Moffat's Girl in the Fireplace episode

[kirkg]

OK, so I'm working my way through season one, and now season two... and I've just finished Sarah Jane's "Class Reunion"...and then there's this sudden "Girl in the Fireplace" story that comes out of nowhere.

The villians appear to be clockwork cybermen, but are revealed to be just repare droids who have been spying on the life of Madam B?

Why was Moffat fixated on her? Is she some significant person in history?

I was almost ready to dismiss the episode as a cypher, until the closing shot, which made me go "Ah HA!" I got it now! You could easily have missed the significance of the show if you tuned away before the close credits. Someone should warn folks!

Was this Moffat's first Dr. Who work?
Anyone got a list of his episodes?
Are there more in this series?

[jjpor]

His first story for new Who was the two-parter The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances from S1, which was imho really, really, really good - still in the top 10% or whatever of good NuWho stories even six years later.

Then there was Girl in the Fireplace in S2, which to be honest didn't really touch me all that much. Many people rate it as one of their absolute favourites, but I've always been sort of "it was okay, I suppose", about it. YMMV as they say. I'm one of those people who ranks S2 as their least favourite of the new series, btw.

In S3 Moffat wrote Blink, which I think still deserves all the praise and squee it got at the time, even if there was something of a fan backlash against it a while later. It's a classy piece of writing with very engaging guest characters and creepy, intriguing monsters - you hardly miss the Doctor in it at all. But again, YMMV on viewing it for yourself.

And then in S4 we have another two-parter, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, which was in many ways Moffat's dry run for his own spell running the show, and introduced the infamous River Song who we would be seeing much more of later. I...again, I didn't dislike it or anything, but it didn't enthuse me. I'd place it above Girl in the Fireplace, but quite a ways behind the other two, and it's a toss-up for me as to whether Blink or Empty Child/Dances wins out as best pre-Eleven Moffat story - often depending on which day of the week it is. Although I have become a bit of a born-again Nine fan in the past couple of years...

But yes, that's about all I can think of right now.

[kirkg]

"born again Nine fan".... heh!

[aquabluejay]

I was just looking over the memorable quotes from this episode earlier, and it does have some good ones...
But not enough for me to have stayed up and watched it with you.

You do see the Doctor and Rose pretty much acting like a married couple, right over Mickey (who Rose is still technically involved with) 's head. Frankly, I would have loved to see Rose slip in a "And what time do you call this then?" although frankly she does everything short of!