The Doctor ’s romanticist history has long been a fraught topic for the show to plunk into — but in its modern incarnation , the Doctor ’s identicalness as a intimate case , and how that interplays with their gender liquidity , has lento but sure as shooting smash down barriers to grant interpretation of the Time Lord that broachall variety of homosexualism , from sexlessness , to homosexual and lesbian attractor , and everything in between . And so , Happy Pride , Doctor Who fans : now we can have camp , mostly directionless empty-headed adventure that also occur to be gay !
That is perhaps a bit mean to say of “ Rogue”—an 1813 period man that is a good 60 % largely an excuse to run down lavish manor hallways and make the same “ ooh , just like Bridgerton ! ” laugh about seven times more than it should ’ve been made , and 40 % a bittersweet romance between the fifteenth Doctor and the Guest Homosexual of the Week , Jonathan Groff ’s titulary Rogue .
Rogue is a delightful turn from Groff : a deep , charmingly tragical bounty huntsman who is in 19th C England on the hunt for a group of Chuldur , shapeshifting avian LARPers who are just as into Bridgerton as Ruby apparently is ( they say “ cosplay ” a lot this sequence , as the Chuldur obsess over which toffy aristocrat they ’ll murder and take the situation of next , but really , they ’re LARPing . I promise this is the most galling I ’ll be about this specific matter ) . He ’s also the matter that weaves this 60 - 40 camp split together , after he first pegs that a ) the Doctor is similarly not of this time as he is , and a likely candidate for the Chuldur he ’s hunting , and b ) that actually , yes , the Doctor is very attractive and charming and cunning , is n’t he ? But here ’s the matter : the 60 % of this episode that is not about the Doctor and Rogue trying to tempt each other ’s period - appropriate pantaloons off of each other is just mostly fine .
Image: BBC/Disney
This is not a particular point of worry — wesaw the peril last weekof medico Who trying , and spectacularly failing , to marry an over - the - top premise with a very delicate and serious content . That “ Rogue ” is mostly headless fun as the Doctor and Ruby , largely separate from each other , discover just why Rogue and then a bunch of hiss aliens ( one of which is playedby Indira Varma , set aside her , via Torchwood , the fortune of her third on - screen Doctor Who universe destruction when her innocent Duchess is the butt of the lead Chuldur ’s desire to cosplay ) are hanging out in 1813 England is not entirely a bad thing . It ’s Dr. Who in its charming , silly , but most harmless of styles : a lot of hightail it around and screaming , a lot of pack , but not much more to say than that . And honestly , this time of year has n’t really had that sort of rompy , alien creature feature caper yet — even “ Space Babies ” adjudicate to have a petty more going on beneath the surface — so it ’s nice to get something in that expressive style , even if the style is not one with much dramatic meat on its bones . Bird people pipe ! Human people faint ! Ruby dumbfound a very airheaded short competitiveness scene , thanks to some psychic earrings the Doctor let her borrow for dance lessons , position to a Bridgerton - way bowed stringed instrument rendition of Lady Gaga ’s “ Poker Face ” ! Did I cite this episode was glued together by perhaps a few too many Bridgerton jokes ? Ah well , nevertheless .
Anyway , that ’s not really the bit of “ Rogue ” that ’s interesting : it ’s the love story between the Doctor and Rogue that gives the episode something to chew on between the scene - chewing . Groff and Gatwa are electric together from the consequence they begin attempt to suss each other out , and the episode effectively make out to string you along a “ are they really going to go there ? ” moment as they go from potential competition when Rogue thinks the Doctor is a mask Chuldur , to a wedge / anti - hero span after each others ’ meat . It ’s a windswept romance , but one that works ; in the brief time the Doctor and Rogue get to know each other , there ’s a connection that feel as electric and captivating as any sentence the Doctor first gets to know a future familiar . They portion out a bond over the losses they ’ve face and the struggles they each feel in paradoxically starve connectedness while pushing others away , because their twenty-four hours Job — being funny calamity in infinite — are so dangerous .
