Series 2 (2006)
Episode title: The Girl in the FireplaceFeaturing: Tenth Doctor
Companions: Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith
First shown: 6th May 2006
Related articles: Clockwork Men
Guide: The TARDIS lands on a fully functional derelict spaceship, though motionless and crewless, though what baffles the Doctor, Rose and Mickey most is the 18th Century French fireplace located on the ship. The Doctor looks through it to find a little girl looking back at him. He asks who she is, and she replies that she is Reinette, living in Paris in 1727. The Doctor realises that the fireplace is a time window, allowing direct access and travel to another time or place. The Doctor goes through the window and arrives in Reinette’s bedroom, though many months have passed in Reinette’s time as opposed to the seconds for the Doctor. While examining the room, the Doctor finds a ticking humanoid dressed in a jester’s mask and 18th Century clothing. The Doctor tricks the creature to go back through the time window onto the spaceship and remarks to Reinette that monsters fear him, before following the creature onto the spaceship where he, Rose and Mickey discover that it is actually an android made up of intricate clockwork pieces. The Doctor returns to Reinette’s room to find she is now a young woman, though she still remembers him, with her charm and intelligence entrancing the Doctor; they kiss until she runs off when summoned by the name Mademoiselle Poisson and the Doctor realises that she is Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of King Louis XV, a man whom the Doctor admires greatly.
Returning to the space ship, the Doctor, Rose and Mickey discover more time windows at various locations in the ship, each one opening up a different section of Reinette’s life. In one of the windows, the Doctor sees one of the androids menacing her again, so he steps through and defends her. The android answers Reinette’s command to explain itself, to which the android explains that the spaceship was damaged in an ion storm and the maintenance droids did not have enough parts to repair the ship, so they killed the crew to use their body parts to repair the ship, but they’re missing one crucial item to make the ship fully functional again – Reinette’s brain. Seeking more answers as to find out the motivation of the androids, the Doctor reads Reinette’s mind, though is surprised to find that she can also read his as she empathises with his loneliness. Meanwhile, Rose and Mickey are taken captive by the androids on the spaceship and are about to be cut open themselves when the Doctor arrives back to rescue them, who has worked out what the androids are up to. The Doctor explains that the androids are trying to find the time window that opens up to Reinette’s life when she was 37 years old, as the literal-minded androids believe that her brain will then be compatible with the ships 37 year old systems.
The androids attack Reinette at a costume ball, forcing all of the guests into the ballroom. At one end of the ballroom is a large mirror that is acting as one of the time windows, through which the Doctor can see what is going on, but they can’t pass through it without breaking the connection to the ship. As the androids threaten to decapitate Reinette, the Doctor crashes through the time window on horseback, despite believing that he has now stranded himself in Versailles in 1758. The Doctor tells the androids that access to the ship no longer exists, causing them to give up and shut down as they cannot carry out their purpose any more. However, Reinette reveals that she had her fireplace transferred brick by brick to Versailles, in the hope of meeting the Doctor again, through which the Doctor is able to use the time window to return to the ship.
The Doctor tells Reinette to pack a bag and chose a constellation to visit with him, intending to go back, check the ship and go back for her to take her on a trip in the TARDIS. However, when the Doctor returned, he found 6 years had passed, and Reinette had died since he had last visited. King Louis XV gives the Doctor a letter and he returns to the TARDIS, where he reads the letter expressing Reinette’s hopes that he would return quickly, asking him to hurry as her days grow shorter and referring to him in the letter as her “lonely angel” and “my love”. The Doctor returns the letter to his pocket and watched on the TARDIS monitor as the time window goes dark and closes forever, while he, Rose and Mickey discuss why the androids wanted the brain of the Madame de Pompadour when she was 37 years old. The Doctor puts it down to garbled and damaged memory banks, but as the TARDIS dematerialises, it is revealed that the name of the spaceship, now drifting lifeless through space, was the SS Madame de Pompadour.