The girl in the fireplace

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Episode of the Doctor Who series
title The girl in the fireplace
Original title The Girl in the Fireplace
Country of production United Kingdom
original language English
length 45 minutes
classification Season 2, episode 4
new series: 18th episode overall,
including classic series: 171th adventure,
714th episode overall ( list )
First broadcast May 6, 2006 on BBC One
German-language
first broadcast		 June 29, 2008 on ProSieben
Rod
Director Euros Lyn
script Steven Moffat
production Phil Collinson
music Murray Gold
camera Rory Taylor
cut Crispin Green
occupation
chronology

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Successor  →
The Resurrection of the Cybermen

The Girl in the Fireplace (English title The Girl in the Fireplace ) is the fourth episode of the second season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It first aired on BBC One on May 6, 2006. The episode was written by Steven Moffat and directed by Euros Lyn. The film was shot in England and Wales.

As a result, The Doctor , a time-traveling alien, and his companions Rose Tyler and Mickey Smith land on a wrecked, deserted spaceship in the 51st century. There you will discover time windows into France in the 18th century, which are connected to the life of Madame de Pompadour .

The episode was positively rated by critics. She was nominated for a Nebula Award and won a Hugo Award in 2007 .

action

The doctor and his companions Rose and Mickey land with the TARDIS on a seemingly abandoned spaceship that is drifting through space. There the three find a fireplace from 18th century France, on the other side of which they discover a young girl. The girl introduces herself as Reinette and says she lives in Paris in 1727, whereupon the doctor realizes that the fireplace is a window of time; a direct connection to another place in space and time. The doctor climbs through the time window into Reinette's room, although from her perspective he doesn't arrive until several months after their first conversation. Under Reinette's bed, the doctor discovers a figure wearing contemporary clothing and hiding her face behind a mask. The figure wants to attack the two, but the doctor manages to return to the spaceship together with the creature through the time window. There he realizes that the figure is an android driven by a complicated clockwork technology. After the android promptly teleports away, the doctor returns to Reinette, while Mickey and Rose go in search of the android. The doctor finds that Reinette is no longer a child, but a young woman. She flirts with the doctor and the two kiss before Reinette is quoted away. The doctor suddenly realizes that Reinette is Madame de Pompadour , a mistress of King Louis XV. .

Back on the ship, the doctor and his companions discover further time windows, all of which are associated with different moments in Madame de Pompadour's life. Through one of the time slots, the doctor sees another clockwork Android threatening Reinette; he climbs through the window to defend her. The two notice that the Android is following orders given by Reinette, but not those of the doctor. The doctor and Madame de Pompadour learn from the android that it is a repair android and that their spaceship was damaged in an ion storm. Not having the parts necessary to repair the ship, the androids killed the ship's crew, using their body parts and organs as spare parts. To replace the on-board computer, they are still missing one last part: Reinette's brain. Confused, the doctor establishes a telepathic connection with Reinette, but is then shocked to find that she can also see into his mind.

The doctor finds out that the androids are trying to open a time window to Madame de Pompadour at the age of 37, because her brain is then compatible with the on-board system. In a room on the spaceship, the doctor, Rose and Mickey discover a window of time that leads to the 37-year-old Reinette, who is at a ball. There she and the other guests are held hostage by the androids. Since the androids have locked the window to prevent further interference from the Doctor, the three have difficulty helping Reinette. Eventually the doctor can break through the time window, but thereby breaks the connection to the ship. The doctor saves Reinette from the androids and tells them that without the connection they cannot return to their ship and therefore cannot repair it. Now the androids shut down for no purpose.

The doctor is about to accept that he too can no longer return to the ship and to his TARDIS with Rose and Mickey when Reinette tells him that she had her old fireplace brought to Versailles from her parents' house in the hope that through this the doctor would come back to her again. The doctor notes that the chimney is still an active window of time through which he can return to the ship. He wants to take Reinette with him on trips and tells her through the fireplace to pack her things. Seconds later, when he climbs back through the chimney, he finds King Louis XV in Reinette's place. in front. From this he learns that seven years have passed and Reinette has since passed away. The king hands the doctor a letter from Reinette, in which she confesses her love for him and expresses her hope to see him again before she dies.

The Doctor returns to the TARDIS and watches the time windows close before he and his companions leave the spaceship. The three ponder why the androids thought they needed Madame de Pompadour's brain for their repairs and the doctor finally suspects that it was simply a malfunction due to the ion storm. When the TARDIS dematerialized, a portrait of Madame de Pompadour can be seen. It becomes apparent that the name of the spaceship is SS Madame de Pompadour .

production

Sophia Myles played Madame de Pompadour in the episode .

Russell T Davies, then executive producer of Doctor Who, had previously worked on the TV series Casanova in 2004 . During his research, he was fascinated by Madame de Pompadour. Together with the chess Turk , an alleged robot who played chess at the same time and later turned out to be a fraud, he wanted to use them in a story. In 2005 he gave Steven Moffat, who had previously written the popular Doctor Who episodes The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances , the order to write a story. Moffat said in an interview that he was inspired when writing Audrey Niffenegger's novel The Time Traveler 's Wife , even if the structure of the episode ultimately changed.

The episode was originally supposed to be the second of the 2006 season, but when Davies realized how experimental it had gotten in Moffat's hands, he decided to push it back a little and not air it until the fourth episode.

When designing the clockwork robots, Moffat initially wanted to cover their faces with wigs. When producer Phil Collinson pointed out that this would severely limit the camera settings and that it could involuntarily look strange, he gave them Mardi Gras masks instead. The robots were then designed by Neill Gorton from Millennium Effects, and built by Richard Darwen and Gustav Hoegan.

