing bets on who’ll “go the distance” first.

The participants, God help them, arrive with stories that could have anchored a sensitive documentary: Ben, a 30-year-old civil servant whose spreadsheet of 40-plus failed dates reads like the ledger of a cursed bureaucrat; Emma, 23, whose quiet dream of a kind and caring partner is chewed up and spat out in an exercise where she’s coerced into scribbling pornographic fan fiction for a room of strangers; Jason, whose heartfelt fantasy of fidelity is met with a therapist’s sneer that virgins “haven’t a clue,” delivered with the warmth of a parking fine. 

These are real people, carrying real wounds—loneliness, body dysmorphia, past traumas—yet Virgin Island treats them like lab rats in a Skinner box, their pain repackaged as entertainment. The voiceover, oozing with the synthetic sympathy of a telemarketer, purrs, “Who will be ready to go all the way?” as if their value lies solely in a sexual transaction, while the editors gleefully stitch every stammer, blush, and tear into a montage of maximum mortification. 

The workshops are a rogues’ gallery of absurdity, each with a title so ludicrous it could double as a rejected WWE move: “Up Against the Wall,” evoking a botched SWAT raid; “Fantasy Island,” where participants are bullied into penning erotica while the group nods like they’re judging a bake-off for depravity; and, in a moment that beggars belief, an exercise where they crawl on the floor, moaning like animals in a deranged safari. One half-expects the producers to issue bullwhips and pith helmets to complete the farce. 

Zac, a 28-year-old delivery driver with the strut of a discount reality TV heartthrob, is the show’s anointed champion, his eagerness to shed his virginity framed as a heroic odyssey. Meanwhile, those who dare prioritize emotional intimacy—like Sarah, who suggests love might precede lust—are patronized as relics, their values flattened by the show’s steamroller agenda to “fix” them.

The show’s apologists, likely the same masterminds who thought Naked Attraction was a cultural milestone, call it a “social experiment,” waving a statistic—one in eight 26-year-olds in the UK is a virgin—like it’s the Rosetta Stone. Never mind that this might reflect complex societal shifts: social media’s funhouse mirror of self-worth, pornography’s grotesque caricature of desire, or, perish the thought, personal agency. No, Virgin Island insists virginity is a disease to be cured, preferably with a live audience and a laugh track. Its progressive posturing—“My body deserves pleasure!”—is as authentic as a knockoff Rolex, a transparent ploy to mask the exploitation of the very insecurities it claims to soothe. The participants’ bravery is undeniable, but it’s hijacked by a format that feeds on their discomfort like a tick on a wounded dog.

Channel 4, once a crucible of daring ideas, now churns out dreck that makes Celebrity Big Brother look like a Ken Burns documentary. Virgin Island is a cultural lobotomy, revealing a medium so desperate for relevance it must pimp out the emotionally fragile for clicks. The therapists, spouting jargon with the gravitas of horoscope writers, come off less as counsellors than as cult recruiters, urging their flock to “embrace desire” while the cameras ensure no flicker of doubt escapes capture. The producers, one imagines, cackle in their chrome-plated boardrooms, toasting their manufactured outrage, fully aware that scandal is just ratings with better PR. The participants, meanwhile, are left to sweep up the shards of their dignity, their private struggles now a public punchline for water-cooler sniggers and X threads.

This is television as ethical collapse, a show that mistakes shock for substance and voyeurism for revelation. It’s the kind of programme that makes you want to smash your TV with a cricket bat, torch your Wi-Fi router, and flee to a cave where the only entertainment is counting stalactites. 

Watch Virgin Island if you must, but arm yourself with a blindfold to shield your eyes, earplugs to muffle the drivel, and a bucket to catch the remnants of your faith in humanity. Better yet, knit a scarf, learn the accordion, or stare into the void—anything to escape this rancid monument to a culture that’s traded shame for a spotlight and forgotten how to recoil.

