We need to have a talk about the definition of the term cosplay, methinks.
Recap
In 1813 in Bath, England, Lord Galpin (Maxim Ays) is berating Lord Barton (Paul Forman) for leading on his sister. Galpin eventually realizes that Barton is getting to have all the fun here, and decides he would rather do that; he kills the Lord with lightning powers of some kind and takes on his likeness. Later on, the Doctor and Ruby are at the home of the Duchess of Pemberton (Indira Varma) for a party. Ruby is wearing psychic jewelry that allows her to do all the dance moves, and the Duchess takes a liking to her, deciding to show her off to the eligible young men. The Doctor tells her not to get engaged or accidentally invent anything, and lets her go, noticing a handsome man on the balcony (Jonathan Groff).
The Doctor introduces himself to the man by teasing him for his brooding—he introduces himself as Rogue and the two go for a walk. Ruby meanwhile catches Lord Barton breaking the heart of Emily Beckett (Camilla Aiko), and moves to comfort her in the aftermath. The Duchess finds her housekeeper outside on the ground and berates her, but the woman insists that she made a mistake becoming staff and would much rather experience the party as the Duchess. As the Doctor and Rogue are walking—and flirting—they come across the Duchess’ body and both accuse each other of her murder. Rogue has a weapon, however, giving him the upper hand. He believes the Doctor is a Chuldur, a shapeshifting species, and Rogue is a bounty hunter sent here to imprison and execute him.
On Rogue’s ship, the Doctor learns that he likely got his name from playing Dungeons & Dragons, and that he likes Kylie Minogue. Rogue is about to incinerate him when the Doctor forces his ship to do a deeper scan and it comes back with an assortment of his old faces (including that of Richard E. Grant, importantly). He tells Rogue that he is far more ancient and powerful than the Chuldur, and that the man needs his help. Then he shows Rogue the inside of the TARDIS, which the man adores, and asks him who he lost. Rogue is vague about his former partner, and the Doctor suggests that they argue across the stars together.
They head back into the ball and the Doctor figures that the Chuldur are “cosplaying” other people, and that they’re fans of things like Bridgerton—they like a scandal. So he suggests that they cause a big one by dancing together. At the end of it, the Doctor calls Rogue out publicly for dramatic reasons like asking him to give up his title for love. Rogue kneels and proposes to their Doctor, offering him a ring. The Doctor takes it and runs off, Rogue following. The Chuldur follows as well, which leads the duo to discover that they’re not looking for one Chuldur—there are four of them. They need to reconfigure Rogue’s trap. Meanwhile, as Ruby talks to Emily, she learns that the young woman is also a Chuldur and gets attacked. The Chuldur accelerate their plans and begin a mock wedding, with Ruby now presumably dead and played by formerly-Emily. The Doctor is furious and perfectly happy to kill them all, thinking back on his promise to Carla to keep her daughter safe.
Once the Doctor has trapped all the Chuldur, he learns that Ruby isn’t dead—she was pretending to be Chuldur after fighting off Emily, who shows up in a huff. The Doctor can’t disengage the trap to let Ruby go without freeing the entire crew, something that Rogue insists he mustn’t do for the safety of the world. The Doctor can’t hit the button to trap the Chuldur in another dimension and lose Ruby. Rogue kisses the Doctor, saying that he knows, and taking the switch from him. He picks up Emily, swaps places with Ruby, and tells the Doctor to come find him before pushing the button and vanishing. The Doctor puts Rogue’s ship in orbit around the moon, but knows that finding him is likely an impossibility. Ruby insists on hugging the Doctor despite his desire to move on immediately, and he puts on Rogue’s ring before they depart.
Commentary
Oh, we’re canonizing Shalka Doctor now? That’s how hard we came to play this week? Let’s gooooo—
For those who were possibly confused, one of the Doctor’s previous faces according to Rogue’s little machine was one Richard E. Grant, who has played the Doctor twice, and appeared on the show elsewhere as the Great Intelligence. His two Doctor appearances were in a parody Red Nose Day special written by Steven Moffat called The Curse of the Fatal Death and an animated Who serial by Paul Cornell titled Scream of the Shalka—both of which pointedly aired while the show had its sixteen year hiatus. Shalka is frankly a lot of fun, but went ignored when the series was revived two years later. No longer, it would seem.
