A question: when the Doctor and Rogue were dancing, was the spotlight diegetic or non-diegetic?
Anyway... on to my thoughts about the latest
Doctor Who episode. Maybe I'll do something new for a change and try summing up all my thoughts on 'Rogue' in a single sentence?
It’s my favourite of the season bar none, and I already thought that we’ve been on a belter of a run since Boom.
Well,
nevermind. Looks like
someone stole the words right out of my mouth.
Clearly I have no choice here but to regress back to my own usual, overly verbose, overly messy, unfocused and scattered style. Hurray? No? Well, moving on....
'Rogue' is the best episode of the season so far, possibly one of the all-time greats, despite being (in a repeat of a sentiment I've shared response to other episodes this season) the kind of story that, in theory, I ought not to like. Basically it all boils down to this:
This is totally valid, and I can certainly empathize as I'm coming at it from a similar angle. Only, the difference is, I view the Doctor as something of an Ace icon. Which is, quite possibly, the single most underrepresented letter from the whole LGBTQIA+ tspectrum (well, except maybe for the Is). And, frankly, there aren't many big Ace characters out there: we've got the Doctor, and
maybe Sherlock Holmes (though at this point calling Sherlock Ace almost feels like gay erasure), and -- of course -- 'Star Trek' gave us Spock (and, arguably, Data). That's basically it. So I am, in theory, very much against
any sexual coding for the Doctor. I disliked it greatly with Rose, just kind of sighed and tried to ignore the subtext with Martha, and was persistently annoyed when it happened and kept happening with River Song (though the 12th Doctor did walk back some of that -- Ace and Aro often show up together, but they're mostly unrelated things, and I see 12 as being Ace but not Aro in his interactions with River). So from this perspective, I don't see 'Doctor Who' adding representation, but removing it.
I think this happens a lot with our few Ace characters -- I think some writers (and people in general) just view it as a kind of blank slate for them to project whatever they want. See all of the gay erotica featuring Kirk and Spock that
literally saved the Star Trek series after TOS was canceled; see, well, everything
else with Spock since 2009, and it's relentless insistence that Spock is a
raging heterosexual, actually. Fun stuff.
So, yeah: [Patrick Troughton voice]
I don't like it.In theory, at least.
But in practice? Well, the thing of it is... well, the bigger of the two things of it is... Ncuti Gatwa is just a
freakin' fantastic actor, and he absolutely sells everything about this relationship 1000%. I'm too captivated by what I'm seeing on-screen to be annoyed by any of it. Absolutely fantastic; no notes. I loved every single moment. It absolutely shouldn't work, on the face of it, due to the time-constraints of a single episode... but it does. Or at least all of the flirting does -- and that brief moment of mutual vulnerability. I completely believe that these two people were able to form a connection this quickly, and I
never buy into these one-off, episodic romances. It just
works.First time for everything, I suppose.
I genuinely believe this is the closest thing to a flawless, perfect 'Doctor Who' episode since
The Doctor Falls. And it's not even a two-parter!
And, of course, the other, considerably smaller, thing of it is... simply that this is a ship ship long-since sailed. Sure, it hurts a bit to lose an Ace icon. Another one, at least (no, I'm not going to stop complaining about how badly mishandled Spock has been by modern Star Trek. Not now, not ever). But this isn't really a new trend with the Doctor. And one way to look at it -- the way I find myself looking at it -- is that perhaps, much like race and gender, sexual orientation is another thing that changes, or can change, with regeneration. That to Time Lords, like so much else, these things are fluid.
Though the Doctor ever feeling
physically attracted to anyone still strikes me as wrong. Just at a base level. I just can't help but think back to how the 12th Doctor interacted with Clara, again and again and again. (If you can't tell, I'm a big fan of Capaldi's take on the Doctor.) It's all find and well for the Doctor to no longer be ace, but can't he still be a weird, ancient, immortal alien madman?
For better or worse, Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor comes across as
exceptionally human. I'm loving it so far, off the strength of the writing and, to a greater extent, the performance... but I'm unconvinced if this is a good or a bad thing in the grand scheme of things. What does it mean for the traditional TARDIS team dynamic when the Doctor comes across as more human that the companion?
And speaking of River Song (we were, trust me, you may just have to scroll up a bit), if Rogue
is RTD's take on a River Song character -- by which I mean a recurring character with a romantic relationship to the Doctor -- then, right out of the gate, Rogue is instantly more likeable and has way, way, way more chemistry with the Doctor. So I actually find myself kinda wanting to see him pop up again (and I suspect he will, between the, "Find me," line, the Doctor keeping his ring -- remind me to keep an eye out to see if he's still wearing it next week -- and the not-at-all-potential-foreshadowing-about-the-Master line about his "new boss").
....
Other than that, I don't really have a lot to say here (please do not look down at all of the text following this statement). 'Rogue' is a phenomenal standalone story. It's got action, comedy, romance... the hour just flies by. It's got a few little bits that don't work (seriously, they could spring for CGI baby mouths in 'Space Babies' but couldn't glue proper beaks over the mouths of the bird-people?) but they're barely perceptible in the face of just how delightfully, unrelentingly
fun everything -- and I do mean
everything -- else is.