THE RANTING BRUMMIE REVIEWS: "DOCTOR WHO - "THE STORY AND THE ENGINE" (S2 Ep5)

In the grand, galloping cavalcade that is Doctor Who, last night’s episode, The Story and the Engine—broadcast May 10, 2025—arrives like a bard’s ballad, rich with poetry and punctuated by the occasional off-key note. Set in the vibrant pulse of Lagos, Nigeria, this tale spins a web of stories within stories, anchored by a barbershop that’s less a salon and more a cosmic crucible. 

It’s a visually sumptuous affair, with animation that dances like folklore come to life, and Varada Sethu’s Belinda Chandra proving once again that she’s the companion to watch. Yet, the episode falters in its attempt to nod at the Doctor’s past, with a cameo-laden montage that feels more like a PowerPoint than a punch. Still, Doctor Who remains a show that dares to dream, and this episode, for all its wobbles, is a testament to its enduring spark.

The visuals are a triumph, a kaleidoscope of color and creativity that transforms the barbershop into a mythic stage. Writer Inua Ellams, making his Who debut, draws on his play Barber Shop Chronicles to craft a setting where stories are currency, projected as animated vignettes on the shop’s windows—think West African folklore meets Pixar pizzazz. 

The spider god Anansi, reimagined as a cosmic weaver, is a standout, its web shimmering with menace and majesty. Director Makalla McPherson wrings every ounce of magic from the single location, with drawings that burst into life and a heart-brain engine that’s as grotesque as it is gorgeous. It’s a feast for the eyes, proving that Doctor Who can still conjure spectacle on a budget, as noted by Den of Geek’s praise for its “visually sumptuous” execution.

Varada Sethu, as Belinda, is the episode’s beating heart, her nurse’s pragmatism cutting through the Doctor’s flamboyance like a scalpel. Her performance is a masterclass in quiet strength, whether she’s delivering the pivotal line “hurt people hurt people” or navigating the barbershop’s dangers with a steely gaze. Sethu’s chemistry with Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor is electric, their banter a blend of camaraderie and challenge that grounds the episode’s wilder flights. IGN rightly calls her “the heart of this run,” and her role in resolving the crisis underscores her growing importance. Gatwa, meanwhile, is a revelation, his Doctor oscillating between joy and rage as he revels in the Lagos community. His performance, lauded by ScreenRant as “spectacular,” captures a Time Lord who feels at home yet haunted by betrayal. 

The episode’s exploration of his Black identity is a refreshing shift, moving beyond the prejudice-focused narratives of Lux to celebrate cultural connection, as Episodic Medium notes. But the script stumbles in its handling of a cameo-heavy sequence, where the Doctor links with the story engine, projecting clips of past Doctors—William Hartnell, Matt Smith, Jodie Whittaker, and a brief Jo Martin as the Fugitive Doctor. It’s meant to be a triumphant nod to the show’s legacy, but it lands like a fan-service slideshow, lacking the emotional heft of, say, Rogue’s similar trick. Radio Times calls it a “never-ending story” moment, but its brevity and narrative disconnect—especially the puzzling Fugitive Doctor cameo—feel like a missed opportunity. ScreenRant questions its logic, noting the Doctor shouldn’t recall Martin’s incarnation.

The plot, involving a mysterious Barber (Ariyon Bakare, oozing charisma) who traps patrons to fuel a vengeful engine with their stories, is ambitious but occasionally muddled. The stakes—erasing gods across history—are grand, yet Newsweek rightly points out that they feel abstract until the midpoint, leaving viewers adrift. Still, the episode’s heart lies in its celebration of storytelling, with the Doctor’s six-word tale—“I’m born; I die; I’m born”—overwhelming the engine in a poetic climax. It’s a bold, if uneven, outing, but Sethu’s radiance and the visual verve make it a cut above.

Ten Interesting Things from The Story and the Engine:

• Animated Folklore: The barbershop’s windows project stories as vibrant animations, blending West African myths with a cartoonish flair that’s pure Who magic.

