So Much Foreshadowing! "The Fires Of Pompeii" Is Awkward, Essential, Doctor Who!

The Good: Good acting, Decent foreshadowing
The Bad: Very predictable plot
The Basics: "The Fires Of Pompeii" finds Donna Noble and The Doctor discovering an alien influence in ancient Rome on Donna Noble's first trip through time!


Every now and then, there is a joke in Doctor Who that takes a long time to pay off. In "The Doctor Dances" (reviewed here!), the Doctor alludes to time travelers being in Pompeii on volcano day. Writer James Moran took the pretty simple joke and built it into an episode that works to set-up some of the most important aspects of the fourth season of Doctor Who.

"The Fires Of Pompeii" is one of the rare Doctor Who episodes that is much more delightful in retrospect than in first-run. On its surface, "The Fires Of Pompeii" is a pretty standard Doctor Who episode in which aliens are once again attempting to mess with Earth's past. The only truly original wrinkle on the surface is presented by Donna Noble. Noble does not understand The Doctor's theory of temporal fixed points, so she sees the inevitable loss of 20,000 lives on Pompeii as a tragedy that she and The Doctor are uniquely situated to prevent. The Doctor sees another alien invasion that his presence can help stop, especially when one of the Romans is helping the aliens manufacture futuristic technology.

A giddy Donna Noble and the Doctor arrive on the island of Pompeii where Donna has her first experience with the TARDIS translation matrix. While the two are followed by a woman, they experience an earthquake and realize that they are on Pompeii and it's the day of the volcano's eruption. Looking for the TARDIS to escape the imminent destruction, The Doctor and Donna discover that the TARDIS has been sold, to Caecilius. Caecilius is moving up in Roman society and bought the TARDIS as modern art. The Doctor and Donna arrive at Caecilius's home, where The Doctor and Donna try to get the TARDIS back and Donna tries to convince Caecilius's family to take a vacation.

The Doctor is about to take Donna away when Caecilius unveils a futuristic-looking circuit board, which the local auger has foreseen. Lucius and Evelina, Caecilius's daughter, both start making profound observations into the lives of The Doctor and Donna. Donna sees that Evelina is turning to stone and is alarmed. The Doctor learns from Caecilius that all the soothsayers on Pompeii have recently become very accurate in their predictions and The Doctor theorizes it is from dust they are inhaling from Vesuvius. Evelina psychically communicates with the sister soothsayers, ratting out Donna to them. Soon, Donna and The Doctor are forced to flee Lucius, the Sisters, and a rock beast who is intent on using the eruption of Vesuvius to its own twisted end!

Pyrovillia is the planet of the magma-based aliens in "The Fires Of Pompeii." Like the planet of the Adipose in "Partners In Crime" (reviewed here!), Pyrovillia is referenced as destroyed or "gone" and that is but one of many important allusions in the episode. Virtually every important arc in the fourth season is referenced, thanks to the use of soothsayers, in "The Fires Of Pompeii." That makes for an episode that is fun to return to; it is packed with "easter eggs." The Medusa Cascade, the parasite from the episode "Turn Left" and the missing planet are all foreshadowed in "The Fires Of Pompeii."

As fans, there is a lot to enjoy from "The Fires Of Pompeii" as well. Peter Capaldi plays Caecilius, a Roman noble who is later referenced after Capaldi takes up the mantle of The Doctor in "Deep Breath" (reviewed here!). Karen Gillan also makes her Doctor Who debut in "The Fires Of Pompeii" as one of the Soothsayers of Sybiline. Long before she became a Companion, Gillan played a background character, much like Freema Agyeman did.

While objectively average on its own, "The Fires Of Pompeii" benefits from using good guest actors. Moreover, David Tennant and Catherine Tate utilize their great on-screen chemistry to cement the early relationship between The Doctor and Donna Noble. Donna is a Companion who openly, and frequently, challenges The Doctor and "The Fires Of Pompeii" does so in a way where Tate is not simply screeching Donna's lines. It works to begin to truly establish the chemistry that makes any relationship between The Doctor and his Companion work.

The special effects in "The Fires Of Pompeii" are decidedly mixed; there are perspective issues with the Pyrovillians in several shots, though the eruption of Vesuvius is well-presented. The episode has some nitpick problems - where the hell does The Doctor get a squirt gun?! and how is the TARDIS is moved by a simple Roman when it usually weighs incredible amounts?

The result is an enjoyable episode that is essential for the foreshadowing within the series and fun for the fans to see people who would later have greater roles. If it were not for the external elements or ways it fit into the larger season's arc, "The Fires Of Pompeii" would be a real dud. As it is, it might well be the best payoff to a one-line remark that was ever pulled off in a television series!

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Fourth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the final season of David Tennant as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Peter Capaldi, please check out my reviews of:
Doctor Who - Season 9
Paddington
Doctor Who - Season 8
World War Z
In The Loop
Smilla's Sense Of Snow

7/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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"The Sound Of Drums" Returns The Master To The Doctor Who Universe!

