The Girl in the Fireplace

Russell Davies continues his quest to make his viewers blub with every episode, and succeeds royally with The Girl In The Fireplace.

School Reunion was an excellent character episode draped over a fairly cursory and not particularly original plot. This episode, by contrast, hit the mark on both counts, and presented an absorbing story as well as great character work. Even the pacing glitches, which have effected all the New Doctor Who stories so far, with the possible exception of FatherВ’s Day, were finally ironed out, with the story fitting comfortably into the 45 minute timeframe.

And weВ’re also back to vintage Doctor Who in many ways В– weВ’re on board a spaceship (at last! Hurrah!), thereВ’s proper body-horror (the barbecue smell is especially effective, and pretty hardcore for 7pm on a Saturday tea time) and a healthy dollop of unselfconscious surrealismВ… perhaps the best Who surrealism since Enlightenment, maybe even The Mind Robber. I remember vividly the strange dreams that followed the Enlightenment cliffhanger when it was on originally, and I have no doubt that there will be swathes of youngsters, and adults too, with some heady dreams of their own tonight.

I wouldnВ’t like to say this was the best ever Doctor Who story В– though I was certainly thinking it from about five minutes in В– but it has to be up there. The clockwork robots were brilliantly realised, especially in the bedroom scene towards the start, and wonderfully scary. The Narnia-esque time portals worked well too, a rare use of time as a plot point in a programme apparently about time travel (off the top of my head, the last one was Mawdryn Undead).

Mickey worked well, injecting the common touch into proceedings (Rose was oddly subdued today), and David Tennant gave his best performance yet, playing the mania and tragedy with much more subtlety than Chris Eccleston. His portrayal of a devastated and heartbroken Doctor putting on a brave face at the end was spot on.

And Sophie Myles was great too. The pair have a real chemistry В– one should hope so В– and she really brought this historical character to life. That she was ultimately stood up by the Doctor carried with it real tragedy В– didnВ’t it seem too good to be true that she would get a spin in the TARDIS? В– and I like the suggestion that her health declined as a result of that: he saved her life and killed her at the same moment. Though, couldnВ’t he just fly back in the TARDIS and pick her up himself, being a bona fide time traveler and all? I was hoping for a last minute reprieve in the manner of Captain Jack in The Doctor Dances. And I know who IВ’d rather have around the TARDIS.