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| Tough toenails, Georgia Moffett beat you to him. |
...and you won't be spoiling us again for several seasons. For better or for worse.
Actually, I tell a lie. This episode is partially set on a spaceship in the 51st century, but it actually has to do with the plot so I'm willing to let it slide. This once. It won't make the complaining about it I'll be doing any less annoying later.
Our episode begins in Versailles in 1758. A woman named Reinette, played by actress Sophia Myles, is at a fireplace with the King of France. The palace is under attack by an unseen, but clearly very malevolent force. She tells him to go to his wife, and then turns her attention to the fireplace. She calls out to someone, saying that the clock on the mantle is broken and that it is time. She calls him by name: Doctor.
Meanwhile, thousands of years and light years away, the TARDIS lands on what appears to be a derelict spaceship. Mickey, brand new to the TARDIS crew, is enthused at getting a spaceship on his first trip. The crew examines things, the Doctor reasoning that the ship was damaged and is in repair mode. Even in that mode, it's generating a large amount of power. No one seems to be aboard, however, and the crew smell meat cooking.
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| "We are but poor, lost circus performers. Is there a village nearby?" |
It is not long after this that they find a fireplace and within it, a little girl. What should be the outer hull of the ship is instead opening up into the bedroom of the little girl, Reinette as she introduces herself, in the year 1727. The Doctor tries to technobabble his way to an explanation to Mickey and Rose and gets outed on his flimflam. Poking around, the Doctor decides to use the fireplace and enters Reinette's bedroom. All is quiet save for the ticking of a clock and a shocked Reinette, who claims that months have gone by since they last spoke. The Doctor notes the clock over the mantle, broken, and asks Reinette what is making the ticking if the clock is broken.
When he pokes around under the bed, the first of the Clockwork Droids of this episode pops out. I really like the design of them and I wish they had been implemented elsewhere. As it stands, however, we only have this episode and one much later in the Capaldi era where they show up. In that latter instance, it's a different model. Even so, the look of them is very neat, if generic - a glass dome head covering clockwork parts being covered while in disguise by a masquerade mask and wig.
The Doctor realizes that the droids have been scanning Reinette's brain for some reason, but is attacked as it apparently refuses to answer any questions not given by Reinette. Heading back to the fireplace, the Doctor tells Reinette that it's just a nightmare, even monsters have nightmares. When she asks him what monsters have nightmares about, the Doctor activates the mechanism with a laughing reply of,
"Me!"The fireplace spins back and, with some teamwork from Mickey and Rose, the Doctor freezes the droid in place with a fire extinguisher. He pulls off the wig, admires the design work, and then resolves to pull it apart anyway in an act of brazen vandalism. The droid manages to teleport away, the Doctor tells Mickey and Rose to not go off looking for it, and then decides to hop back through the fireplace mechanism to Reinette's bedroom. As you do.
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| Confirmation: The weed is too dank. |
Naturally, because the Doctor has run off for his forced romance of the episode, Mickey and Rose take a page from Companions 101 and do the thing that the Doctor told them not to do. As you do.
Back in Reinette's room, the Doctor is greeted by a much older Reinette, now a fully grown woman. She chides him for continuing to exist: imaginary friends should not be around after childhood. Her mother calls her, and she and the Doctor share a quick, rather passionate kiss. While this is all very cute and all, I'm really disappointed in Moffat in ripping off the backstory of Amy Pond a full four years before she'd become a companio-oh...
Wait a minute...
Apparently that kiss was really something, however, as the Doctor is able to put together who it was he just snogged: Reinette Poisson, otherwise known as Madame de Pompadour, mistress of King Louis XV and the uncrowned Queen of France. This apparently delights him to no end, and the Doctor laughs as he uses the fireplace to return to the 51st century, leaving behind a confused servant who is seriously debating asking for a raise after dealing with this nonsense.
Back on the ship, the Doctor laments his companions doing what companions do and goes after them. Instead, he finds a horse. Unfortunately, instead of taking this horse on board the TARDIS and having it be the new companion, he finds another window and has a totally not at all stalker-y moment as he watches Reinette and one of her lady friends discuss her angling to become the King's Mistress and win the Game of Thrones.
