My series in praise of the wonderful female characters created by Stephen Moffat for Doctor Who continues with Part 2 of “Moffat’s Women,” focusing on one of Doctor Who’s most popular characters, Reinette, better known as Madame de Pompadour.
For the first article in the series, go to “Moffat’s Women #1: Nancy“
In the Doctor Who Series 2 episode, “The Girl In The Fireplace”, Steven Moffat breathes exquisite new life into a historical figure and creates his second intriguing, complex female role for the show.
The Doctor, Rose, and Mickey find themselves on a 51st Century spaceship that is emitting “enough energy to punch a hole in the Universe.” As it turns out, it has. The Doctor comes across an 18th Century French fireplace on the ship. If that wasn’t strange enough, the fireplace is a time window, which allows The Doctor to enter the 18th Century from the ship. It is there that he meets an unflappable 7-year-old French girl named Reinette who is mysteriously being pursued by clockwork androids dressed in 18th Century French masquerade garb. As the episode progresses, we learn that the clockwork androids are pursuing Reinette through time windows that open up at random points along her life. Having used their own human crew for “parts” to repair their stalled ship they were, for some reason, waiting for Reinette to be “complete” so that they could take her brain and use it as their ship’s main computer, allowing it to fly again.
The Doctor, along with the audience, falls in love with her.
What’s so interesting about the way Moffat creates Reinette—the future Madame de Pompodour, Official Mistress to King Louis XV—is that we see the seeds of greatness early on and get to watch them grow. From the time she is seven years old, she is the kind of little girl who doesn’t show fear as a strange man enters her room from her fireplace. She is the kind of girl who will look a monster in the eye and ask it, of her own volition, why it is pursuing her. She is the kind of girl who smiles during a duel between an android and a man wielding a sonic screwdriver.
As she gets older, her fearlessness is complimented by a laser-sharp intelligence and wit that probably would have existed whether she had proper breeding or not. She is elegant and has cultivated numerous talents that would make her an asset at Versailles, but it is her mind that sets her apart. For example, when The Doctor appears to her for the second time and comments on how much she’s grown, she responds with “You do not appear to have aged a single day. That is tremendously impolite of you.” When she is called away, she exhibits more of the fearlessness we’ve already come to expect from her, making the most of her brief time with him by pushing The Doctor up against the fireplace and kissing the hell out of him before leaving. Reinette is no wallflower. She is a woman who sees what she wants and takes it.
Her ambition is made crystal clear the next time we see her. The Doctor walks through another time window, and watches her from afar without interacting. We see her walking with a friend through the gardens of Versailles, and her friend informs her of the death of the King’s current mistress. After Reinette reacts to the news with stunning sarcasm, her friend reminds her that the King will now require a new mistress saying “Every woman in Paris knows your ambitions.” To which Reinette replies, “Every woman in Paris shares them.”
Reinette is pro-active, and this is her greatest strength. We see this in the way she climbs the social ladder in Versailles, and in the way she pursues intimacy with The Doctor. And even as she’s being plagued by clockwork androids throughout her life, she never runs, hides, or cries. She confronts them directly, just as she’d been doing since she was seven, demanding to know who they are and what they want with her. While she does wait for The Doctor, it never seems as though she needs him. Her interest in him is less about him saving her and more about her loving him. The next time he appears to her, he reads her mind to find out why the androids would be seeking her out specifically. He tells her that if there are memories that she doesn’t want him to see, she should imagine a door and close it. She seems awed and thrilled by his ability to walk amongst her memories, though she puts up doors when she needs to. However, she begins to walk into The Doctor’s mind, saying cryptic things about what she finds (“Doctor. Doctor who? It’s more than just a secret, isn’t it.”). When The Doctor asks her how she did it, she simply says “A door, once opened, may be stepped through in either direction.” Whereas anyone else might have let The Doctor have his way with their minds, too intimidated by him to do anything else, Reinette is never afraid to walk through the door.
She does this again later when Rose steps through a time window to warn her about the android plan for her when she gets to be 37 years old. Rose assumes that her space-age explanation for what is happening will be beyond Reinette, but Reinette says “Then be exact, and I will be attentive.” As Rose fumbles with her modern description of events, Reinette explains them not only succinctly and accurately, but poetically:
There is a vessel in your world where the days of my life are pressed together like the chapters of a book so that he may step from one to the other without increase of age, while I, weary traveler, must always take the slower path.