The biggest problem with 'Rogue' isn't really a problem with the story itself, but rather the greater context of Neo Who's first season as a whole. Basically: it's too short, so certain things fall a bit flat. Ruby is the Doctor's best friend? Really? They hardly know each other! Hell, of the handful of stories we've seen them in together, in two of them -- consecutive episodes at that -- they hardly ever even interacted with each other!
And next week is the opening half of the season finale?
It just doesn't feel right. Especially when an episode like 'Rogue' is just about as "normal" of a story as 'Doctor Who' gets -- a nice, standalone adventure with no major character or plot developments that will be carried forward (even if Rogue shows up in a future episode, I don't think that'll change this standalone nature). The only other episode this season that really feels like it's operating at a similar level is the disappointing 'Space Babies.' The season finale, by rights, ought to be the big moment where the writers really shake up the status quo... only Neo Who has
failed to properly establish a status quo in the first place.
Instead, we get clumsy exposition trying to handwave us -- or, put less charitably (and my apologies for all the em dashes, but I
do love them) gaslight us into thinking certain things have been established that haven't. Like in 'Rogue,' the we're told the Doctor and Ruby are best friends -- but when was the first episode that really made the dynamic between the two of them feel like that of best friends? I'd say that episode was 'Rogue.' Similarly, in 'Space Babies' the Doctor tells us how out-of-character it is for him to run away from something... only for him to immediately flee from Maestro in 'The Devil's Chord.' He runs away here, too. It's a bit too much telling, too little showing.
....
Well, I think that just about gets everything out that I want to say in the immediate wake of watching 'Rogue.' (
Don't scroll down, don't scroll down, don't scroll down.) I suppose I've only got two smaller thoughts to toss onto the pile, which probably ought to have gone somewhere in that big wall of text up above us right now, but I never quite found the right timing. So it goes. First, I like the idea of the Doctor just bumping into other time-travelers and aliens doing cosplay. That's a cool idea! But I don't think it necessarily needs there to be
evil aliens. Like, I think 'Rogue' could've been a perfectly good episode even without the murder. You've got a time-traveling bounty hunter! A Bridgerton theme! Bird-people masquerading as aristocracy and holding parties! That's enough! The bird-people could've just've easily been wanted for, I dunno, tax evasion. Or, hell, maybe they're actually harmless and haven't done anything wrong at all, they just really want to do a historical cosplay -- and they've got a bounty out on their heads simply because reckless time travel is, you know, really freakin' dangerous. Or maybe because it's a Prime Directive violation (why not?). Wouldn't it have been cool if, instead of having to fight her way free from that one bird alien, Ruby instead bonded with her over their shared love of 'Bridgerton?' Couldn't it have been fun to see Ruby maybe side against the Doctor, as he aligns himself with the authority opposing the bird aliens? Just a thought. I don't necessarily think these ideas would've resulted in a
better episode than the 'Rogue' we have (which, again, is
fantastic) -- but I do think they're more interesting conceptionally.
The point is: it's possible for a story to have antagonists that aren't villains!!!
But this is a running theme with me: always and forever I find myself extolling the immense potential of
Doctor Who as a narrative vehicle, capable of telling any type of story imaginable; always and forever I find myself lamenting it's infuriating tendency to only ever tell the same sort of story over and over, again and again. Not everything needs to be an adventure story pitting the Doctor against a nefarious alien monster, yeah? Not
every. single. thing.At first I thought the shake-up to the setting we got in 'Wild Blue Yonder' might've changed that, but so far, at least, all
that did was give us a few fantasy-themed monsters in addition to the usual sci-fi monsters -- largely a distinction without a difference.
The other thought is, of course, about the cool "I Am The Doctor!" moment. Those are always a lot of fun, yeah? Still, I had a hard time identifying several of their faces, even though I knew who they were. Something about how they were angled and lit, I suppose.
It was great fun seeing Richard E. Grant's Doctor in the lineup, though, really, if they were gonna give a shout-out to Doctors outside of the main-continuity, I'd've loved to see David Warner in there, too. Actually, I'm kind of upset that he wasn't in there, even though there's really no reason to expect it.
So it goes and goes, eh?
....
Okay, yeah. Done.
Finito. For realsies, this time, promise. Quick little TL;DR for this jumble of ink, figuratively speaking (I wonder, is it more annoying when I use bullet points to skip transitions from thought-to-thought, or less annoying?): 'Rogue' is a fantastic episode. The best yet, and a perfect showcase of Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor, that also gives us the best depiction of the whole Doctor/Ruby relationship to date.
The 15th Doctor continues to impress and impress
and impress. I can only hope that the upcoming two-part finale manages to evade RTD's curse of the "bad finales," and manages to keep up the strong character focus which has been the highlight of this first season without getting too bogged down in silly, over-the-top plots with ludicrously contrived stakes.
Also: I look forward to seeing Sutekh next week.
EDIT: Also also, I really enjoyed seeing the actors jerk their heads around trying to imitate birds. The effect didn't always work well, but it was always fun!
EDIT2: Also also also, this one's another 5 out of 5 from me, just in case that wasn't obvious.