The Girl in the Fireplace

I recently did two posts (Holiday Armadillo, WKRP) where I went over what to me are the funniest episodes of sitcoms I have ever seen. I originally was going to do the post as half funny, half serious until it grew beyond my control (obviously since it took two posts to cover them all). 

Now on to the serious side, even though I think I have to do them one at a time. These are the episodes that I really wanted to write about at the beginning. The are the ones that have touched me inside and for some reason just resonate with meaning to me. Also notice that they are all sci-fi shows. I don't think most people realize what they are missing when it comes to shows like these.

Doctor Who/The Girl in the Fireplace

When I first got the idea for this post, this is the first episode I though about. Right when I was starting to really get into this show and get used to David Tennant, they hit me with this one.

Are you there? Can you hear me? I need you, now! You promised! The clock on the mantel is broken! It is time! Doctor! Doctor!

The Tardis materializes on a seemingly derelict spaceship drifting in space. The Doctor, Rose, and Mickey explore the ship and are puzzled to find an eighteenth century French fireplace. When he looks through the fireplace, the Doctor sees a young girl and asks who she is. She replies that her name is Reinette and that she lives in Paris in 1727. The Doctor deduces that the fireplace is a time window, a device that allows direct access to another time and place.

The Doctor: Must be a spatio-temporal hyperlink.

Mickey Smith: What's that?

The Doctor: No idea, I just made it up. Didn't want to say "Magic Door"

The Doctor steps through the time window and arrives in Reinette's bedroom only to find that months have passed there. He discovers a ticking humanoid wearing eighteenth century clothing and a jester's mask hiding under Reinette's bed. The Doctor tricks the creature into returning through the time window to the spacecraft, where he and his companions learn that it is actually an intricate clockwork android. The android teleports away, and the Doctor warns Mickey and Rose not to go looking for it. The Doctor returns to Reinette's bedroom while Mickey and Rose arm themselves and go looking for the android. Returning to Reinette's bedroom, the Doctor discovers that she is now a young woman. She flirts with the Doctor and they kiss, but she is forced to leave to answer a summons. The Doctor then realizes that she is Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of King Louis XV.

Back on the ship, the Doctor and his companions find several additional time windows and learn that each leads to a different moment in Madame de Pompadour's life. In one of them, the Doctor sees another clockwork creature menacing her and steps through the window to defend her. The Doctor tells Reinette to give the android orders, and it obeys her. It tells her that it is a repair android and that their spaceship was damaged in an ion storm. The androids did not have the parts necessary to repair the ship and killed the crew to use their organs for parts. The androids need one last part; Reinette's brain. Confused, the Doctor creates a telepathic link with Reinette, but is startled to find that she can also see into his mind. 

The Doctor: [the Doctor is searching through Reinette's memories] Sorry, you might find old memories reawakening, side effect.Reinette Poisson: Oh, such a lonely childhood!
The Doctor: It'll pass.
Reinette Poisson: Oh, Doctor, so lonely, so very very alone!
The Doctor: What do mean, lonely? You've never been alone in your whole life- wait a minute, when did you start calling me Doctor?
Reinette Poisson: Such a lonely little boy. Lonely then and lonelier now! How can you bear it?
The Doctor: [breaking the mental connection] How did you do that?
Reinette Poisson: A door, once opened, may be stepped through in either direction. Oh, Doctor, my lonely Doctor... dance with me.
The Doctor: I can't.
Reinette Poisson: Dance with me.
The Doctor: This is the night you dance with the king.
Reinette Poisson: Then first I shall make him jealous.
The Doctor: I can't.
Reinette Poisson: Doctor. Doctor who? It's more than just a secret, isn't it.
The Doctor: What did you see?
Reinette Poisson: That there comes a time, Timelord, when every lonely little boy must learn how to dance!

The androids capture Rose and Mickey and are about to harvest them for parts when the Doctor rescues them. The Doctor discovers that the androids plan to open a time window to Reinette's life at the age of 37, believing that her brain at that age will be compatible with the ship's systems. Searching for the right window, Rose finds her and warns her of the dangers coming in five years.

Reinette Poisson: There is a vessel in your world where the days of my life are pressed together like the chapters of a book so that he may step from one to the other without increase of age, while I, weary traveler, must always take the slower path.

Rose Tyler: He will be there when you need him. That's the way it gotta be.

Reinette: It is the way that has always been. The monster and the doctor. It seems you cannot have one without the other. You and I both know, don't we Rose? The Doctor is worth the monsters... One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel.

The clockwork androids appear at a costume ball and take Reinette and her guests hostage. At one end of the room is an enormous mirror, which is actually a time window. The Doctor and his companions can see through it, but they cannot enter without smashing the window and breaking the connection.

The androids threaten to decapitate Reinette, but the Doctor on horseback crashes through the mirror to save her. The androids give up and shut down when the Doctor tells them that they now cannot return to their ship to finish the repairs. Reinette tells the Doctor that she had her fireplace moved to Versailles in the hope that he would return. The Doctor finds that the fireplace is still an operating time window and uses it to return to the spaceship. He tells Reinette to pack a bag and prepare to leave. The Doctor returns to the fireplace seconds later but discovers that six years have passed in Reinette's time. King Louis XV finds the Doctor, tells him that Reinette has died and gives him a letter in which Reinette expresses her hopes for the Doctor's quick return and confesses her love for him. 

My Dear Doctor, The path has never seemed more slow and yet I fear I am nearing its end. Reason tells me that you and I are unlikely to meet again, but I think I shall not listen to reason. I have seen the world inside your head and know that all things are possible. Hurry then my love; my days grow shorter now and I am so very weak. Godspeed my lonely angel.

The Doctor returns to the Tardis and watches the time windows close before leaving the ship. The Tardis crew muse about the reasons the androids wanted Madame de Pompadour's brain to complete their repairs, and the Doctor conjectures that the android's memory banks were damaged by the ion storm. 

As the episode ends, when the Tardis fades from view it reveals a portrait of Reinette that had been hidden behind it. Then it shows the lifeless ship drifting through space. As it turns, its name is  revealed  as the SS Madame de Pompadour...

Rose: Are you alright?

Doctor: I'm always alright.