BTW, for anyone who's interested, Moffat's work already has one huge plot hole: In the teaser of "The Girl in the Fireplace," Reinette, in the Palace of Versailles as the Clockwork Men are attacking, points to the mantle from her childhood home, whose clock is broken as evidence of who is attacking her and that the Doctor will soon arrive. But the problem is, later in the episode, we find that that mantle, with its intentionally broken duplicate clock, was moved from her home and therefore disconnected from the Clockwork Men's ship when they launched their final attack on her at the age of 38. We know that "her" clock was never broken, only the duplicate clock that would appear when the Clockwork Men used the mantle to enter her timeframe. So why would the clock in the teaser be broken if the Clockwork Men were unable to use it to get to her time period?
Sorry you'll have to explain that again.
Maybe try making sense this time?
I made sense the last time, but I'll explain it again.
Okay. You'll recall that when the Doctor used the fireplace mantle to travel to Reinette's childhood that there were two sides to the mantle. You'll recall that each side had a clock. You'll also recall that when the Doctor used the mantle to travel to her childhood that one of those clocks was intentionally broken by the Clockwork Men (CMs, because I'm lazy) so that no one would hear two sets of clocks ticking at once when they used it.
So, that means that one side of the mantle, with a functional clock, was normally in the 18th Century, and one side was normally in the 51st Century. The one that was normally in the 51st Century had a broken clock so that when it was rotated into the 18th Century by the CMs, there wouldn't be two sets of tickings.
When the Clockwork Men begin their final attack on Reinette when she is 38 years old (as seen in the teaser -- that's the part that airs before the opening credits), Reinette is staring at the mantle, which she had moved from her childhood home to the Palace, and notes that the clock is now broken where it had not been before. From this, she deduces that the people attacking the Palace (whom she has not yet seen) are the CMs and that the Doctor will soon be on his way. The audience is therefore led to deduce that the CMs used the rotating mantle to travel from the 51st to 18th Century, and that this is why the broken-clock-side is now in the 18th Century instead of the 51st.
The problem is that after the attacks, Reinette showed the mantle to the Doctor. The Doctor said that the connection to the 51st Century wasn't shattered as with the other time portals because moving the mantle had caused it to go off-line. The Doctor is able to use his sonic screwdriver to bring it back online, and thereby travel back to the 51st Century.
Here is the problem: If the mantle was off-line, how could the 51st Century side, with its broken clock, have been rotated into the 18th Century, as seen in the teaser?
