 The TARDIS materialises on a seemingly derelict spaceship drifting in space . The Doctor , Rose , and Mickey explore the ship and are puzzled to find an eighteenth @-@ century French fireplace . When he looks through the fireplace , the Doctor sees a young girl and asks who she is . She replies that her name is Reinette and that she lives in Paris in 1727 . The Doctor deduces that the fireplace is a time window , a device that allows direct access to another time and place . The Doctor steps through the time window and arrives in Reinette 's bedroom only to find that months have passed there . He discovers a ticking humanoid wearing eighteenth century clothing and a jester 's mask hiding under Reinette 's bed . After it threatens him with a saw @-@ like device that slides out of its arm , the Doctor tricks the creature into returning through the time window to the spacecraft , where he and his companions learn that it is actually an intricate clockwork android . The android teleports away , and the Doctor warns Mickey and Rose not to go looking for it . The Doctor returns to Reinette 's bedroom while Mickey and Rose arm themselves and go looking for the android . Returning to Reinette 's bedroom , the Doctor discovers that she is now a young woman . She flirts with the Doctor and they kiss , before she leaves to join her mother . The Doctor then realises that she is Madame de Pompadour , the mistress of King Louis XV . 