As Rose goes back through the time window to the 51st Century ship, Reinette follows her, walking through yet another door to see more of The Doctor’s world. And it is in this moment that we see how soft and human she can be. When she sees the cold world of the 51st Century and hears the screams that are in her own, more immediate future drifting from another time window, she decides that she doesn’t want to hurry to that end, and fear is evident on her face for the first time. It is also in this moment where we see how perceptive she is about others. She has only to look at Rose to guess her feelings for The Doctor, saying “You and I both know, don’t we Rose? The Doctor is worth the monsters.”
Much like Nancy in “The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances” was a symbol of England before winning WWII, Reinette in “The Girl In the Fireplace” symbolizes a nation. When she finally reaches her 37th year, and the androids finally come for her, the crowd at Versailles panics, and she calms them saying “Kindly remember that this is Versailles! This is the Royal Court. And we are French!” Reinette is France just before the French Revolution, struggling to balance the immediate needs of a disillusioned people in dire need and a national pride in French culture, intellectualism, and ambition. And the androids want off with her head.
But The Doctor rushes in to rescue her, breaking the time window in the process, effectively trapping himself in the 18th Century with her. Once again, her fire and sense of adventure, not to mention her cleverness, are evident as she reveals that she saved the original fireplace from her childhood bedroom, having it installed in her room at Versailles in the hopes that The Doctor would use it to return. When The Doctor realizes that he can use the fireplace to get back to the 51st Century, he offers to take her with him, telling her to pack a bag. She accepts, and goes off to pack and to look out the window to “pick a constellation,” just as The Doctor told her. Sadly, her trip into the stars is not to be. The Doctor goes through the time window to prepare for her arrival not thinking about the fact that when he goes back for her, more time will have passed. In this case, it is too much time. In one of the most heartbreaking endings on Doctor Who, he returns to 18th Century France to see that she has just died. What’s worse is that she never stopped waiting for her “lonely angel” to return to her.
As Reinette, Sophia Myles infuses her performance with steel and softness, creating a thoroughly engaging character, but it is clear that Moffat’s writing gave her a lot to work with, creating one of Doctor Who‘s most compelling women.
Teresa Jusino was born on the same day that Skylab fell. Coincidence? She doesn’t think so. She is the NY Geek Culture Examiner at Examiner.com, and she’s also a contributor to PinkRaygun.com, a webzine examining geekery from a feminine perspective. Her work has also been seen on PopMatters.com, on the sadly-defunct literary site CentralBooking.com, edited by Kevin Smokler, and in the Elmont Life community newspaper. She is currently writing a web series for Pareidolia Films called The Pack, which is set to debut Summer 2010! Get Twitterpated with Teresa, Follow The Pack or visit her at The Teresa Jusino Experience.
One of my favorite episodes and character as well. Had a great steampunk influence to the designs, and of course Renette’s character was excellent.
Certainly one of the saddest endings, one of those out of the doctors hands type of things.
And wow that’s a fantastic line:
Dang I miss Rose too lol.
@1
I also miss Rose. Just re-watched season two and the utterly gut-wrenching ending. Aye yai yai.
I love, love, love this episode. After Blink, it’s my favorite. I think Moffat will do great things with the show.
Whenever one of the net fora I frequent goes off on the tangent of whether the Doctor can have a meaningful, equal relationship with a woman who’s about 875 years younger than he is, I point at this episode and Reinette, and the fact that she’s able to discern things that he’s rarely prepared to admit about himself.
That’s not just about the Doctor being less ancient at heart than sometimes people make him out to be; it’s also about the strength of the character as Moffat writes her and Sophia Myles portrays her. And it’s not inadvertent telepathy so much as actual insight.
I watched Jekyll to reassure myself, but your selection of Moffat episodes and their recap is making me even happier about his selection.
@stupergenius & @jasonhenninger – I DO love this episode, and it gets better every time I watch it…but I have to say that my absolute FAVORITE episodes are “Blink” and “Human Nature”/”The Family of Blood.” The ending of Family of Blood in particular is a much sadder ending to me, because The Doctor (or rather, John Smith)has to choose to give up happiness to save the world, and it’s that choice that makes it so much harder for me to take and causes me to be sitting in a pile of balled-up tissues whenever I watch it. Whereas here, The Doctor leaving Reinette behind is more of a tragic accident.
And that’s another interesting female character – Joan. She’s interesting because she IS The Doctor’s love interest, etc, etc, but also because she’s not perfect. She’s a product of her time, and because of that she’s classist/racist and very much a skeptic. I just might have to write about her one day…
@Garyfury – It’s so funny…I never think about the age difference, but it WOULD be odd to date someone centuries your senior! :) But I agree with you, there are several characters in current Doctor Who (like River Song, who’s coming up! And apparently will be reappearing in Series 5!) who ARE the Doctor’s match in insight and perception, and when they interact with the Doctor, it’s magical.
