No one is denying the influence Bridgerton had on "Rogue."
What many of us are disputing is that knowing and loving Bridgeton is required to enjoy "Rogue."
Which is great then.
Because I am not saying that it is *required* to enjoy it, but that a knowledge of it *is* required to ‘get’ all of it.
(Which is why I use Bad Wolf — which was *teally* enjoyable for a lot of us at the time — as an example which is far worse for needing an extra frame of reference)
Put it this way, we talk about Who alienating new viewers when it depends on knowledge of itself to really get the most out of it (or sometimes get it at all) but here we have an episode of Who that *on some level* requires the viewer to also be au fait with Bridgerton. I would posit tbh, that it was possibly designed to appeal *more* to your hardcore Bridgerton fan than it was to your hardcore Who fan. Got to pull in viewers from somewhere right?
Who has given up at sitting alongside the SF of the current time it sometimes feels, and is instead scrabbling to sit alongside other things instead. It’s almost like the seventies, when it had to react to Star Wars (or felt it had to) or the eighties when one of the reasons it was ‘rested’ was because it was felt it had to compete or compare to things like TNG.
When Who reacted to its surroundings (like the Tardis) in the seventies, it became the most successful it has ever been. (It’s twenty first century successes were when it was almost the only game in town for SF adventure, especially on British TV until Primeval kicked off as a response, and we got all the Beeb Quasi fantasy stuff that grew from Pottermania.) If that attitude existed now, it would be looking to Dune, to Foundation, to For All Mankind. Not, alas, Bridgerton. (Which I quite like. Just not in my Who.)
Because the chameleon circuit is broken.
Who, under the current team, is having an identity crisis.
It tried to bring in new fans across the world! With sequels to episodes from over a decade ago *right out the gate*.
It tried to show it was a well regarded SF show with decades of good standing, beloved of people such as Harlan Ellison, with ‘Space Babies’.
It wore it’s British Eccentricity reputation on its sleeve, by heavily promoting a ‘sixties Beatles episode’ guest starring the Fab Four — in which the Beatles aren’t able to mak music, and the actual big guest star is an American Drag Queen.
Across the world. Including in countries far far more conservative than its home market has been for decades.
It finished that first year by bringing back a villain from over *four decades* ago, and even had the characters watch old episodes on telly — which was something this new international audience couldn’t do. They didn’t even know it didn’t matter, because it wasn’t really the same thing at all.
Audience figures kept dropping and dropping, even at home, where the show is part of the cultural furniture.
Because it wasn’t what it was, and doesn’t appear to know what it is anymore.
It’s flopping around, trying to pull in from wherever it can using such an insanely tight focus that it as soon as it might gain from one thing, it’s losing from another.
This isn’t a show that traditionally can be almost anything, as long it also stays itself, this is a show that doesn’t know what to be anymore.
Thats not in its budgets. Nor its deals with international streamers.
Thats in how it is being written and presented.
By people who are a bit… out of touch.
www.mentalfloss.com
