Doctor Who: 13 Cool Details Steven Moffat Just Revealed About The Girl In The Fireplace

11. The Establishing Shot Of Paris Was Added To Make The Story Clearer

Doctor Who The Girl in the Fireplace Paris
BBC/Twitter: @russelldavies63

Early in the episode, the Doctor meets young Reinette by having a chat with her through her fireplace. He then travels to her bedroom via a "magic door", where he looks out of a window and sees a beautiful snowy view of Paris.

That shot of the city doesn't really feel like an important moment in the grand scheme of things, but strangely, Davies (and executive producer Julie Gardner) thought that it was hugely important, and they stressed over it a great deal.

Here's what they were worried about: later in the episode, it's revealed that adult Reinette had the fireplace from her childhood bedroom (located in Paris) moved to Versailles. However, at a glance, the Versailles set and the Paris set look the same.

So - because the fact that the fireplace has moved is an extremely important plot detail - they added that shot of Paris to make the locations of the episode clearer to the audience.

As it turns out though, the episode would've been totally fine without this extra shot, which Davies himself even acknowledged in a separate tweet.

In this post: 
Doctor Who
 
Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!