But it ’s also transgressive in absorbing ways — not because this is the first time we ’ve seen this kind of textual homosexualism in Doctor Who , it ’s nothing of the sort . The first on - filmdom queer kiss in the series encounter almost 20 years ago at this point . And after the last era of the show give way spectacularly in its handling of the lingering feelings between the13th Doctor and Yaz , it falls to “ Rogue ” to be the first time the Doctor explicitly sire to have a queer love storey , and is allowed to go beyond express romanticist sake or arousal and have that romance be a central part of the narrative . It ’s a chip “ daughter in the Fireplace , ” but for humanity who wish man . In June , to charge !
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If that was n’t enough , “ Rogue ” even effectively manages to outdo last calendar week ’s “ Dot and Bubble ” in a circuitous manner , too , because the transgressive nature of the Doctor ’s Latinian language with Rogue also becomes key to solving the entire story . If “ Dot and Bubble ” was meant to play with Ncuti Gatwa ’s identity as the first Black man to play the Doctor — only to deck it all into a final scene that ca n’t say much more than “ racism exists and is bad”—“Rogue ” swordplay with the actor ’s identity as the first openly queer man to flirt the Doctor , while making it an inherent expression of the textbook . The denouement of the installment see the Doctor and Rogue sweep oar into the middle of the ballroom dance that has been taking place in the background of all the devilment , realizing that the Chuldur , more than anything else , crave drama , selecting their shapeshifting butt out of who they can most be a fairy through — they need to be the uncollectible boy turning down dowries , the duchess , or , the two humans in early-19th hundred England who are dancing the most romantic tango before their middle .
It ’s a marvelous consequence again , because Gatwa and Groff have an amazing rapport , but it ’s also fantastic because it ’s the Doctor using his queerness in that moment to expose his villains and preserve the day : it ’s leveraging that this is transgressive for 1813 because it ’s two human being having a fleshly dancing and then turning down a public proposition to get the Chuldur out in the clear ! And for as much as Rogue and the Doctor are playing up the drama , there is still an element of Sojourner Truth beneath it that really deal it — in another life , perhaps the Doctor and Rogue do get together , go the cosmos and fall in love life . But even with that exaggeration for the Chuldur ’s stake , this is a resolution to the taradiddle that can not have been told unless you are categorically write the Doctor as a homophile person , and allowing what has been layer through year of interpretation and allusion to actually become part of the story .
Alas , queer or otherwise , that means we also have to take to the woods into the other pitfall of write the Doctor into a Romance language : there ’s always an inevitable tragical ending to this variety of story , inherent to the show ’s premise — the Doctor has to be this quasi - lonely angel , constantly tramp and moving on from one space to the next , and romance represents a condition quo shift that ties the graphic symbol down to one person , if not one exceptional place . It ’s not like Romance language with the Doctor on a prospicient terminus basis ca n’t work ; count at how the showhandled River Songfor so long during Steven Moffat ’s land tenure — but more often than not , the Doctor ’s stories of love have to cease in brokenheartedness . And so , Rogue has to sacrifice himself — pick out to save Ruby from the trap he and the Doctor have tricked the Chuldur family into — so the Dr. can feel sad , look up to what had happened between them , and move on .
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Maybe we could see Rogue transform from a one - off fling into something more long term . The installment ends with the Doctor take the ring Rogue faux - proposed with and adding it to the many this incarnation already wears on his finger’s breadth , and after all , Rogue ’s sacrifice was n’t a fatal one , he was just sent to another dimension with the Chuldur : one among many , as the Doctor say to Ruby . He could always be find if another story wants the character to be constitute . And even if he is n’t ever seen again ? Perhaps it ’s good for the Doctor to have have intercourse and lose , than to have never know at all : especially when Doctor Who utilise the prospect to make a queerness in the character that has long been at the edges of the series a central aspect of their current identity and beyond .
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Image: BBC/Disney
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