Hey look at that! An episode not written by the showrunner/former showrunner…..I know! What a rare find nowadays! Rogue is a solid entry to the series, again much like Dot and Bubble, not a feeling I really expected especially with this one as its setting is on a genre I’m not a big fan of. Lots of people coined this as Doctor Who does Bridgerton with its period drama setting and high society romantic ballroom location. But underneath the surface lies an alien menace and a bounty hunter that the Doctor forms a romance with. I mean poor Yaz, she spends three seasons having a crush on the Doctor that’s never reciprocated and in just one episode the Doctor forms a close attachment with Rogue the bounty hunter.

I’ve said before that I’m not really a fan of the Doctor having a romance, or at least not in the conventional sense. The Eighth Doctor and Charley Pollard’s exploration from Scherzo was a perfect example of a Doctor romance done right, where the Doctor believes that he’s in love with Charley but he doesn’t quite understand what it means from a human perspective. That or the idea of a companion having romantic feelings for the Doctor but it goes unrequited. Anything else I feel just robs the Doctor of his more alien mystique. But with that said, Jonathan Groff and Ncuti Gatwa do have some great back and forth and Rogue is a charismatic character that reminds me of Captain Jack in a lot of ways. The highlight of the episode being how the Doctor convinces Rogue he’s not one of the aliens he’s hunting by showing him holograms of all his previous faces (which honestly isn’t the best strategy for trying to convince someone you’re not one of the shape changing aliens he’s hunting). And as you may have noticed in the picture above, one of those faces includes Richard E. Grant, the originally intended Ninth Doctor from Scream of the Shalka back in 2003. It’s really just there as a bit of fan service for long-time fans and to make canon obsessive’s heads explode. It’s a divisive argument but I’m not really bothered by that sort of thing, Doctor Who is old and vast enough that I kind of enjoy when they play a little fast and loose with what is or isn’t canon, the books and audios pull these sorts of tricks all the time. The Eighth Doctor books for example once made a reference to the three-fold Doctors, a subtle in-joke at there being three different versions of the Ninth Doctor; Christopher Eccleston from the show, Richard E. Grant from Scream of the Shalka and Rowan Atkinson from Curse of Fatal Death. Honestly, they should’ve included faces from Curse of Fatal Death just to really f**k with the fans!

Not much else to say really, it’s not my particular sort of Doctor Who episode but it is one of the better episodes of the series.

Season One (Series 14); Episode Six - “Rogue” by Kate Herron and Briony Redman

Rogue was an… interesting episode. Was it a good episode? That remains to be seen but it was definitely fun. I mean, it was barely an episode of Doctor Who, more of a sci-fi infused Bridgerton, which, I know that they were going for, but they’re pretty different shows from each other. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Rogue but it really isn’t that great of an episode, not by a long shot. The best parts were fun but nothing that really stuck out at me or impressed me. However, it is probably the gayest episode of Doctor Who ever written, which certainly is fun.

The Doctor has taken Ruby to a 19th century ball to relive the likes of Bridgerton in style, but an enigmatic bounty hunter and aliens with their own kind of party in mind threaten to spoil the night.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

I hesitate to say I like Rogue. I enjoyed it, I was laughing out loud for most of it (I don’t know whether that was the intended effect) but mostly for the antics of the episode rather than any actual things it did critically. Most of my positives towards the story land in tone and character which is very fun. Ruby gets to shine here and I should probably mention how she’s probably my favourite thing this season. I genuinely love her as a companion, she feels like Series One Rose in a way combined with the wit and dynamics of Donna and I really can’t get behind people saying she’s underdeveloped (did they not see 73 Yards)? Also, we literally just came out of the Chibnall era, you should know what an underdeveloped companion looks like, we had four. Other than that, Rogue himself was… fine. He was fun and Groff plays him well; he’s not Jack, like he’s obviously trying to be but he’s a pretty enjoyable character even if I really don’t buy into the stuff between him and the Doctor but, then again, I don’t gel with any Doctor centric romance plot because I feel it directly contradicts with his character but we’ve already established 15 is barely like any of the other incarnations so I guess the writers can do whatever they want. Plus, it meant the episode was ridiculously gay, which was very fun (it’s June, baby!). Seriously, in every scene with Rogue and the Doctor, you could cut the sexual tension with a f**king knife. I found it funnier than anything but as the episode went on I realised I was actually meant to take it seriously which I just didn’t, because we’ve known these characters for all of two minutes and the episode never slows down.

