Well right from the very beginning of the introduction I was drawn in. After Tooth and Claw I couldnВ’t imagine that you could have a better intro, but this was beautiful - both visually and emotionally. I just loved the way the titles ran straight after this girl was shouting for help from the doctor В– this Girl In The Fireplace.

Also in the intro, you get an immediate understanding of what the theme of the story is going to be about В– that В‘curiosity factorВ’ just set in straight away. And what a theme В– the intensity of the developing relationship between this girl and her В‘imaginary friendВ’ was beautiful. I think that the doctor didnВ’t even notice that it had engulfed her until the moment where he looks into her mindВ… and she looks back В– that moment of pure terror in the DoctorВ’s eyes when she calls him by his В‘nameВ’ and seems to know В‘his secretsВ’. I feel from repeated viewings that this is not the sort of romance that other reviewers have seen. The Doctor seems just more interested in her general welfare up until a point, while Reinette has obviously grown up developing an obsessive love for her В‘imaginary friendВ’ В– the Doctor is oblivious at the beginning to her growing love thinking of himself as just a stranger (how in character)В… but В‘How can you be a stranger when IВ’ve known you all my lifeВ’.

But by the end, you can see that the Doctor has unwittingly fallen into a romance В– he does things without thinking. If heВ’d sat down and thought about it for a moment, heВ’d have realised that riding the horse through the mirror could cause massive problems for him В– being stuck in one place and time (we all know how much he hated that before) and leaving Rose stranded on a spaceship with a group of cannibalistic robots (this would have meant certain death for her and for Mickey). This is the only part of the story that grates on me and it just seems out of character for the Doctor to do such a rash thing, love or no love. And what about Rose?

The Doctor seems to have moved on here and taken Rose for granted to an extent В– a bit like most men do after a few years of marriage. In a manner typical to many women (sorry to all those ladies out there!) Rose doesnВ’t notice that something has developed between them, reserving jealousy for more obvious things such as В‘the exВ’ (SJS). To me this was very believable as sheВ’s not involved at all and the whole thing happens in an hour or so for her - the only clue she gets is quite late in the day В– В‘We both know the DoctorВ’s worth itВ’.

The ending was perfect and I am so grateful that the fast pacedness was reserved for the beginning of the story and enough time was left for this beautiful ending. When Louis proclaims that В‘You just missed her В– she just left for ParisВ’, I remember speaking aloud В‘Oh my God, itВ’s a hearseВ’ just before he proclaimed that she died too young. Very very sad as it just wasnВ’t expected.

Oh no, I forgot about the plot! In common with The Empty Child, this was very cleverly written. This wasnВ’t some megalomaniac alien or monster trying to take over the universe for once (those storylines start to grate on me) В– it was all just a mistake. One day long before the story began the programmer of these humble and stupid repair druids forgot to tell them that the crew were out of bounds in their eternal quest for more parts. The fact that these robots were so simplistic and stupid was a breath of fresh air in Doctor Who. They were programmed just to salvage parts to keep the ship working and had used all the resources that were available to them В– making them very dangerous В– even to the extent of crossing 3000 years to fetch the В‘control circuitВ’. Classic logic В– no more parts; therefore salvage parts including from the crew; the crew have proven a very valuable source of parts; control circuit of SS Madame de Pompadour gone; therefore need to find similar replacement; human brain would do but only compatible one В– brain of 37 year old Mdme de Pompadour! The revelation at the end was just perfect В– I found myself screaming (as did Rose) В‘WHY, WHY, WHYВ’, only to have it explained perfectly without a word said.

I am just amazed that Stephen Moffat managed to tell such a complex and beautiful story in just 45 minutes. I am finding more and more with this season that the 45 minute limit is a bit of a disappointment as it just goes too quickly and doesnВ’t given much time for development of the story or characters. Having said this though, the writers have worked amazingly well within this constraint.

One of my first choice episodes to show if I wanted to introduce a friend to DW.

This was a very strange story В– in many ways not like Doctor Who at all. Of course, that has been true of practically every single story since Russell T Davies showed up and the show resurfaced, but here it manifests in a very different way. This, to an extent, is what Doctor Who has always been really В– but has never actually been before.

Major reasons for it not feeling like Doctor Who include; no actual plot, just some strange stuff that happened. No obvious reasons for much of the stuff that happened to have happened anyway. The DoctorВ’s characterisation, including his very own love story; very different from what has gone before. Rose and Mickey practically disappearing from the action. The more obviously magical feel.

