The Girl in the Fireplace

[purplecat]

The Girl in the Fireplace continues to be an excellent piece of Doctor Who. I dither between thinking that it is a great self-contained short story and thinking that it needs the dynamics of Rose, Mickey and the Doctor to make it work. On the surface Rose and Mickey are somewhat extraneous, but the way Mickey has upset the Doctor/Rose dynamic is, probably, quite important to the way the Doctor switches his attention to Reinette. It is also interesting that it is Mickey who is the more sympathetic and understanding at the end.

NLSS Child thought it was funny and particularly liked the horse, but she had to have the punchline explained to her. She also had to have french royal mistresses explained to her and seemed very dubious about the whole thing. I think she rather disapproved of Madame de Pompadour.

If I had a quibble with this I would say that, on third viewing, the way Madame de Pompadour is constructed as the Doctor's ideal partner/companion stretches things a little. The way she can keep up with his explanations and turn his telepathy back in on him make appear a little too perfect. If Moffat had been a woman I suspect she would be being accused of being a Mary Sue. As it is, the core of the Mary Sue criticism, that the character is a little too perfect and that the writer is possibly fonder of the character than the audience is, does, I think, have some traction here.

Comments

But what about abandonment and starvation (if not swifter death)?

[ed_rex]

My subject-line refers of course, to the fact the Doctor abandoned Rose and Mickey to almost certain death on that derelict (but robot-infested) spaceship in order to pursue his True Love.

I didn't believe he would do such a thing then, and don't believe it now; "The Girl in the Fireplace" has its momentary charms, but its lack of moral logic or concern for consistency of characterization foreshadow all sorts of hideous Moffatisms to come.

Re: But what about abandonment and starvation (if not swifter death)?

[purplecat]

I've heard this criticism before and I don't buy it though my reasons are a little complex.

Firstly, one of the things that was really refreshing about the Seventh Doctor and Ace, particularly as they were portrayed in the novels, was that the Doctor trusted her to handle complex and dangerous tasks without interference. Rose is resourceful, by this point pretty knowledgeable about tech, and has a Tardis key there is every reason to suppose (within the fiction) that she and Mickey can get themselves out of that particular scrape by themselves if they really have to.

Secondly, the alternative is to stand by and watch Madame de Pompadour get killed with ensuing bad stuff to the timelines. Now there is an interesting and complex story you could tell about the benefits of inaction, but this wasn't that story, and within genre action is always preferable to inaction, so if you wanted to justify inaction at that point it would have needed to be a story about inaction.

I mean, yes, the True Love stuff is overdone a bit, but even without that, I wouldn't have bought the Doctor standing by and saying "but Rose is more important" at that point. That would have been hugely out of character.

Re: But what about abandonment and starvation (if not swifter death)?

[ed_rex]

Well, that stopped me cold. In my defence, I've read none of the novels, and I don't think the episode itself makes your argument explicit, but that's a damned good argument. Makes me a lot more sympathetic toward the episode.

Also, I'd forgotten about the "need" to protect the timeline from clockwork robots. That makes a lot more sense then the True Love stuff (especially since Rose and the Doctor were, well, you know ...).

And thus, I recant - at least until and if I re-watch the episode for myself.

Re: But what about abandonment and starvation (if not swifter death)?

[purplecat]

Well my argument starts with "Can you really imagine the Doctor watching the clockwork robots behead Madame de Pompadour and doing nothing?" - the wider context just makes it look like a less stark choice.

In some ways Water of Mars explicitly asks this question and answers it by basically saying he can't not meddle.

Re: But what about abandonment and starvation (if not swifter death)?

[ed_rex]

First he recants, now he temporizes.

I think I need to re-watch before saying anything more. I'm now wondering whether you might not be reading-in that which just wasn't in Moffat's script. Something I've thought (and said) before was that some fans seem willing to do Moffat's work for him, more or less doing the heavy lifting so that his stories make sense.

But as I said, I really need to watch this one again before saying that's my opinion. Because you do make a damned convincing argument. And I know that I might well have become just a little, er, cranky, when it comes to just about anything with Moffat's name on it.

I'd also like to take another look at Waters of Mars, now that you mention it — as I recall, that was the last really good outing from the Davies era.

If/when I get the time and space (no pun intended) I might follow your lead and blog the whole damned era ...

It's late. I babble. Without, I hope, annoying.

Re: But what about abandonment and starvation (if not swifter death)?

[purplecat]

Well it's not really something that needs to be in the script is it? It would only need to be in the script if the Doctor refused to act to save someone's life. I think that's my point - acting to save lives is at the core of the Doctor's character, it's only when he doesn't that the script needs to work to justify it.

Waters of Mars was my favourite of the specials that year (give or take The Next Doctor). Mind you given I loathe The End of Time and Planet of the Dead is supposed to be mildly nonsensical fun you may feel that doesn't actually say a great deal.

[daniel-saunders.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen this for ages, but I recall it being my favourite episode of the season, at the time and on re-viewing. I agree that Moffat does seem to make Madame de Pompadour a little too perfect (I think in my review I made a slightly cynical comment about historians blaming her for her disastrous influence on French foreign policy). Mary Sue allegations were common in this era, with some fans claiming that by this stage Rose had moved from being Everywoman to Davies' Mary Sue. Nevertheless, a great story overall.

[purplecat]

The Mary Sue allegations were silly, but I think Mary Sues are a special case of characters that the author is fonder of than the audience, and I think arguably both Rose and Madame de Pompadour fit into that category.

Although given how wildly popular Rose was in general, it is hard to say for sure that the author was fonder of her than the audience. He was certainly fonder of her than a certain segment of the audience.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Can you remind me what the punchline was?

[purplecat]

The reason why the robots are obsessed with Madame de Pompadour is because they are service robots for the ship Madame de Pompadour (and the story has worked quite hard to explain the way they reason so that this accounts for their obsession). This is revealed at the end after the Doctor has departed. He never discovers the reason for their obsession.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Ah, of course. Thanks.