It seems I’ve already started talking about the negatives so I’ll just move onto them, and I have a lot. Objectively, I’d say Rogue probably rates around a 5 but because I had so much fun I bumped up the score a little, that being said, the script was kind of a hot mess in an oddly loveable way. It was way too fast, dropping us headfirst in media res, not allowing us to acclimatise to the setting or characters and continuing this season’s weird aversion to setting any scene in the new, flashy and very expensive TARDIS set. This also causes me to have very little interest in the relationships between the characters and makes me generally apathetic to the whole episode. The bird people were fine, I guess. They were too pantomime to threaten me and too unnecessarily over the top to make me enjoy the performances so it just lands in this cringy middle ground. Also, the logic in the episode rarely works out, it suffers from the trap of having useful miscellaneous space technology solve every problem, never outlining how it works so you can just shape it to fix any conundrum the characters find themselves in. 

Also, in regards to the climax, I really have to address how ridiculously stupid it is. Firstly, we get a glimpse of an emotional moment when the Doctor thinks Ruby is dead and that old friend Time Lord rage comes boiling to the surface, but within a scene it’s dropped for a different cliche problem, this time the Doctor finds out he’s accidently trapped Ruby (who turned mute for a whole two minutes) and has to kill her if he wants to stop the bird people. Another thing is the whole Ruby pretends to be a bird person bit; so Emily - also known as Aggressive Fan Lady - is one of the bird people and traps Ruby. Emily can’t’ve been a bird lady earlier in the episode, because her actions wouldn’t make sense, so she had to be taken over in a space of time when she ran off. In that case, why didn’t the bird lady who took her over join the hunt for the Doctor and Rogue, and instead steal a random woman’s body? Next, we see the electricity effect present when a bird person takes someone over, but Ruby got away and nobody got taken over, so why was it there? Third, Ruby’s earring saves the day, huzzah, promptly followed by her choosing, not to go find the Doctor, but instead join in on the bird wedding for no reason, acting so perfectly like one of the bird people (complete with weird head movements and feather sound effect) that not one of the family notice. Then, this magical stasis portal built to hold one person can suddenly hold six people, including Ruby, who decided not to let the Doctor know it was her before the trap got set off in the ample time she had to do so, before Rogue comes in, finishes his whole subplot with the Doctor whilst Ruby accepts death in the background and just pushes Ruby off and takes her place, something I guess you can do because if you don’t outline how a mechanic in your universe works, you can do whatever you want with it I guess. Sorry for the rant but that all really annoyed me and the logic here is present throughout the whole episode.

Rogue was a very fun episode and, if that’s what you look for in Doctor Who, then great, I could not think of a better episode for you. However, I enjoy something deeper in my episodes whether it’s from a narrative perspective, or the characters, or even just a really original idea, I want something special. Rogue is not that, it doesn’t even feel like the same show in a season of TV already massively tonally separated from its other series. I enjoyed it, but “like” would be a stretch - as you could probably tell from my needlessly long review (I’m really not living up to my username, am I?)

