Rogue

[WhoHar @whohar]

@blenkinsopthebrave

I didn’t make it to Vancouver Island, though heard it was lovely. Far easier for me to drive to Vancouver than to ferry across to the Island from West Coast U.S.

 

[Miapatrick @miapatrick]

@janetteb I was thinking that she was thinking how taking her with her. This series does keep teasing companions not from contemporary London…

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@blenkinsopthebrave @janetteb @whohar @thane16 @juniperfish

The Boss; The Oldest One; The One Who Waits.

I think we would be wrong to assume they are all one and the same.

Or that any of them are the ‘extra’ Doctor. This is would seem to be REG. I doubt if his earlier non canon nuwho appearances are significant. My guess is The Great Intelligence has influenced a (bi?) generation of the Doctor to become The Valeyard (where that leaves 14 I don’t know)

Now Gallifrey is deserted, or perhaps only inhabited by wild hairy Shobogans, The Valeyard has trapped The Doctor and (The Tardis) in the reactivated Matrix… or else hi-jacked The Library (complete with supersized Vashta Nerada) to create a game-based alternate reality that mirrors events, political issues, and people we recognise. Ruby is therefor the Doctor; S Triad, the tardis; Mrs Flood is River; Carla is Clara; Roger ap William… ‘big stick crazy hat’ could be Rassilon who utilised the dna of a human mutated by mire tech to create…??

Oh and the gold sparkly Loon nugget has been inserted in the gob of unscrupulous ‘Boss’ Max Capricorn. Much hilarity and atrocity ensued.

hmmm, as Sally Sparrow might say ‘it rather got away from me.’

Yes the Doctor DOES keep putting his foot in it! Good spot!

I have seen a site somewhere where Mrs Flood’s front door looks very tardis diary blue… but I suspect the image was manipulated.

As for Omega (I like Omega about as much as The Rani) he would seem to be the only Time Lord who might have survived the Cyber genocide… but… and I only know this by rumour you understand, having clamped my hands to my ears and sung lalalala loudly during t’floox… how exactly did Tecteun/Awsok and The Division survive? hmm? answer me that! says Bill Hartnell stroking his chin. Has someone been drinking this brandy?

 

 

[syzygy @thane16]

@whohar wow, yes, I love these theories!

it’s interesting how Carol Of The Bells, a Ukrainian composed new year song,is based on an older tune & with modern lyrics added during WW 1. It’s also both in 3/4 and 6/8. So it’s polyrhythmic qualities are up to the arranger, composer or listener – as to what _time_ or beat the tune is in… which, considering this is Doctor Who, is intriguing.

(Despite career in music I didn’t spend any time looking at Western polyrhythmic music -rather, the ethnomusicological equivalent of ….Malaysian rhythms…. Unhelpful 🙂  )

I’m liking the idea that Susan Twist could be just a RTD joke… And, “There’s always a twist” can be laid, with some difficulty, over the rhythmic motif of Carol of The Hells ….bells….

😳😀

[syzygy @thane16]

@janetteb the Alt doctor is a great idea. Also @miapatrick the fact the Doctor isn’t the sole -saviour now. It’s interesting in story and to look over all the Doctor’s seasons and how it was “doctor save us/will save us” to the Doctor expecting US to save ourselves: see Capaldi’s moon episode with Hermoine Norris to CC’s idea of the companions wandering the world alone for decades working to solve an alien problem prior to @ps1l0v3y0u Flux episodes (because I know you liked them so much… 🙂  )

but also the beginning of companions becoming best friends which is what I like about this & the previous incarnation of the Doctors.

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@whohar  @juniperfish et al. 

Thanks for the very helpful summary of all the questions to be answered (we hope) in the finale. I meant to comment yesterday but got side tracked. In consequence what I have to say may be irrelevant by the time it is read by those who get to watch The Legend of Ruby Sunday before those of us in the UK.

My suggestions regarding queries 3, 4 and 8 were already posted on the Spoilers forum earlier today. They are based to some extent on hints officially published in the Radio Times magazine, which are not all that spoilery in fact, unless you are extremely spoiler averse.