To be honest, I liked it a lot. Although it felt so radically different, thematically В‘The Girl in the FireplaceВ’ was a strong and explicit continuation of the ideas explored in previous episodes, specifically В‘School ReunionВ’ and MoffatВ’s earlier В‘The Empty Child/Doctor DancesВ’. We have the return of the same metaphor from TEC/TDD about the Doctor В‘dancingВ’, the 51st century and implacable, mindless machine enemies wreaking havoc simply because their programming causes them to respond inappropriately to the setting in which they find themselves, and several hoary old chestnuts В– В“Doctor Who?В”, and the Doctor being the entity monsters have nightmares about, most obviously!! We have Russell U DaviesВ’ В“lonely GodВ” morphing into ReinetteВ’s В“lonely angelВ”, and an extensive exploration of the loneliness of the Doctor. In a very real sense, В‘The Girl in the FireplaceВ’ is nothing more than a speeded-up version of the same agonising process that caused the Doc so much grief last episode.

The problems with the tale В– although they neednВ’t be problems, it depends how you look at it В– lie in the lack of explicit explanations. Just what was the horse doing there? Why are 51st century robots clockwork? How come the fireplace works when according to the Doctor, it shouldnВ’t? Why Madame de Pompadour, exactly? I seem to recall that, just possibly, the DoctorВ’s scene watching Reinette from hiding (influenced by В‘The Also PeopleВ’?), took place once he followed the time window the horse might have come from to a place that might have been near a stable В– which hints at an explanation. The robots being clockwork is just silly and the fireplace a В‘deus ex machinaВ’, but the ship is called В‘Madame de PompadourВ’, which does, admittedly, seem like a half-explanation, although when you look at it more closely you find that itВ’s actually nothing of the kind. The characters themselves remark several times on how ridiculous it all is! Even that doesnВ’t excuse it, it just makes it more self-aware.

No matter why the horse is there, we all know heВ’s really there because Stephen Moffat wants the Doctor to crash through a sheet of glass on a beautiful white charger to rescue his fair damsel at the storyВ’s climax, which is fair enough. ItВ’s a cool thing for the Doctor to do, and it seems to be a feature of Moffat scripts to have the Doctor end the story in self-indulgently heroic ways В– the wonderful ending to В‘The Doctor DancesВ’ was evidence of the same thing. But it has less effect here because TEC/TDD was so intricately and brilliantly plotted В– you knew the reason for everything. Here you donВ’t and the story suffers slightly. Still, the production values В– and David Tennant, again (well, mostly) В– are great.

Now, on to that dancing. Several people seem to have raised the issue of В‘old schoolВ’ fans having embolisms over the DoctorВ’s romance. Personally, I think thatВ’s mostly all in their minds В– itВ’s quite trendy at the moment for the Doc to be a lovelorn romantic hero, and very easy to score points off people who prefer it how it was, and for the В“cool dudesВ” such as Russell V Davies that seems to aid in the creation of blind spots with respect to what the В‘old guardВ’ actually do think. Myself, I didnВ’t mind it; I donВ’t know anyone who did.

WhatВ’s interesting is that everybody seems to relate it, to a greater or lesser extent, to the sexuality of the people watching. Doctor-Rose/Sarah/Reinette shippers point out that many old-style fans donВ’t to get the girl in their own lives, and they therefore dislike it when that element of the DoctorВ’s character is showcased; Russell W Davies, by contrast, boasts frequently of his prowess and seems to pour scorn on those who think that the Doctor could be a non-sexual being (despite all the evidence of the actual TV show being on their side).

WeВ’ve seen the same thing in Billie and ChrisВ’ much-vaunted В“chemistryВ” В– really a euphemism for the fact that we were constantly expecting him to take her roughly on top of the console; and in Russell X DaviesВ’ celebrated В“social realismВ” В– most obviously nymphomaniac Jackie TylerВ’s breathless attempt to seduce the Doctor a few minutes into В‘RoseВ’. Then of course there were the various hints last week that Sarah Jane Smith was left for thirty years В“yearning hopelessly for Time Lord cockВ” (and thank you very much indeed Mr Paul Clarke for that wonderful way of putting it!), which was totally stupid, although mercifully it didnВ’t affect the quality of the story very much.

I enjoyed the romantic strand to this tragic tale simply because, unlike in Russell Y DaviesВ’ promiscuity-dripping tales, Moffat handled it well В– it was, after all, the whole point of the story! And the text wasnВ’t even explicit on the matter of the Doctor and ReinetteВ’s В‘dancingВ’; we can imagine their torrid all-night session if we want to, but the issue isnВ’t forced. There are opportunities in the script; but you can fill in the blanks yourself. We need that leeway.