• Spider God Spectacle: Anansi’s cosmic web, with its glowing strands and giant spider, is a visual knockout, earning GamesRadar+’s praise for its originality.

• Belinda’s Brilliance: Varada Sethu’s Belinda delivers the episode’s emotional core, her “hurt people hurt people” line sparking the resolution, with her chic attire subtly highlighting her poise.

• Gatwa’s Emotional Range: Ncuti Gatwa shines, from joyous community bonding to raw betrayal, making this a defining moment for his Doctor, per Bleeding Cool.

• Barber’s Charisma: Ariyon Bakare’s enigmatic Barber is both sinister and tragic, a layered villain who elevates the episode, as Temple of Geek notes.

• Heart-Brain Engine: The engine, a wooden brain with a glowing blue heart, is a grotesque yet stunning set piece, lauded by Den of Geek for its design.

• Cultural Celebration: The episode’s Lagos setting and focus on Black identity feel joyful, a shift from past race-focused stories, per Episodic Medium.

• Fugitive Doctor Cameo: Jo Martin’s brief appearance as the Fugitive Doctor is thrilling but narratively shaky, raising questions about the Doctor’s memory, per ScreenRant.

• Six-Word Story: The Doctor’s “I’m born; I die; I’m born” defeats the engine, a nod to Hemingway’s rumored six-word tale, as Mashable highlights.

• Mrs. Flood Tease: Anita Dobson’s Mrs. Flood pops up again, her cryptic presence growing tiresome for some, as an IMDb reviewer notes, but still intriguing.

THE RANTING BRUMMIE REVIEWS: "THUNDERBOLTS*" (2025)

Thunderbolts—or, as Marvel insists with a typographical smirk, Thunderbolts*—has arrived, trailing its asterisk like a bureaucratic footnote to the MCU’s ever-dwindling glory. One might have hoped this ragtag assembly of second-string superfolk would jolt the franchise out of its post-Endgame torpor, but alas, it’s less a thunderbolt than a damp sparkler, fizzling in the drizzle of diminishing returns.

Directed by Jake Schreier, who once gave us the quirky Robot & Frank, seems contractually obliged here to churn out Marvel’s latest house blend of quips and CGI rubble. The film gathers a motley crew of antiheroes—think Suicide Squad, but with more existential moping and fewer exploding heads. Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, the Black Widow’s gloomier sibling, leads the pack with a performance that’s equal parts magnetic and miserable, as if she’s just realized she’s signed up for three more of these. She’s joined by Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes, a super-soldier-turned-congressman (a career pivot that’s never explained, nor particularly funny), and David Harbour’s Red Guardian, a Russian lummox whose boisterous shtick feels like a vodka-soaked audition for a sitcom that never got greenlit. Wyatt Russell’s John Walker, Hannah John-Kamen’s Ghost, and Olga Kurylenko’s Taskmaster round out the roster, each bringing their own flavour of trauma to the table, like a therapy group that accidentally wandered into a Michael Bay film.

The plot, such as it is, involves these misfits being duped into a death trap by Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, a CIA director with the moral compass of a reality TV producer. There’s something about a superhuman project called “Sentry,” a shadowy villain called “the Void,” and a lot of running around New York while buildings explode in that curiously bloodless way Marvel favours. It’s all terribly formulaic, as if the script—penned by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo—were generated by an AI trained on every team-up movie since The Avengers. The film’s much-vaunted focus on mental health, with characters navel-gazing about their childhood traumas, feels less like a bold thematic choice and more like a box to tick on the studio’s diversity-of-emotions checklist. “I’m just drifting,” Yelena laments, and one can’t help but nod in agreement, as the film itself drifts from one action set-piece to the next, each less memorable than the last.

Visually, Thunderbolts is as drab as a Soviet apartment block, with cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo—whose work on The Green Knight promised so much more—seemingly instructed to desaturate everything until it resembles a particularly grim Instagram filter. The action sequences, while competently staged, lack the verve to stand out in a genre that’s been flogging the same slow-motion bullet dodges for two decades. There’s a surreal climax that nods to Charlie Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich, which is at least a novelty, but it’s too little, too late, like finding a single truffle in a vat of processed cheese.