In an interview with Doctor Who Confidential , actress Sophia Myles said she didn't have to audition for the role of Madame De Pompadour, but was offered it directly.

The dress that Sophia Myles wore in the ballroom scene was previously worn by Helen Mirren in the movie King George .

The episode was filmed between October 12 and 27, 2005, with Euros Lyn directing it.

The scenes that take place in Versailles were filmed in different locations. Dyffryn Gardens in Vale of Glamorgan was used as the filming location for the palace gardens, and Ragley Hall near Alcester for the scenes in the ballroom. The scene in which Reinette's body is being removed was filmed at Culverhouse Cross in Cardiff and Madame de Pompadour's private rooms at Tredegar House , a 17th-century property in Newport . For the scenes in which you switch from the spaceship to Reinette's room via the fireplace, two sets were set up next to each other in Newport and connected by a rotating fireplace.

As a result, two horses were used, one for the scenes in cramped spaces on the spaceship, the other for jumps. According to Doctor Who Confidential , horses were not allowed in the ballroom, so parts of the scene in which the Doctor jumps through the mirror into the ballroom on a horse had to be filmed separately elsewhere and then put together using blue screen technology . Tennant's head was digitally inserted over that of the stunt rider in post-production.

Charisma

The Girl in the Fireplace was first broadcast on May 6, 2006 on the British broadcaster BBC One . The audience was 7.9 million, making it the 13th most-watched program of the week.

reception

The script of the episode was nominated for the Nebula Award in 2006, the episode itself received a Hugo Award in 2007 in the category Best Dramatic Presentation - Short Form .

In a review for IGN , Ahsan Haque praised Tennant's and Myles' performance, the pace of the episode, and the "extremely moving" plot. He wrote that with a little more eye for the logical details of time travel, the episode could have been one of the best moments of the season. In particular, the episode would have worked better if the writers had explained more precisely why the Doctor couldn't visit Madame Pompadour with the TARDIS before her death.

Matt Wales, also from IGN, rates The Girl in the Fireplace as the third best David Tennant Doctor Who story and calls the episode one of Doctor Who's most poignant adventures.

The Clockwork Androids are one of the most memorable Doctor Who villains according to Metro , while Daniel Martin wrote for the Guardian that The Girl in the Fireplace was one of the most critically acclaimed episodes of the Davies era.

Ross Ruediger of Slant Magazine wrote that the episode may be the "crowning achievement" of Doctor Who's second season. Ruediger called the episode "for the new millennium" because he was of the opinion that the episode could never have worked in the old series. He went on to call it a thought-provoking piece and wrote that an episode like this couldn't air every week because it would be too taxing on the average viewer's brain.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f A Brief History of Time (Travel): The Girl in the Fireplace . www.shannonsullivan.com. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
  2. ^ Garth Johnston: Steven Moffat, Executive Producer of Doctor Who . Gothamist. April 21, 2011. Archived from the original on March 18, 2013. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
  3. ↑ a b c Doctor Who Confidential , Second Season, Episode 4
  4. ^ Doctor Who - Fact File - Episode 4: The Girl in the Fireplace . BBC. Retrieved May 19, 2013.
  5. ^ The Girl in the Fireplace Broadcasts . BBC . Retrieved May 19, 2013.
  6. ↑ 2006 Nebula Awards . http://awardsandwinners.com/.+ Retrieved March 19, 2016.
  7. ↑ 2007 Hugo Awards . World Science Fiction Society . September 1, 2007. Accessed September 1, 2007.
  8. ^ Haque, Ahsan: Doctor Who: "The Girl in the Fireplace" Review . IGN . October 23, 2006. Retrieved May 19, 2013.
  9. ^ Wales, Matt: Top 10 Tennant Doctor Who Stories . IGN. January 25, 2010. Retrieved May 19, 2013.
  10. ↑ Doctor Who's Matt Smith: Steven Moffat has 'written his best script yet' . In: Metro . September 27, 2010. Retrieved May 19, 2013.
  11. ^ Martin, Daniel: Doctor Who: Matt Smith makes debut . In: The Guardian . March 18, 2010. Retrieved May 19, 2013.
  12. ^ Ruediger, Ross: Doctor Who, Season Two, Ep. 4: "The Girl in the Fireplace" . In: Slant Magazine . October 20, 2006. Retrieved May 19, 2013.
Doctor Who Serials and Episodes
First doctor

The Child of the Stars  (1963)  • The Daleks  (1963/1964)  • The Daleks' Master Plan  (1965)  • The Tenth Planet (1966)

Second doctor

The Power of the Daleks  (1966)  • The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967) 

Third doctor

The Three Doctors (1972/73) 

Fourth doctor

City of Death (1979) 

Fifth doctor

The Five Doctors (1983)  • The Androzani Caves (1984)

Sixth doctor

Attack of the Cybermans (1985)  • Planet of the Dead (1985)  • The Judgment: The Enigmatic Planet (1986)  • The Judgment: Mindwarp (1986)  • The Judgment: Vervoid Terror (1986)  • The Judgment: The Worst Enemy (1986)

Seventh doctor

The Hand of Omega (1988)

Eighth doctor

Doctor Who: The Movie (1996)

Ninth doctor

Rose  (2005) 

Tenth doctor

The girl in the fireplace  (2006)  • The nature of man  (2007)  • Blood ties  (2007)  • Don't blink  (2007)  • The red garden (2009)  • The end of time (2009/2010)

Eleventh doctor

Doctor's Day (2013)

Twelfth doctor

Fallen Out of Time (2017)

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