With regard to the whole dancing issue, I would say just this: the Doctor works better when the sexual element is removed. He really does work better as an asexual alien being rather than a cosmic stud riding around the galaxy bonking furiously. That way the extra element of mystery and В‘other-nessВ’ which has made him so fascinating since Serial A is preserved. ThatВ’s just the way it is. So you can call me a whinging fanboy who canВ’t get any pussy if you like, Mr Russell Z Davies, but it wonВ’t change the fact that IВ’ll still be right and youВ’ll still be wrong.

(Readers who look back over my reviews may notice that my original vehement loathing for RussellВ’s crass and horny version of Dr Who has turned into a more contemptuously sarcastic mockery В– I prefer it this way).

The Girl in the Fireplace. What can I say? Well having been a keen Who fan since the Pertwee era as a four year old, I have witnessed many episodes which have excelled in excellent writing and direction from all incarnations of the Doctor (or should I call him В‘Lonely AngelВ’?), and others that have beenВ…wellВ…crap reallyВ…..

IВ’m afraid in my opinion The Girl in the Fireplace falls into the latter В– well not total crap but teetering on the edge story-wise. It promises so much but just seems to ambitious for the time it has been allotted to resolve the loose ends it leaves dragging behind it come the end titles.

ThereВ’s a few niggling points that even after numerous viewings, still stick in the throat. For instance how can a girl who sees a man in her fireplace at the age of seven then suddenly see him again in her early twenties, just throw him against the wall and snog the face of him? Now IВ’m not one of those fans that thinks the good Doctor should have the sexuality of a cactus (heВ’s a grandfather for goodness sake! HeВ’s obviously В‘dancedВ’ on more than one occasion over the centuries!), but this story just doesnВ’t give the chemistry enough time to develop. If a story ever needed a longer timeslot or a two-parter, itВ’s this one. If the Doctor had been visiting her throughout her early life until young adulthood continuously, the whole attraction between them would have seemed much more natural and touching come the storyВ’s resolve. In fact such a major development as the Doctor falling in love required this storyВ’s extension being absolutely essential.

They always say love is blind, but another niggler is that the Doc just jumps through the mirror and leaves his two companions stranded without so much as a goodbye. It was obvious in the story that he knew there was no way back! Having his character lacking forethought like this just feels wrong. If I were Rose and Mickey IВ’d ask him to leave me straight back home to the nearest council estate! Or maybe I just have abandonment issues?

Aside from this, the production of the show was up to the BBCВ’s usual high standard, the scenery and costumes were stunning, and the music though a little intrusive was beautiful. Another minor quibble being Sophia MylesВ’ makeup! Gorgeous as she is, she looked way too contemporary for one of those plain, powdered ladies from Pre-Revolutionary France! She would have the makings of a great companion thoughВ…

Now I know this has been mentioned before but I have to support this train of thought. I think Tennant is not up to the job as the DoctorВ….. I know itВ’s really early days and I hope as time goes on he will develop, but he just lacks that edge and depth that his predecessor had. All the actors who have portrayed Who have had their faults but somehow the darkness and gravitas was always present, earthing his character. Tennant seems to act as if heВ’s channelling Kenneth Williams half the time, his turns at winks and whines irritate more and delight, and his В‘crazyВ’ turn at being drunk in this episode was a major feux pas. I really want to like him rather than throttle him though - there are glimmers. Fingers crossedВ…

Side-by-side 18th-C Versailles & 50th-C derelict spaceship, slow time & fast time -- 'The Girl in the Fireplace' encapsulated 'Doctor Who'. I wholeheartedly enjoyed this one, despite plot holes one could (cough) ride a horse through. For once, I thought the compression of the 45-minute format worked in the story's favour, imparting a fleeting air to the meetings between Reinette & the Doctor. I wasn't, however, 100% convinced by the romance, not helped by a rather wooden performance by Sophia Myles as Madame de Pompadour (sadly outshone by the unknown kid who played the young Reinette) -- it felt to have more to do with a determination to squash fandom's Rose/Doctor OTPness than any real connection between the characters. (And the mind-reading -- did they make that up, or was I missing something about previous Doctors?) I did enjoy the playing with the audience's expectations when Reinette led him into the bedroom after all those dancing references. Oh, and nice tip to Potter with the fireplace communications!

The monsters were both creepy and beautiful, feeling very much in the Old 'Who' spirit, and the Doctor's wonder was much better written than in 'Tooth and Claw'. The line with monsters having nightmares about the Doctor was very cute, and the monster-under-the-bed moment really made me jump; it was perhaps a shame that the horror had to be sidelined to play up the romance.