@bookwench – I’m glad! :) Sitting down to write these is helping to get me excited about his handling of Series 5, too. Because picking his episodes apart, I get to see how brilliant they actually are, and why!
Here is the episode which perfectly illustrates just how overrated Moffat is; easily his worst episode and up there with the worst that new Who has to offer. Why this one gets so much praise is baffling when it’s so manipulative and the Doctor’s behaviour is shockingly inappropriate at times. Acting drunk to defeat the clockwork robots? Oh please. Moffat simply cannot hope to match the personal stories of RTD. Not to mention he’s responsible for River Song, why would anyone fall for this irritating character?
@tim – but…tell us how you REALLY feel! :)
Actually, The Doctor wasn’t acting drunk to defeat the clockwork robots. He poured that oil into the gears of that one, then pulled the switch on the rest to shut them down. And it was a temporary measure, which he knew it would be. He was acting drunk to have fun with Rose and Mickey, which is totally in character! The Tenth Doctor is all about showmanship, and is all about entering the room in a big way and being funny before he dispatches whatever harm needs dispatching. Also, I love that he continued the love of bananas that The Ninth Doctor displayed in Series 1. “Bananas are good.” :)
And we’ll just have to agree to disagree on River Song. I love her, and am really looking forward to finding out more about their history (which is really their future?) in Series 5!
I love Moffat’s stories but he seems to have a penchant for putting the companion in a secondary role to his created characters, which I hope won’t be followed in Series 5 when his episodes are going to become the norm rather than the exception.
Girl in the fireplace: Rose is separated from the Doctor for most of the episode and doesn’t really do much apart from showing Mickey around. There is the nice scene with Reynette, but it’s more dramatic than plot-relevant.
Blink: this one’s excused since it’s a Doctor-lite episode, but Martha has what, two speaking lines in all? about her working in a shop.
Silence in the library: Donna is literally chucked away in a virtual world and, again, everything that happens there has dramatic impact but doesn’t move the plot forward. It didn’t help that I found River Song to be the most annoying woman evAH.
I don’t mind stories where the companion is separated from the Doctor but, if you got to have him/her on screen, make them do something important – or don’t show them at all.
Very nice article.
Why would anyone have an aversion to River Song? Well, wrong question, I suppose, de gustibus non est disputandum. But, for what it’s worth, one of the things I minded most about Tennant leaving was that they wouldn’t be interacting more. Those glimpses of a future Doctor were fascinating, and raised a very logical question, which is why has the Doctor never seemed as potent as it’s implied he must be? The Tennant Doctor addressed that to some extent, but not in an entirely satisfying way.
Of course, there are a lot of dramatic reasons why you wouldn’t want too much of that kind of Doctor. It’s nice to hear that he’ll one day grow into that sort of figure, but it’s also nice that it’s offstage, too.
But on that subject, one of the nice things about River Song was that she’s powerful and intriguing in just the same sort of way the Doctor sometimes is — as someone who’s a bit of a mystery, for a start. And she’s somewhat the adult to his child, so in fact she’s just on a different level from him, sort of like the woman your grown up brother is seeing. It’s brillant stuff. It’s good to hear she’ll be coming back.
@Atrus: I think the likely difference will be that Rose, Martha, and Donna were functionally RTD’s characters to develop. So the episodes where they were pivotal were the ones most important to each season’s arc, and often therefore written by Davies. (Yes, there are exceptions.)
Not to speak for Teresa, but I think one of the things she’s exploring is: since Amy is Moffat’s character to develop, what can we speculate about that development based on what Moffat did with “his” major guest characters? I think we can expect a great deal of his writing focused on Amy.
Having said that, strongly written guest characters with a major impact on the plot are never a bad thing, and I think Davies’ rose-colored (ahem) focus on the companions was overdone on occasion.
@Garyfury – that’s exactly it. I think that Moffat’s companion will be just as well-rounded and active as his guest stars have been, which is why I’m highlighting them.
Also, Atrus, it didn’t bother me that in his episodes Moffat chose to make the companion secondary, because he replaced them with equally (sometimes even stronger) women. Plus, you’ll remember that in “The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances”, Rose features very prominently and not only gets to hang in the air during The Blitz, but gets quality flirting time with Captain Jack AND The Doctor. :) Love that.
