TV Review: ‘Doctor Who’ Episode “Rogue” Gives the Doctor His First Queer Male Romance

There are certain rules of Doctor Who and, for the longest time, one of those rules was that the Doctor never gets romantically involved with anyone. In the classic series, which ran from 1963-1989, there was only one instance of the Doctor having romantic involvement with anyone back in the very first season in 1964 when the First Doctor (William Hartnell) became smitten with—and accidentally engaged to—an Aztec woman named Cameca (Margot Van der Burgh).

After that, romances with the Doctor were mostly deemed off-limits for the rest of the classic series. In the ‘80s, showrunner and producer Jonathan Nathan-Turner solidified this rule with his infamous phrase “There’s no hanky panky in the TARDIS,” particularly applying that rule to relationships between the Doctor and his companions, who were almost always women. It’s been such a prevalent part of the series that some have even theorized that the Doctor is an asexual character.

The first time the “no hanky panky” rule was broken was in 1996, in the made-for-television Doctor Who movie which was a failed attempt to revive the series after its cancellation in 1989. In that movie, we saw the Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann) kiss his one-off companion Grace Holloway (Daphne Ashbrook), but the Doctor spent most of that movie in a state of post-regeneration confusion, so it could easily be chalked up to his altered mental state.

But then came the 2005 revival where the “no hanky panky” rule was finally tossed out an airlock. The Ninth (Christopher Eccleston) and Tenth (David Tennant) Doctors had an ongoing romantic plotline with the revival’s first companion, Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) that ended with Rose going off to live happily ever after with a clone of the Tenth Doctor. The revival’s second companion, Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman), had a romantic attraction to the Doctor as well, but that was strictly one-sided. In Season 3, we also saw the beginning of a running joke that implied the Doctor had, at some point, accidentally married Queen Elizabeth, a joke that was solidified into the plot of the 50th anniversary special “The Day of the Doctor” in Season 7.

In Season 4 came the introduction of the Doctor’s future wife, River Song (Alex Kingston), marking the longest romantic storyline ever given to the Doctor, spanning Seasons 4 through 9. Still, the Doctor was clearly confused about romance and wasn’t quite sure how to have a relationship, implying he still might be on the asexual spectrum. Similar to Martha, companions Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) had romantic tension with the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) that never culminated in anything. There was also the Season 6 episode “The Doctor’s Wife” where a version of the Doctor’s ship, the TARDIS, was placed in the body of a woman, and it was implied he had an odd sort of romance with his own ship. The latest romantic plot introduced for the character came in Season 13 when companion Yasmin Khan (Mandip Gill) developed a crush on the Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker), but that attraction was strictly one-sided as well.

But, while the romantic storylines for the Doctor have been few and far between, there has been one constant through all of them: The Doctor’s romantic exploits were always with women. Even when the Doctor became a woman, it was a woman she had romantic tension with. While the Doctor often makes jokes about famous male historical figures “fancying” them, and the Fourteenth Doctor (David Tennant, again) admitted to finding Isaac Newton hot, we have never once seen the Doctor having a romantic interaction with a man. That is, until this week.

In “Rogue,” the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and his companion, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), travel to 1813 where they attend a ball held by the Duchess of Pemberton (Indira Varma), but it soon becomes clear that something is not right. The Doctor meets a dashing bounty hunter named Rogue (Jonathan Groff) who is searching for members of the Chuldur race, a race of bird-like shapeshifters who have taken over the identities of several attendees at the ball. The Doctor is suitably impressed with Rogue, and the two start flirting more and more intensely, but can the Doctor really bring himself to travel through time and space with someone as morally bankrupt as a bounty hunter?

“Rogue” is one of only two episodes of this season to not be written by showrunner Russell T. Davies. Instead, this was written by Kate Herron and Briony Redman, the former of which is most well known as the executive producer of the Marvel Cinematic Universe series Loki, but who also was a director on Gatwa’s previous series, Sex Education. Yet, despite not being written by Davies himself, this episode is probably the first one of the season that has a similar tone and overall feeling of an episode from Davies first run on the series from 2005-2009. Aside from the Doctor having his first romance with a man, the episode was about as conventional of a Doctor Who episode as you can get.

That’s not necessarily meant as a put-down of the episode. In fact, many of the experiments that Davies has pulled off this season that have been radically different from his first run as series showrunner have been largely unsuccessful. “Space Babies” remains widely disliked, and “73 Yards” remains hotly controversial amongst fans. It feels like, rather than return the series to the type of Doctor Who episodes that Davies is known for, he’s trying to step outside of his comfort zone. While that’s certainly admirable, it has produced mixed results, and having an episode that feels like a throwback to something more familiar was delightfully refreshing.

Gatwa is the first openly queer actor to play the Doctor and has typically played gay characters in the past, most notably on Sex Education. Thus, giving him a queer romance might have just come more naturally than it did with previous Doctors. But, regardless, Gatwa and Groff demonstrate remarkable chemistry, and you can feel the romantic and sexual tension between the two in the episode. It gives Gatwa a way to shine that he hasn’t gotten to show off yet in the series, and it adds a new dimension to a character that’s been around for over 60 years. I think it’s now pretty safe to say that the Doctor is a genderfluid, pansexual grey-ace.

The Chuldur aren’t a particularly formidable enemy, and there’s no point in this episode where you really fear that there’s a chance of the Chuldur defeating the Doctor and Rogue. But then, the villain of the episode is hardly the purpose of this one, as it’s more about the Doctor’s chemistry with Rogue. In that sense, the Chuldur are more of a backdrop for the episode while the main event, the Doctor’s interest in Rogue, is far more satisfying. It’s because of that that the episode works so well, and stands out as a highlight of this uneven season.

The new season of Doctor Who is streaming on Disney+.

Photo courtesy of Disney+

Rating: 83/100