The Girl in the Fireplace

Now, this is the stuff. After the Who-by-numbers of 'New Earth' and the Harry-Potter-meets-Brotherhood-of-the-Wolf mess that was 'Tooth and Claw' I'd resigned myself to a season of mildly diverting disappointments. I'd keep watching, because it's Doctor Who after all, but in hope rather than expectation. Fortunately things picked up with the breezy, touching little confection that was 'School Reunion' (Russell Davies take note: comic doesn't have to mean camp), but I wasn't convinced the upturn was to due to much more than the Sarah Jane/K9 effect.

Steven Moffat's 'The Girl in the Fireplace', however, hit all the right buttons: a bit of historical, a bit of horror, a whole lot of dodgy science and some strong relationship drama. There was some of the best surreal foolery since the Troughton era -- although in fact, with its trans-dimensional incursions, cosmic misunderstandings and creepy masked clock-machines it reminded me most strongly of Grant Morrison's 'Doom Patrol' comics (I wonder if Moffat is a fan?). There was also a strong flavour of Terry Gilliam's 'Time Bandits', which was hardly worlds away from Who-land anyway.

Some reviewers are yearning for a full-blown historical of the sort not seen since the 1960s, but I think this is as close as we're going to get, especially in the single-episode format. What we did see were two worlds beautifully realized -- one sumptuously, the other with just the right degree of suggestion -- with the clockwork robots a clever link between the two visual styles. While 'School Reunion' coped with the running-time restriction by beginning slickly in media res, 'The Girl in the Fireplace' seemed designed for the format as no other episode yet has, the brief duration pointing up the contrast between the Doctor's time-flitting and the 'slower path' Madame de Pompadour is forced to take. And where last week Toby Whithouse had the Doctor tell Rose, "You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can't spend the rest of mine with you", Moffat shows us the same thing, which is always dramatically more satisfying. This seems to be becoming a theme of Season 2, which makes one wonder even more about Rose's eventual fate. Another advantage of the 45-minute running time here was that the groan-making punchline of the tale was still entertaining -- imagine how annoyed you'd have been if it had come at the end of a six-episode shaggy dog story!

The only serious running-time issue was the reveal of the crew members' fates, which ought to have been a slow leak rather than a splurge. I'm sure many other viewers would have liked this side of the story developed further, but maybe it would have been too reminiscent of the nanobot scenario from 'The Doctor Dances' (brilliant yet dumb -- or should that be 'thick'?! --technology gets hold of the wrong end of the stick, with disastrous consequences).

Not everything was perfect. The 'magic door' line was good, but there was some decidedly iffy explanation. I'm fairly sure the fireplace shouldn't have worked after the other time windows were destroyed, and I've no idea why the repair droids were clockwork, other than that it looked nifty. I have a feeling that would have been explained in a longer story (perhaps they had to be made of categorically different technology so they wouldn't dismantle each other or themselves for repairs -- but then they used the humans, so maybe that doesn't make sense either).

Otherwise, the story was fairly satisfying and different enough from the usual 'meet monster -- talk hind leg off monster -- defeat monster' set-up, although I don't want to see another girly chat between Rose and Potential Rival Female for a while. The chemistry between Tennant and Miles was unsurprisingly good, and the contrast between their tender scenes alone and the rest of the story was a nice parallel with the alternating locations. This Doctor's personality and M de P's 'lonely little boy' insights seem to be leading towards a diagnosis of classic only child syndrome -- brilliant, sociable, self-motivated, yet simultaneously flighty, introspective, struggling with close relationships. I wonder how many Who fans are only children too?!

I watched 'The Girl in the Fireplace' with pleasure and relief. It was good to look at, funny, moving and above all, bonkers without being silly. Now I can relax a little, knowing that the series isn't doomed, and look forward to the return of my favourite monsters. I just hope this isn't simply 'Genesis of the Cyberman', as the trailer strongly suggested…