Rogue

holy shit i love this

The Bridgerton episode is so good! So nice to finally have new writers since Legends of The Sea Devils (wich was cowriten with Chibs and it was horrible)

The Doctor dances and he's good at it. Rogue is a fine addition and likable character from start and the chemistry is top notch! I do think the Doctor fell in love too quickly, but I give it a pass cuz we already saw this happening before... plus New body, new personality!

The Chuldur were ok... definetly the weakest point of the episode, but cool concept.

And Ruby was just enjoying  herself, I would do the same if I was in an era of my favourite tv show!

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

✅44/50 = Great! = Highly recommended!

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

NOTES & COMMENTS:

What a classic cold open—there's some real Bridgerton (no, I haven't watched that show) action here, followed by a tease of yet another shape-shifting alien terror.

It's a bit weird how we get no TARDIS arrival scene here. We are just instantly thrown into the ball with the Doctor and Ruby in full regalia. Ruby is introduced to the lords and ladies of the house while the Doctor investigates some alien interference. Why aren't we getting any scenes in that new, big, expensive TARDIS set?

The costumes and sets are superb. This is easily one of the finest examples of a 19th century story that Doctor Who has ever done. The VFX is also solid, making this a very visually appealing episode.

Indira Varma returns to the Whoniverse having appeared in Torchwood back in the day (with a few turns in Game of Thrones and Andor along the way), playing the Duchess, and doing a great job out of it, especially in her Chuldur form.

It's a joy to see Ncuti and Millie so clearly excited about this era and all the costumes and dances. The focus is on the Doctor again, and Ncuti takes great advantage of this, showing his sexier and softer side.

American actor Jonathan Groff (of Glee, Frozen, and Hamilton fame) is the title character, a Captain Jack-esque dashing bounty hunter who hits it off with Ncuti instantly. He can be dangerously charming, and you never quite know if he's good or bad until later in the episode. And he has the same wit as Jack, so he's definitely a potential fan favourite.

Murray Gold provides a wonderfully atmospheric score, especially during the tenser moments. The orchestral renditions of Poker Face and Bad Guy are fun additions.

Some of the deliberately Bridgerton-like relationship drama feels very artificial.

I like how the Doctor is involved with the creepy alien mystery while Ruby gets to experience 1813 through the people and the dances and gets the biggest share of the comical parts.

Okay, so the joke "My name is Bond, molecular Bond" is incredibly hilarious.

The entire sequence on Rogue's ship is fun. The dancing to Kylie, the psychic paper joke, and Rogue believing the Doctor to be a shapeshifter. Richard E. Grant's casual portrayal as one of the Doctor's past incarnations is also noteworthy.

Given how frequently it has appeared on Who, the shapeshifter plot almost feels like an afterthought. The Doctor/Rogue relationship and Ruby's fangirling get a lot of attention, so the alien threat takes a backseat until the third act, and even then it barely makes a dent.

Written by MCU writers Kate Herron and Briony Redman (of Loki fame), it makes it fun to see more shapeshifters and queer romance as a kind of homage to their previous work.

The aliens here are the Chuldur. They look cool (the makeup work is impressive) but aren't very deeply developed. They could have been Zygons, Chameleons, Slitheen, or any other shapeshifter race.

That being said, it's fun that these Chuldur are apparently a family, so they all have distinct appearances. Their most interesting (and silly) aspect is that they get kicks out of cosplaying humans at big, fancy parties and events.

I was just thinking that Ruby's part in the episode is going nowhere when they reveal that she's been with a Chuldur all along. Nice twist!

The episode's second half is filled with excitement as the Chuldur unleash their destructive powers. This is where the Doctor is devastated by the apparent loss of Ruby and decides to furiously fight back. And then he realises his mistake, as Ruby only faked her fate and is put in real danger by the Doctor.

I have to say that Rogue's final little trick to save the day is a very stylish way to end this episode. I wonder whether we'll see him again, since the ending seems to make it possible.

Next week, it's all about Susan Twist and who she really is! I am very excited to see where this goes!

Rogue did nothing much new for a Doctor Who story (compare it to something this series like The Devil's Chord or 73 Yards), but that doesn't mean it didn't do it well. I had an absolute blast watching it, Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson were brilliant as ever, and the character Rogue was wonderful. All around great fun

This episode is one I was really looking forward to, due to the involvement of Loki Season 1's director Kate Herron. Loki Season 1 is the closest the MCU has ever gotten to Doctor Who, and is a great piece of television, so there was clearly a lot of potential there for a great Doctor Who adventure. The resulting episode is about as brilliant as I had envisioned.

With the previous five episodes having been devoid of alien monsters, it's refreshing to have a story like Rogue that feels more like traditional Doctor Who. The Chudlhurs are a very fun concept, concerning extra-terrestrial bird people who simply just want to cosplay Bridgerton. It's not the kind of alien threat we have seen before, other than the fact they are shapeshifters, and they feel straight from the pages of RTD1.

Rogue himself is definitely the star attraction of this episode though, and Jonathan Groff is great in his first appearance. He displays plenty of chemistry with Ncuti Gatwa, and I wouldn't mind seeing him return (which probably will happen, given that Rogue asks the Doctor to 'find him'. Their romance all happens too fast, however. I have no issue with the Doctor developing feelings for a man, but the build-up is all very sudden, particularly as the episode all takes place within one night, and yet the Doctor is already prepared to spend the rest of his life travelling the universe with him.

The Susan Twist cameo is also disappointing. She doesn't really appear this week, other than as a portrait. I was expecting from the cast list that she'd be a talking portrait similar to the ones from Harry Potter, but she's just a basic portrait.

One thing I am glad to see is the Doctor continuing his trend of singing in a few episodes. Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory suits his Doctor very well, as he feels very much like a Gene Wilder Doctor. It makes me hope even more for a proper Doctor Who musical episode, like it had seemed we were going to get with The Devil's Chord before that episode released. Millie Gibson continues to shine as Ruby Sunday. Her enthusiasm for Bridgerton is very amusing throughout the episode, and she proves herself as more than capable to join the Doctor on his adventures, when she 'engages battle mode' with the psychic earrings against the Chuldhur who was going to kill her. I hope Ruby stays in the show beyond next year's series.

Overall, I'd rate Rogue a solid 8/10. It's a brilliant piece of traditional Doctor Who, with some unique monsters and great chemistry between Ncuti Gatwa and Jonathan Groff. It's just a shame that this week's Susan Twist appearance was so lacking.

What a lovely little story, the vibes are off-the-chart, hope they do find Rogue again, has some of the best pacing in the series so far.
9/10

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.

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