And yet, one must grudgingly admit, it’s not entirely awful. Pugh, lovely as she is bless her, carries the film with a sardonic charisma that almost makes you forget the script’s shortcomings. Harbour’s Red Guardian provides a few chuckles, particularly when he’s tossing Molotov cocktails from a limo like a caterer gone rogue. The asterisk in the title, revealed to be a coy wink at the team’s rebranding as “The New Avengers,” is a rare moment of self-awareness, though it mostly serves to remind us that Marvel’s best days were when the old Avengers were still around.

In the end, Thunderbolts is neither the franchise’s salvation nor its nadir—just another cog in the MCU’s relentless content machine, grinding on with the weary inevitability of a tax return. It’s watchable, in the way that a mildly diverting airport novel is readable, but it leaves you longing for the days when Marvel films felt like events rather than obligations. As Yelena might put it, staring into the void of her own ennui: “What’s the point?”.

VE80: FROM FEARLESS HEROES, TO FECKLESS LEADERS

In the fullness of time, which is to say the relentless churn of years that grinds even the mightiest to dust, we will lose the last of the VE-Day generation. Those stooped, medal-laden figures, their eyes still bright with the memory of a world saved, will shuffle off this mortal coil, leaving us to fumble with their legacy like children entrusted with a Fabergé egg. They stormed the beaches of Normandy, these men of the 50th Division, 25,000 strong, wading through surf and shrapnel to claw liberty from the jaws of tyranny. 

They were not superheroes, though their deeds read like the stuff of myth. They were ordinary lads—bakers, clerks, farmhands—who did extraordinary things because history demanded it. And now, as their numbers dwindle to a whisper, we mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day with a mixture of reverence and shame, for we have squandered their gift in ways that would make them weep.

The shame is ours, but the blame, dear reader, must be laid at the feet of our current Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, a man so devoid of historical imagination he might as well be governing from a spreadsheet. Starmer, with his lawyerly precision and charisma of a damp flannel, presides over a Britain that seems to have forgotten the meaning of sacrifice. 

His is a managerial reign, a beige dystopia where the grand sweep of history is reduced to a series of policy briefs and diversity quotas. One can almost picture him, in some Whitehall bunker, furrowing his brow over the latest migration figures, wondering how to spin the arrival of 10,000 undocumented young men—hale, hearty, and of fighting age—on England’s southern shores in the first five months of 2025 alone. Bed, board, and free gym memberships for all, courtesy of the taxpayer! 

Try explaining that to the ghosts of Gold Beach, who fought not for handouts but for a nation worth defending. The contrast is grotesque. Those VE-Day lads, barely out of their teens, faced machine-gun nests and barbed wire, their only reward the chance to live another day. They did not ask for much—just a country that would remember them, that would honour their blood and sweat by building something enduring. 

Instead, we offer them Starmer’s Britain, a land where the Home Office, under the steely gaze of Yvette Cooper, proposes visa crackdowns on migrants from Pakistan and Nigeria while simultaneously rolling out the red carpet for others, no questions asked. The asylum hotel bill, a cool £2 billion a year, is to be trimmed by a few hundred million, we’re told, as if fiscal prudence can mask moral bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the veterans, those who still draw breath, are left to navigate a healthcare system that treats them as an afterthought, their stories relegated to sepia-toned documentaries aired at inconvenient hours on BBC Four.

Let us pause to consider the absurdity. In the name of compassion, we fling open our borders to those who arrive with no papers, no history, no allegiance—only demands. The Home Office, that great engine of bureaucratic inertia, seems less concerned with vetting than with ensuring no one is offended in the process. Meanwhile, the memory of our VE-Day heroes is treated as a quaint relic, trotted out for anniversaries and then shelved until the next round of wreath-laying. 