As for query 5: are the Doctor and Ruby in an alternate reality? Yes, I think so, although I see it more as an altered reality.  In The Wild Blue Yonder Tardis took them to the spatial boundary of our universe,* where the laws of Physics as we understand them are irrelevant/don’t necessarily apply, and where reality is ill defined and mutable.  So when the Doctor slipped up/put his metaphorical foot in it by invoking an irrational superstition it affected the nature of reality in our universe, introducing an element of irrationality from that point onward. On the other hand, that doesn’t explain the events in The Church on Ruby Road, which took place earlier. There is nothing particularly rational (in terms of hard science, at least) in goblins who navigate time and the skies in a cross between a rickety 18th century ship and a large kite, who are nourished by babies enmeshed in a net of coincidence, and who vanish, along with their ship when their king is skewered on a church spire. So perhaps it is Ruby herself who has introduced this element of uncertainty and superstition. The Doctor told her: ‘This is a brand new science for me … the language of Luck, ‘cos what is coincidence but a form of accident’, but that is stretching the definition of ‘science’ very thin

 

*  Boundary is more appropriate here than end of the universe, I think, because the Doctor has been several times to or near to the end of the universe in the temporal sense (in Listen, for example, or Hell Bent), but never before, it seems, to the limit of the universe in the spatial sense.  According to the General in Hell Bent, Gallifrey was moved in time to near the end of the temporal continuum for its protection, which is presumably where the Master found it when he took his revenge on the Time Lords

[Mudlark @mudlark]

In truth I’m a little nervous about the two episodes to come. RTD has always had a tendency to go OTT with his Doctor Who finales, and he has been quoted several times to the effect that this will be the biggest, baddest, most spectacular and scary ever. I fear the possibilities presented by a larger budget may have gone to his head, and that the whole thing will collapse in a heap of incoherence. Fingers crossed that I’m wrong.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@whohar (and @juniperfish)

Great summing up of questions, and possible answers.

So how much is RTD teasing us, how ultra meta is this going to go, and how much is relevant?

I agree with @mudlark that it all goes back to invoking the salt superstition in Wild Blue Yonder... or actually to the beginning of that episode with Susan Twist’s first appearance.  But yes, an altered universe definitely seems likely. Lots of wrong steps taken 😉

One more question to add –

Who is the Doctor? (That’s one I hope won’t be answered, as I like that RTD has run with Chibs’ Timeless Child/foundling concept. A mysterious Dr is a good thing… IMHO!).

Excited for tonight, and already feeling deep frustration that I’m going to have to timeshift for a WHOLE WEEK for the finale  (not to mention keep off the interwebs as well!).

I expect a lot of build up tonight and then an end of episode pull down the curtain for a dramatic Toymaker/Maestro/Sutek/Great Intelligence/Rani /Susan-gone-wrong* ‘OH FUCK!!!’ reveal at the end.

And since the Doctor said the one place he can’t take Ruby is the night of her being abandoned, it’s a no brainer we’ll be going there!

And will the (grown up) Space Babies be back?

 

*Or someone/thing completely different?!

[VickyMallard @vickymallard]

And another one – great episode! I’m sure there was lots of detail in there that I missed, but I liked it anyway. Shapeshifting bird aliens, nice! And a fascinating new character named Rogue who went from villain to hero. It would be a pity if he didn’t re-appear.

Lots of emotional drama for the Doctor – “can you lose your friend if it means saving the world?” Quite the dilemma. I didn’t really understand how that trap-triangle-thingy worked and how it was possible to exchange the captives, but what do I understand about alien technology.

I wonder how often the Doctor has been in this situation before. He saved Ruby (or rather Rogue did it for him) but at the price of losing Rogue. And the bit at the end reminded me a lot of 14: don’t ever slow down and think too much about what just happened, because it is too painful and you wouldn’t be able to keep going. But Ruby wasn’t having any of that (which in a way reminded me of Donna) and just hugged him. Which he didn’t return for quite a while, but eventually gave in (which then reminded me of the scene shortly after bigeneration, when he gave 14 that kind of “I got you” hug).

But my favourite quote from this episode is most certainly: “We will cosplay this planet to death!” I don’t cosplay myself, but I know some people who do, and I just loved that cosplaying in itself became such a central part of the episode.

