9️⃣🔼 = REMARKABLE!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

“HE’S NOT THE DOCTOR, HE’S CASANOVA!”

Returning after his success with The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances (2005), Steven Moffat crafts an inventive timey-wimey adventure, combining a character-driven period drama with pure and fun science fiction. The script fascinatingly shifts between the deserted spaceship and the Doctor visiting different points in Reinette's life, building up a mystery and a connection between the two. It's an early example of Moffat challenging the expectations of the viewers.

This is also a fascinatingly deep episode about the Doctor as a person.

David Tennant is lovely in this story, in one of his better performances. This episode is the one that cemented him as a great pick for the Doctor for me. Sophia Myles proves to be one of the most memorable and solid guest performers in the revived series. She puts in a soft but very engaging performance.

The Doctor is both funny and touching here, ready to help a woman he barely knows, even if it means he gets separated from his companions. The way he’s excited about space-age clockwork, snogging Madame de Pompadour, or befriending Arthur the Horse and getting drunk (and "dancing") at a party are things only Ten could pull off.

Mickey is now officially a part of the TARDIS team, but still a bit of a comic relief character. He's cowardly and not very useful, but luckily he has Rose by his side, as she is pretty good at getting out of trouble by now. The two companions are mostly abandoned by the Doctor throughout this, but they fare very well on their own, and Billie Piper isn't too annoying for a change. Granted, they don't have much of a role to play in the episode, but still.

The Clockwork Droids are a great concept, used pretty well but perhaps not as much as could have been possible. Their design and function are creepy, and they work effectively despite being so simple. What makes them scarier is the fact that they harvest human body parts to run their spaceship.

This is one of the better-produced stories in the early revived series. 18th-century France looks incredible, the droids look realistic, and the old, abandoned spaceship is also pretty nice. The CGI isn’t always up to par (I’m thinking of the “horse through the mirror” scene), but it’s not too bad. The sad music stands out the most.

This is a slower episode, but it's well-paced nonetheless, allowing the Doctor and Reinette to connect properly, which makes the ending feel properly satisfying. At the same time, the air sort of runs out of it after the clockwork stuff is sorted, because the sudden romance between Ten and Reinette feels very forced.

Once again, Moffat manages to craft an atmosphere that effectively combines authentic period drama with dark and creepy scenes, romance, heartbreak, and plenty of sharp humour. There are also slower moments and touching scenes in this story, particularly in the strange way the Doctor and Reinette connect. Granted, I could have done without the romance aspects of the episode, but they don’t drag it down noticeably.

This story strengthened Moffat's position as one of Nu Who's strongest and most inventive writers.

This is still one of the best stories of the revived era and one of the best Moffat has ever written. Watch it, and watch it again many times!

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

The Doctor has fought clockwork androids before, in The Android Invasion (1976) and The Androids of Tara (1979), for instance, and will do so again in Deep Breath (2014) and Robot of Sherwood (2014).

Combining history with sci-fi isn't a new idea for the show. It has been done previously in Carnival of Monsters (1973) and Enlightenment (1984).

We all have to make sacrifices sometimes. Ten allows Rose to keep Mickey, so she has to allow him to keep Arthur (he should’ve been a companion).

The drunken Doctor is one of the better Tenth Doctor moments, filled with quotable dialogue.