#7 (1.6): Rogue.

The Doctor meets - and flirts shamelessly with - a time traveling bounty hunter (Jonathan Groff).

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 44 minutes. Written by: Kate Herron, Briony Redmond. Directed by: Ben Chessell. Produced by: Chris May.


THE PLOT:

The Doctor takes Ruby to 1813 so that they can attend a lavish ball at the Duchess of Pemberton (Indira Varma)'s estate. Ruby enthuses about essentially being in a real-life episode of the TV show Bridgerton, and the pair are having a grand time with the fancy dress and the dances.

Then the Doctor notices the handsome Rogue (Jonathan Groff), standing on a high balcony and surveying the party. Rogue is a bounty hunter from the distant future, and he has mistaken the Doctor for his prey - a Chuldur, an alien shapeshifter. Chuldur adopt the forms of the people they kill - not for any real purpose, but just to enjoy "the dance, the drama, the emotion... It's cosplay!"

The Doctor convinces Rogue of his true identity, and the two agree to work together to trap the alien. But there's more than one Chuldur at this party, and the time travelers quickly find themselves on the run. Meanwhile, the head Chuldur sets its sights on its next victim: Ruby!


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: He spends most of the episode flirting with Rogue. This is mostly entertaining, their playful banter leading to a handful of amusing moments. A highlight comes when Rogue, still thinking the Doctor is the shapeshifter, traps him in a force field. It's deadlocked (*drink*), so the sonic screwdriver can't deactivate it... and so he shifts to what he can do, including activating the ship's sound system and dancing in place to Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out of My Head. Later, comic misunderstandings cleared up, he and Rogue talk about loss. Rogue lost his partner; the Doctor has lost "everybody."

Ruby: This is very much the Doctor/Rogue show, but she still gets some decent moments. She bonds with bookish young Emily (Camilla Aiko), who is distraught after being used and then rejected by caddish Lord Barton (Paul Forman). Ruby's protectiveness toward Emily and disdain for Barton inadvertently draws the attention of the Chuldur, because Ruby "seems so different."

Rogue: The episode's title character is a handsome, morally ambiguous American who works as an intergalactic, time traveling bounty hunter. His technology is advanced enough to deadlock the Doctor's sonic, and he's quick with both quips and flirtation. Meaning, yes, Rogue is exactly one Barrowman away from being Capt. Jack Harkness. Actor Jonathan Groff helps to counter the familiar characterization by playing it straight. Where Barrowman was happy to lean into a bit of ham and reflect anything emotional with a shield of glibness, Groff deadpans one-liners while showing hints of emotional vulnerability. The character still feels like a Jack stand-in, though, which I think blunted my response to the episode.


THOUGHTS:

Rogue provides a bit of light relief after the string of heavy episodes that preceded it. There are a couple of emotional beats near the end, including one that wants me to feel a lot more than I actually do. For the most part, though, this is a fun adventure that feels like a bit of silliness before the season-ending two-parter.

The script toys around with the notion of cosplay. Early in the episode, a Chuldur who's disguised as a strait-laced lord is taunted by a cad. After some back-and-forth, the Chuldur declares of the cad: "You gamble, have affairs, you're an absolute snake. Meanwhile, I'm all noble and serious... I'd rather be you." The Chuldur proceeds to make good on that, claiming first the cad's life and then his identity - simply because playing him will be a lot more fun.

That's all the Chuldur are there for: Fun. They're at the ball to soak up the atmosphere: "The dance, the drama, the emotion!" This is pretty much the exact same reason that the Doctor and Ruby are there. Ruby spends her first scene giggling about this being like a real-life Bridgerton episode, and she's quick to pass herself off as "Lady Ruby Sunday of the Notting Hill Estates." The Doctor even feels the need to remind her not to do anything to accidentally change history.

The real focus of the episode is not on the monster, but on the interactions between the Doctor and Rogue. Most of this is entertaining. Like most single episode romances, it moves too quickly, but writers Kate Herron and Briony Redmond are careful not to push things past internal credibility. The Doctor and Rogue have fun together and are interested in getting to know each other better, and there's a spark that could lead to something more - but their interactions ultimately amount to a very good (if unconventional) first date.

The episode tries to take a more serious turn near the end - and that's the part that ends up not working for me. When Ruby is put in jeopardy, the Doctor responds with a dark anger that is well-played by Gatwa... but I don't feel it the way I sometimes did with the 11th and 12th Doctors, because these villains don't feel worthy of this response. The Chuldur work when played for laughs, but they don't convey menace. I never believe that Ruby is actually in danger, and so the climactic standoff falls just a bit flat.

The same is true of the ending. The Doctor may be affected by events, but I'm left at a distance. One of Doctor Who's strengths is its ability turn on a dime between silly and serious. But this episode doesn't quite pull that off, at least not for me. As a result, I'm left with a disconnect, unable to make myself feel any of what the episode clearly wants me to.


OVERALL:

Rogue is at its best when it sticks to being lightweight fun. The first two thirds are played as a light period monster piece, and both the bits with the Childur and the flirting between the Doctor and Rogue are enormously enjoyable. But when it tries to shift to something more seriously emotional, I just don't end up feeling it.

It's still a decent entertainment. This is one occasion, though, in which I wish the writers had just stuck to lighthearted fun and left attempts at heavy drama to other episodes.


Overall Rating: 6/10.

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#3 (1.2): The Devil's Chord.

Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon) intends to steal music from the world - and then the universe!

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 49 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies. Directed by: Ben Chessell. Produced by: Chris May.


