Doctor Who (2023) 1-06: Rogue (Quick Review)

Episode:

881

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Serial:

310

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Writer:

Kate Herron and Briony Redman

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Director:

Ben Chessell

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Air Date:

08-Jun-2024

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the sixth episode of Doctor Who's latest first season, Rogue. I'm hoping it's as good as the sixth episode we got in the 2005 series, Dalek, but that's some tough competition.

History is repeating a bit here, as showrunner Russell T Davies wrote most of both seasons himself, with episodes three and six being exceptions. This was written by Kate Herron and Briony Redman, who are also the writers of the upcoming live-action adaptation of The Sims. I guess that'll turn out to be a lot like Barbie, except with more people drowning in swimming pools and getting sealed up in walls. Lots of tragic cooking accidents.

Herron also worked on season one of Loki, so she's got some proper time travel experience. Though she was the director, not the writer, so watching that hasn't given me any insight at all into how this episode is going to turn out. It was a pretty good series though!

There will be SPOILERS below for Rogue and whatever classic episodes get referenced in it.

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RECAP

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The Doctor and Ruby are playing at being in Bridgerton at a party in Bath, 1813, while people around them are being murdered by shapeshifters who want to play their roles. A man called Rogue catches the Doctor's attention so he goes to chat and soon finds himself captive in his spaceship. He manages to convince the bounty hunter that he's a Time Lord, not the murderous shapeshifter he's looking for, and they stir up some drama with a scandalous dance to lure out their target. Unfortunately there are more shapeshifters than they expected, so they run off to make a bigger trap.

They return to find that Ruby has been killed and the shapeshifter with her form is getting married, so the Doctor puts the whole group in the same triangle trap. Trouble is, she's the real Ruby, who had managed to defeat her attacker with her choreography-copying psychic earrings... if the Doctor presses the button he'll be sentencing his friend to the bad dimension too. Rogue can't bear to see his new love tormented by this choice so he shoves Ruby out of the way and takes her place. The Doctor tries to just walk off to the next adventure, but Ruby gives him a hug and he decides to wear Rogue's ring.


REVIEW

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How much you enjoy this episode is 100% reliant on how much the phrase "Goofy bird-faced shapeshifters want to play Bridgerton and only the Doctor and his new boyfriend Brooding Captain Jack can stop them," makes you hyped. Because that's exactly what you get here.

It's for people who sit on the Venn diagram where 'Doctor Who fan' overlaps with 'Bridgerton fan' and 'romance fan'... actually I suppose those last two would probably just be one overlapping circle. Or maybe not, I don't know, I've never seen the show! I hadn't even heard of the show to be honest.

I'm so far outside the target audience on this one that I don't feel remotely qualified to judge it. I suppose it'd be weird if I didn't write something about it though.

I could've spotted Susan Twist's painting at least... but I didn't. Maybe it came up while I was glancing down at my notepad, writing something insightful about psychic earrings, I don't know.

Even worse, I couldn't remember what the characters in the teaser looked like, so when the Doctor went over to talk to Rogue I was thinking 'oh no, is that the evil shapeshifter?' I suppose he was thinking the same thing though.

It's not my fault I was getting people confused, everyone's equally dressed up in this episode!

I mentioned that Rogue's a little bit Captain Jack, but aside from the American accent, the invisible time ship and so on, they're actually fairly different characters. I can't imagine Captain Jack playing Dungeons & Dragons for instance. Though I've barely seen anything of Torchwood, so maybe I just missed that episode.

Incidentally, Rogue is a good name for a guy whose main gimmick is laying traps... which is something that I've never done in D&D games and should probably try at some point.

This a rare case of the heroes and the villains both having the same objective: to dress up and do some LARPing at a Regency ball. The Doctor calls it cosplaying, but what they actually crave is the drama. Ruby can't resist spying on Emily Beckett as she gets dumped, while the alien wearing her form gets to experience it first-hand.

To be honest, I was completely fooled by her performance, as it never even occurred to me that Emily was a shapeshifter! I blame the episode for that, as it has basically none of the paranoia you usually get in a bodysnatcher story. Also she was really nice and I liked how she was so happy to have picked up on one of the modern words the heroes were saying... or pretended to at least, that evil manipulative murderous bird woman. Man, they should've dropped her off on the same boat as Lindy Pepper-Bean, they deserve each other.