This, for me, was the episode where Tennant became Ten. I suspect Steven Moffat just writes the Doctor better than RTD, though Tennant's calmed down a few of his more annoying mannerisms. Neither Rose nor Mickey got a lot to do (though Mickey's developing into a great comic chorus), but I for one was entirely happy with an episode that focused squarely on the Doctor.

Not perfect, but my favourite of this season so far.

I thought this was a gorgeous piece of televisual conjuring, some science = magic sleight of hand with a cinematic visual dexterity that has been missing from television, particularly British television, for many years.

Let us draw around the hearth and tell tales of magic, mystery and imagination, for The Girl In The Fireplace is an extraordinary piece of Doctor Who and by association it's an equally extraordinary piece of 21st Century television.

It is perhaps best approached as a symbolic allegory that illustrates one of the major themes of the previous episode, 'School Reunion'. It is a further meditation on that vexed question; can the Doctor be capable of loving a human being despite the fact that he is almost immortal? The Girl In The Fireplace seeks to answer that question, raises many more and emphatically provides the evidence as to why he is the Lonely Angel.

For me, it is a narrative that is focusing deliberately on the two leads, Madame de Pompadour and the Doctor.

Mickey and Rose are peripheral to the central conceit but they do have a function as brief commentators on the events taking place. Rose is again presented with a version of herself in Pompadour and sees how the Doctor can very easily leave one companion and then pick up the next and it's even more complicated for her when it would appear the Lonely Angel wants more than just companionship. He seems prepared to abandon them both to save Pompadour. Mickey is sensitive, perhaps more so than Rose, to the heartbreaking end of the relationship and knows that the Doctor must grieve alone.

The visuals of the episode are steeped, at a symbolic level, with cycles, circular logic, changing of the seasons, mechanisms and keys. The spaceship design is like a key and it's a key into this woman's passing life. The colour palette, as flagged up by Confidential, takes us through Spring, via Summer and Autumn, to Winter. From birth to death on the human scale but presented to us in fragments seen through the time windows and the mirror.

Euros Lyn's direction, which here is very similar to Peter Greenaway in it's composition of pictures and editing structure, is also redolent of this symbolism. The camera circles and dips around the protagonists and the editing cleverly allows this to carry from scene to scene, particularly towards the end as the cycle of the narrative winds down.

Many have felt that the clockwork creatures were a rather weak threat. In essence they are not typical Who adversaries but rather yet another example of Moffat's themes of technology gone wrong. Anyone thinking that they should have gone on an orgy of destruction is, I think, missing the point. The machines, scrambled by the ship's computer, pursue their logic via the head/shoulders portrait on the wall and name of the vessel. To the bitter end.

The references to 'winding up' and keys, clockwork mechanisms are surely symbols representing the winding up/down, the playing out of a life and the end of a particular circle of logical thinking. It is about the counterpointing of a very human life (Pompadour's) with the almost immortal Doctor. And the Doctor lives so long his greatest fear is to see human lives wind down and wither. He obviously takes a chance with Pompadour, faces his fear, believing this is a way to thwart the inevitable, but suffers the consequences of the broken mechanisms of time and is literally, the spanner in the (clock)works. When he is taken away by the fireplace in the final scenes there is an exchange of looks between Pompadour and the Doctor that sums all of this up.

There is certainly much to be read, not only in the visual splendour of Versailles contrasted with the derelict and broken spaceship but also, in the way that these interchange and inform Pompadour of the Doctor's world. The Doctor, from this point of view, exists in a dysfunctional, dark world and as soon as the he enters her world, cycles and mechanisms become disrupted, wind down and ultimately stop. Again, the proverbial spanner.

For me there is also much revealed about the nature of the Doctor. His callous actions that seemingly strand Rose and Mickey 3000 years in the future and his obvious need to try and construct an emotional life with Pompadour despite the inevitability of it's failure. The Doctor putting the fire out at the end is hugely symbolic of an emotional life extinguished and perhaps never to be rekindled? It is perhaps too painful for him to want to try again.

There are lots of iconic images: the conversations via the fireplace, the horse crashing through the mirror which again show the programme wearing its influences on its sleeve. I would particularly recommend Cocteau's 'Beauty And The Beast' to witness similar visual bravura and heartbreaking emotion. Plus a few nods to Russell T. Davies' 'Casanova' too.

Finally, apart from the magical images and the absolutely gorgeous music from Murray Gold, the leads acquit themselves very well. I still think Tennant is finding his feet and there were moments where I felt he needs to calm down a little but this is certainly his best episode to date and with time he will mature further.

A stunning episode, rich in symbolism and revealing much about the Doctor and also providing fresh mystery, that absolutely deserves a place in the continuing story of Doctor Who.

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…