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…

Not youВ’re every day girl in the fireplace but for what I thought would be a minor episode the latter half was a time bomb of an epic with some great twists and a heartbreaking endВ….

The Doctor really did come into his own and for a romance (thank goodness BBC one advertised that bit in advance) for its not usually Doctor Who territory and something that season one could not even in a million light years have thought of doing.

However the right setting, a woman who was every bit the doctor type and the plain fact the now crew of three В– are definitely a crowd it was actually a very relevant episode and gave David Tennant the chance to prove his worth and more.

His acting was breathtaking and his character was absolutely tortured by the end of this В– I think itВ’s the first time right at the end where the enthusiasm and confidence that makes the doctor who he is was no longer there in any form and boy did it show.

Ok back to the point it broke even with last weeks В‘School ReunionВ’ and undeniably he loved both Sarah Jane and Reinette with the plain simple fact that the latter was able to get inside his mind literally - something that scared him as much as it drew him in even more.

Plus and added to that he was completely head over heels by the opening five minutes of this episode and blimey who would not have wanted to be Sophie it was one heck of a snog! By both parties and that she came onto him В– the poor man had no chance and that he was already way to emotionally involved from the first moment he seen her as an adult.

Anyway leaving the romance aside for a moment the plot was complex and from my point reminded me a little of Quantum leap minus any leaping! However it was clever well thought out and every part of what makes Doctor Who tick came into play.

Stunning costumes, great wizardry enough myth and space like factors set against a historical backdrop with a romance included and that all were played out beautifully it did indeed in everyway raise the game by at least another two notches.

However it was what it addressed more than anything out with the fact that David Tennant literally stole the show and weВ’re not even half way through the season yet that made this episode so unique and different.

It took a whole load of new concepts and ran with them and that the 10th doctor has indeed got a very vulnerable soul, one we glimpsed at last week and one that we seen again in a different light this week and though he is the В‘TimeLordВ’ he like everyone else makes mistakes. One that he paid for dearly and though he quickly dropped Rose he was absolutely smitten but I did note and though itВ’s not as obvious as it was with Christopher Ecc. David TennantВ’s - Doctor Who needs Rose just as much, if not more and that he keeps her at arms length possibly for her own protectionВ…

Anyway IВ’m again of subject. We get to see our doctor in whole new way and every range and power of emotion is shown here and from the earlier episodes, I had the feeling they would sooner or later show this 10th doctorВ’s weak point.

One that he fell right into and made me wish again for both the earlier scenes of the kiss and where he was over the top drunk В– plus the famous words from a musical stuck in there and though it was a doggy scene it could have been a thousand times worse had it not been in David TennantВ’s hands.

However it was the last twenty minutes that powered this episode В– a doctor discovering the error to late - that time is not always on his side, which was played of against that epic horse and mirror scene where he was in his element and absolutely all inspiring.

Then the silenced and alone doctor at the end and the further question to the whole Doctor/Rose fate it maybe lacked a little and the ending was disjointed but never the less a stranded doctor who was overjoyed to find a way back to Rose and Mickey did in a way answer something and that in one way or other we are on the tip of a very big iceberg!

One that is going to get even more interesting in the weeks to follow and the only further thing I can add is that the attention to detail, the powerhouse of a story and the raw emotion of the doctor left this in a league of its own. No other show could do it better or in such a way and we cannot but help feel for him in the endВ…

Real nice and leaves me asking what on earth is to come next putting the doctor through more pain?

As a big 'Doctor Who' fan from way back when, perhaps I should be one of those fans who will apparently be up in arms about this story, the one where the Doctor falls in love. At least a couple of vaguely patronising remarks made in '...Confidential' suggested as much!

Well, for these 45 minutes, I was entranced and delighted. This was a beautifully acted and directed story, with a number of stunning moments, and the programme continues to put most other television to shame. Steven Moffat, writer of my favourite story from last year, turned in another cracking script, even though there was one aspect I wasn't sure about (more later)...and no, it wasn't the snog.

So many images resonate...the Doctor becoming a young girls 'imaginary' friend via a fireplace;the monster under the bed; the snowy view of Paris at night; the clockwork android's grinning mask (brrrrr) ; a horse (aka Arthur, another nod to Mr Dent perhaps) on a spaceship;the enchanted Doctor hiding behind a wall in the palace gardens; his dramatic entry into the ballroom, a Knight in Crumpled Suit...

David Tennant was quite brilliant...again. Utterly convincing as a lovestruck Doctor, aided no end by Sophia Myles excellent performance as Reinette. And I'm sure there is no danger of the Doctor coming over all Kirk-like anytime soon!! (loved ST's 'City on the Edge of Forever', but after that things got a little crass! Kirk's in love again...she wont survive to the end credits then.)

Rose and Mickey were necessarily rather sidelined, but the actors made good use of their moments. Noel Clarke was great again; I especially liked his reaction to the infinity of space...."It's so realistic!" (well played, The Mill, then.Heh.)

There were some nice Rose/Reinette scenes and I'm a sucker for any scene where Billie sheds a tear...I'm such a softie. A few less Rose-centric episodes are necessary as it is still reasonably early days for the tenth Doctor and I'm sure someone as cool and intelligent as Billie realises this.

The dialogue was, unsurprisingly, very good. Examples I particularly liked; Young Reinette (another nice performance) asks "What do Monsters have nightmares about?" "Me!!" the Doctor replies; "Flesh plus heat....barbecue." ; the android pointing out to Reinette "We do not require your feet." (loved that line!) The Doctors fake drunk and very 'Blackadder-esque' "...thickety thick" tirade...