This is, uh, ironic because Russell T. Davies was quoted as saying that he didn’t like Grant’s performance as the Doctor, so who can say what prompted this change of heart. But if Shalka is now in any realm of canon, I have, shall we say, questions. We can get to that later, though.
But here is my real question as it pertains to the episode: Rogue, who the hell are you, my guy?
Look, it’s entirely probable that he’s just a new character intended to fill a similar role to Captain Jack Harkness in the Doctor’s life, particularly if we won’t be seeing Jack again (which is likely after the flashing accusations that I’m not going to get into here). But if that’s true, I’ll be disappointed because there is too much in this script to suggest that Rogue is someone we know already.
First off: Why hide the name? Why give him an obvious alias that is very in-line with both Time Lord titles and the Toymaker and his kids? You could easily give him a normal name that’s not his own. Jack did that. But instead we’ve got a name indicative of an archetype, and presumably something he’s come up with recently because the D&D dice are on the table of his ship. Secondly: Why don’t we get any detail about the person he lost, and why did he use “them” as the pronoun for that person? Perhaps they’re non-binary, or perhaps the guy doesn’t want the Doctor to know their gender. Or perhaps they were a person who could also change their gender via regeneration…
But the thing that really makes me feel that they must know each other is the final scene between them. When Rogue gives the Doctor the choice between his friend and the world. When the Doctor cannot make that choice and Rogue wipes his tears away, kisses him, says “I know” and makes the choice for him—that entire sequence is familiar in a way I absolutely don’t buy if they only met this evening. Not a chance.
Y’all know who I’m hoping this person is. Someone who once stored his entire person in a signet ring? Who also had playlists full of queer anthems that applied a little too easily to the situation? If Rogue isn’t someone known, the whole character is way too convenient and a little too cloned for comfort. Sudden Jack-alike who knows just what to say and how distant/intrigued to play in order to get the Doctor falling head over heels? Look, I don’t enjoy any version of love-at-first-sight, even if it’s queer. (Do I like it better than usual? Sure! It’s still silly.) But I would happily dig into someone who came here with a plan.
This episode is wall-to-wall fun regardless, and I would like Kate Herron and Briony Redman to write more for the show, please. The banter between Gatwa and Groff is on point, and they both look like they’re having a ball together. The Bridgerton-ness, up to using their soundtrack picks, is pretty cute. And the Chuldur are a fun new villain, in that they’re over-the-top, but not in a universe-ending way. It’s going to be fun to watch them come back for other episodes—in fact, I can’t help but wonder if they aren’t meant to be a replacement for the Slitheen, who were a fun species for story purposes, but outrageously fatphobic in concept. The Chuldur are much the same as the Slitheen, stealing people’s forms to cause trouble, but without that aspect leaving a sour taste in its wake.
I’ve got two very specific quibbles. One is around use of the term cosplay because cosplay refers to the act of dressing up as a specific character, and sometimes is applied to taking on aspects of a thing. But the play-acting factor isn’t commonly referred to as cosplay; it would be more accurate to say that the Chuldur are historical LARPers. Even role-players, which works with Rogue’s D&D reference! It wouldn’t bug me so much if the episode weren’t absolutely adamant about using the term “cosplay” every chance it gets. It got weird.
The other is the Doctor telling Rogue that the two of them dancing will cause a scandal, which… isn’t necessarily true. Same-sex dancing partners were more common than people seem to think in the past. There are two potential issues at play here that might make it a problem, one, that it would be considered rude to dance together if there were young women on the floor looking for dance partners, and the other being that it might be frowned upon if they’re in an area where folks were getting particularly prosecution-happy about even the barest whiff of sodomy. But the idea that seeing two men dancing together would come as a complete shock to this crowd is plain erroneous. People generally learned to dance in gendered groups at this point in time—meaning all of the men on this floor have danced with other men before and all the women with other women.
