There are many heart-wrenching, tear-jerking moments in Series 2's The Girl In The Fireplace. This moment is not one of them. Rather, it's a moment of pure heroism. The Doctor knows that if he travels through a time window to save Madame de Pompadour from the attacking clockwork robots at the Palace of Versailles, he will be trapped there forevermore, unable to return to the future space vessel and Rose. Oh, and Mickey. But he crashes through that mirror-like window anyway. Because he's the Doctor, and the Doctor always does the brave and kind thing, regardless of the personal cost. Of course, the Doctor does find a way to get back in the end, but that turn of events in no way invalidates the selflessness of his sacrifice - he had no way of anticipating that there would be a way to return when he jumped on that horse.
Mike has lived in the UK, Japan and the USA. Currently, he is based in Iowa with his wife and 2 young children. After working for many years as a writer and editor for a large corporation, he is now a freelancer. He has been fortunate enough to contribute to many books on Doctor Who over the last 20 years and is now concentrating on original sci-fi & fantasy short stories, with recent sales including Flame Tree, Uffda, and The Martian Wave. Also, look for his contribution on Blake's 7 to "You and Who Else", a charity anthology to be released later this year.
You can find him on Tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/culttvmike
