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2nd Season Dr. Who - The Girl in the Fireplace - 5 star poll - SPOILERS AHOY !
21 Oct 2006 07:49:35 -0700
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georgeavalos0...
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"The Girl in the Fireplace"
10-20-06 DRW
5 stars (Shirley Temple)
0-1 stars (Dakota Fanning)
Ian Galbraith...
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4.5 the best episode of nuWho so far.
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erilar...
SoHillsGuy...
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4.8
...but why the slam on Dakota Fanning?
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Anim8rFSK...
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3.5
I quite enjoyed it.
EGK...
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I never watched Doctor Who before until this new series started on Sci Fi. I
may be wrong about how other fans view it but one thing I like about it most
is the fans and the writers and producers don't try to make it out to be
more than it is.
Quaint is the best word I can think of to describe it. It doesn't try to
take itself too serious like for instance the show that follows it. :)
Of course you can't take serious bad guys who have toilet plungers for
arms. :) Hey, i'm digging it though.
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pbowles...
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3. A capable episode, but major marks deducted for carelessness over
the historical research and for the embarrassing fake stilted speech
the writer gives Reinette (but not Louis, oddly enough - and you'd
think, that if the TARDIS translates so well that it not only puts
Anim8rFSK...
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Actually I kept thinking he was Connor MaCloud.
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everything into English but makes the pronunciation so accurate that
the French characters lose all trace of their accents, it could stretch
to translating their sentences in a way that sounds natural).
The other point gets deducted mostly for a major hole in the
storytelling - the story is founded on the premise that only Reinette's
brain will do, but Moffatt throws that out of the window for a bit of
cheap tension when the clockwork droids decide Rose has a 'compatible'
brain. But the story also loses partial marks because I found the
Agamemnon...
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It wasn't her brain they were after but her other parts.
pbowles...
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To quote from the episode:
Droid (to the Doctor, while preparing to eviscerate Rose): The brain is
compatible.
Doctor: Compatible? If you believe that, you probably think this is a
glass of wine (then pours the anti-oil over the droid's head).
The droid does say earlier, to Rose before the Doctor arrives, simply
"You are compatible". However, that's not the bit that messes with the
story and it's not the bit I'm referring to.
ewdotson...
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There's more to the scene though. Immediately prior to your quotes,
the doctor says, "and for some reason, God know what, only the brain of
Mdm. dePompadour will do." The droid's "the brain is compatible" is
Charles M...
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I was wondering if it was clipped in the American version,
given all the comments about 'compatable'. (The ship was named after
Mdm. dePompadour).
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referring to Mdm. de Pompadour's brain, not Rose's. He's replying to
the Doctor's statement.
pbowles...
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I'll watch the scene again to be sure, but I'm pretty certain that's
wrong. The Doctor makes the revelation about Reinette's brain when he
first comes in - and notwithstanding that the droids never actually
respond directly to anything he says when not ordered to by Reinette
(so it's unlikely to be a direct response to his Mme de Pompadour
comment), the droid's comment comes much later in the scene, while it's
looking directly at Rose.
pbowles...
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Having rewatched it, you're right that the droid does say "The brain is
compatible" immediately after the Doctor's comment about "only the
brain of Mme de Pompadour", so is arguably ambiguous. However, it still
seems that the line was directed at Rose for several reasons.
(a) The droid was looking directly at her and, as someone else pointed
out, seemingly about to remove her head.
(b) As mentioned, the droids never otherwise respond to anything the
Doctor or anyone else says in the absence of Reinette, so why here?
(c) Nowhere else in the episode is Reinette's brain described as
'compatible' (except by the Doctor in this very scene). It is always
'complete'. The brain is not compatible until Reinette is 'complete',
and at that stage the droids haven't found the time window where she is
complete.
(d) After faffing around for so long, the Doctor's response to the
droid's "The brain is complete" is to nullify it with anti-oil then and
there - why then, if he didn't take the droid's comment as a direct
threat to Rose?
On the subject of the droids being clockwork - I'm happy to buy that
because (a) it's a nice effect and a nicer idea, (b) it can be
explained as being period-appropriate on a ship named for Mme de
Pompadour, just like the fireplace, and (c) in story terms it avoided
the plot messiness of leaving computer components lying around in 18th
Century Versailles - if it's just glass and clockwork, the latter
representing the high point of technology of the day, then there's no
danger of contaminating the timeline with far-future technology.
