The next Doctor Who Twitter watch-along is to be The Girl in the Fireplace, Steven Moffat’s sci-fi romance from Series 2. Moffat himself will be on Twitter duties once again and he’ll be joined by Sophia Myles, who played Madame de Pompadour (or Reinette to the Doctor).

The rewatch will be on Wednesday 6th May at 7pm (BST), exactly 14 years after the episode’s first transmission on BBC1. It’s the latest in the hit global run of watch-alongs under the Doctor Who: Lockdown banner organised by Emily Cook of Doctor Who Magazine.

Highly regarded by fans ever since it aired, the episode sees the Tenth Doctor, Rose, and Mickey exploring the mystery of an abandoned spaceship, only to find a time-spanning portal to 18th Century France. The Doctor quickly becomes smitten by Madame de Pompadour, who he has to defend from androids determined to take her brain.

The story’s highlights include a memorable performance by Sophia Myles, who is more than a match for the Doctor as she gets inside his head. The clockwork robots make for striking one-off enemies, and there’s a wonderfully played scene as Rose comes to warn Reinette of the danger she’s in. Oh, and there’s one of the best pay-offs you’ll ever see at the conclusion, but I’m jumping the time portal there…

The Girl in the Fireplace won the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. Moffat himself has acknowledged the story’s debt to Audrey Niffenegger’s best selling novel The Time Traveler’s Wife, describing his script as a ‘direct response to it’. It’s territory he’s been revisiting again, having been commissioned in 2018 to adapt the novel for an HBO series, though there’s been little news of that since then.

Load up your DVD/Blu-ray player or streaming service of choice, then, for another chance to enjoy the episode on Wednesday, and tweet along with the hashtag #Clockdown.