Doctor Who Season 14 Episode 6 Review – “Rogue” – Find Me

I have not been happy with Doctor Who this season, as many episodes felt…well…”meh” in some cases and downright bad in others. However, FINALLY, it feels like this new season has tapped into what has made The Doctor and their show so special, and via an episode that honestly could’ve been another dud! But as my Episode 6 Review will gloriously highlight, “Rogue” was fun from nearly start to finish, and I’m so happy to have watched it.

The premise is delightfully simple. The Doctor and Ruby go back to the early 1800s, where they do their best “Bridgerton Impersonations.” However, as we learn right off the bat, they’re not the only doing doing “cosplay.” There are aliens called the Chuldur who take the looks of other people to “have fun” and ruin worlds. Yeah, okay. But what could’ve been a basic adventure in the past turned into something more interesting via the arrival…of Rogue.

Rogue, as we would find out, is a bounty hunter, one sent to find a Chuldur and take them out before they can kill more people. However, Rogue thinks The Doctor is the alien at first and sparks literally and metaphorically fly.

Let’s get right into it, shall we? I thought these two were incredible together. This was Ncuti Gatwa’s best performance yet (and he has been good throughout the season despite bad writing, to be clear), as we got to see him at his most funny, flirty, rambunctious, and even tease his darker side. These two just played well together, and by the time we got to their kiss, it was a magical moment.

If anything, we all knew this kind of Doctor relationship was coming; it was just a matter of when. Technically, Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor had this kind of relationship with Yaz, but they never cemented it. It was very much a “what if?” There were no questions here, though. These two dug each other, and using that relationship to help the plot along in various ways was clever, including Rogue sacrificing himself to save Ruby because he knew The Doctor couldn’t live without her. “Find me.” Dang, that was a good scene.

And while she had a lesser role in this one in some ways, Ruby once again shined as a great companion and a woman who doesn’t take crap. I enjoyed how she tried to break time-period stereotypes by shooting down a snob suitor (who was one of the aliens, but she didn’t know that at the time) and even tried to help Emily Beckett with her situation. Ruby really is great, and I’m curious what will happen with her given that she’s not going to be in the next season.

A key moment in my mind was when The Doctor thought he had lost Ruby, and went full-on “Time Lord Victorious” to ensure the Chuldur suffered. It’s a small thing, but it’s one that matters. I want more of these moments where The Doctor doesn’t simply “shrug off the past” like he did at the end of the episode, but more on that in a second.

As I wind down my Doctor Who Episode 6 Review (notice how there’s less to say when something is actually good?), I do need to point out some small flaws in the episode.

For example, while the Chuldur were unique in their own way, they were basically just Zygons on a smaller scale…and even then, the Zygons impersonated the Queen of England already, remember? To that end, while Ruby was clever in beating her Chuldur attacker (“Battle Mode!”), it doesn’t fit with the scream and electric shock scene we saw earlier. Plus, once again, we saw Ruby in a “death scenario,” and yet we all knew she wasn’t going to die here. Hopefully, this will stop soon.

As for Rogue, while he was great, his scanner only being able to tell that The Doctor was a “shapeshifter” was rather odd. Why wouldn’t it scan to see if he was a Chuldur when he was HIRED to go after that? Just saying.

Finally, I didn’t like how, once again, The Doctor tried to ignore his feelings and just go “onward.” He did that last episode and I hated it (and I know many of you did, too), and even though Ruby did get him to emote a little…it still felt odd that we didn’t get more of what The Doctor was feeling given that he’s now had MULTIPLE traumatic events happen to him and yet he’s just trying to smile and move on. That’s kind of the opposite of what he told Tennant’s Doctor at the end of the 60th anniversary special in that he “let himself heal.”

In the end, though, “Rogue” was a great episode and the highlight of Season 14 so far. Please keep up this momentum! Doctor Who Doctor Who Doctor Who