BBC Throws Out Complaints About ‘Bridgerton’-Inspired ‘Doctor Who’ Episode Featuring Gay Kiss
EXCLUSIVE: The BBC has dismissed viewer complaints about an episode of Doctor Who featuring a historic gay kiss between Ncuti Gatwa and Jonathan Groff.
Two disgruntled audience members took issue with the “inappropriate sexual innuendo” that developed between Gatwa’s Time Lord and Groff’s bounty hunter, Rogue, in a Bridgerton-inspired story.
The viewers said the Season 14 episode, titled ‘Rogue,’ featured content that was “unsuitable for children.” One person added that the speed of the Doctor and Rogue’s connection was “concerning.”
The BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) threw out the concerns. In a ruling on Thursday, the unit said the sexual innuendo was mild and suitable for Doctor Who’s young audience.
“The ECU considered the sexual innuendo to be towards the mildest end of the spectrum and in any case likely to go over the heads of children,” the ECU said.
“The development of the relationship served the needs of a fast-moving plot and was unlikely to strike viewers of any age as a model for interpersonal relationships outside this particular fictional context.”
The Doctor Who episode, set in the British Regency period of 1813 and first broadcast on June 8, made history after featuring the first ever explicitly romantic same-sex kiss on screen.
Mischievously flirting throughout the episode, shocking the other guests at the Regency ball with same-sex dancing, their united effort finally saw Rogue sacrifice himself to save the world, but not before he had given the Doctor a goodbye kiss.
John Barrowman’s Captain Jack briefly kissed Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor in a 2005 episode, but that encounter lacked the sexual charge of the Time Lord’s encounter with Rogue. And Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor had an implied romantic connection with her female companion Yaz (Mandip Gil) but their feelings were left implicit with the odd yearning glance.
There have been same-sex kisses between different supporting characters in the series, but this new episode marks the first time the Doctor has been portrayed as being sexually interested in someone of the same gender and acting on it.
Season 14 of Doctor Who was written by Russell T Davies, who has been a trailblazer for gay storytelling on-screen, penning series including Queer as Folk and It’s a Sin.
