New Who Review for “The Fires of Pompeii”
Posted By Kathleen David on May 3, 2008
But first a Public Service Announcement
And the winner in the Why Caroline is Sick is…
Virus.
So I am giving her Tylenol and Motrin alternating every two hours until the fever breaks. Which is has not really done yet. But her energy is better so I take that as a positive. Now if I could get her to eat something substantial.
Now back to the review. Of course there will be spoilers below the cut and in the comments.
Short version, not the best episode but better than most. The acting is solid. I am still not sure the name of the villain of the piece even though the Sibiline (sp?) were chanting it. It was a nice twist on a classic ancient monster and the science of the hot springs was something that was done at the time of the Romans.
How many more moral decisions is the Doctor going to have to make? I swear this is shaping up to be the theme this year.
Donna has officially become my favorite companion for all of New Who (Sorry Jack) and is rapidly going up the charts in all of Doctor Who.
And I understand why the cut was made but considering the number and volume of commercials, they could have cut three of the loch ness promos and shown the last scene that was shown in England. Which is why I watch both versions. More about that behind the cut.
Next week the Ood are back.
I am grateful to the mysterious folks who make sure I see the whole episode rather than having to wait for the DVDs to come out to see them uncut.
OK here is what they cut. There is a scene that takes place in Rome after the last scene with the Doctor and Donna. The son comes in and his mother fawns over the fact that he has straightened out his life and is now going to become a Doctor. The son corrects his mother and says he is going to become a physician not a Doctor. She chides him for correcting her and tells him to go honor the household gods. Son goes in front of the altar and does a quick thank you. He gets up and the camera turns to show the carving of the household gods which is the Doctor on the left; the TARDIS in the middle; Donna on the right. Didn’t add anything but it made a really good punch line to the story.
Interesting use of the Medusa or the idea of people turning to stone in this one. I though that worked really well.
What did you think of the sooth-off about the Doctor and Donna? I was laughing at the “my vision is better than your vision” one-upmanship that was going on. And I think they dropped a couple of clues about the season in there.
And what about Donna? She is asking the questions that I am sure a lot of us have pondered for years like what if you spoke in the language of the place to someone while under the TARDIS translation circuit. Also Donna putting her hands on top of the Doctor’s and throwing that switch with him. She has a lot of gumption. I also loved that while being threatened with being sacrificed, she didn’t scream but got mad. And how she convinced the Doctor to save the family that they had gotten to know, that was just brilliantly played.
I couldn’t tell if they were trying to parallel what the Doctor did to Gallifrey with what he did here. I do think we are going to find out more about that this year.
Tennant and Tate did just wonderfully through out the whole episode. They have a good chemistry between them.
Loved the soothsaying scene. Creepiest thing Doctor Who has ever done except for “Are you my mummy?”
The Master also mentioned the Doctor’s connection to the Medusa Cascade in “Last of the Time Lords”, so I’m thinking that has something to do with the series arc. And this is the second week in a row a planet has disappeared, and both times the Doctor has brought the villain’s exposition to a halt to highlight that no explanation is being given. A friend of mine who only watches the Sci Fi broadcasts came up with an interesting theory, that the planets are falling through to Rose’s dimension.
There was another scene they cut, as the Doctor and Donna make their way back to Caecilius’ house during the eruption. Donna keeps shouting at people to get to high ground, but they ignore her and run away from the volcano (running down the slope to do so). She then spots a boy on his own, but as she is about to take his hand to lead him to safety, his mother runs up and snatches him away and runs off, and that’s the moment when Donna realises she can’t save these people. To me it should have the wrenching emotional climax of the episode, but for the director (and up till now I’ve always thought Colin Teague has done a good job with Who and Torchwood) it was apparently just something to intercut with all the flashy visual effects so that he’d have some reaction shots to the images of the city being destroyed; so I found it getting cut to be a little ironic.
Did you catch the TARDIS being called “modern art”, a reference to John Cleese’s appearance in “City of Death”?
1,
Didn’t realise this episode was directed by “Tumbling” Teague. Yes, that brief scene with the boy totally ripped my heart out. I’ve seen a handful of documentaries about Pompeii, but this episode brings home the fact that real people died there.
And hooray for Donna! Some people on other forums believe that Donna shouldn’t have persuaded the Doctor to do what he finally did. I think it was a very brave and human thing to do – it’s what I would’ve done as well.
Another interesting historical of sorts. It was interesting that here we have the Doctor save the Earth by causing the devastation of Pompeii on my birthday. There is a review of the story over at
http://millenniumelephant.blogspot.com/2008/04/day-2659-doctor-who-fires-of-pompeii.html
which also brings the Big Finish Fires of Vulcan http://www.bigfinish.com/12-Doctor-Who-The-Fires-of-Vulcan into the question. That reviewer points out that there is nothing in the new story that really contradicts what happened in the Big Finish one.
Neil
Over at the Fact File at http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/episodes/S4_02
it mentions that the “modern art” was a deliberate reference to John Cleese in “City of Death”, the “Barcelona” is a reference to to Sybil Fawlty’s regular apology for clumsy Spanish waiter Manuel, and of course there was the reference to the 1965 story The Romans.
This episode made up for the first episode. I loved the chemistry between Tennant and Tate. I also get a kick out of the Doctor’s expression when he is dealing with Donna, one of pure amazement.