[FozzyB @fozzyb]

@fozzyb

you expressed an opinion as to how The Doctor should not behave… or how Doctor Who should not be written. It begged the question… how would you want this character, with all its history, to be presented? Kindly spell out what you would like to see. Bear in mind this series has been marked by two well publicised departures, and many people want to talk about this, even joining the forum apparently specifically to do this, while exhibiting little evidence that they’ve ever watched Who before.

 

However, put like that, it all sounds a bit worthy, so I zhushed it up. It’s like Roger Rabbit cuffed to Bob Hoskins. In my head anyway.

 

I’m not saying feeble Doc syndrome ain’t a problem. How many times did Peter Davison really need to surrender? But in comparison, Ncuti is almost The Timelord Invictus, if not A Good Man Off To War. Only sociopaths raised by religious fanatics think it’s a good idea to kill Hitler. As RTD and Moff both point out, this is not what you want. No more than Pertwee’s Venusian Aikido. Or Colin Baker’s acid bath wisecracks

 

@ps1l0v3y0u Sorry for the late reply,  while I would never claim to be the number 1 Dr Who fan, I have watched it enough to offer more than a passing opinion on the program.

For me this has been happening for a while culminating in this series in which the Dr is increasingly becoming increasingly for want of a better word ‘wet’ and not the main focus, see Yas in the Whittaker eps, Donna was arguably the main focus in the return of Tennant and the latest Ncuti was a complete wet lettuce.

Cried in virtually every ep, don’t mind him showing emotion at an appropriate time but still, relied on Ruby in pretty much every one, turned up for a whole 15 seconds in 1 ep, (am aware it was filming issues but come on work round it) , relied on Rogue to make a decision at the end. Pretty much the only ep . in which he acted the hero was the last of the series . For me the series was a let down after a long wait and unfortunately for Ncuti he has been let down by the writers

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@fozzyb

Thanks for the reply, and no problems being late. The more considered the better.
My own position? I do like to talk up this version of the show. I did not like Zchib’s and 13. The first female Doctor (if you ignore Ruth) deserved better writing… as it was, it got so bad that I can’t comment on Yaz post Fam. Couldn’t watch it. Yes, I’ll have to sometime.

Otherwise, eps 3-6 were both mystifying and extremely strong. IMHO. The first two of the series were underwritten… RTD probably didn’t want to give too much away. Or they were just bad. The last two annoyed a lot of people (here). We suspect misdirection.

This is what we hope.

OK, sensitive 15 Doc seems to be a thing. Maybe you never considered or can’t bear to watch Classic Who. Well, it did define uneven. But the Doctor, for the most part, defeats his enemies with cricket balls and crystals, screw drivers and helium. Buck Rogers NOT.

Donna was an attempt to find a companion who wasn’t a love interest but she still needed to have some reason to be there. Russ obviously likes the character. Her return came over to me as a better resolution than the Amy or Clara arcs. Though are we certain everything is really over there?

Which brings us back to 10/14: the bigeneration. Soft Doc 15 WAS the one who ended up with no trousers. Remember hand Doc? Human, suspect and full of anger? Dumped in another dimension? What HAS happened to 14? Did he get dusted by Sutekh? And whose was the strange face seen in Rogue’s scan?

Not all had better be as it seems. Patience.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

The ball is, surprisingly, adequately entertaining (normally, this period-drama stuff gives me a big yawn). Interesting that the Doctor is not the only dark-complexioned character present, nor does anyone seem to be taking any notice of his colour.

Another thing that nobody seems to be noticing is the son et lumiere display when one of the impostors changes bodies.

By the way, the astronomer de Lacaille is a correct reference (I Googled).

Gotta love Rogue’s ‘ship’. Rogue is vaguely reminiscent of Captain Jack Harkness, by the way. And I have never watched Bridgerton (or Downton Abbey), nor will I.

But it all falls apart when the Chuldur reveal themselves. They really are the most naff monsters ever. A watered-down Family of Blood with cringey Halloween masks. Worse than the Slitheen.

Oh, and the Doctor and Rogue seem to be deeply in love. I expect someone somewhere is fuming over their keyboard, but I honestly don’t care either way.

I do have to admit, just when I thought Emily and Ruby were going to have a gay flirtation, Emily turning into a Chuldur took me completely by surprise. That fact alone rescued this episode from Worst of Season to passable. As did Rogue rescuing Ruby from the trap at the cost of his own imprisonment. (Will he ever turn up again?)