I can buy that it’s scandalous if you’re going to give us more information, but a generalized “you should have researched this time period” isn’t going to cut it. The lack of specificity threw me right out of what should have been an absolutely dazzling scene. At least I got pulled back in time for the proposal.
And as we’re getting to know Fifteen a little better, we’re finding that he has his own Oncoming Storm mode—he’s fully ready to destroy the Chuldur crew for possibly killing Ruby. Two things to keep in mind there: We’re given a flashback to a scene with Carla where it’s made clear that he promised her he’d keep Ruby safe, a promise that I don’t think we’ve seen him make so blatantly since Rose. It feels important.
The other thing: The instant that the Doctor chooses rage, he loses. He gives in to that impulse and traps his best friend in with the bad guys. And in giving over to that anger and grief, he forgot that his friends are never so helpless. (Look, I’m not saying that the way the Doctor lost Bill has kind of permanently screwed him up on this score, but it wouldn’t surprise me.) He forgot that Ruby is clever and capable and would never go down without a fight.
And then he gets to pretend he’s fine, but at least this time he acknowledges that he’s doing it on purpose. He doesn’t shut Ruby out the way he has for past companions, just acknowledges that this is a bad coping mechanism. Onwards.
Time and Space and Sundry
- The episode was dedicated to William Russell, who passed away last week and played one of the very first companions, Ian Chesterton. He was last seen on the show in Graham’s lovely companion support group.
- The Doctor gave Ruby jewelry that basically invades her brain without letting her know it does that, all for the purpose of having a reveal where he gets to tell her that he gave her jewelry that does that? We need to work on this, sweetie.
- Okay, but it’s really funny that this version of the Doctor is not okay with “Doc” as a nickname, after allowing both Jack and Graham to use it without issue. I love specific Doctor preferences, and also seeing what carries over. (Like the fish fingers and custard.)
- You cannot have this man singing “Pure Imagination” to me, I will die. This is my personal Achilles, Doctor Who. How dare you.
- And there’s Susan Twist on the wall again. At least we’ll be getting an answer to that mystery next week.
- I guess the Chuldur are musical fans too, because the Duchess potentially gives reference to both Cabaret and Camelot with “Willkommen, bienvenue! C’est moi!”
- But again, Shalka Doctor had a robot version of the Master on his TARDIS (played by Derek Jacobi before he played the Master on the show) as his basically live-in partner, and you’re just telling me this is canon now? So Missy wasn’t even close to being an anomaly is what you’re saying? Right in front of my (Time-and-Relative-Dimension-in-)Salad? Bring them back.
See you next week! See Mel next week, too!
I think my opinion of this episode as of it’s closing titles mirrors my ‘hot take’ on it’s cold open – that there’s good stuff in there which the episode either does not have (or does not take) the time to make best use of.
If nothing else, I feel that ‘Rogue’ needed at least one full episode of set-up for his loss to register as more worthy of grief than the … by my best estimate eight … actual murders in this episode: if nothing else I think it’s a crying shame that there’s not only single genuine Regency person to remind us that these are PEOPLE and not just meat for the grinder (Given that every single Regency character with a speaking role is either dead by the end or dead before the opening scenes).
Having said that, despite my dislike of The Doctor making kissy faces with people (Dangit, he’s a grumpy old man with a magic box, not Don Juan!) and the rush with which the character is introduced, then dismissed as lost beyond recall (Which for my money is deeply, deeply weird: can’t the Doctor use that capture technology to try getting a read on the most likely dumping ground?) ‘Rogue’ has at least some features of interest that could repay his reappearance as a recurring character.
I also liked:-
– Ruby remaining a treasure.
– The music of Kylie making a delightfully puckish moment of mischief from The Doctor GOLDEN.
– I’m willing to give DOCTOR WHO credit for depicting our villains as clueless enough about Earth history to suggest that Great Britain actually needed to START a war with France in AD 1813 (Napoleon himself could tell you different), so that one made me laugh.
– Most of all, I ADORED Ms. Indira Varna’s performance as our Villain: she was extremely fun as the Society Hostess (RIP) but clearly having the time of her life as a feathery face-stealing villain.
I hope we see more of her on DOCTOR WHO, in this role or another.
