Doctor Who (40) 14:06: Rogue.

[nixie]

Better than last week, cos play taking to another level. If they wanted a Captain Jack why not just bring him back?.

 

[Provincial]

I totally loved the episode. But I did think Rogue looked rather ordinary.

Captain Jack has too much baggage, don't you think?

 

[Ursa major]

If they wanted a Captain Jack why not just bring him back?

Captain Jack doesn't age; John Barrowman does.

 

[Karapace]

I liked the orchestral versions of modern music (apparently that is a Brigerton thing)

 

[Pyan]

Never watched Bridgerton - but I nearly choked when I realised they were dancing a gavotte to the Libertango, composed in 1974...

 

[Dave]

If they wanted a Captain Jack why not just bring him back?

Captain Jack has too much baggage, don't you think?

Captain Jack doesn't age; John Barrowman does.

Like minds, think alike, but he said he had lost someone who he once travelled with, and I thought that person would turn out to be Captain Jack, rather than Rogue himself.

The bird people reminded me of something but I can't remember what. The woodpecker and penguin I'm sure I've seen before. Am I now completely gone, or are they stolen from some other show?

Other than that, it looked like they had a great time in their cosplay.

 

[BT Jones]

Like minds, think alike, but he said he had lost someone who he once travelled with, and I thought that person would turn out to be Captain Jack, rather than Rogue himself.

The bird people reminded me of something but I can't remember what. The woodpecker and penguin I'm sure I've seen before. Am I now completely gone, or are they stolen from some other show?

Other than that, it looked like they had a great time in their cosplay.

I agree, @Dave, I thought I recognized them from something. Wasn't there a shape-shifting bird woman in Space 1999? The episode was okay - at least the episode-of-the-week quality has improved. A few holes here and there, like the Doctor not actually checking that Ruby was dead before assuming she'd been taken over. And, again, far too emotional, for my taste. Can't say the period setting got me excited, but it ended up okay. Also glad the IMDB ratings haven't been bombed by people horrified by the same-sex kiss (which, in 2024, no one really should be). I guess most of the audience is still British, or at least ex-pat (like myself), so isn't easily offended. That said, I thought it would have been nice to have the potential romance develop a bit, maybe over a couple of episodes, rather than jump right in.

Also, who else thought that Richard E. Grant's image on the revolving scanner thing was from his performance as the Doctor in the Comic Relief episode? I did. Then my son read up on it and it was actually from his audiobook role as the Doctor in Shayda - which is apparently cannon. Interesting to see that they are keeping with Ruth as being a doctor in cannon, so perhaps they will revisit that at some stage.

Overall, still several notches up from the Chibnall era.

 

[Karapace]

Never watched Bridgerton - but I nearly choked when I realised they were dancing a gavotte to the Libertango, composed in 1974...

It was Billie Eilish's "Bad Guy" I spotted when the Doctor was first talking with Rogue

 

[Ursa major]

It was Billie Eilish's "Bad Guy" I spotted when the Doctor was first talking with Rogue

There seems to be a pattern forming, with many, less prominent, paradoxes (to go with the big obvious ones), as we saw in The Devil's Chord, with things being "put right" by changing something in the 1960s, even though the cause had occurred much earlier in the timeline.

Whether this has something to do with the Doctor reversing the death of the butterfly that Ruby squashed, the intrusion(s) from another universe or even something around the time of the Doctor splitting (including that split), who knows?

The most obvious explanation would involve Ruby's origin story and/or "Twist", but they've been pushed so much that I'm tempted to believe they're meant to distract us from what's really going on.

 

[Matteo]

Just watched this and for me it was only "OK".

On the one hand, it was bit silly that shape-shifting aliens would just "play" rather than take over the country/planet. But on the other hand, why not? If they have that ability and are frivolous (albeit nasty). So, that's fine.

Also, it avoided the "Doctor sorts everything out and saves the world in a few minutes" disappointment. Classic Who would most likely have gone with the "take over country" but that would have been done over four episodes so would have avoided that.

Not too sure about the "psychic earring things" that enabled Ruby to dance (or fight) - knowing what to do is one thing, but being able to actually do it is another. But, on reflection, I'll let it slide.

I liked that Lucy Bennett(?) was an alien - that fooled me.

Was not fooled for a moment that Ruby had been replaced (perhaps if it had been the last episode of the series, or my first episode) as she's too pivotable a character.

Also, I thought she was "molecularly bonded" to that doohickey and yet Captain Jack Rogue just pushed her off! The Doctor could have done the same (or pulled).

What irritated me the most was the tired heart-tugging trope of having two characters fall deeply and passionately for each other in the space of a just an evening/couple of hours. It's unrealistic. Better to develop it over several episodes. Except...I was also annoyed at the Captain Jack rip-off.

 

[MemoryTale]

I don't have much to say on this one, it was essentially a light filler episode before the season finale, and was mostly a lot of fun.

I felt the romance with Rogue was severly rushed. He went from mysterious, to antagonistic, to flirting, to being a lost love in the span of what would have been around 2 hours of the Doctor's life. I think he needed to be a companion, or at least a Captain Jack style recurring character. With that said, I loved Grof and Gatwa's acting together, the two of them were clearly having a blast.

One other thing I felt was a major miss was the music. Bearing in mind Disney is throwing money at Dr. Who these days, and bearing in mind the Chulda's gimmick, for them not to have an instrumental version of "I want to be like you" from the Jungle Book was a major, major oversight, and RTD should hang his head in shame.