6/10

Pros:

+ Ridiculously camp fun that doesn’t get too grinding

+ Fun interactions between characters that makes them quickly likeable

+ Ruby really gets to shine here, her character’s in full force

+ Rogue was an enjoyable (albeit rather shallow) character akin to Jack or River

+ Very gay, which makes this a good episode for pride month

Cons:

- Paced horribly, never letting anything develop properly

- The bird people were so boring as antagonists I genuinely can’t remember what they were called (and I’m writing this review almost immediately after finishing the episode)

- Leaps through holes in logic almost constantly

- The climax is unbelievably stupid

- The romantic subplot between the Doctor and Rogue just did not land for me at all

I enjoyed this one a lot more than I was expecting. I felt it took a bit of time to get going but, when it did, I found it very funny. However, it still managed to be tense and exciting when it needed to be, keeping me interested throughout. The twists near the end were unexpected, but they worked well to keep the stakes high.

I think the art department and the costume and makeup departments have done yet another excellent job. The period clothing all looked great and the set looked the part as well. The prosthetics also looked really convincing in my opinion. I also have to comment on the dances which I think looked good and worked well. The third dance in particular was excellent. I also felt that the music was on point throughout.

Finally, Rogue is an excellent character and, without spoiling anything, I hope we see more of him. It’s a small thing but, as a D&D fan, I loved the reference to the game and would be interested to explore this aspect of the character further. In general, I think the character interacted with the Doctor really well and it would be really nice for him to become recurring, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

“ROGUE: A COSPLAYING, HEARTBREAKING BLAST OF BRIDGERTON CHAOS”

The final standalone episode before the two-part finale, Rogue transports Fifteen and Ruby to the heart of a Bridgerton-inspired Regency romance—complete with dancing, drama, and deadly bird-like shapeshifters. It's a bold genre mash-up that leans fully into period costume, with a wickedly fun alien twist and one of the most heartfelt emotional arcs of the season. At once camp, clever and touching, it’s the kind of bold storytelling only Doctor Who can pull off.

From the very first scene, the Doctor and Ruby are already perfectly at home in this powder-puffed era, fanning themselves at a lavish costume ball, giggling over the dresses and soaking in the gossip. While Ruby’s path pulls her into the mystery of the Chuldur, the Doctor becomes increasingly fascinated—and romantically entangled—with the enigmatic time-traveller known as Rogue.

A DOCTOR IN LOVE: NCUTI'S SOFTEST MOMENT YET

The heart of this episode lies in the surprisingly romantic rapport between the Doctor and Rogue, played with irresistible charm by Jonathan Groff. Their flirtation is immediate and electric, brimming with witty banter and emotional vulnerability. There’s a real chemistry here, elevated by Ncuti Gatwa’s warm, emotionally open portrayal—this is the Fifteenth Doctor at his most sensual and soft. Rogue, meanwhile, is more than a match: clever, cautious, and just as enigmatic. The show plays deftly with expectations, initially framing him as a possible antagonist. The moment he holds the Doctor at gunpoint is classic Who ambiguity—but it’s clear from early on that there’s a connection neither of them can ignore.

The emotional high point comes aboard Rogue’s ship, where the Doctor annoys his captor by gleefully dancing to Kylie Minogue—perhaps the season’s most joyful sequence—before the mood turns tender. Rogue scans the Doctor’s memories, catching glimpses of past faces, including the long-abandoned Shalka Doctor, now cheekily nodded back into canon. It’s a scene that balances the playful and profound, moving swiftly from laugh-out-loud fun to revealing Rogue’s own tragic past. The quieter follow-up in the TARDIS gives the Doctor a chance to be a comforter and a confidant—rarely has a romantic subplot in Doctor Who felt so natural and earned.

THE CHULDUR: COSPLAY KILLERS WITH A TWIST

But this isn’t just a love story. There are aliens afoot—cosplaying, shapeshifting bird creatures known as the Chuldur, led by the ever-fabulous Indira Varma (Torchwood’s Suzie Costello) as the sinister Duchess. While the idea of shapeshifters is nothing new in Doctor Who, the Chuldur stand out thanks to their deliciously campy conceit: they’re a squabbling, roleplay-obsessed alien family who cosplay their favourite historical figures... and then kill the originals for accuracy. It’s peak RTD-era absurdity with a bite, echoing the Slitheen but with a sharper satirical edge.

