Doctor Who’s homage to Bridgerton makes more sense than Bridgerton

There’s an episode of Futurama where aliens threaten to destroy the earth unless they are shown the season finale of Ally McBeal. Last night’s episode of Doctor Who rivalled that concept for sheer silliness.

And why not? The showrunner is responsible for the shifts of tone over the course of a period of weeks. The season has to oscillate between silly and serious with some degree of elegance.

The one moment that made no dramatic sense to me was the screaming panic when the avian aliens entered the ballroom. The art of fancy dress was highly evolved by the Regency period. Some of those present might have seen a production of The Magic Flute. The dancing toffs would not have screamed. They would have applauded, and they would have assumed feathery costumes and make up as a more likely explanation for this phenomenon than demons from Hell or invaders from another planet.

The Chuldur are all about cosplay. They have watched the first two seasons of Bridgerton and they are not prepared to wait for a third or to watch passively. The Chuldur may be ludicrous, but they are a logical extrapolation of a very real version of toxic fandom. They are the fans who feel they own the show – and what more logical expression of ownership can there be than exercising the right to inhabit the cast? Toxic fandom does not allow dramas to evolve or change or ultimately surprise. As the ultimate toxic fans, the Chuldur use body snatching cosplay to freeze characters within a particular attitude. Hand over any franchise to toxic fandom and you have surrendered a to very unchallenging demand for instant gratification. Toxic fans have a very short attention span and Bridgerton will jump the shark almost immediately on their watch..

Insofar as Rogue is honest and thoughtful about cosplay, it ends up offering a more credible and consistent version of Bridgerton than Bridgerton itself – which doesn’t always seem to know that it’s all about cosplay.

But really, this is about the Doctor and Rogue (Jonathan Groff). As long ago as The Doctor Dances it was confirmed that the Doctor is not asexual. The Fifteenth Doctor has now graduated from uninhibited flirtatiousness to actual vulnerability. He’s not just using sexuality as a pose or a weapon, he’s letting someone get very very close. Rogue must return.