This morning I weighed in under 250 lbs again for the first time in eleven days, and actually at my lowest weight in more than twenty. Of course, it was also after not only an hour on the treadmill but another hour out doing yard work, so I was more than a little dehydrated. We'll see if tomorrow continues the happy trend. 

In other news, I watched one of my very favorite episodes of Doctor Who this morning and loved every minute of it. So let's talk about that.

The Girl in the Fireplace

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

In one sense, this story marks the furthest that the modern series has gotten away from Earth, set aboard an apparently-abandoned spaceship in deep space in the 39th century. In a practical sense, however, the story is set in 18th century France (first in Paris and later in Versailles). For some reason the spaceship has punched multiple holes through time, opening windows into the life of Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson (a.k.a. Reinette, a.k,a. Madame de Pompadour). In trying to unravel the mystery, the Doctor manages to become entangled in her entire life over the course of just a few hours for him. At its core it is a tragic love story, and it is beautifully done.

After three consecutive episodes that each felt half-baked for various reasons, finally the Tenth Doctor gets a story that perfectly defines him. There is not an ounce of fat in this tale, from the opening moment to the closing shot, everything fits perfectly like clockwork.

Ha! See what I did there?

The tone early on is playful, but the story's denouement is heartbreaking and hammers home the whole Lonely God theme that pervades David Tennant's tenure on the show.  Reinette truly loves the Doctor, and what starts out as a playful lark for him eventually evolves into a deep respect and affection for her. Interestingly, this is two consecutive stories in which Rose is confronted with another woman competing for the Doctor's attention, and in which the other woman basically tells her that he's worth it. With Mickey now on board as a true companion for the first time Rose deflects quite a bit by playing up her relationship with him, but it is no mystery where her heart lies. 

I have been pretty blunt in my dislike for the whole Doctor / Rose romance sub-plot, and this story vindicates my feelings there. I don't have a problem with Rose mooning over the Doctor, any more than Madame de Pompadour doing the same, but he should be above all that. That fact comes into sharp focus in the next-to-last scene in which he returns to Versailles in order to bring Reinette along as a traveling companion only to find that years have passed instead of minutes, arriving only in time to witness her leaving the palace for the final time in a horse-drawn hearse. The companions come and go, but he remains.

It is fascinating that in a show that is ostensibly about time travel, it is very rare for there to be stories like this that play around with the progression of time. Writer (and future showrunner) Stephen Moffat does it here, and again in a story next season, and plays with it as a major theme during his tenure running things. This story exemplifies how well it can be done.

I also love that the central mystery of the story is never solved by the protagonists. The clockwork robots on the spaceship are attempting to repair the ship's damage, with their faulty programming having even led them to murdering the crew in order to harvest organs to use to replace broken machinery. They have repeatedly punched holes in time through to ancient (for them) France in order to harvest Madame de Pompadour's brain as the final needed replacement part, by why? Why that specific brain when surely it would have been easier to find another human brain nearer (in time, if not in space)? In the end the Doctor, Rose, and Mickey never learn the answer to that question. But we, the viewers, finally understand as the camera pulls back from the spaceship to reveal its name, the SS Madame de Pompadour. It's the perfect button on a perfect episode.

Tomorrow:  Pete's World!

STATS:

Doctor(s): Tenth
Companion(s): Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith
Episode(s): The Girl in the Fireplace
Steps Walked: 7,760 today, 2,673,112 total
Distance Walked: 4.42 miles today, 1,391.03 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 0 today, 605 total
Weight: 251.68 lbs (five day moving average), net change -55.62ty lbs