Right, my personal opinions are now on the record, I’d better go back and read that review now!
Right, having looked over your own thoughts:-
– I would truly, deeply hate for ‘Rogue’ to be just The Master playing games all over again.
– On the one hand I HATE seeing people add regenerations Willy-Nilly: it’s one thing for a regeneration to have unseen adventures, but I’d much rather that The Doctor’s regenerations be limited to those we see onscreen (Of only because it’s much simpler to keep track of things when one can reliably refer to The Doctor by number): on the other hand RICHARD E. GRANT AS DOCTOR WHO?!? Officially!?!
This might be a total stretch, but for some reason Rogue gave me “Captain John Hart from Torchwood” vibes.
This was a lot of fun although I didn’t enjoy it as much as the previous two episodes. However, I have to know… what is Rogue doing with D&D dice in 1813? Was there a time travel reference I missed?
Also the modern music in Rogue’s ship’s playlist. This series has always been pretty cavalier about allowing aliens to conveniently be time travelers when it suited the story.
What drove me crazy about the use of “cosplay” was how everyone mispronounced it. It’s short for “costume play,” so why do Westerners insist on pronouncing it like “causeplay?” The word was coined by a Japanese journalist as the kind of abbreviated loan-word portmanteau that’s common in Japanese (e.g. “pasocon” for personal computer or “sumafo” for smartphone), and its Japanese spelling (in romaji, anyway) is kosupure, not kozupure. It’s strange that English speakers so consistently mispronounce an English-derived term that Japanese speakers get right.
This was a pretty entertaining one, but I’m not comfortable with the modern tendency to treat the Doctor as a romantic figure. I mean, the Doctor is thousands of years old — far more thousands than we used to know. Humans are like pet gerbils to him in terms of relative life expectancy — it’s like robbing the cradle. I’m convinced that the Fourth Doctor and the Second Romana were lovers — the actors’ real-life relationship showed in their performance — and I can more or less put up with the River Song thing because she turned out to be pseudo-Gallifreyan herself, after a fashion. But otherwise, I have a hard time buying that the Doctor could be into humans. Okay, at least Rogue was a humanoid alien, but there was no indication that he had more than a human life expectancy.
Aside from that, I have to question the Doctor’s taste in men here. I mean, Rogue is a guy who was willing to murder someone without a trial based on a reckless misidentification. That makes him pretty reprehensible in my book, more the sort of person the Doctor should see as a villain to be stopped than as a romantic prospect.
As for Bridgerton, I’m unfamiliar with it besides maybe having vaguely heard of it, so any references were lost on me.
As for the Shalka Doctor, I sometimes wonder if some of the “alternate” Doctors from the audios and plays could be explained as some of the Doctor’s pre-Hartnell incarnations. Since their memory was wiped, that could resolve many continuity issues with the idea, although I’m not sure why a pre-Hartnell Doctor would be traveling with a robot Master.
As for the psychic earrings, I don’t see how they’re any more invasive than the TARDIS’s telepathic translation circuits. Dance is a language, after all…
As someone who is basically asexual and who appreciates even largely unintentional representation, I completely agree with you about the revival’s tendency to portray the Doctor as a romantic figure (let alone the inappropriateness of some of their choices of past partners), but I’ve long-since given up arguing about it online, because it’s become such an important part of how people tend to see the character these days. That being said, Rogue doesn’t seem inconsistent with the kind of character the Doctor might be drawn to, especially the Eleventh Doctor, who seemed to like a “bad girl.”
Hmmm. Maybe it’s a consequence of where and when I grew up, but kosupure and kozupure are verrrry similar. Heck, I pronounce “cousin” as “couzin” (thus “cuz” rather than “cus” being a thing back in the 90’s).
But as our host points out, it’s really LARPing.
In Japanese, there’s usually only one way to pronounce any kana, so there’s no ambiguity about a word’s spelling or pronunciation. Su is always pronounced with an S sound, never a Z sound. That’s the point — the Japanese journalist called it kosupure because he intended it to have an S sound like “costume.” If he’d meant it to have a Z sound for some strange reason, he would’ve used the zu kana instead.
