10.5: The Girl In The Fireplace

In which the Doctor falls in love and Steven Moffat lays out all his big themes.

Broadcast: May 2006

Watched: July 2019

I think this one has more quotable lines than any script so far (yes, I do mean all the way back to 1963). 

• “It’s so realistic!” 

• “No, I’ve checked all the smoking pods.” 

• “No idea. Made it up. Didn’t want to say magic door.” 

• “Mickey, what’s pre revolutionary France doing on a spaceship? Get a little perspective.” 

• “We did not have the parts.” 

• “You’ve had some cowboys in here.” 

• “I let you keep Mickey!” 

• “We do not require your feet.” 

Also, this being Moffat, the jokes are mixed in with some proper heartstrings ones (“Wish me luck!” “No.”)

But it isn’t just the dialogue. The opening, straight into the action, is amazing, and sets up the mystery brilliantly. I love the way the camera pans down the Versaille at the start, then up to the ship after the credits. The design work is wonderful, mixing the historic stuff and the scifi stuff seamlessly. And it’s absolutely packed with ideas – the first love story for the Doctor; the girl who waited; the malfunctioning tech. It does so much in 45 minutes – even more amazing when you consider that the regulars find the right time window with 19 minutes left in the episode. It’s a very long denouement. 

It is *so* Moffat, mucking around with so many of the themes he’ll spend the next decade playing with. It’s a time travel story. The Doctor is the man who fights childhood nightmares (“The monsters and the Doctor. Seems you can’t have one without the other”). Also, the influence of The Time Traveller’s Wife, which came out in 2003, is already clear. The Paperclip Maximizer thought experiment dates from the same year. I suspect Moffat read that, too.

And then it manages a final twist in its very last shot. How many stories can claim that?

Given all of which it feels... strangely uninfluential? It’s amazing, one of the best episodes yet, but it’s not one that comes up very much. Weird.

Buy me a coffee

Other, unconnected thoughts:

• There’s a thematic link with the previous episode. This whole season is about its own end: how the Doctor outlasts his friends and lovers.

• Rose has forgotten she’s meant to be angry that Mickey is there. I think this was a cock up, but it actually works, it makes Rose capricious and moody. I like the way she is very obviously cleverer than he is... although it’s striking that, at the end (“I’m always alright”) he understands what the Doctor needs better than she does.

• Sophia Myles, a friend of a friend, is less bad than I remembered her being. (She had an thing with Charles Dance. Problematic.) Her bravery and dignity in the scene when everyone else is screaming actually manages to sell the idea that Reinette is somehow special. Ben Turner somehow manages to make Louis work, too.

• The only bits that don’t work are the fact there’s an obvious hole where there should be a dance scene, and Tennant’s absolutely terrible drunk acting (in which he’s oddly wearing the same shades he’ll later wear as Crowley in Good Omens). Also, “I’m not winding you up” is a terrible line.

• The choice to set this story in France, a generation before the revolution, is an entirely aesthetic one: it doesn’t affect the plot at all. The temptation for everyone to surrender on the line “We are French!” must have been overwhelming, though.

• I love that Arthur is Chekhov’s horse. Also, that this story gives us the key character note for the 10th Doctor – he’ll sacrifice himself to do the right thing, but you will damn well notice how brave and noble he’s being.

• I only really noticed on this viewing that Reinette is making a sacrifice, too, by allowing the Doctor to go home.

Are the broken mirrors and torn tapestries nicked from Warrior’s Gate? Or are both borrowing from something else?