THE PLOT:

Ruby asks the Doctor to take her to 1963 to see the Beatles' first recording. When they reach the studio, though, they are appalled to find the group recording a dull ditty about a dog. Investigating other recording booths, they discover that every contracted singer is singing similarly tepid tunes. Something has happened to music.

The Doctor realizes that this must be the work of some outside force, so he lays a trap. He sets up a piano on a rooftop and allows the musically inclined Ruby to play. This works, summoning "Maestro" (Jinkx Monsoon), whose arrival is heralded by a sound that chills the Doctor to the bone: the Toymaker's Giggle.

Maestro, a child of the Toymaker, plans to consume all music in the universe. The Doctor has no way of fighting through traditional means. But as a child of the Toymaker, Maestro is also bound by certain rules. It's a creature of music; with the right chord, a "genius" could banish it.

But while the Doctor is certainly a genius, he isn't necessarily a musical genius...


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: Visiting 1963 makes him briefly pensive. He reveals to Ruby that a version of him is already here, living in a junkyard with his granddaughter, Susan. He doesn't know whether Susan is alive or dead, and I'd speculate that he's been afraid to investigate and potentially reap even more pain from the answer. In his final confrontation with Maestro, he channels his sense of loss into a weapon, using it to guide him to play the right notes to bind the demon.

Ruby: Grew up listening to vinyl recordings of The Beatles, and she's delighted at the thought of seeing them in person. She has composed (rather good) music herself, and she summons Maestro by playing a piece she wrote for a heartbroken friend. There's a bit more development of Ruby's secrets. When Maestro goes after her, some sort of defense goes off, with Ruby singing "a secret chord" that keeps the entity at bay until the Doctor can act.

Maestro: "I heard music, and music is mine!" Drag queen Jinkx Monsoon plays the sinister Maestro, a casting choice that emphasizes the character as genderless while at the same time allowing Russell T. Davies to provoke outrage, which I'm pretty sure he sees as "bonus points." More importantly, Monsoon gives a good performance, chewing scenery with abandon while still conveying a sense of menace. Maestro is almost comical at a glance - right up until it becomes clear that they have the power to do everything they say they will. The Doctor's own terror helps to sell this being as a serious threat.

The Beatles (well, John and Paul at least): The Devil's Chord was, in large part, advertised as "The Beatles episode." It's not. No actual Beatles music is featured, and the only members of the group to receive any attention from the script are John Lennon (Chris Mason) and Paul McCartney (George Caple). In the 1963 created by Maestro, they and the other musicians no longer care about music, just planning to finish their dreary dog-and-nursery rhyme themed album before going to live everyday lives. When they start to reflect on music itself, an image of Maestro appears - and then both men become angry at the Doctor and Ruby, labeling them "disgusting" for making them think about music.


THOUGHTS:

Well, that was a step up from Space Babies!

The Devil's Chord is a good episode. The teaser grabbed me immediately, as music teacher Timothy Drake (Jeremy Limb) uses a piano to punctuate the points of a lecture. "First we have a note. Then we have a tune. Then we have a melody." He switches from Three Blind Mice to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, talking to his bored pupil about how the great composer wrote this when he was going deaf: "All that rage and fury, out of which... something beautiful."

It's a superb opening, even before Maestro enters the scene. It's also enough to make clear immediately that, unlike the previous two lightweight adventures, this story will have a hint of substance.

The scene in which Ruby plays the rooftop piano is beautiful. Even before she plays, there's a visual of her and the Doctor standing beneath a gray sky, with the Doctor remarking that without music, "the world is darkening." As Ruby plays, he stares out into the distance, eyes cast in the direction of his younger self and his granddaughter. The shot of him standing there would honestly make a pretty arresting image for a poster. Then we see the reactions of people hearing the music, some weeping at the temporary return of something they hadn't even realized they needed. It's a haunting moment, one which Russell T. Davies and director Ben Chessell allow to linger for maximum impact.

The visual element remains strong throughout. In a riff on Pyramids of Mars, the Doctor takes Ruby back to her own time, showing her the state of the world if Maestro isn't stopped. Then Maestro arrives, and the Doctor and the demon face each other with the ruins of London in the background. The climactic duel between them, near the end, is also well visualized, with musical notes swirling around them. For Maestro, the notes become both weapon and fuel, with parts of the confrontation playing like a sort of darkly twisted live action Looney Tunes. For the record, I mean that as a compliment.

The first half is generally better than the second. The back half of the episode often feels rushed, and even some very good scenes seem underdeveloped. As much as I enjoyed the Doctor's trip to the alternate future, I think more could have been done with that scene, and the transition from the Doctor fleeing Maestro to coming up with a plan to fight is extremely abrupt. Still, after what I found to be a woeful season premiere, this well-made and thematically ambitious episode is a welcome return to form.


OVERALL:

Though I enjoyed The Devil's Chord, I'm starting to get worried about how little connection I feel with the two leads. Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson remain appealing, but the Doctor and Ruby still only exist in broad strokes, with the scripts leaning too heavily on the actors' energy. I like them fine, but I don't know them.

I wasn't too worried about this in the previous two episodes. The Church on Ruby Road was an introduction, so broad strokes were to be expected, and I found Space Babies to be mostly awful. But this is actually a good episode, which makes this problem more concerning. By three episodes in, I was at least starting to feel some attachment to almost every previous TARDIS team. I sincerely hope the midseason corrects this and starts putting some actual detail into these character sketches. 


Overall Rating: 7/10. Despite my rising concerns about the regulars, this is a good episode.

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