Cosplay is for the Birds

I figured to-day's new Doctor Who would be the weakest of the season since it wasn't written by Russell T Davies or Steven Moffat. It was the weakest but it had its good points and some of its bad points were kind of intriguing.

The Doctor and Ruby go to Bath in 1813. Those familiar with 18th century and early 19th century English literature will know Bath was a place known for scandalous pursuits. It makes sense that some scandal obsessed, cosplaying, shape-shifting aliens would go there.

The fact that they look like they came from a stage musical version of The Three Caballeros considerably diminishes the sense of threat they pose. But the weakest aspect of the episode was all the Bridgerton references. I've never seen Bridgerton so I didn't even know many of them were references to the other show until I read about it a little afterwards.

Bridgerton has an anachronistically diverse cast, too, but there's an explanation for it built into the show's premise; it's an alternate timeline in which George III elevated subjects of African decent to peerage. Bridgerton is a Netflix series while Doctor Who has diversity enforced by the BBC. I wonder if the Bridgerton references were a subtle way to take a dig at the policy. One of the aliens has a line in which she speaks of her desire to take the form of the King so that she can oppress anyone who doesn't look British. Going by the supporting cast in this episode, that would be no-one. All these digs I suspect would come from Davies rather than this episode's writers, Mary Herron and Briony Redman. The very concept of "Dot and Bubble" shows up the weakness in the BBC's policy.

The episode's called "Rogue", its name coming from the character played by guest star Jonathan Groff (the voice of Kristoff in the Frozen movies). He's a bounty hunter looking for the shape-shifters and he and the Doctor end up having a romance. I wonder if it was a coincidence the episode is the first to air during Pride month. Their flirtation was mostly pretty good, the actors had chemistry and Ncuti Gatwa's fun to watch being playful. Though sadly, and speaking as someone who lives somewhere with a lot of homophobes, the reaction to the two of them dancing would not have been stunned gasps but more likely derisive laughter. Although the term and concept of "homosexual" was not yet conceived at this point, there were men known to fornicate with men. For an edifying example of average attitudes to same sex relationships in that era, I recommend reading Roderick Random (1748).

I really did not like the ending and it felt like one of those resulting from hasty rewrites late in production that plague many Marvel films. It would've been more satisfying if Ruby had actually been transported by Rogue and the Doctor had to spend the next episode finding her. From the way Rogue was watching the Doctor shed tears over Ruby's apparent fate (who believed for a second Ruby had actually been killed?), it seemed like the story was going in the direction of Rogue observing that Ruby had too big a place the Doctor's life to leave room for a romance with someone else. Maybe someone figured that wouldn't play well for a Pride month episode.

All in all, a so so episode.

By the way, was that the Valyard?

It doesn't look much like Michael Jayston. Who is that? Someone I've forgotten or is this some Easter egg for something to come?

Doctor Who is available on the BBC iPlayer in the UK and on Disney+ elsewhere.