And “cousin” is always pronounced with a Z sound. That’s standard. I checked three different dictionaries and none of them listed any other pronuncation. But the dictionaries also agree that “costume” is never pronounced with a Z sound. (The only variations are in the second syllable — “cos-toom,” “cos-tyoom,” “cos-choom,” or infrequently “cos-tuhm.”) So it’s bizarre that so many English-speakers — even in Britain, it turns out — pronounce “cosplay” with a sound they’d never use when saying “costume play.” It’s not like they don’t know it’s short for “costume,” so why do they change the pronunciation?
And as I mentioned in another comment, what the Chuldur are doing isn’t exactly LARPing either, because they’re not playing fictional characters acting out an imaginary scenario, but are impersonating real people in a real setting. It’s recreational identity theft.
IMHO – They used ‘cosplay’ over ‘LARPing’ to avoid having to spend ages having to break the fourth wall and define the term, cosplay has greater public knowledge, and I for one am here for it: having to stop and explain terms and situations to family is exhausting – and having the ability to go and watch episodes without waiting for TV schedule is so liberating for the same reasons.
What “ages?” It takes two lines:
“What’s LARPing?”
“Live-action role playing. Acting out a game in the real world.”
Less time than it took to explain the psychic earrings.
Although I don’t think LARPing is really any better an analogy than cosplay. The Chuldur weren’t playing fictional characters in an RPG, but were engaged in serial imposture, killing people and taking over their real lives and personas. As shapeshifters, they saw the identities they stole as physical costumes. Neither analogy works perfectly because they have an alien perspective.
Similar to everyone else really. I thought it was a nice bouncy episode but I didn’t buy the romance because there was so little to indicate why the Doctor would be so intensely attracted to Rogue, given that Rogue is a bounty hunter who kills people for a living. Maybe it just reminded him of Jack. We don’t see him do anything that would endear him to the Doctor, except maybe the loneliness but that wasn’t really revealed until later on. But then I also didn’t buy the Mme de Pompadour romance either, because what did she do apart from be imperious? And this is obviously an episode drawing from that template. I also don’t really see how a complex space-time event would be able to fall in love with something other than another complex space-time event.
I don’t see Rogue as being the Master. Nothing really fits on that score.
That said, I did think some of my issue might be because I was also expecting a bigger revelation about Rogue’s identity after all the talk of the Doctor being changed forever on the net – I’d kind of hoped either a Time Lord that had survived the Master’s attack, thus opening the door for a return of the Time Lords and/or Susan since that seems to be our big thing right now, or a member of the Doctor’s species.
Still this is something distinguishing about the Fifteenth Doctor’s character! Presumably the Fourteenth Doctor’s time with Donna made him more open to romance than the Thirteenth Doctor was.
I liked the aliens and their rationale for what they do, it’s been a long time since Doctor Who has done that sort of “aliens do an earth thing but it’s deadly when they do it” story.
But, I don’t think it was the stunning endorsement of “we need new blood on the writing staff” side of things, as it was very much standard Dr Who.
Come to think of it, on top of the moral issue. does it make sense for a bounty hunter to incinerate people on the spot? Doesn’t he have to prove a successful capture to his employers in order to get paid? You’d think he’d either take them alive or kill them in a way that preserved the bodies. Sure, he could take a video or a scan or something, but those can be faked. So his haste to kill the Doctor was a rather artificial way to generate a crisis.
Anyway, I don’t really see a strong comparison to Captain Jack. Okay, roguish time traveler, American accent, into men, but I didn’t see much resemblance in personality or otherwise. My reaction to Jonathan Groff was more “Wait, that’s not Mark Ruffalo, is it?”
“Presumably the Fourteenth Doctor’s time with Donna made him more open to romance than the Thirteenth Doctor was.”
Huh? The Doctor and Donna were always quite adamant that there was no attraction of any kind between them, that they were just best pals. Unless you mean that living with humans and observing their relationships for a long time made him more receptive to the possibility.
“But, I don’t think it was the stunning endorsement of “we need new blood on the writing staff” side of things, as it was very much standard Dr Who.”
