Conrad Is an Absolutely Awful 'Doctor Who' Villain

Previously, on Doctor Who: Fifteen and Belinda played murder peekaboo in space with the Midnight Entity, and I started yarn-walling a big glitch in the Whoniverse.

This week: We are still definitely glitching, but you may have been too distracted by your fierce burning hatred of Conrad the Absolutely Awful Bag of Dicks. Spoilers are incoming!

POOR RUBY. Struggling to adapt to normal life, still on high alert after the constant peril of having lovely adventures in space, and missing her BFF, finally meets a handsome chap and starts smiling again. Unfortunately, he’s the Bag of Dicks mentioned above, and it’s all a terrible ruse.

We first meet Conrad as a young’un when Fifteen and Belinda do another triangulation stop in what turns out to be 2007. Conrad witnesses the wonder of the TARDIS appearing and instead of being inspired or, you know, just generally aware and not a Bag of Dicks, grows up to be a Fake News Reddit Menace masquerading as a ‘truth is out there’ podcaster. He crosses paths with Fifteen and Ruby when they are tracking down a Shriek, and he gets weird green Shriek goo on himself, which marks him out as their future prey. The Shriek is captured and squirrelled away at UNIT, and Ruby is now in Conrad’s sights as a mark.

Now that she’s no longer travelling with Fifteen, they get together to talk about the Doctor and start dating. Ruby, always on high alert for aliens, notices the signs of a Shriek still haunting Conrad, and gives him the antidote to take the target off his back. But it seems to follow them on their mini-break away, with Conrad’s terrible friends, and when she calls in UNIT back-up, Conrad reveals that this was all a trap to expose UNIT for being a sinister organisation exploiting the fear of fake aliens to steal tax money and develop super-weapons for nefarious purposes.

Because people are stupid and he has a handsome face, public opinion swings in his favour. He outs all UNIT employees, and then launches an attack on HQ, wearing his bodycam and live-streaming. He’s utterly awful to all of them, and when he insults Kate’s father, she has the captive Shriek released in order to rip him to pieces on the livestream, prove that aliens are real and get rid of this Bag of Dicks all in a oner. Efficient, that. Ruby tases the Shriek at the last minute, because they aren’t fully into siccing aliens on people yet (boo), but it has a good chomp on his arm because he hasn’t learned anything and he had it coming.

Locked up, the TARDIS materialises around him and Fifteen tears him a new one, but because he’s a Bag of Dicks, he just kind of mwahahas through it. Then Mrs Flood lets him out of prison, and if this season doesn’t end with the two of them being horribly murdered, I will be mad.

Wibbly-Wobbly Timey-Wimey Stuff

Conrad asks Fifteen if he’s met Belinda Chandra yet. When Fifteen meets Belinda in ‘The Robot Revolution’ he says that a guy told him about her and it was a long story. Has this loop closed now?

Conrad is part of Think Tank, which is a throwback to Tom Baker’s era.

Fifteen has the angry orange lighting on in the TARDIS, which is very Twelve of him.

An interesting theory on Who-Tok is that Belinda is a villain, that Conrad might have tracked her down before she met Fifteen, and that would be a good twist. Not sure I buy it; suspicions of Belinda started when she knew what the TARDIS was, and Conrad kept calling it the Police Box until Ruby corrected him. However, he’s with Mrs Flood, so timey-wimey might fix that.

Glitch theory update: Last season, episode 4 was the one when Fifteen disappeared in the fairy circle and we followed Ruby’s life as she adjusted to a post-TARDIS world and fought to prevent a Bag of Dicks from becoming Prime Minister.

I am very very bored of Mrs Flood cameos now. At least the army of Susans looked a bit different each time and it was subtle enough to be a fun game. You had to try to spot Susan. Mrs Flood looks down the lens, yells COO-EE, I’M MRS FLOOD and winks. Maybe it’s like that psych test with the basketball players and the gorilla? Now that would be a good reveal…