Doctor Who - The Girl in the Fireplace

[mrph]

That was odd. I liked it, I think - pretty costumes, clockwork, an interesting story structure. And some character moments. Not quite so fond of the final twist, but there you go...

Be warned:Comments on this post may contain spoilers

Comments

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

I thought it was a real return to form for the second series. Tooth and Claw was good because it was Victorian horror, School Reunion was good because of the cameos, but the Christmas Special and New Earth were frankly mundane. Whereas Girl In The Fireplace was a solid bit of sci-fi in it's own right.

I particularly liked the way they actually used the consequences of time travel as the basis for the plot. I felt for the first time since McGann that we were actually seeing some science fiction, ie. fiction based on the repercussions of scientific advances. It really drummed home one of the main messages that the show is concentrating on this season; that the Doctor, as an ageless Timelord, not only sees his best friends grow old and die, but that by combining his agelessness with time travel, these awfully stressful personal events can happen in the space of a weekend.

The lass who played Mme Pompadour was a bit wooden, which came as somewhat as a surprise to me, as A. according to the normally reliable SFX, she was apparently the only good thing in Thunderbirds The Movie (this may speak volumes for the awfulness of Thunderbirds The Movie, mind) and B. she's apparently Tennant's new IRL girlfriend and I'd have thought he'd have better taste. To be honest she struck me as "We can't afford Kate Winslet, so who's posh, cheap and fills a corset?". They could and should have picked someone better.

The ending was excellent. The Doctor didn't know everything; he couldn't answer the question as to "why Mme Pompadour?" but there was an answer. All too often, the revived series has taken the First Doctor's (Hartnell's) annoying habit of speaking the plot to speed things along, fill vaccuous backstory or overcome lack of budget. The Doctor doesn't know everything and we should see more of these little conundrums and less of the huge leaps of logic that we've seen in the last two series. Tom Baker, Davidson and McCoy's Doctors were particularly good at asking questions to point the audience in the right direction (Troughton too, from the little remains that I've seen), whereas Colin Baker, Hartnell, Pertwee and Eccleston were guilty of blurting out all kinds of key plot points which really should have been left to the audience to figure out for themselves.

[mrbear.livejournal.com]

As I understand it the young lady playing Mme Pompadour is David Tennant's girlfriend.