Does it have to be revolutionary to be worthwhile? It’s a solid debut, and it’s a new authorial voice, instead of just one guy doing it all.
Also, I would say that the Doctor having an overt onscreen romance complete with kissing is very much not standard Doctor Who. Even in the modern series, the romantic stuff involving the Doctor is usually more teasing and ambiguous, something where it’s left to the viewers to read into it whether the Doctor reciprocates the other character’s interest or not. The Doctor actually being the aggressor in a romance is pretty much unprecedented.
“Huh? The Doctor and Donna were always quite adamant that there was no attraction of any kind between them, that they were just best pals. Unless you mean that living with humans and observing their relationships for a long time made him more receptive to the possibility.”
Yeah that’s exactly what I mean. The 14th Doctor going off to live with his friends about him was meant to be about healing some of his issues, and we might interpret one of those as 13’s unwillingness to get close to Yaz, because (paraphrasing here a bit bluntly for effect) “it’s just too much of a hassle because people die on me”. Having watched people, been with people, reflected, maybe 15’s approach is “well life is short, should try some more of this”.
I agree with the Capt Jack comparison. I don’t think it stands up much beyond, amoral (to begin with), nice coat, considered very attractive in-universe, but equally Jack was very much in love with the Doctor and changed his character because of the Doctor, so potentially the Dr might see something of that in Rogue? Maybe? No, I’m not convincing myself either.
Re: revolutionary, no it doesn’t have to be, it just needs to be well-written, but I’ve seen a lot of commentary online that one of the major failings of this new incarnation of Who is that it’s being written by people who have previously written Who, and that it would be interesting to have new perspectives from people who have come to the show in a different way. And I guess one might argue that RTD may have helped massage it into something more tonally akin to his own work, anyway!
I do find it ironic (in terms of the discussion) that the bit that’s non-standard (which yes, is what I was alluding to in the difference in 15’s character to other Doctors – maybe apart from McGann, who is very into Grace but leaves her behind) is the bit you and I are both more lukewarm to! Although maybe that’s what they should lean into for an incarnation, a very romantic Dr who goes around kissing everyone he likes, and see what that leads to? Does it break the show? Does it lead to a different kind of storytelling? Does it just make it like every other show?
I also think it’s interesting they’ve done this in an episode about LARPing (which I agree is what is actually going on), as Dr in a romance is fan fiction 101! I don’t know if it speaks to an attempt to engage with fan culture throughout?
Amusingly, my reaction to ‘Rogue’ included “The casting department really went all-in on not QUITE Henry Cavill with this one”.
Clearly this actor just has one of those generically-handsome faces.😉
I see Matt Bomer a lot more than I do Henry Cavill or Mark Ruffalo, but then I already knew who Jonathan Groff was.
Odd. I do see a resemblance between Bomer and Cavill — indeed, Cavill’s version of Napoleon Solo in Guy Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. reminded me of Bomer’s Neal Caffrey from White Collar, and Bomer was a candidate for Superman in the abortive J.J. Abrams movie project — but Groff didn’t remind me of either of them. It’s interesting how different people see faces or hear music in different ways, so that one person can see or hear a resemblance that’s totally lost on another.
Funny, I don’t see any resemblance to Cavill at all.
Don’t ask me where the comparison came from, but that’s the one that came to mind!😉
Also, you absolutely beat me to the punch with that gentle reminder that Mr Matt Bomer and Mr Henry Cavill look so much alike that, in any timeline where the former played Live Action Superman, the latter should absolutely have been cast as Batman so that they could pull off the old ‘Superman & Batman swap costumes and fool everybody’ plot.
The problem there is that, while their faces have some similarity, their voices are extremely different, and nobody would be fooled if they spoke. (Although I guess they could say that they impersonated each other’s voices, Superman through superpowers and Batman through tech.)
Also, I sincerely approve of Richard E appearing in the line up of faces! Honestly to me it makes sense that there would be other versions of various Drs out there due to timeline shifts – I would consider him the original 9 tbh, because that’s what he is. Numbering is only for convenience!