After all this praise (no, another bit; Euros Lyn, you are *brilliant*) I come to the part I wasn't sure about.

Late in the episode, we see a melancholy Doctor, lost in time, stuck in the 18th Century. But he can still smile. (Well, he *is* at least in a palace with an intelligent beauty he has fallen for...) He toasts Reinette and says, "Here's to the slow path."

And what about Rose and Mickey? At this point, they are stuck in the 51st century on a creepy spaceship. The Tardis is there, a machine that can take them anywhere in time and space...shame they can't fly it, then. Now, this might be a quite deliberate attempt to show how dangerous travelling with the Doctor can be, but without Reinette's depth and intelligence, the Doctor wasn't coming back. Ever. Jackie Tyler's worst nightmare realised; Rose stranded and never ever coming home. This scenario contrasts quite dramatically with the *beautiful* scene in 'Parting of the Ways' where the 9th Doctor sends Rose home, losing (he thinks) both her and the Tardis forever. It is only Roses incredible loyalty and bravery that turns things around in that episode. There doesn't appear to be such a contingency plan here.

When, thanks to Reinette, the Doctor does return, he asks how long they waited for him. *Why?* Unless I missed something here (not impossible, I happily admit!) Rose and Mickey weren't going *anywhere*!

So that part didn't really add up for me. 'School Reunion' presented us with the intriguing idea that the Doctor must always move on as he cannot bear to see those he cares about "wither and then die." I can only guess that due to a lack of options, or maybe true love, he is prepared to go through this pain for Reinette? Hmmm...unlucky, Rose and Mickey, then? Very Unlucky. (Pause. Considers their future on that ship if the Doctor could never return. Brrrrrr.) As 'Parting...' was only really a few episodes ago, I'm really not sure about all this.

Rhetorical question; Am I taking this too seriously?!

Nah, but this really stood out for me on second viewing. *However*, the bottom line here is that I thought this episode was a superb piece of television, beautifully done, and I can't give it less than another 9 out of 10. I also suspect that the main viewers that were cringing at the supposedly inflammatory 'snogging' scene were the (intelligent! Great taste!) young fans of the show. ("Yeuch. Gross. The Doctor's snogging!!") Have seen a couple of 'Totally...' episodes, and the cool kids who are so knowlegeable about and love the show make me feel quite proud. *Old*...but proud!)

Next time...some silvery monster things, apparently. Could be interesting...

Fireplace, fireplace, fireplace.

ItВ’s the one word echoing in my head after watching В– for the first time В– the first four episodes of Series Two. So why is my head not also chanting В“Cassandra, werewolf, KrillitanesВ”? Possibly because Steven MoffatВ’s new episode is the best IВ’ve seen sinceВ… well, since The Doctor Dances, his previous effort, last year. It might even surpass it. LetВ’s have a look at why.

1. A wonderful mood-setting opening sequence. Sophia Myles is already impressive. And why is she crying into a fireplace? I love a good mystery at the opening of a story.

2. The Doctor-Rose-Mickey TARDIS partnership works incredibly well. Better than I imagined, actually. Mickey Smith, meet the Universe. See anything you like? His excitement at the В“realisticВ” galaxy is even more special to me than RoseВ’s В“culture shockВ” in her first couple of episodes.

3. The DoctorВ’s visits to ReinetteВ’s bedroom. Anyone else whoВ’s read The Time TravelerВ’s Wife will know exactly what IВ’m talking about here. A man visiting a woman from her childhood to her adulthood? The perfect fusion of romance and science-fantasy.

4. The design of the service robots. With the masks and without them. Beautifully stitched costumes, and underneath, intricate clockwork minds. They deserve an award. Or several.

5. The human eye and heart wired into the ship. Disgusting, yes, but a unique concept. And still thereВ’s that mystery В– why are they there?

6. Arthur. For some reason, that horse looks gorgeous under that greenish lighting. And the Doctor somehow has chemistry with it. Weird.

7. The concept of the В“time windowsВ”. This is just so cool, and so in tune with the kind of science fiction that I love, I just canВ’t express it enough.

8. The Madame falling in love with the Doctor. And, yes, vice versa. ItВ’s about time. And this is real, too. We know itВ’ll be brief, but to me, it just feels right.

9. В“And soВ’s your dad.В” Nuff said. Oh, and В“No, youВ’re not keepinВ’ the horse!В”

10. ReinetteВ’s В“weary travellerВ” speech. Sophia Myles is just amazing, isnВ’t she? This speech brought tears to my eyes.

11. Breaking the mirror. Yee-haa! Who didnВ’t let out a cheer when Arthur burst through?

12. The idea that the Doctor is stuck in France. I love the repeated references to В“the slow pathВ”.

13. В“Pick a star, any star.В” The Doctor loves her, through and through. But the tragedy is waiting for him, and although I could see it coming, I wasnВ’t prepared for the sheer emotion of the situation. Louis loved the Madame, too. But he wasnВ’t loved back. You can see it in his eyes. The poor man. The lonely king and the lonely god, and she only loved one of them.

14. The punchline. This story was so well thought-out, and the final shot combines a brilliant joke with an В“Oh! So thatВ’s what it all means!В” moment. Neil Gaiman was right В– Steven Moffat deserves another Hugo nomination for this marvellous piece of television.