I suppose in the end all the likeable characters died or got trapped in a nightmare dimension beyond any hope of rescue. It's all a bit depressing really. Though it was an interesting idea to have the cast slowly get replaced by evil doppelgangers who continue playing the role purely because it's fun. In fact, they could've done a lot more with that and it's a bit of shame they had them go mask off so soon.

The prosthetics are actually pretty good, I'm not criticising the work of the makeup team at all, and if they'd all looked fairly similar I think I could've gone along with the design. Some aliens look like birds, some nuns look like cats, sometimes you'll run into a dude with a giant dog head, the universe is a place of wonders. But making them all into different birds amplifies the absurdity and turns them into jokes.

Though to be fair, they're probably meant to be jokes, especially considering the eyebrows on that dude on the right. They're basically hedonistic Slitheen who are less careful with where they leave their corpses.

Rogue's asteroid hopper ship was a bird too, now that I think about it. Is there some connection here that's going over my head? The episode also starts with a shot of a glass bird hanging from the chandelier, so that was over everyone's heads.

Though Rogue's ship was also a TARDIS, or at least it had the central console. Too many sides but close enough to draw attention to itself. It hints at the similarities between the characters while also showing that he's really let this place turn into a mess. Either it was his partner who did the cleaning, or he just doesn't care enough anymore.

Fortunately he may be the Doctor's type, but he's not in his league, as the Time Lord easily breaks out of his trap using the sonic screwdriver. Well, he trolls him by going through his playlist and putting on Kylie anyway. I feel like there's been a conscious effort made to depower the sonic this season as the Doctor keeps getting stuck due to technology he can't hack. He got trapped on that landmine, he couldn't get into Finetime and now he can't escape Rogue's triangle field. Honestly his screwdriver would've been more use to him if he'd thrown it at the button instead of the psychic paper.

Also the psychic paper's back! I don't think we've seen that since The Star Beast.

Speaking of things I haven't seen in a while, it's Stan from The Secret of Monkey Island! I love how pattern on his jacket stays still while he moves his arms, it's such a weird effect.

Also, we get a rare look at all the Doctor's faces, made even rarer by who turns up. Most times we just get the numbered ones, but this machine is special. Not only did it dig up the War Doctor and the Fugitive Doctor, it also found an extra one! That's Richard E. Grant apparently, who played the Ninth Doctor in the animated story Scream of the Shalka two years before Christopher Eccleston stole his number. It's better than seeing Susan Twist in the line up (I was worried for a moment), but it's still very weird. And he's correct age to make a surprise appearance in the finale... though maybe they just threw him in as a surprise for Loki fans, I don't know.

I like how reveal shows Rogue who the Doctor really is, not just the face he's wearing now... and I have no idea how it convinces him that he's not the shapeshifter. Maybe because there's no bird aliens in there? Either way he apparently likes what he sees.

The core of the episode is the romance between The Doctor and Rogue, which is the first same-sex relationship the Doctor's ever had (sorry Yaz), and... I wasn't into it.

I mean, it would've been really strange if I had been into it, because when it comes to TV romance my default state is disinterest, but it also felt wildly out of character for the Doctor, in any incarnation.

We've seen the Doctor in love before, in episodes like The Girl in the Fireplace, The Husbands of River Song, and uh... Voyage of the Damned maybe? The TV movie perhaps?  It doesn't happen often, even in the first RTD era, and that's partly because the Doctor's never the one that pursues the relationship. He's a higher dimension life form, a complex space-time event, he's got other things on his mind.

It's hard enough for an episode to sell me that someone is successfully charming the Doctor, you can't convince me that the Doctor is deliberately sweeping someone else off their feet. Okay, Martha was ready to marry him after one episode, but the Doctor didn't win her heart intentionally! And man did his romance with Rogue progress at a breakneck speed. 15 minutes after they meet, they're in the TARDIS ready to kiss.

A few minutes later and Rogue's on his knees proposing to him... as part of an elaborate scheme to catch the bad guys.

After the painful ending of Dot & Bubble they've decided to skip the racism entirely this time and go with the Doctor facing homophobia. Though in a fun 'Let's cause a scandal!' kind of way, where they were just earning enough points to be the most dramatic couple at the ball, and a lot of people there were probably into the idea of having two hot guys to be outraged about. This time the rich people aren't the monsters, it's the monsters that are the monsters. Plus the monsters are also the rich people, some of them anyway.