Allison Pearson, in her original cri de cœur, rightly asked how we went from Churchill to Starmer, from a titan to a nonentity. The answer is simple: we stopped believing in ourselves. Churchill, for all his flaws, understood that a nation is its people, its history, its shared resolve. Starmer, by contrast, seems to view Britain as a giant NGO, its purpose to absorb the world’s woes without complaint.

The VE-Day generation did not fight for this. They did not endure the unendurable so that their descendants could watch their country become a waystation for the rootless, its identity diluted to a bland multicultural broth. They fought for a Britain that knew what it was—a stubborn, idiosyncratic island that could stand alone if need be. Yet here we are, 80 years on, with Reform UK’s lonely crusade to ban “woke” flags from council buildings, as if a return to the Union Jack and St George’s Cross could stitch up the wounds of a nation unmoored. Even that modest proposal divides opinion, with Telegraph readers debating whether the Armed Forces flag is a worthy sacrifice for clarity. Clarity! As if we could find such a thing in Starmer’s Britain, where every policy is a hedge, every principle negotiable.

The tragedy is not just the loss of the veterans, though that is sorrow enough. It is the loss of what they stood for: a sense of duty, of pride, of something greater than the self. In their place, we have a government that prioritizes the optics of inclusivity over the substance of sovereignty. Starmer’s disdain for the past is not overt—he’s too cautious for that—but it seeps through in his every action. Why honour the dead when you can court the living, especially those who arrive in dinghies, their votes a distant but tantalizing prospect? The veterans, with their inconvenient tales of valour, are an embarrassment to a regime that prefers to look forward, never back.

And so, as we mark VE Day, let us mourn not just the men we lose but the Britain they knew. Let us mourn the certainty they fought for, the clarity they died for. Let us mourn, too, the fact that their sacrifice is now a footnote in a nation obsessed with its own reinvention. The VE-Day generation deserved better than to be patronized by a Prime Minister who cannot fathom their greatness. They deserved a country that would hold fast to their values, not one that trades them for a mess of pottage—or, worse, a gym membership. As the last of them fade, we are left with a question they would never have thought to ask: what was it all for? In Starmer’s Britain, the answer is as elusive as honour itself.

THE RANTING BRUMMIE REVIEWS: "DOCTOR WHO - "LUCKY DAY" (S2 Ep4)

In the ever-spinning vortex of Doctor Who, last night’s episode, Lucky Day (May 3, 2025), lands like a rogue signal in a digital storm—sharp, timely, and crackling with intent, yet occasionally muddled by its own ambitions. This Doctor-lite romp, set in the gritty now of 2025 Earth, pivots on Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday, whose return is a masterclass in emotional heft. It’s a tale of betrayal and conspiracy, with a villain so punchably vile you’ll cheer his comeuppance, though it stumbles in its heavy-handed Think Tank focus group and yet another straight white male baddie. Like a TARDIS stuck in a paradox, Lucky Day dazzles with its heart but wobbles in its aim.

The visuals are a standout, grounding the episode in a hyper-modern media landscape that feels unnervingly real. From Conrad’s slick podcast studio to UNIT’s gleaming tower, the aesthetic is all sharp angles and cold screens, a satire of our scroll-addicted age. Cameos from Joel Dommett and Alex Jones, alongside the return of fictional anchor Trinity Wells, add a biting edge, as if the BBC itself is winking at its own omnipresence. The Shreek, a goo-dripping alien designed by a Blue Peter winner, is a creepy delight, its green slime a vivid counterpoint to the episode’s tech-heavy sheen. Director Peter Hoar crafts a tense, cinematic ride, with a pub scene gliding to reveal Conrad’s fate—a moment that chills without a single word.