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Beyond which, we have to wonder why the droids took Rose and Mickey at
all (or Louis, for that matter, who was grabbed by a couple of them at
one point). The droid who tells the Doctor they used the crew for spare
parts also tells him that only one component is needed, Reinette's
brain. If that's the only thing they need, they have no reason to be
collecting bodyparts from random passers-by in any case. Whichever way
you cut it, this whole sequence doesn't work in the context of the
story - it was thrown in to add tension with little forethought.
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character of Reinette unengaging (partly because of the stilted
dialogue problem) and her personality was never developed, which is bad
news for a character-driven story.
The story gains its marks for a very competent portrayal of the Doctor
- I loved the way he was focused on keeping the timeline intact when
Reinette asked him to dance and businesslike where she was flirtatious;
for all that it's billed as a love story it certainly wasn't from his
point of view, and that detachment from 'domestics' is something I like
about the character. It's also got some good humour (including a very
Lizard...
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I'm glad I'm not the only one anal enough to wonder about that...
Anim8rFSK...
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Hell, I'm anal enough to wonder why the translator doesn't fix Picard's
bizarre accent, which isn't remotely French, or if it already did, and
overshot and made it British.
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well-timed scene with a horse), 18th Century France is an interesting
period in which to set a story, and the central story idea is clever,
for all that it's contradicted halfway through the episode and makes no
sense whatsoever in the context of 51st Century technology when the
story could plausibly have been set earlier - why are the clockwork
droids so much more primitive in their programming than other 51st
Century computers we've encountered, such as K-9?
Robert Shaw...
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Even on this small planet societies have coexisted with greatly
different technology levels, and by the 51st century humans
occupy half the galaxy. There /should/ be many different styles
of robots, some far more advanced than others.
Tim Bruening...
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But how do you build a faster than light spaceship with the technology so
limited that the droids are full of clockwroks?
Anim8rFSK...
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Who said it's faster than light? It didn't even seem to have artificial
gravity beyond spinning for it.
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Lizard...
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pbowles...
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That's not really the point - yes, it can be explained away. But there
are 30 centuries between now and the 51st; why does the story need to
go to one we've seen where we actually need to fish for an explanation,
however simple? It could very easily have been set earlier without
affecting the story at all - it wouldn't even need to be set in a
Robert Shaw...
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But you'd still have the same conflict. The Doctor has visited most,
maybe all, of the centuries between now and the 51st, none of which
had clockwork droids.
The writers probably did pick a century at random, and not for the
first time, but Dr Who continuity is already bad enough that this
doesn't make it any worse.
Jack Bohn...
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I liked the "3000 Years Later" graphic they showed when first
cutting to it from Reinette. Especially as I can view it as a
comment on the "24 Hours Earlier" stuff Galactica is pulling on
whodunit...
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David Tennant, is that you? ;-)
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its show. (This would have been made when BSG Season 2 was
showing in Britain?)
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period where humans had developed time travel, since it appears from
the episode that the droids have rigged up a time travel device of
their own without using a human-built time machine or its components.
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Tim Bruening...
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Why do they have all those clockworks at all, rather than something more
advnaced, such as solid state circuity?
lraszewski...
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This is yet another of the complaints I don't get. How are clockwork
robots "less advanced' than solid state circuitry? Could you build a
robot like that with solid state circuitry? I couln't.
There's a creeping "I know what 'futuristic' looks like" in most of
Scifi Fandom, and it's totally wrong. Those clockwork androids were
several thousand years more advanced than anything we have today, far
more advanced than modern electronics. But since clockwork has been
around for a long time, the fan concludes that a clockwork android is
primitive.
Those androids are works of *art*. They're the product of a
civilization *so* advanced that they could build a lifelike humanoid
android in the style of a mechanical marvel from three thousand years
earlier.
billones...
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FYI, the author of this story was the same as the author of last
season's two parter "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances". Which
technically won the Hugo for Best Short Form Dramatic Presentation.
(I think that was a screw job; I prefered "Father's Day", and think
the two-parter should have taken its beating from _Serenity_ in the
Long Form category like a man.)
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billones...
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I didn't get that from the scene. I thought they thought *some* part
of her was compatible, but not necessarily her not-37-nor-French brain.
