Doctor Who 2024: Rogue

A new review of the latest episode from the 2024 season of Doctor Who starring Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson. This is drawn from discussions about the show with my Generation Star Wars collaborator John Hood and others in the dedicated Whovians conference on The WELL. See here for more details including a public preview in the Inkwell section that’s free-to-all to read, and for details of a special offer of a free three-month membership to The WELL so you can join in.

2024.E6 “Rogue”

Contains mild spoilers for the episode

Love them or hate them, we’ve had quite a lively run of episodes in this latest series of Doctor Who, from the childishness of the “Space Babies” to the song and dance antics of “The Devil’s Chord”, the high suspense stillness of “Boom” and the deliberate ambiguity and lack of answers of “73 Yards”, and most recently some very on-the-nose satire of the corrosive effects of social media in “Dot and Bubble”. There was plenty to talk about in each case.

This week, not so much. Or maybe that’s just me? Once “Rogue” established the “Doctor Who meets Bridgerton” premise, that was pretty much it. Perhaps the problem is that I’m not a fan of Bridgerton and have never watched it, or its spin-offs or copycats, so for me this just looked like exactly what I would expect an episode of Doctor Who set in Regency-era England to be. The energy and vibe of the two shows is pretty comparable so I didn’t think it gained anything from the ‘crossover’, nor lose anything if you didn’t ‘get it’ as a viewer.

It was exactly how a Russell T Davies costume period drama episode would look like – although the twist in this case was that it wasn’t written by RTD at all but by Loki director Kate Herron and comedian Briony Redman. Herron also worked on Sex Education so she clearly knows how to write for Gatwa, and he duly gets his best material of the season so far in this episode.

The meta aspect of the episode is that the bird-like shapeshifting aliens called the Childur (led by the wonderful Indira Varma) are happily cosplaying their favourite Netflix show, with added fatalities, but someone is there to stop them. No, not the Doctor and Ruby – they just happen to stumble in on a situation which is already being taken care of by a bounty hunter called Rogue, played by US stage and screen actor-singer Jonathan Groff (I know him best from his show-stealing cameo as King George from the original Broadway production of the brilliant Hamilton.)

So away from the Bridgerton visuals we actually get a typical meet-cute romance between Rogue and the Doctor, which is beautifully played with lovely performances from both men. Some may say that this incarnation of the Doctor is too sexually assertive and should be more, well, dorkish, but there’s still plenty of the familiar Doctor we know and love underneath if you go looking – and I don’t mean by that the sequence of holographs of past guises to which RTD impishly adds Richard E Grant just to cause a storm in online forums. No, it’s more how this Doctor drives Rogue mad with a Kylie track in a way that feels quintessentially Troughton-esque (even if his miming of the lyrics is positively filthy) while his panicked response to Rogue’s proposal couldn’t have been a better comedic performance if it had been delivered by Matt Smith.

Of course the elephant in the room is that we have the Doctor showing romanic (okay, let’s not be coy, downright sexual) interest in a man. You can imagine how some of the less enlightened corners of the media and fandom were going to react to this latest evidence of RTD’s wokery. But it’s 2024 for Heaven’s sake, surely we’ve got over such prudishness by now? Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor helped get us past that sort of thing with her feelings for Yas. Other fans have churlishly complained that Rogue is just a pale imitation of Jack Barrowman’s Captain Jack Harkness, but while both are American and gay that’s about where the comparison ends. One might as well state that Rose and Ruby are exactly the same person while you’re at it.

(Actually that is something that’s crossed my mind at certain points. They are very close: they came from similar social backgrounds and one-parent families with a dominant mother, they’re both 19-years-old and blonde and short and gobby, and even the names – Rose and Ruby – are practically an invitation for the rushed reviewer to stumble over and mix up if they’re not really careful and moreover lucky. So what’s with the similarly? Is it a lack of imagination on RTD’s past? A sense of nostalgia for his first time in charge of the show? Or an intentional overlap? I guess we’ll have to wait and see. After all, not long to go now until the end of the season hopefully provides some answers; or knowing RTD, probably not.)

But there seems very little duplication between Rogue and Captain Jack. The latter was unabashed, out and proud, ebullient and outrageously flirty to a fault. Rogue on the other hand is much more serious and focused, touched by past trauma and loss, making him more reserved, vulnerable and introspective. And yet for all that, he’s the one most closely in touch and honest about his emotions than the Doctor who is caught by surprise by what develops, for all his overt surface flirting from the get-go. For once the Doctor is not the one in charge, not the one who gets to hold the other person’s hand and tell them to “Run”. If anything, the Doctor is the companion in this episode – the larger than life Captain Jack figure – and it’s Rogue who becomes the strange, mysterious alien hero of the piece. He’s even got a costume that any Time Lord incarnation would cheerfully regenerate for.

There’s more than enough substance there to justify a return appearance for Rogue although I suspect we’ll have to wait a year for it. In fact this episode felt that it was holding back on the relationship front, and also on any of the series arc business or the many mysteries of Ruby Sunday who was rather put to one side this week. Instead the episode disguised itself amid the fun and frolics of the Regency frocks. That made it enjoyable and entertaining, but oddly the least substantial of the six episodes in this season. When I watched the episode again a second time (as I’ve done with them all this year) I didn’t feel I got anything more out of it on the repeat round, which I had done with the previous stories. Again, maybe that’s missing out on the Bridgerton dimension.

In fact I found it hard to pay attention and not drift off during the second viewing. I know it’ll be controversial to say this, but I think “Space Babies” had more heft to it than “Rogue”. Which is not to say I didn’t enjoy it perfectly well or that I’m not eager to see the return of the eponymous bounty hunter as soon as Groff’s availability makes it possible. Just that I’m hungry to get to the serious business of this week’s first part of the season finale.

Gosh, time goes by so quickly, doesn’t it?

Doctor Who streams on Disney+ where available with new episodes released on Fridays, and on BBC iPlayer in the UK with a broadcast on BBC One on Saturdays. A DVD and Blu-ray release will follow in the summer.