Doctor Who: 30 NuWho Characters Who Would've Made Fantastic Full-Time Companions
16. Reinette
Appeared in: The Girl in the Fireplace.
The Doctor gives Captain Jack's flirting a run for his money when he snogs a grown-up Reinette (AKA Madame De Pompadour) almost immediately. Such was their strong on-screen chemistry, David Tennant and Sophia Myles dated for two years.
Yet while Reinette and the Doctor are infatuated with each other, it never comes across as an irritating soppy romance. Theirs is a tragically beautiful connection: the Doctor looking into the windows of Reinette's life, while on the other side she dreams about seeing those stars with her fireplace man.
That poetic representation devised by Steven Moffat can be seen as them reflecting each other's personality traits; Reinette is calm and authoritative - and French - when confronting the Clockwork Repair Droids, and is a highly intelligent individual. So intelligent that she can read the Doctor's mind. No wonder he rides to the rescue on Arthur with reckless, albeit smashing, abandon. Talk about a burn for Rose.
Sadly, the original girl who waited ran out of time. Given how Reinette calmly reconciled the fact a 51st century spaceship was but a magic door away, it would’ve been interesting having an historical figure taking a trip to somewhere like Raxacoricofallapatorius (sorry, it's too difficult to spell its twin planet, much less say it). With that in mind, here’s Moffat invariably yanking at our heartstrings all over again...