Dr Who: The Girl In The Fireplace

[andrewducker]

Another bit of very nice writing.  This Doctor is _clearly_ falling apart, and causing havoc all over the place because he's emotionally a wreck.  A woman falls in love with him (understandably, he'll have been an iconic figure when she was growing up), and he's such a mess that he clings on to her because she recognises his loneliness. 

He's already mentally handed off Rose to Mickey to such an extent that he forgets about her and leaves her on a spaceship in the 51st century without any way of getting home - but he has to have someone to feed his loneliness so he latches onto the first person that shows any caring for him at all.  All very nicely written - assuming of course that this is deliberate and it wasn't just very bad writing.

On the even plusser side - I worked out why they wanted her from the moment they mentioned the age of the ship.

Comments

[communicator.livejournal.com]

he has to have someone to feed his loneliness so he latches onto the first person that shows any caring for him at all

I like this elegant explanation, so I hope it was intentional

[dapperscavenger.livejournal.com]

Screw al that bit - I was just DYING to see him come dashing to the rescue on his white horsey all the way through the damn episode *swoons*

[aberbotimue.livejournal.com]

you and my sister too, she nearly fell off her chair, and it was a sofa, so thats no easy thing to do.

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

Nice analysis. I really hope the writer was aiming for that.

I couldn't get into it on the first viewing, the second went a bit better. The moment where the doctor turns into Ford Prefect was still very jarring.

His treatment of Rose in this episode and her paranoia the past two weeks about being replaced gives her that old companion-on-the-way-out feel we remember from the classic series...

Next week looks fun. Zeppelins!

[eduard-green.livejournal.com]

I don't reckon he would have left rose and mickey without having a half formed plan that he could work on later for getting back to them- effectively he could have just waited 3000 years and caught up with them. they would have hardly have known he was gone, he would be the one that suffers. He definately doesn't handle the feelings his companions have for him very well, keeping himself back because he knows they'll grow up and die and he won't, but thats a long way from leaving rose and mickey to die alone in space.

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

At first, that's what I thought they were building up to: like Marvin being left on Magrathea for millions of years or Bender being left buried in the desert at the end of the Roswell episode of Futurama.

[eduard-green.livejournal.com]

well, he wouldn't be all on his own. he'd have 30000 yrs of history to keep himself occupied with...

but, being the Dr, it would be a bit like watching a movie you've seen 30000 times already...

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

He might have assumed a lift from himself in the future, Bill & Ted style. :-)

I'm finding myself rather suddenly not liking this Doctor very much. He seems to spend a lot of time rushing about the screen and being very ernest, but at the same time being, I dunno, kinda shallow & lightweight? It's a disturbing feeling. I hope they give him a bit more presence in future episodes.

[diotina.livejournal.com]

I wonder how long he had to practice that wink....

Dr Who: The Girl In The Fireplace

[(Anonymous)]

If the Doctor had not returned wouldn't Rose & Mickey have been able to get home the same way Rose did in Parting of the Ways - wasn't there some automatic system to return Rose to her correct place in time & space? Or could the doctor have waited around a few decades for himself as the first doctor to visit France during the revolution and borrowed the older version of the tardis - returning it of course so that his first self never new that it had gone?