(Didn’t they ought to collect the three trap corner gadgets in case they malfunction later and catch someone by accident?)

‘Don’t even know his real name.’ I sense a parallel with the stewardess in Midnight.

Now to see what everyone else thought.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@dentarthurdent

I initially thought this story the weakish link in the strong middle four of the series… in fact I dismissed it as ‘a romp’. I don’t go for Regency costume drama… colour blind casting is what is, but oh for the AU where Britain makes a strategic alliance with Toussaint L’ouveture.

All that aside Rogue is actually very entertaining. However, it is where the references from previous series really do land with an almighty thump.

Chuldur = slitheen/family of blood/eighteenth century clockwork robots.

Rogue = Jack (same psychic paper gag/similar blaster/eroticism) but also Saxon (let’s go see the stars buddy)

Then there are the internal clues: the dice (Toymaker/AU) Kylie (Astrid… another lost companion?) & The Scan.

Tennant is in The Scan… but only once… is he 10 or 14?? Michael Jayston didn’t get in, nor Geoffrey Hughes (are we not Doctors? We are Valeyards). Neither did any of the 1975 production team (from Brain of Morbius). Surely Richard E Grant can’t simply get in on account of The Curse of Fatal Death or an audio drama? Therefor he must be present as Doctor Simeon = TGE = a missing Doctor…

14 = The Valeyard, the negative Doctor corrupted by TGE invading his timestream?? A rather tenuous ‘linx’ some might say…

Or is RTD just messing with us? If Rogue had just been a straightforward story it might need another element to replace the continuity porn. Something else would occur to the writers. It might be a bit second tier… or it might be even more fun, even powerful.

Or is the problem that the Zchib era is verboten/reviled/incomprehensible/written in crayon? So it is the deep past that Russ finds himself forced to mine?

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@ps1l0v3y0u Well, I’d be okay with this episode if it wasn’t for the cringingly bad, bordering on parody, upgraded Halloween masks that the five villains wore. IF they’d just stayed in their ‘human’ disguises until the time came to inhabit another human (like the Slitheen or Family of Blood did), it would have been adequate and not inviting disbelief/absurdity. Did no-one in the production team burst out laughing and say ‘they look like sh*t’?

(As an aside, somehow when a naff alien monster is a puppet or a stuntie in a full suit, like the Meep or the Wrarth Warriors, or the goblins, I find that just acceptable. But those feather-headed actors were over the limit for me).

Even absent that, I wouldn’t call it a ‘romp’ though. I’m trying to think of an episode that would qualify as a ‘romp’. Last Christmas, possibly (sarcastic Santa and his elves, but the serious peril of the Dream Crabs meant it wasn’t a full ‘romp’). Possibly The Husbands of River Song. Robin of Sherwood? The Power of Three with its absurdly enigmatic cubes? The Bells of St John? Dr Mysterio?

I did freeze-frame the Scan, somehow the faces had been slightly perspective-distorted which made it a little difficult to identify some of them, and I couple I didn’t know.

By the way, I personally am perfectly happy if future writers/showrunners never mention the Chibnall era ever again. Like Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, it ‘happened’, we all survived, now can we please get on with Who?

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@dentarthurdent

I was wrong; there are 2 Tennants in there…

The Scan… we have: Tennant 1, Whittaker, Hartnell, Grant, T Baker, Hurt, Capaldi, Ecclestone, Smith, Martin, Tennant 2, Pertwee, C Baker, Davison, McGann, Troughton, McCoy… are there more? Cut away… I doubt it.

My hypothesis is just a hypothesis… 2 Tennants is fine. No Evan McCabe but Brendan, as a product of The Matrix, regenerated as himself. He might have actually worn the fizzogs of the 1975 production  team and apparently they don’t count. A Roman business man became 12  & another Timelord became 6… but we don’t have an example of a Doctor becoming a villain.

So, a hypothetical Grantdoc would seem to be:

a copy of Simeon… the question is why?

another unknown regeneration: the Curse of Fatal Death Doc, or something weird that happened with 9 on the radio. That doesn’t wash.