Millie Gibson is the episode’s soul, delivering a performance that’s raw, layered, and utterly gripping. As Ruby, now grappling with life post-TARDIS, she channels a companion’s trauma with heartbreaking precision—her eyes carry the weight of Daleks dodged and goblins faced, yet she’s still vulnerable enough to fall for a charmer’s lies. Her climactic “go to hell” to Conrad is a gut-punch, a moment where Gibson’s fury and fragility collide to devastating effect. Whether navigating UNIT’s chaos or confronting betrayal, she’s a force, her Northern humor and quiet strength making Ruby a companion who feels lived-in and real. Her pinstripe-clad look, evoking David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor, is a subtle nod that Gibson wears with swagger, proving she’s more than ready to carry an episode.

Jonah Hauer-King’s Conrad Clark is the villain you love to loathe, his punchable evilness a masterstroke of casting. As a podcaster turned conspiracy kingpin, he’s all smarm and self-righteous rage, a grifter whose charm curdles into menace with every smirk. His refusal to believe in aliens, even as a Shreek snarls in his face, is both absurd and terrifyingly believable, a nod to real-world denialists who’d rather die than doubt. The final scene between Conrad and the Doctor is a triumph, Ncuti Gatwa’s Time Lord delivering a chilling monologue that’s less sermon than execution. His cold prophecy of Conrad’s fate—“I know exactly when and how you’ll die”—is Gatwa at his fiercest, a moment that cuts deeper than any laser. It’s a confrontation that elevates the episode, grounding its themes in raw, personal stakes.

Yet, Lucky Day falters in its handling of the Think Tank focus group, a plot device that feels like a sledgehammer where a scalpel was needed. This shadowy collective, peddling anti-UNIT conspiracies, aims to skewer online radicalization but lands as a caricature, too broad to truly unsettle. The group’s livestreamed stunts and doxxing of UNIT staff are timely but lack nuance, echoing the heavy-handedness of past Davies missteps like Orphan 55. Worse, the choice of Conrad as yet another straight white male villain feels like a tired trope. While Hauer-King’s performance is undeniable, the archetype—another privileged dude weaponizing charisma for chaos—feels like low-hanging fruit in a show that’s tackled far more complex evils. It’s a critique echoed in reviews noting the episode’s failure to fully explore Conrad’s motivations, leaving him a composite of grifter, incel, and reactionary without a clear arc.

Still, Lucky Day is a bold swing, its flaws outweighed by its emotional core. Gibson’s powerhouse turn, Hauer-King’s odious villainy, and that searing final showdown make it a memorable chapter, even if its conspiracy thread feels more like a Reddit rant than a revelation. With Mrs. Flood’s cryptic jailbreak of Conrad hinting at bigger schemes, the episode plants seeds for a season that’s clearly building to something grand. It’s Doctor Who at its most human—messy, heartfelt, and defiantly alive.

Ten Interesting Things from "Lucky Day":

• Gibson’s Grit: Millie Gibson’s Ruby is a revelation, her raw pain and fiery “go to hell” making her a standout in this Doctor-lite tale.

• Conrad’s Creep: Jonah Hauer-King’s Conrad is deliciously detestable, his smug denial of a snarling Shreek chillingly real.

• Doctor’s Fury: The final Conrad-Doctor clash, with Gatwa’s icy prophecy, is a highlight, showcasing a fiercer Time Lord.

• Shreek’s Slime: The Blue Peter-designed Shreek, with its gooey menace, adds a creepy edge to the conspiracy chaos.

• UNIT’s Edge: Kate Stewart’s brutal choice to unleash the Shreek on Conrad shows a darker, compelling side.

• Media Satire: Cameos from Joel Dommett and Alex Jones, plus Trinity Wells, ground the episode in sharp, modern commentary.

• Pinstripe Nod: Ruby’s David Tennant-inspired outfit is a cheeky costume callback, worn with swagger by Gibson.

• Mrs. Flood’s Move: Anita Dobson’s mysterious jailbreak of Conrad teases a villainous arc that’s yet to unfold.

• Pub Scene Chill: A gliding camera shot revealing Conrad’s fate in a pub is a directorial gem, silent but sinister.

• PTSD Thread: Ruby’s subtle PTSD from her TARDIS days adds depth, making her vulnerability resonate.