Meanwhile, Mickey and Rose find a camera with an eye in it and a heart wired into machinery - just two lovely assortments from the Sawyer Family's Guide to Spaceship Repair - before catching up with the Doctor and Arthur, the horse. The Doctor has worked out that all of the windows lead to different points in Reinette's life, but hasn't figured out why. He also mentions to Rose and Mickey a bit of Reinette's history, mainly how she became King Louis' official mistress. Rose makes a snide comment about her getting along with his wife, and the Doctor surprises her by telling her that they did - Pre-Revolutionary France had very different customs than what she's used to.
Of course, Rose could never accept that sort of idea because Rose is a sociopathic succubus who wants the Doctor entirely to herself...something that doesn't actually come up in this episode. Why? Because like I've said before, Moffat has this insane habit of writing Rose Tyler like a character rather than a completely deluded, sociopathic succubus. It's a real shame that he couldn't transfer that onto Clara during the last few seasons she was around, but that's a ways off.
The Doctor realizes that a droid is in that moment of time and he leaps through the save the day. Having Reinette speak to it, he manages to finally question it. The droid confirms the Doctor's earlier suspicion about the ship having been damaged - an ion storm caused a near complete systems failure. The droids are repair units and we realize that the crew were used to repair the ship. The droids were not programmed to not use the crew. They are following Reinette because they want her brain, but claim that she's "incomplete".
Reinette tells the droid in the most polite way you can say "Va te faire foutre!" on a children's show and it leaves. Mickey and Rose head off after it, the Doctor lamenting that Rose won't let him keep the horse when he insists that he lets her keep Mickey.
...I don't have a joke here, that's some genuinely funny stuff.
The Doctor decides to go poking around in Reinette's brain to find out why the droids want her. As you do. Reinette manages to turn the tables on the Doctor and somehow read his mind, seeing his lonely childhood and asking if his real name is "More than just a secret" and then inviting him to dance. If you remember anything about the last Series, we all know that Moffat loves his sex metaphors.
Back on the ship, Mickey and Rose have a little back and forth about the women the Doctor knows (Mickey mentioning that the Doctor referred to Cleopatra as "Cleo") and luckily they are both rendered unconscious by the droids before Mickey can reawaken the RTD written Rose. The two soon awaken strapped to operating tables. Unfortunately, before the droids can put Rose out of my misery, the Doctor arrives seemingly drunk off his ass with a tie around his head and sunglasses on while spouting out (admittedly very well) some bars from My Fair Lady.
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| I don't have a joke here, this is just funny. |
He reveals what he's worked out about the droids, namely that they're waiting until Reinette is 37 and will then take her brain to replace the ship's command circuit. Then, he dumps his drink on one of the droids and reveals that it isn't a drink, it's anti-oil, and that he isn't drunk. After releasing Mickey and Rose, the Doctor tries to close the gateways. With a droid out, however, he can't and the one that's out finds the point where Reinette is ready. Much to the Doctor's chagrin, the other droids teleport away and the system is deadlocked because of course it is.
Rose is sent through another gateway to warn a younger Reinette about what's about to happen. They actually have a really good exchange that allows Rose to actually act like a human being with empathy as Reinette also goes through the portal and onto the spaceship, hearing her own screaming in the future that we'd heard in the cold open. She elects to go back to France and await her fate.
And, of course, what we saw in the cold open comes to pass. The palace at Versailles is attacked by the clockwork droids, and Reinette gives them yet another "Va te faire foutre!" when they demand that she come with them. With the time windows sealed, and knowing that breaking through will only destroy them all, the Doctor gets astride Arthur and swoops in to save the day in a scene that is basically begging to have Bonnie Tyler's "I Need A Hero" dubbed over it. With the connection between France and the ship broken, the Doctor logics the droids to death. The day is saved...but at the cost of the Doctor being stuck in pre-Revolutionary France and with Rose and Mickey trapped on a spaceship in the 51st century.
Ah, well! Episode over! Come back next week for Rise of the...
...okay, my Editor has told me that's not the end of the episode. Sad day.