Also, I disagree with your assessment of Donna in “Silence in the Library” and its follow-up. Donna being torn away from her virtual children was heartbreaking, and great foreshadowing (whether intentional or not) of what she would be going through later on in losing her memory of being the DoctorDonna.
@Brian3 – You hit the nail on the head as far as what I love most about River Song. She is mature, and interacts with The Doctor as if he’s a child. Sometimes The Doctor needs someone to take him down a peg, and River Song does this in a fascinating way, as she seems like the only one with the history, and therefore, the license to really do so. I’m glad she’s coming back, too.
Incidentally, my post on Sally Sparrow should be going up today! :) I’d really love to hear what you all think about that one! :)
@Teresa Captain Jack’s not technically a ‘Moffat man’, since he was invented -and his role in that story partly written- by RTD. But yes, I think that story treated everyone better: both Jack and Nancy had great scenes with the Doctor, with Rose, and with both together.
As for Donna, I can’t see exactly where you disagree. ;) We both said those were beautiful emotional scenes, but I also wish they had been plot relevant.
Compare it with her scene with miss Evangelista’s ghost in part 1: just as heartbreaking, *and* with an important plot point.
“focusing on one of Doctor Who’s most popular characters, Reinette, better known as Madame de Pompadour.”
Oh dear. Not so much. Although I suppose this depends on which circles your fandom travels in. This episode – and Reinette by proxy – is universally hated by pretty much everyone I know (including my husband, so no, it’s not just Doctor/Rose shipping fangirls).
Why? It’s so incredibly out of character for the Doctor. He is stupidly in love with Rose already, so what gives with Reinette? And Reinette is NEVER. Mentioned. Again. Heck, even Astrid is mentioned again, in Journey’s End. Even the members of L.I.N.D.A who he never *met* are mentioned again!! Even Joan’s granddaughter gets a visit in End of Time!! But this “romantic interest”? Nope. Zilch-a-roony.
Further, in the first 2 minutes of the next episode “Age of Steel,” he and Rose are all snuggling and cuddly and giggling like nothing ever happened.
In addition, Rose is like a pod person here – she is jealous to a fault, both of Sarah Jane in the episode preceding this, and of Lucy in the episode immediately following. She tells Ten what-for in the episode right before this about his string of companions, and if he is just going to abandon her. Yet she shies away in front of Reinette’s wiles? And she has no reaction when he leaves her (in danger) for Reinette? No way.
Lastly – it is strongly implied in the script that Rose and Mickey are trapped on the ship without Ten there to get them home (Mickey’s freakout about ‘how are we supposed to get home’ and Rose’s teary silence). Nine kissed Rose on the head, locked her in the TARDIS, and sent her off home with a video hologram to let her know everything was gonna be OK. And we’re supposed to believe that Ten — who is referred to as being so in love with her by Davies, Tennant, Gardner and even Moffat himself – is just gonna leave her stranded on a space ship full of body parts? Lol no.
And even **if** I could buy that the characters were under mind control and turned into pod-people to act completely out of character, the “surprise tragic” ending with fireplace is ridiculous. It falls under the typical Moffat trap of making the audience smarter than the Doctor (like in Silence in the Library, how it takes him the better part of 2 hours to figure out that books are made of paper). In the first 5 minutes of this episode, he beats Rose and Mickey over the head with the fact that the fireplace is temporally unstable and that seconds on the spaceship side are months/years on Reinette’s side. And so at the end, he is shocked – shocked!! – to discover that … seconds on the spaceship side are months/years on Reinette’s side? Come on already …..
THANK YOU, jess_valentine! I just re-watched this episode and you explained perfectly what was bugging me the whole time. Ten’s behavior just doesn’t make sense here. Rose is not my favorite but it doesn’t matter what any viewer thinks of her; Ten was undebatably in love with her and always conerned for her safety and suddenly he’s willing to be stuck in the 18th century leaving her?
And forget Rose for a second – just the episode before he was explaining how he could never spend his life with someone because he has to keep being the Doctor and protect the universe as a Time Lord. That is his #1 priority. And what, after spending a day with this Reinette he’s willing to completely forego his duties? I think not. That’s ludicrous and entirely against the Doctor’s character. IF he was going to give up his purpose for the last 900 years, it would be for Rose. And he didn’t.
Also, this time I watched the episode something else struck me. Of course a lot of people love Reinette; she’s quite literally flawless. Intelligent, beautiful, loyal, brave, sexy, compassionate. That’s not a real person. She’s a contrived creation that Moffat built an episode on that derailed the previously established characters of the Doctor and Rose.