purplecat | Jan. 3rd, 2015

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Jan. 3rd, 2015

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.

Crossposts: http://louisedennis.livejournal.com/274144.html

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