The Girl in the Fireplace (TV story)

The Girl in the Fireplace
Doctor:	[[doctor::Tenth Doctor]]
Companion(s):	Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith
Main enemy:	Clockwork Robots
Main setting:	17th Century, 51st Century
Key crew
Writer:	Steven Moffat
Director:	Euros Lyn
Producer:	Phil Collinson
Release details
Release number:	175
Premiere broadcast:	6th May 2006
Format:	1 45-minute Episode
Production code:	175

Summary

The Doctor, Rose and Mickey arrive on a spaceship in the 51st Century and find that the Clockwork Robots who run the ship are fixated on Madame de Pompadour a girl from the 18th Century and have been opening up temporal windows so they can interact with her. The Doctor travels back to France through the time windows to save her, falling in love during the process.

Cast & Characters

• The Doctor — David Tennant
• Rose Tyler — Billie Piper
• Mickey Smith — Noel Clarke
• Reinette, Madame de Pompadour — Sophia Myles
• King Louis — Ben Turner
• Young Reinette — Jessica Atkins
• Katherine — Angel Coulby
• Manservant — Gareth Wyn Griffiths
• Clockwork man — Paul Casey
• Clockwork woman — Ellen Thomas
• Alien Voice - Jonathan Hart
• Alien Voice - Emily Joyce

Crew

To be added

Notes

• This is Mickeys first real trip in the TARDIS
• In a Production Notes column for Doctor Who Magazine #363 (November 2005), writer Steven Moffat stated that the working titles for the episode were Madame de Pompadour, Every Tick of My Heart and Reinette and the Lonely Angel
• Sophia Myles and David Tennant started dating after working together on this story, according to an interview with Myles on GMTV (25 April 2006). It is rumored she carries a "Doctor Who" doll in her handbag
• Throughout this episode, Mickey wears a T-shirt which has a picture of the Nintendo Entertainment System controller over the caption, "Know Your Roots". This particular T-shirt, a limited edition, could be obtained either by subscribing to the British Nintendo Official Magazine, or by being purchased at selected GameStation outlets. In Doctor Who Magazine #367 Noel Clarke admitted to being a Nintendo fan and to being the owner of a Nintendo DS console. He also comments upon the T-shirt in the commentary which accompanies the episode on the BBC Website
• As seen in the Doctor Who Confidential episode "Script to Screen", the horse was not allowed set foot in the ballroom in the climatic scene. The various elements of the Doctor riding Arthur through the mirror: the horse, the mirror breaking and the reactions of the extras in the ballroom, all had to be filmed at separate times and then composited together

Influences

• Writer Steven Moffat states on Doctor Who Confidential that the clockwork people were inspired by The Turk, a clockwork man who played chess around the same period (and which was later revealed to be a hoax).
• Casanova, with David Tennant in a French ballroom falling in love.
• The Doctor Who Novels Love and War and The Witch Hunters. Love and War is referenced several times (see continuity) while the whole romance with the Doctor changing time zones has a similar feel to the Doctors relationship with Rebecca Nurse
• The Star Trek:Deep Space 9 episode The Visitor in which Ben Sisko reappears at various points in his sons future culminating in Jake's death
• Audrey Niffenegger's novel The Time Traveler's Wife, which describes a romance between a man who randomly jumps in and out of a woman's life at various points along her timeline (including her childhood), while she has to live her life linearly.
• It is possible that the "magic door" is inspired by C. S. Lewis The Chronicles of Narnia
• The plot element involving Arthur bears a resemblance to an incident in the novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, written by former Doctor Who script editor Douglas Adams. In it, a horse ends up in 20th century Cambridge after accidentally wandering into a time machine belonging to Professor Chronotis.

Ratings

The Girl in the Fireplace - 7.4m viewers

Myths

To be added

Location Filming

To be added

Continuity

• This episode probably follows immediately from School Reunion with Mickey saying he got a spaceship on his "first go" as he exits the TARDIS with the Doctor and Rose.
• In Love and War, the Doctor uses a similar method to read the mind of his companion Bernice Summerfield as he does here with Reinette
• The Doctor responds to the question "What do monsters have nightmares about?" with "Me!" The Seventh Doctor said the same thing in Moffat's short story Continuity Errors (from Decalog 3), based on a line in Paul Cornell's Virgin New Adventures novel Love and War.
• While trying to sever the time windows, the Doctor searches his person for "Zeus plugs". Zeus plugs were one of the tools the Fourth Doctor asked Sarah Jane Smith to hand to him while he repaired the TARDIS controls in her farewell scene at the end of The Hand of Fear.
• Clockwork robots and androids also appear in the Eighth Doctor Adventures novel Anachrophobia by Jonathan Morris, the Ninth Doctor Adventures novel The Clockwise Man by Justin Richards, and the Big Finish Productions audio play Time Works by Steve Lyons
• Before they are attacked by the clockwork androids, Rose and Mickey briefly discuss the women with whom the Doctor has had relationships, including Sarah Jane Smith, Madame de Pompadour and Cleopatra, who Mickey claims the Doctor called Cleo.
• The idea of a time traveller drifting in and out of a person's life is also present in Moffat's Bernice Summerfield short story The Least Important Man, published in the Dead Men Diaries anthology. There, Bernice (who is from the 26th century) uses a quantum imager to recreate the life of a 20th century man, who then sees her as a ghostly figure appearing at key moments throughout his life
• Moffat revisits a number of elements from his earlier scripts for the 2005 series, like the theme of well-meaning but mistaken technology featured in The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances. More direct references include the use of "dancing" as a metaphor for sex, the Doctor's apparent obsession with bananas (he claims to have invented the banana daiquiri during the party in 17th century France) and him lamenting the fact that his companions are always wandering off on their own. Other references to the 2005 series include the Doctor describing Reinette as "Fantastic" and Rose recalling the Daleks' name for the Doctor ("The Oncoming Storm", from The Parting of the Ways).

Similar stories

• The Witch Hunters
• The Aztecs

References

To be added

More Info

• Story Synopsis
• Story Transcript
• Story Novelization
• Story Statistics
• Story in the Media

Public Releases

According to Doctor Who Magazine #366, this episode will be released as a "vanilla" DVD along with Tooth and Claw and School Reunion.