The folks at the party were already a fairly diverse bunch for 1813 Bath, and that might be a nod to Bridgerton which apparently takes place in an alternate history with more racial equality. At least, that's what it says on the Wikipedia page I'm reading. It makes it a bit weird that there's a line criticising our actual history, when an alien talks about invading another country where people don't look British. It's like the writers tried having their cake and eating it.

Incidentally the song that plays during their dance is called Libertango and it was released in 1974, so that's a bit anachronistic. Grace Jones covered it a few years later, adding lyrics, and her version was called... I've Seen That Face Before.

I dunno if that's RTD being clever with this Susan Twist thing or if it's just a coincidence, but right now I get to feel like I was smart for spotting it. I mean, I didn't have a clue what Libertango was, someone else recognised it and told me, but I did all my own Googling afterwards.

I'm not sure I've really mentioned the Doctor crying so far in my reviews, but at this point it seems to be another one of the recurring elements for this season (like the singing and Susan Twist), as here he is doing it again. I gave Star Trek: Discovery grief for this, as if a series keeps repeating the same thing over and over it loses its impact and becomes tedious or comical. Fortunately in this case it didn't spoil anything, as I wasn't really into the episode that much anyway.

That's why I wasn't bothered about the Doctor just standing there during the climax with no idea what to do while Rogue does everything to save the day... including sacrificing himself for Ruby! To be fair this isn't another Timeless Children situation where someone else comes along and the Doctor passes the responsibility onto them. Though it's not much better when it doesn't even occur to him to try sacrificing himself to save the world.

The way it plays out, it seems like the dude could've tried throwing Ruby a rope. In fact, if she's stuck to the floor maybe all she had to do was take her shoes off.

I'm not entirely sure why she was there in the first place, as the flashback we get doesn't include the part where she decides to pretend to be an alien and go get married. The Doctor specifically told her not to get engaged!

It couldn't have been the Emily alien's idea to go as Ruby to the wedding, because she wanted to mimic her for her wild and interesting life with the Doctor.

I think the Doctor needs to get Ruby some better psychic earrings as the fight scene was a bit of a disappointment. I mean, the episode wins points for making a throwaway reference to battle mode at the start and then actually paying it off (Ruby has proven to have a great memory for this kind of stuff), but the choreography was really weak.

Also, the part where the Doctor realises she's the real Ruby was a bit weak as well, especially after Wild Blue Yonder. This would've been a great moment for some snow to prove her identity. Or any attempt to give him a clue at all.

And why did we get a flashback to the Doctor telling Carla he would protect her? That's a bit of a dumb thing to promise and an unnecessary thing to flash to. They didn't need to film an extra scene to help the audience understand that he cares about his best friend. At least when World Enough and Time did this, we got a flashback to a conversation with Bill that gave us extra context.

The episode ends with Rogue trapped in another dimension and the Doctor unable to save him. Not because he can't break through the walls separating universes without shattering reality, which is why he couldn't be reunited with Rose. No, this time it's just because there's a lot of them.

The Doctor tries doing his 'I'm always okay, onto the next adventure!' thing, which is bit unexpected coming just a few episodes after he told his past self to stop running and deal with his trauma. Plus he actually wears Rogue's ring, showing just how serious he is about wearing a whole bunch of rings now.

I guess this guy's the most important person in the Doctor's life now, his soulmate, and he'll be going on a three-season mission to be reunited with him. I mean, he left Rogue's ship in orbit for as long as it takes, so it sure doesn't seem like he's completely given up. Not really.


RATING

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Like I said at the start, I'm not usually into romances and relationship drama, that's why I stopped watching The Orville, and I never even started watching the series that Rogue was inspired by. If I see people dancing at a ball my first instinct is that I've put the wrong show on.

Though Shindig is one of my favourite episodes of Firefly, and The Girl in the Fireplace is a highlight of the whole David Tennant era for me, so I do make exceptions for the exceptional. There was always a slim possibility that I'd love this episode, even with the Doctor being the one falling in love.

But nah, it's not my kind of thing.

The episode shows a bit of wit and humour, and it certainly knows how to dress, but I remained resistant to its charms so I'm going to give it...

4/10

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COMING SOON

Next time on Doctor Who, it's first episode of the epic two-part finale, The Legend of Ruby Sunday! I really need to hurry this up while people still remember these episodes.

Do you remember Rogue? If so, what did you think about it?