We have a lot to unpack with this week’s new episode of Doctor Who. So let’s get going.
This is the first and will be the only, episode of the new series to not have been written by any of the old guard of Doctor Who writers. This week’s story was penned by Kate Herron — a writer and producer who you may best know as the director of the entire first season of Loki (2021) — and her writing partner; actor, and comedian, Briony Redman. The two have taken on what appears, at first blush, to be a fairly straight and traditional historical Doctor Who episode.
“Traditional” and “straight” it is not. But there is glorious blushing.
If we look back a few years, an interesting backstory — which seems relevant here — emerges:
“From the moment I joined ‘Loki’ it was very important to me, and my goal, to acknowledge ‘Loki’ was bisexual. It is a part of who he is and who I am, too. I know this is a small step but I’m happy, and heart is so full, to say that this is now Canon.” — Kate Herron on Twitter, 2021
“I think huge, clanging warning bells are ringing as the giants rise up with Netflix and Disney+ especially. I think that’s a very great worry. ‘Loki’ makes one reference to being bisexual once, and everyone’s like, ‘Oh my god, it’s like a pansexual show.’ It’s like one word. He said the word ‘prince,’ and we’re meant to go, ‘Thank you, Disney! Aren’t you marvelous?’ It’s pathetic. It’s a ridiculous, craven, feeble gesture towards the vital politics and the stories that should be told.” — Russell T Davies in a 2021 YouTube panel on Queer Representation on Television
I don’t present this as a “gotcha” moment, just as a point of interest as to how Disney+ has either changed its stance or how it views Doctor Who differently than it does its Marvel properties because Herron and Davies seem absolutely in sync today if the delightful new episode Rogue is any indication. No longer a matter of innuendo, this new Doctor is gay. And he has found romance in this episode in the form of Jonathan (Hamilton, Spring Awakening) Groff’s titular character.
Let’s clear something up right away. The Doctor has fallen in love before; this is not new. It is true that they have often been around people that they are more parentally inclined towards — The Doctor is thousands of years old, after all — but multiple cases pop up from the very earliest days of classic Who through the new series.
The First Doctor has a granddaughter, so do the math. (And no, I won’t get into a Lungbarrow-esque treatise about Time Lord Houses and Looms. You really don’t want to see me like that. It’s ugly.)
In one of the finest classic Who stories, season one’s The Aztecs (1964) has The First Doctor falling in love with an fifteenth-century woman, Cameca.
Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor has a romantic kiss with Grace Holloway in the character’s single televised full story and may have been in love with Charley Pollard in the Big Finish audio series.
The Tenth Doctor falls in love with Madame de Pompadour in the masterful episode, The Girl in the Fireplace (2006).
The Tenth through Twelfth Doctors all had varying degrees of relationships with time-traveler River Song who The Doctor does actually marry.
The Thirteenth Doctor and Yaz are clearly in love.
What sex means to Time Lords is a question we never need to answer in any great detail, but they do love.
Alright, let’s get to the story…
Set in Regency-era England, The Doctor and Ruby are having a Bridgerton-y lark by crashing a formal party and spending some time as only the upper crust of nineteenth-century Europe can.
They soon learn that their particular version of historical cosplay is being far outdone by an alien race known as the Chuldur who are shape-shifters obsessed with taking specific human bodies and playing out dramatic moments in their lives, but must kill the original to do it. Never fear though,Rogue is a bounty hunter paid to catch and destroy them; if The Doctor and Ruby would only get out of his way.
It’s a light costume thriller about body-snatchers that’s played as much for a snarky farce as it is anything else and it effervesces like a cocktail from the party it is set in.
“I’ll handle this. Just try not to get engaged or accidentally invent tarmac. 1902 got away from me.” — The Doctor
The real substance of this story, however, is how deeply this newly open and emotional Doctor is attaching to people that he cares about. The character has always protected his friends with some amount of passion and fury, but there is now a new kind of connection that he’s making that is both life affirming, and painful. He falls in love in this episode, fast. His fears of losing Ruby late in the story are met with The Doctor’s usual thunder, but what is new are the tears that come as well. We’re seeing an evolution of the character that may have been long overdue.