The Good: Good acting, Pacing, Plot progression
The Bad: Plot-heavy, No real character development
The Basics: The Doctor Who episode "The Sound Of Drums" finally makes Harold Saxon into an on-screen character and the revelation of him makes him into one of the key villains of the franchise!


The nice thing about serialized television is that the writers and executive producers can write long arcs. In the third season of Doctor Who, the long arc is a series of peppered allusions to an individual named Harold Saxon. Harold Saxon is a mysterious person who is referenced in all of the present-day episodes of Doctor Who in the third season and he just seems like an opinionated guy who is peripheral to events in the Doctor Who universe. In the two-part finale, which begins with "The Sound Of Drums," Harold Saxon is revealed.

Picking up immediately after "Utopia" (reviewed here!), "The Sound Of Drums" pays off a season's worth of allusions to Harold Saxon. The payoff is decent, but it sets up a finale that is harder to realize than the season's worth of allusions. The result is a good penultimate episode that does a lot that Doctor Who does not, traditionally, do.

The Doctor, Martha Jones and Jack Harkness make the leap back from the end of the universe to modern times thanks to The Doctor's sonic screwdriver and Harkness's time vortex manipulator. Convinced that the regenerated version of The Master is there on Earth, The Doctor's team quickly figures out that Harold Saxon is The Master. Saxon kills off his cabinet while Martha brings The Doctor back to her flat. At Downing Street, Vivian Rook (a reporter) pushes her way into an interview with First Lady Lucy Saxon. Rook has figured out that Harold Saxon did not exist eighteen months prior and Harold and Lucy (who is his loyal Companion) kill her.

When Saxon reveals to the world that he has made contact with an alien race known as the Toclafane, he blows up Martha's apartment and incarcerates the Jones family. With Martha willingly running into Saxon's trap, The Doctor's team is forced to run. The Doctor recognizes that The Master has managed to use some form of mind control on the human population and he fills in the gaps for the Master's backstory. After arming themselves with perception filters, The Doctor's team spies upon Saxon as he meets with the American President. Both The Doctor and Saxon end up on the aircraft carrier Valiant where they square off . . . and fall into Saxon's trap!

"The Sound Of Drums" makes plausible the effect preceding the cause with Harold Saxon and his stolen TARDIS arriving on Earth eighteen months before The Doctor and Martha make it back. The gap of logic this creates is that the trapped Jack Harkness, who was looking for The Doctor for almost a century, did not find the TARDIS for the eighteen months (less four days) that it was on Earth hidden by Saxon. It also means that for most of the "present day" episodes in the second season of Doctor Who (reviewed here!) and all of the third season episodes set in "modern times" have two of the same TARDIS on Earth. Harkness's ignorance of the TARDIS on the Valiant makes less sense given that he seems to know exactly what the Valiant is.

"The Sound Of Drums" features atypical elements like a car chase and the TARDIS being used as a Paradox Machine. The Doctor's plan to save Earth entirely fails and when he falls prey to the Master, a tenth of the Earth's population is slaughtered by the mechanical balls which are the Toclafane. For those who came to Doctor Who through the reimaginging of it (the show as it was continued in 2005), "The Sound Of Drums" makes The Master sufficiently menacing and evil. He is characterized as the equal and opposite of The Doctor - smart, but crazy and concerned with domination of Earth, as opposed to saving it.

The acting in "The Sound Of Drums" is quite good. Freema Agyeman has a screen presence that makes Martha defying The Doctor seem entirely credible. The Doctor's companions have not had much going for them in the reboot of Doctor Who, but Martha Jones has been a powerful exception. While she has a growing infatuation for The Doctor - which is made explicit-enough in "The Sound Of Drums" - but Jones remains strong and determined for her own motivations in the episode. Agyeman is able to play insistent, without obnoxious and her character's protective instinct toward her family makes so much sense over her crush on The Doctor.

David Tennant is saddled with giving much of the plot and character exposition in "The Sound Of Drums." Tennant is overshadowed on the performance front by John Simm as Harold Saxon. Simm plays the part of The Master with a dramatic flair that is entertaining and disturbing. Simm is able to play Saxon with a similar level of enthusiasm as Tennant plays The Doctor when he is given the chance, but in "The Sound Of Drums," The Doctor and his people are under siege, so only Simms has electricity in this episode.

"The Sound Of Drums" is a very classic science fiction story. The Doctor Who episode is a middle act and it is a classic middle act. This is the episode where the heroes are entirely under attack and they are at their worst position. It's an engaging episode and it bears the burden of explaining so much of what the rest of the season only alluded to. The result is a good, but not extraordinary penultimate episode of the season.

For other works with Colin Stinton, please check out my reviews of:
Captain America: The First Avenger
Tomorrow Never Dies
The Verdict

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Third Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the second season of the Tenth Doctor here!
Thanks!]

7/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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