To show future docs would remarkable/impossible. Equally, Jayston and Hughes (though like Brendan, Mr Popplewick was a product of The Matrix) would not appear to have happened yet er… relative to The Doctor’s timeline. But we DO have the bigeneration, so Gatwa has a both predecessor AND a parallel.

What has happened to 14??

nb The Scan has Rogue when Tennant sppears… has Rogue met 14?

I think the Chuldur were fine. Nothing like Zchib’s P’ting or weird frog critter or tooth face Tim Shaw. As King Julian might say in another franchise, the Chuldur are a bunch of pansies. Deadly pansies.

Both River Song’s Wedding and Husbands were pretty rompy. Tooth and Claw? Empty Child/Doctor Dances?? Some historicals seem to become rompy. Husbands and Mysterio may have been attempts to attract a streaming partner… some excuse there. Romps are fine. But other elements will also be required.

I have wondered about the Dream Crabs… 12 wakes in the same volcanic landscape as Deep Water… did all that happen in The Nethersphere?? Or they reused a nice set…

 

[nerys @nerys]

Another enjoyable episode, and this time a fun period piece. “Rogue” was lighter than its predecessors, and I enjoyed the humor. But things got serious toward the end.

I haven’t read through all the posts, but did Rogue remind anyone else of a less-flamboyant Captain Jack? I was immediately reminded of Captain Jack’s flirting with Rose, and didn’t he have a thing for dance club music, too? I enjoyed the scenes between Rogue and the Doctor on their respective ships.

I didn’t see it coming that Ruby cosplayed her way out of danger, though I figured the psychic earrings would come into play somehow. I’d forgotten about the battle mode.

The Doctor and Ruby are becoming closer, and Ruby is a good friend to the Doctor. That’s what I like to see in this series, and I have missed it. “The fam” almost never hit the mark. As much as I liked Bill Potts, I felt there was more of a “mentor/student” relationship between her and the Doctor. Clara was a friend, I think, in “The Day of the Doctor” … but throughout the series she was a complicated companion. As were Amy and Rory. So if I think back, the last time I sensed an unfettered friendship was between the Doctor and Donna. It’s been quite a while, at least for me.

 

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@nerys

the central ‘2 quarters’ of this run were superb. With more than a hint of an agreeable ‘what the hell?’ More than a notch up on eps 1 & 2 anyway, though thematically they were also getting there.

My favourite is Dot and Bubble: though gen Z do seem to have taken it personally. Rogue is a marmite one and provoked lots of gnashing of teeth from the new philosophers. This was the point where Russ and Gatwa hate took off. Others execrate the goofy monsters. It’s an in yer face send up that may not have the impact of the previous 3 (73 yards still baffles me) but it’s more than competent. I enjoyed it more on 2nd viewing.

Who is Rogue? Jack is the obvious reference but what about River Song in Forest of the Dead?

[nerys @nerys]

@ps1l0v3y0u Hmmm, it’s been a while since I’ve watched “Forest of the Dead” (it and “Silence in the Library” are among my favorite Doctor Who episodes). I can’t really say that Rogue reminded me of River Song. Certainly, at the outset (for us and Tennant Doc), River Song was mysteriously flirty with the Doctor. And then the mystery was revealed as time went on … or back?

But, with Rogue, Captain Jack popped into my mind immediately.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that people freaked out about the attraction between Rogue and the Doctor. Russell T. Davies certainly did seem to have a list of social ills he wanted to address, and he wasn’t the least bit subtle about it.

There was a point when I thought, “Does every episode have to address some current societal challenge?” And yet I understand a writer’s need to tackle those topics, if the need to do so is strong, and the outlet is there. So I’m on the fence … and can waffle either way, depending on my mood.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@nerys

Do I mind the in fiction quotation of current ills/issues…? Not really. You may think Russ has reaped what he’s sewn, or he might argue he was on a hiding to nothing because the targets and statements aren’t really that different to the first run, it’s just the ratings are lower.

River… she has a damascene conversion in Hitler’s office and later sacrifices herself for 10. Rogue changes when he sees 10/14’s face in the scan, then sacrifices himself. Or Rogue could be Jack. Though Jack was only ever a con artist, not a bounty hunter/assassin. There are various mutiple parallels: Roger ap Gwillem may be reflection of Harold Saxon OR possibly Rassilon…

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