Redmon and Herron have created a satisfying and neat little puzzle box of a story here in which to put The Doctor, Ruby, and Rogue through their paces. After three weighty stories in a row, Rogue is a relief in its lightness, with hints that there might be serious repercussions to come from this affair in the future.
Odds and ends.
Ok, Twist-Watch 2024 continues with actress Susan Twist appearing this episode as a portrait of the Duchess’ grandmother on the wall above a fireplace. The Doctor and Ruby are definitely seeing the recurrence now.
Longtime Who-composer Murray Gold has been experimenting with weaving more modern popular music into his scores. I would’ve expected to be irritated by this, but it actually works! This story’s weaving of chamber music versions of Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” and Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” into the action lends an exuberance to the whole thing.
Is Rogue really just the return of Captain Jack?
John Barrowman’s Captain Jack Harkness who originated in Russell T Davies’ first season of Doctor Who is probably gone for good, but there are some odd hints in this story that suggest otherwise.
First off, it’s not explicit, but Rogue, like Captain Jack and The Doctor, is a time traveler. It’s the early 1800s and he recognizes The Doctor’s allusion to Dungeons and Dragons.
“Did you get your name from Dungeons and Dragons?” — The Doctor
“Roll for insight.” — Rogue
Also, the TARDIS registers a sort of upset stomach grumble when Rogue comes on board. The TARDIS hated Captain Jack, flying to the end of time to get away from him at one point.
Just about every baddie this season has made some sort of reference to a “new boss” or “the master who is coming.” Rogue is morally questionable but not necessarily evil, and yet:
“The job has so much paperwork since the new boss.” — Rogue
An echo of the classic Who episode The Masque of the Mandragora (1976), The Doctor finds himself surrounded at one point by the faces of his previous regenerations.
Look, there’s David Tennant!
There’s Jodie Whittaker!
There’s Tom Baker!
There’s… Richard E. Grant?!
In one of the episode’s more surprising moments for Doctor Who fans, it seems to canonize a VERY rarely discussed interpretation of The Doctor.
In the period that fans refer to as “The Wilderness Years”, between the show’s cancellation in 1989 and its revival in 2005, The Doctor appeared in a lot of different forms of media but rarely on television. One of the more interesting experiments with this was a Flash-animated series — written by, perhaps, the most influential Who-writer during those years, Paul Cornell — that appeared on the BBC’s website. It was called Scream of the Shalka (2003) and Richard E. Grant (Loki/Withnail and I) played The Ninth Doctor (not to be confused with Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor that premiered in the rebooted series a few years later).
Notably, Derek Jacobi played The Master in the story, a role he reprised on the television program proper in the 2007 episode “Utopia” which is the episode I mentioned earlier in which the TARDIS runs to the end of time to get away from Captain Jack!
Coincidence? Maybe.
Given the limited animation, “Scream of the Shalka” is surprisingly good, and the re-integration of a different Ninth Doctor is a fascinating and puzzling move.
Finally, I would be remiss to not mention the passing of William Russell.
One of the first companions of The First Doctor (William Hartnell), he starred as a teacher, Ian Chesterton, who, with fellow teacher Barbara (Jacqueline Hill) and The Doctor’s granddaughter Susan (Carole Ann Ford), launched into time and space on this show’s now six-decade-long journey in episode one, An Unearthly Child (1963).
Russell was a rising star in the early ’60s and it was something of a coup that this odd little science fiction show for children had nabbed him. He brought a certain firm, thoughtful, moral center that, in conjunction with Hill’s more compassionate take, served to set the model for companions that still holds today. They are there to keep The Doctor’s alien-ness from being too frightening; they tether him to humanity.
Russell holds the world’s record for the longest gap in performing a single character on television having left Doctor Who in 1965 and then returning just two years ago for a brief cameo as Ian Chesterton in The Thirteenth Doctor story, The Power of The Doctor.
He was beloved by fans and passed away on June 3rd of this year at the age of 99.
He will be missed.
Doctor Who airs on the BBC and BBC iPlayer in the UK and Disney+ everywhere else.
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Kelly McCubbin is a columnist for Boardwalk Times
