The Doctor, Rose and Mickey land on a spaceship that has a weird connection to 18th century France.
SPOILERS AHEAD...
Adding Mickey to the travels had added a nice edge. He's excited about seeing stuff for the first time, Rose tries to be blase about it. Mickey still fancies Rose and whilst she puts her am around him once it's very obvious that she is in love with the Doctor. Meanwhile the Doctor acts oblivious.
A nice story with the Doctor appearing throughout Madame de Pompadour's life (Reinette to her friends). Nice how he became her guardian angel all in one episode. What was the best thing however was how the Doctor really admired her, and how she was almost a match for the Doctor, eg. kissing him without restraint (and the the Doctor saying "Wow I just snogged Madame de Pompadour" which made me laugh).
The 18th century France scenery was great, good costumes, nice clockwork monsters. Also funny how Rose and Mickey run off with guns and get themselves into trouble. And great how they walked back and forwards between the ship and Versaille.
However like the episode the monsters were a mere vehicle for an emotional story about the Doctor. It seems to be a theme of the season so far, highlighting the Doctor's "immortality" and vast age as the cause of intense loneliness. You could tell that he really liked Reinette, but in a blink of his eye she was dead. The story also showed more flashes of Rose's jealousy. There's was wonderful line where Reinette said something like "The monsters are worth it for the Doctor". I reckon this is all building to something, something between Rose and the Doctor and his loneliness. But I'm not sure what.
Great chemistry between Reinette and the Doctor, and of course David Tennant and Sophia Myles are now an item, so it was all real!
All in all a Doctor Who that episode I really enjoyed. Funny and moving.
All the BBC online stuff is at their Doctor Who site, including production pictures, video interviews, games and an audio commentary.