While Rose and Mickey panic in the future, the Doctor is sipping wine with Reinette and all too happy to be taking the slow path back to the future with her. I know I've been subtle about it in these, but every so often, the Doctor is just kind of an asshole. Reinette, however, has another way. She takes him to her bedroom, revealing the fireplace from her childhood. She had it brought here, the Doctor reasoning that it must have been offline when he broke the windows so he could still use it to return to the ship. Using the sonic to power it up again, he returns and pokes his head into the fireplace to invite Reinette to travel with him. Asking her to give him "just two minutes".
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| "Alexa, play 'Bodies' by Drowning Pool." |
He reunites with Mickey and Rose, getting them into the TARDIS before heading back to find an empty bedroom and an overcast, rainy day outside. King Louis is there, giving the Doctor a letter left for him by Reinette: she has indeed passed away. Two minutes for him was years for her. He puts the letter away to read later, returning to the TARDIS. Rose asks why the droids wanted Reinette's brain, the Doctor reasoning that they must have just been confused with the damage done to the ship. When asked if he's alright, Rose seeing that he's clearly pained, the Doctor replies with "I'm always alright".
Which, as Donna Noble will one day teach us, is Time Lord for "I'm not really right at all".
Mickey, having enough brain cells to know when the Doctor needs a moment, asks Rose to show him around the TARDIS. They do, and the Doctor reads Reinette's last words. She tells him that she loves him, that her condition is worsening, and that she hopes he will hurry back soon. The final words, "Godspeed my lonely angel" do not invoke tears, but the Doctor's pain is clear. Putting it away, he looks upon the fireplace on the TARDIS monitor and deactivates it.
As the TARDIS dematerializes, we see a portrait of Reinette on the wall and an exterior shot of the ship gives us its name: SS Madame de Pompadour. The final shot of the episode is the ship floating through space, now truly a derelict.
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| Again, Moffat writing Rose like a human is odd considering all the rest of her characterization. |
The Girl in the Fireplace is a good episode. Moffat's episodes for the Revived Series tend to be among the most well-remembered and beloved of the early Series (we'll be getting to a big one in Series 3), and this is no exception. This also continues on to themes that Moffat will use during his tenure as showrunner in a few Series' time, some of which was touched upon back in Series 1. I'm not sure if I've gone over it before, but I'm not at all opposed to the Doctor having a sexual or romantic relationship. My problem with it stems from the major problem I have with the Doctor and Rose relationship that Russell T. Davies wanted to push. Namely, I completely understand why Rose falls in love with the Doctor. I cannot say that I at all understand why the Doctor falls in love with Rose.
The Doctor is a being that is so hilariously beyond human understanding that it isn't funny. The Sixth Doctor put it best: "[he is] an alien". Despite the New Series' attempts to make the Time Lords into humans with two hearts, that isn't the Doctor. I'm glad they started to pull away from that more and more as time went on, but it's particularly prevalent in the RTD era. The Doctor needs something to keep him occupied beyond simply the companion being a good person. If that were the case, then the Doctor would have fallen in love with several companions he's had in the 50+ years of the show.
They either have to have something mysterious about them that keeps him interested (such as Clara and River) or be someone who has traveled with him for a very long time and who we've clearly seen him bonding with (such as Jo Grant, Sarah Jane, or Romana). Mind you, I have some reservations about the first case with both Clara and River, but we'll get to that in a few Series' time. As for The Girl in the Fireplace, I sort of see it being the former case with the Doctor's relationship with Reinette. Moffat strikes a bit of a balance and does make it somewhat believable...even if, with the time scale of the episode, it's a bit rushed in my humble opinion.
Even if, as I stated above, he essentially uses this episode as the dry run for elements to be later used with Amy Pond. Admittedly taking it in a different direction with her than he does with Reinette, but the pieces are all there.
From greatness, as with the last time Moffat wrote for the show, we'll be hopping right into a mixed bag. An old foe from the Doctor's past returns in a somewhat unnecessarily roundabout way in Series 2's first two-parter, Mickey starts seeing double, and we get the return of one of my favorite secondary characters.
You can trust me on this!
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