Their plan? To infiltrate the upper echelons of British society, take over political leaders, and incite global war—just for a bit of fun. It's an enjoyably twisted take on cosplay culture and power fantasies, with the added absurdity of birds in bonnets sipping tea and plotting colonial conquest. While the Chuldur aren’t explored in too much depth until the final act, they offer a fun threat that fits perfectly into the episode’s over-the-top tone.

REGENCY DRAMA, KILLER COSTUMES, AND A FAKEOUT DEATH

Visually, Rogue is one of the most stunning episodes of the season. The costume work is sumptuous, the atmosphere rich and romantic, and the make-up design for the Chuldur—each one with a distinct look—is top-tier. It’s a rare Doctor Who historical that fully embraces the fantasy of its setting and takes just as much joy in the aesthetics as it does the storytelling.

Ruby doesn’t get much to do for the bulk of the episode, but when she does take centre stage—pretending to be a Chuldur and delivering a cracking fight scene—Millie Gibson shines. There's even a dramatic fakeout where Ruby is seemingly killed, sending the Doctor into a frenzy of grief and rage. It's a potent reminder of how much Fifteen fears failing his friends, as his devastation gives way to a darker, angrier side—one rarely seen in Gatwa’s portrayal so far.

A HEARTFELT GOODBYE: ROGUE'S BITTERSWEET ENDING

The climax delivers on both action and emotion. The Chuldur are unleashed, chaos erupts at the party, and our heroes must act fast. In a tragic twist, Rogue ultimately sacrifices himself, swapping places with Ruby to be banished to a mysterious other dimension. His fate is left deliberately ambiguous—gone, but not forgotten, and very much ready for a future return.

It’s a romantic, operatic finale to a whirlwind episode, landing the emotional beats with sincerity. The Rogue/Doctor bond, while formed quickly, feels utterly real thanks to how much time the episode invests in their connection. If we never see Rogue again, this ending works as a powerful standalone tragedy. But if he does return, it’ll be to cheers.

📝 VERDICT: 8/10

Rogue is one of the most unique and emotionally rich episodes of the season. It wears its heart on its ruffled Regency sleeve, balancing swooning romance with campy alien hijinks and laugh-out-loud moments. While the Chuldur plot takes a while to get going and some tension-building is delayed until the final act, the payoff is worth it. A lavish production, a fantastic guest turn from Jonathan Groff, and a deeper exploration of Fifteen’s emotional landscape make this a standout. It’s Doctor Who at its boldest and most sincere—and that final sacrifice lands like a punch to the hearts of fans everywhere.

Rogue was alright.  There's parts I enjoyed quite a bit, such as the sets, scenery, costumes, and setting.  I wasn't a huge fan of the classical music covers of pop songs until I learned this was a Bridgerton thing, at which point I could appreciate it a bit more for fully evoking that show here.  Unfortunately, I don't know or care anything about that show.  It kind of still works though.  I feel aware of Ruby's love for the show and can appreciate it as an outsider.

The politicking around the ball and the plotting with the aliens felt really shallow though.  The bird aliens came across as kind of dumb and very boring but they might be one of the cooler looking aliens we've ever seen, at least.  That make-up felt very impressive. I like how their motivation was that they were just messing around for fun.  That chaotic energy was interesting but it feels like the story doesn't really use it for anything - the aliens just sort of fade out of this story and production doesn't really go anywhere with them.

The character of Rogue was intriguing and I like his relationship with the Doctor, but pushing him out of the story at the ending felt shallow and quite frankly, since we haven't seen him since, feels like incredibly weak pay-off to everything this episode was building up to. It's a memorable episode, it is cool how RTD is embracing the "all Doctors are canon" mentality by showing the Shalka Doctor, but that doesn't make for a good story on its own.