Doctor Who Is NEW!: Rogue

 Before we get into this week's edition of Doctor Who Is NEW!, a moment to mark the passing of part of the show's legacy.   William Russell passed away last week.  Hehe was in the original lead cast of Doctor Who, playing the role of schoolteacher Ian Chesterton from the show's first episode until 1965.

He recently reprised the role for cameo in the support group scene at the end of "Power of the Doctor". Despite his diagnosis of dementia, he was able to make an appearance and even had a line of dialogue.  His appearance in the scene earned William a Guinness World Record for the longest gap between TV appearances.

With the Doctor being originally written has an elderly man with a negative anti-social attitude, it was William Russell's role as Ian Chesterton to be the man of action and to make the speeches to call others to action, stuff we now associate with the Doctor themselves.  William Hartnell may have been the first Doctor but William Russell was the first hero of Doctor Who.

Rest in peace, William Russell and thanks for getting Doctor Who off to such a strong start.    

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It's time a new post of Doctor Who Is NEW!  as I look back this past week's new episode of Doctor Who.

We finally get to the much anticipated Bridgerton episode (and boy is it ever a Bridgerton episode!) and the also much anticipated debut of Doctor Who guest star Jonathan Groff.   

So what is going on here then? 

More on that after the break. 

There will be spoilers, honey! 

"Rogue"

by Kate Herron and Briony Redman

Let's get this out of the way early.  We're back to classic Doctor Who formula with the Doctor and companion going somewhere in time and/or space to have a good time only to have that good time spoiled by aliens up to sketch shit. 

The place is Bath, England in the year 1815 where the Doctor and Ruby have arrived at an upper crust high society regency soiree right out of Bridgerton. 

And any similarities to Bridgerton are entirely the point for the Chuldur,  shape shifting aliens who just love to cosplay all the drama that happens at this sort of thing.  

Except their way of cosplaying a human leaves the human dead. And uh oh, one of the aliens has set their sites on cosplaying Ruby. 

Meanwhile the Doctor has to contend with the alien bounty hunter known as Rogue.  Rogue at first mistakes the Doctor as the shape shifting alien he is in pursuit of.  The Doctor finally convinces Rogue he is a regenerating Time Lord and not a shape shifting Chuldur.   

The barriers of mistrust between Time Lord and bounty hunter are eroded by a lot of....   well, I was gonna say banter but let's call this what it is... a lot of flirting.  

The Doctor and Rogue are really into each other.  

It's Madame de Pompadour all over again except this time Madame is a Monsieur.   

The Doctor and Rogue have set a trap for the Chuldur that will zap them to a desolate far away dimension never to return. To lure them out into the trap, the Doctor needs to create a lot of drama. And there is no drama like two MEN dancing together at  a high society ball in regency England.   

The Doctor and Rogue are only pretending to create drama,right? 

I don't think so. 

This seems like more than flirting to me.  

OK, if you're gay and watching this, you're steeling yourself for some queer baiting. Nothing happened between the Doctor and Yaz, right? So nothing is going to...

NOPE!  

The big damn kiss that the Doctor and Rogue share is.... Wow! 

And the Doctor's palatable pain when Rogue sacrifices himself to save Ruby from the Chuldur....

The Doctor hasn't acted like this since he had to leave Rose on an alternate Earth and...

Is this... love?  

Jonathan Groff as Rogue is fantastic. We've got to get him back.

The scene of holographic heads swirling about the Doctor includes Jo Martin's "Fugitive Doctor" (sorry, Chibnall haters) and also of Richard E. Grant. Grant previously starred as the Doctor in the animated serial "Scream of the Shalka" (2003) and played a version of the Doctor in the Red Nose Day special "The Curse of Fatal Death" (1999).

So Shalka (or Fatal Death?) is in canon now? 

The episode featured orchestral versions of  "Bad Guy" by Billie Eilish and "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga at the regency ball.

And the Doctor keeps summoning up "Can't Get You Out of My Head" by Kylie Minogue to torment Rogue.  

And our Susan Twist moment comes in the form of a painting of a duchess whose eyes follow you all over the room.   

Next time, we get part 1 of a 2 part adventure and I will write about in a new edition of Doctor Who Is NEW!