History Recap / DoctorWhoS28E4TheGirlInTheFireplace

* PlayingGertrude: Creator/SophiaMyles was 25 when this episode was filmed, and when she plays the 37-year old Reinette, no makeup or other effects are used to make her look any different from the scene where she is 22.

* TheDollEpisode: The main antagonists are life-size clockwork dolls seeking to abduct Madame de Pompadour and use her body to fix their spaceship.

* ArbitrarySkepticism: Mickey wonders what a horse is doing on a spaceship.

* PlotHole: It's not really clear why the Doctor couldn't simply use his TARDIS to travel back in time to save Reinette instead of risking stranding himself in 17th century France (as well as his companions and TARDIS on a 51st Century space ship) by using the portal.

* SeriesContinuityError: Only an episode earlier in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E3SchoolReunion School Reunion]]" the Doctor promises Rose he won't leave her like he has other companions, only to [[OutOfCharacter uncharacteristically]] abandon her, Mickey, and his TARDIS in the 51st Century in this one and seems happy to “settle down”. Rose also was not happy about Mickey joining her and the Doctor in the TARDIS at the end of the previous episode, but the beginning of this one starts out with them laughing and getting along perfectly fine.

** The Doctor's use of TechnoBabble in an attempt to avoid having to say "Magic Door" is one to ''Series/RedDwarf''.

* IdiotBall: The Doctor's solution to stop the clockwork droids attacking Madame de Pompadour is to ride a horse through one of the time windows, breaking the connection to the ship in the future. He then engages in TalkingTheMonsterToDeath. However, he is left trapped thousands of years from his companions and the TARDIS, and while the fireplace doir surviving had bern set up, the Doctor didn't realize it. It doesn't occur to him to find some other way to disrupt the time window (if smashing them can break them then it shouldn't be too difficult). This could be justified by him wanting to convince the droids to shut down, but couldn't he have used the TARDIS to get there? Even if he doesn't want the droids to know about the TARDIS, he could just materialise in another room a few minutes before the connection is broken. Creator/DavidTennant actually pointed this out during recording, and a line about not being able to use the TARDIS because they're part of events was [[HandWave hastily inserted]], even though this is never a problem in any other story. The sort of explanation used in "The Angels Take Manhattan" would have worked better (e.g. the presence of the doors could have directly interfered with the TARDIS landing there).

* IdiotBall: The Doctor's solution to stop the clockwork droids attacking Madame de Pompadour is to ride a horse through one of the time windows, breaking the connection to the ship in the future. He then engages in TalkingTheMonsterToDeath. However, he is left trapped thousands of years from his companions and the TARDIS, and it's only some flimsy writing that lets him get back. It doesn't occur to him to find some other way to disrupt the time window (if smashing them can break them then it shouldn't be too difficult). This could be justified by him wanting to convince the droids to shut down, but couldn't he have used the TARDIS to get there? Even if he doesn't want the droids to know about the TARDIS, he could just materialise in another room a few minutes before the connection is broken. Creator/DavidTennant actually pointed this out during recording, and a line about not being able to use the TARDIS because they're part of events was [[HandWave hastily inserted]], even though this is never a problem in any other story.

* IdiotBall: The Doctor's solution to stop the clockwork droids attacking Madame de Pompadour is to ride a horse through one of the time windows, breaking the connection to the ship in the future. He then engages in TalkingTheMonsterToDeath. However, he is left trapped thousands of years from his companions and the TARDIS, and it's only some flimsy writing that lets him get back. It doesn't occur to him to find some other way to disrupt the time window (if smashing them can break them then it shouldn't be too difficult). This could be justified by him wanting to convince the droids to shut down, but couldn't he have used the TARDIS to get there? Even if he doesn't want the droids to know about the TARDIS, he could just materialise in another room a few minutes before the connection is broken. Creator/DavidTennant actually pointed this out during recording, and a line about not being able to use the TARDIS because they're part of events was hastily inserted, even though this is never a problem in any other story.

* MissedHimByThatMuch: The Doctor meets Madame de Pompadour at various points of her life. Eventually, he tells her he will come back and take her travelling with him, and she eagerly awaits. However, when he does come back, she has just died and her body is being taken from Versailles.

* ExpospeakGag: Sent up when the Doctor admits that he said "spatio-temporal hyperlink" because he didn't want to say "magic door".

%%* TemporalParadox:

* ShoutOut: The Doctor swinging in, singing "[[Theatre/MyFairLady I Could Have Danced All Night]]".

* ObliviouslyEvil: The androids have absolutely no idea that killing people and grafting their organs to a damaged spaceship is bad. Neither do they seem to be aware that murdering the entire crew of their spaceship made all their repairs useless, as there's nobody alive to pilot it anymore. They were programmed to work, they weren’t programmed to ''think''

* ObliviouslyEvil: The androids have absolutely no idea that killing people and grafting their organs to a damaged spaceship is bad. Neither do they seem to be aware that murdering the entire crew of their spaceship made all their repairs useless, as there's nobody alive to pilot it anymore. They were programmed to work, they weren’t programmed to ’’think’’.

* ObliviouslyEvil: The androids have absolutely no idea that killing people and grafting their organs to a damaged spaceship is bad. Neither do they seem to be aware that murdering the entire crew of their spaceship made all their repairs useless, as there's nobody alive to pilot it anymore. They were programmed to work, they weren’t programmed to ‘’think’’.

* ObliviouslyEvil: The androids have absolutely no idea that killing people and grafting their organs to a damaged spaceship is bad. Neither do they seem to be aware that murdering the entire crew of their spaceship made all their repairs useless, as there's nobody alive to pilot it anymore.

* CerberusRetcon: The Droids having scanned their targets brain into their computer is quickly glossed over, but the short video “Pompadour” produced 14 years later reveals that the copy of her mind eventually evolved into a full Artificial Lifeform, with no knowledge of [[AndIMustScream why she can’t see or feel anything]].

** It was revealed that Steven Moffat had not read the script for the previous episode, which is what makes these discontinuity errors, especially since the dynamic goes back to normal in the following episode, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E5RiseOfTheCybermen Rise of the Cybermen]]".

The one with the ship made of ''[[BodyHorror people!]]''