The only thing is, I feel sad, that like his Withnail and I companion, we probably won’t get anything much beyond that initial adventure as part of the main show. I would dearly love that RTD followed through on earlier comments he made about setting up a shared universe where you’d have miniseries with past Doctors. (he mentioned 10/11, but I’d much prefer underserved incarnations played by terrific actors like Grant and McGann, and let’s face it both need to be utilised soon)
Hmm, so maybe the Time War’s effects were great enough to rewrite the Doctor’s own regeneration cycle? Maybe there was a version of the timeline where McGann regenerated into Grant, and then the Time War rewrote history and he regenerated into the War Doctor instead?
Although it’s always seemed to me — and it particularly seems in the current season — that Time Lords are insulated from changes in the timeline that affect other beings.
Yes, true enough – there is a bit of a suggestion that the Time Lords stand outside most changes or can weather them. I think there are a few suggestions of this in the classic series (like in Pyramids of Mars, Curse of Fenric and Day of the Daleks?) and the new series.
There are some references though that make me think the Time War would be a big enough crisis for maybe the odd anomaly (like Grant) to slip through and be remembered by the universe. I can see the Daleks and even the Time Lords themselves deliberately altering the history of Gallifrey and key figures to get a better footing in the war. It would probably be difficult to wipe away all traces of an incarnation of the Doctor given how he ends up wound around so many different times and places.
In Tales of the TARDIS, which repackages some of the classic stories with new linking materials by original cast members (not sure if this is available outside the UK?) there is a bit where the seventh Doctor talks about how sometimes he regenerates and sometimes he doesn’t, which might point to a bit more flexibility.
Oh but also I just remembered the Two Doctors where events happening to the Second Doctor that are changing him into an Androgum threaten a change to the Sixth Doctor as his timeline rewrites itself – so the potential is there outside the Time War! (Although that’s pretending that Dr Who has cohesive rules :))
I totally agree about the fact that men dancing together wasn’t nearly the scandal the show wants us to believe it was back then, but I just decided to believe that what was really scandalous was just how intensely the pair of them were staring into one another’s eyes while doing it. As for the romance in general, I thought it worked well enough. Episodic romances aren’t quite as common as they used to be on television, but I grew up with them, so the concept of two characters living out a relationship in the space of an hour of television just seems normal to me, though I am 99% positive that this isn’t going to be the last we see of Rogue, and I agree that he seemed to know the Doctor a lot better than he was letting on. I don’t think that means he has to be someone we’ve seen before, but there has to be more going on with him than we know. After all, he does allegedly have a new “boss”…
As for the Shalka Doctor becoming part of the show’s current continuity, I’m all for it, and I don’t think it needs more of an explanation than the fact that the last ten episodes seem to have been at least partly about the walls of the universe coming down, so it makes sense to me that a face from one of those other universes might creep in and be picked up by the psychic paper.
How was Rogue able to swap places with Ruby? Did he have some device I missed? Or was it permeable from the outside as long as the person breaching it immediately took the place of whomever they were removing, in which case you’d think the Doctor would’ve felt so bad he’d have made the switch himself?
I know we now have a Doctor more in touch with, and importantly able to express, his feelings but it’s still a shock to see tears falling down his face twice in this episode after (in a rather different scenario) the end of the last one; FWIW, I too found the way he fell for Rogue so quickly and so intensely odd myself.
Seeing that alternate Ninth Doctor among the faces was neat. The simplest explanation is that he was a pre-“First” Doctor like the Fugitive Doctor, and him being from a parallel-timeline eddy that merged back into the main flow of the prime one is only slightly more complicated given the show we’re talking about, but since we know from at least the Twelfth Doctor that regenerations can be influenced by faces met and from the Fourteenth that familiar bodies can return, it’s possible that, say, the War Doctor could’ve digressed into this “Shalka” Doctor for a couple of adventures and then reassumed the one he/they had worn before, perhaps suppressing the memory for continuity’s sake.
It was “calibrated for six,” so I guess it allowed a one-for-one swap. And Rogue just beat the Doctor to it, I guess.
The question I have is the same one I always have when something locks a character in place by their feet: Why don’t they just slip out of their shoes? (Although sometimes they do.)