I generally enjoyed Rogue despite the fact that I really dislike it when any episodic TV show does a “love interest of the week” thing.
The “Bridgerton” setting (complete with Vitamin String Quartet soundtrack) and the cosplaying Chuldur aliens were a lot of fun! Though I did balk a bit at the aliens referring to “cosplay” themselves, that seemed odd.
I don’t know why they looked like birds but I loved it, especially the guy with the big long eyebrows!
I was less convinced with Rogue as a character. Jonathan Groff tried but I don’t think he was given much material to work with. He felt a bit like a toned down, more broody “Captain Jack Lite.” And I always hate the idea that a character can fall in love in a single episode with someone they never met before and never see again, and in this case everything happened within a few hours and we’re meant to believe this was a hesitating over a fake proposal level connection?!
Come the fuck on.
I really didn’t like the Madame de Pompadour episode where Tennant’s Doctor supposedly fell in love with her, and they spent more time together over the years!
I love and treasure the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode ‘Captains Holiday’ because it gave me the gift of Vacation Picard but I hated the romance plot with Vash, though that again got more development than the Doctor and Rogue did here!
I just don’t enjoy the idea of Instant Love (or dashing rogue archetypes). It always feels forced and inauthentic and it’s not romantic to me. For me romance is built over time through actions and small connections. You can’t do that in 40 minutes of TV with a character we don’t see again.
It also felt a bit jarring that after 6 episodes with this Doctor I still feel like I’ve not spent any time real time with him or understand who is, and then when we do get some focus on him we’re thrown into this intense flirtatious romance plot where we are are lingering on proposals. Because I don’t feel like I know this Doctor I couldn’t connect to what this experience, or someone like Rogue, might really mean for him.
I have no idea what he was thinking when he was hesitating over the fake proposal. I don’t know why the tone switched and that was played as a deep emotional moment, instead of a silly bit of fun for the rouse.
The whole thing is too shallow to work as a romance for me. I just found it annoying, it was wasting time when there still feels like so much I want to know still unexplored this series!
I also was bothered by the ending switcheroo with Ruby. When Ruby was attacked they showed us the lightning effect we’d seen when all the other victims who died were attacked. This was deliberately lying to the audience. It doesn’t then make sense to tell us that somehow Ruby used the special earrings to fight Emily off.. because we saw the light and heard the sound effect of the aliens attack! And we were told repeatedly it’s instant and deadly.
Obviously I knew Ruby wasn’t dead, but to resolve it in this way felt insulting.
Anyway, two more episodes to go apparently and it feels insane that we’ve still not gotten to know the Doctor properly or actually seen much of Ruby and the Doctor working together! For most of the episode they’ve been separated, and we’ve seen nothing of their relationship.
I like them both so this is frustrating.
Series 8 Rewatch
It’s finished! … And I am reminded of the reasons I stopped watching it originally.
11. Dark Water
Ok, so I said last time in In The Forest Of The Night, the previous episode, that I didn’t believe Clara and Danny’s supposed great love and found it odd she expressed no emotions about potentially leaving him behind to die if she left with the Doctor when the Earth was going to be destroyed (her concern was about being the last of her kind) … Then in this episode Danny gets hit by a car and I’m meant to be moved by Clara’s devastation over losing the love of her life.
Instead I’m just irritated by it because she did nothing but treat Danny with disrespect, despite how generally supportive he was (Moffatt has an unhealthy view of how love works).
Maybe if we’d been shown their connection rather than just being told about it I’d have had some level of investment in their relationship.
But anyway, this episode is saved by the intro of Missy! I fucking love Missy, she felt like such a breathe of fresh air, an inject of life and excitement I’ve felt lacking with all this endless Clara drama. I could watch Michelle Gomez do anything.
12. Death in Heaven
The second part of the finale with more amazing Missy moments! Not so sure about the Doctor being the President of the world of whatever, and I’m not sure the confronting the Doctor with the idea that he is some kind of General at this core really landed for me. The whole series has been trying to drive this but in recent series I don’t think that’s been present, so the whole thing felt completely forced.
And also again, my cold heart is not touched by Danny’s death and at this point I’m just annoyed by another dramatic emotional exit for Clara (in which she lies again, though for less selfish reasons this time, and the Doctor does too) when she again isn’t actually going anywhere because she’s in another series!
13(?) Last Christmas
Our friends described this as the worst episode ever. I still think Let’s Kill Hitler is worse because that’s shit on multiple levels!
Still, this is a rubbish episode, even for a Christmas one. Nick Frost as Santa and his “comedy elves” are very cringe and unfunny. The twist is very obvious, and Clara is still crying about Danny which as above, is something that never emotionally landed for me.
And now onto Series 9, which I think I saw a couple of episodes of before because I do remember the sunglasses, but I definitely never completed.
I feel similarly fed up about Clara. It’s like it’s Clara Who not Doctor Who. So much focus on her and the Doctor feels like he’s just kind of there. On one hand I quite like their relationship, it’s a different dynamic given that Clara’s huge ego balances her hero worship.
On the other, I don’t find Clara a fun character to be around. She’s too arrogant and self-centred. We never see her life outside of the TARDIS aside from as a disaffected teacher, and small snippets of Danny relationship. The impression I have of her life is really empty, that she doesn’t have friends because of her bad personality, and the Doctor is how she feeds her ego.
Maybe she’s too similar to the Doctor.
I much prefer a strong emotionally intelligent companion that challenges the Doctor’s reactions and actions (like Donna, the best), rather than simply bossing him around to get what she wants.