That ship probably needed a lot more spare parts.
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billones...
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A deleted scene, I'm told.
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billones...
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We know he has *some* form of telepathic ability -- the language translation.
Anim8rFSK...
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The TARDIS does the translating, not the Doctor.
billones...
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But it only works when the Doctor is functional.
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(Which pre-Crisis just sort of happened, but post-Crisis is clearly
being done through the Doctor.) I think I read one fan comment to the
effect of, "Yes, the Doctor does have telepathy, which he uses precisely
as often as a writer remembers he has it."
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When Reinette showed the Doctor the one functional time window, why didn't
the Doctor ask her to give him the exact date so that the Doctor could hop
in the TARDIS and travel to 18th century France to visit her?
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David B...
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4.25, not quite as good as last week's episode.
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Peter Morris...
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4.5, one of the best ever.
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Lizard...
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4.9999. Just in case something gets better.
Brilliant. Creepy. Funny. Well-acted. With SPRINGPUNK ROBOTS!
Might I say those things are the single creepiest Doctor Who monster
EVAR? I finally understand all those jokes about watching Doctor Who
from behind the sofa. If I was 8 years old, I'd be having serious
nightmares.
Richard Evans...
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I thought it was said somewhere that the droids were a bit befuddled.
At the end, when we see that the ship was named the Madame Pompadour,
I took it to mean that the droids had (erroneously) concluded that
only the brain of the real Madame Pompadour would suffice
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Wayne Brown...
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I think the writers like to throw in deliberately silly technology now
and then just for fun. Take the TARDIS itself: It's an incredibly
billones...
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That would be plot spoilers for "The Christmas Invasion" :)
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sophisticated device, capable of traveling anywhere in space or time;
it's a machine and yet somehow alive; it has mysteries even the Doctor
himself doesn't fully understand; and yet to use it, you have to pump
it up by hand like a bicycle tire (or should that be "tyre?" :-)
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So the Doctor snogged Madame Pompadour. Good for him.
Anim8rFSK...
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So is a 'snog' just a kiss?
Irulan...
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yes, 'snog' = kiss
you must be thinking of 'shag' which is 'f***'
Anim8rFSK...
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Ah, thanks. Wasn't quite sure.
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Robotech_Master...
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The word is used in that sense in the second episode of Torchwood.
Anim8rFSK...
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Well, Gwen said "we sort of snogged" but there was major kissage going
on. They way more than 'sort of kissed'
Robotech_Master...
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And the embarrassed Gwen was trying to downplay what had happened.
You know, the naughty schoolkid minimizing her infraction? :)
Anim8rFSK...
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Yes. Still led to my confusion though. :-) Plus when she said "we
sort of snogged" the others said "we know" not "sort of? SORT OF????"
Robotech_Master...
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Well, that was the humor of the scene. Gwen confessing to a minor
infraction, and the others just indicating they saw it rather than
expressing disbelief at her choice of words. It's all the more
effective that way, as Gwen knows exactly what they saw. :)
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lraszewski...
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Probably the closest US equivalent would be "Making out", which can
range from "major kissage" quite a long ways up.
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Sooo glad they didn't do a French Revolution bit. There's more to
French History than revolutions and surrendering. Then again, if they
did the FR, they'd run into the First Doctor, IIRC....
doctor...
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STill I thought Pampadour was a French fictional character from French Literature.
erilar...
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Very real, but so interesting fiction writers have been using her for
centuries 8-)
doctor...
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pbowles...
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She was a historical character, but overrepresented as it were in
literature. Witness the Doctor's 'uncrowned Queen of France' comment.
The real Mme de Pompadour was indeed Louis XV's mistress, as well as a
poet, gardener etc., but while popular at court and with publicised
political views, she never had any practical political influence. She
wasn't, in fact, as important as literature and this episode make her
out to be - just a king's mistress who happened to be artistically
quite accomplished.
doctor...
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Fingers burnt a la 19th Century.
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Lisa Coulter...
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4.5
Very sweet and poignant. I really feel for the Dr. - and the young
women he befriends.
This seems to be a recurring theme this season.
Lisa Coulter
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Alane...
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I'll give it a 4.5. I have a soft spot for the historicals. :)
Once again we were reminded how alone The Doctor is in the
universe. He can interact with those he likes and cares about,
but he really doesn't belong anywhere.
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