Mark Watches ‘Doctor Who’: S04E02 – The Fires of Pompeii

In the second episode of the fourth series of Doctor Who, Donna and the Doctor travel to Pompeii on the even of the famous volcano eruption, setting into motion a terrible future. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Doctor Who.

I didn’t expect Donna Noble to have such a huge effect on the Doctor so quickly. I got a sense from “Partners in Crime” that the Doctor was taking on a companion who was quick to call him out, to reign in his relentless personality and force him to think a bit more about his decisions. But it makes sense that the two of them would already start to clash before we got further into the season.

“The Fires of Pompeii” is a slow builder and I wasn’t completely sold by the story for most of the first half. The side characters in the cast aren’t…well, they aren’t particularly memorable, are they? They serve to asset moving the plot along, but I never felt particularly attached to any of them by the episode’s end. I guess that counts as a criticism, but I think I’m ultimately ok with it in this instance because what this script ends up doing is monumental.

The idea of sticking the two time travelers into a fixed point of history intrigued me, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what the Doctor and Donna could do about a volcanic explosion that already happened. As the episode continued to unfold and we were introduced to the not-so-creepy Sybilline Sisterhood, as well as the creepy-ish creature that lives underground, all I could think was, “………….ok? I DON’T KNOW WHERE THIS IS HEADING AT ALL.”

The first moment that grabbed my attention was when the Doctor and Donna head to Caecilius’s house to retrieve the TARDIS and Lucius shows up. I don’t think these people are bad actors or anything, but I just couldn’t get myself invested in this story. The Doctor and Donna had no choice at that point but to leave Pompeii. As the Doctor told Donna, much to her dismay, he can’t change fixed points in time.

And then Evelina and Lucius start dropping bombs. WHAT. WHAT. WHAT. How did she know he was the Doctor? How did Lucius know Gallifrey? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON.

It’s at this point that episode seriously feels like it speeds up to an almost lightning speed, as the pieces of the puzzle falls into place. Why does Lucius have an energy converter? AND THEN THE FUCKING PYROVILLE, THE MOST INCONVENIENT MONSTER ON DOCTOR WHO YET. No, seriously, it took a bucket of water to disable it. That is hilarious and it also opens up the Doctor to later use a water gun, which makes it brilliant.

But let’s get to the horrifying, genius heart of the episode: The Doctor was never supposed to stop the eruption of Vesuvius, despite that Donna does her best to convince people to leave, to save someone from the destruction that is about to come. It doesn’t matter who he cares for or how persuasive Donna’s arguments are. Vesuvius must happen. The Doctor discovers that the Pyroviles have been deceiving the Sybilline Sisterhood into believing there will be no eruption. It’s a trick. Or…oh shit, I have always wanted to say this:

IT’S A TRAP

So yeah. Vesuvius erupted because THE DOCTOR MADE IT ERUPT. Oh my god, HE DID IT TO SAVE THE WORLD. Here, Donna has to face the reality of the life of a Time Lord (and the last one left, too). And as she reluctantly agrees to accept this, she helps switch off the energy converter, sending tens of thousands of people to their death. But writer James Moran was quite satisfied with this reality. As the Doctor and Donna head back to the Caecilius household, the tragedy becomes too personalized for Donna. She has to stare into the faces of this family, knowing that they are going to die, watching them as the ash falls from the sky.

So she begs the Doctor to save them. Not the whole city, not tons of people, just this family. The Doctor refuses at first, but finally reluctantly agrees to return to save the family. I can’t even think of a situation like this before. And look, if Catherine Tate was crying that hard in my face, I would pretty much do whatever she wanted because HOLY SHIT IT IS SO SAD TO SEE HER LIKE THAT. (Seriously, Tate RULED THIS EPISODE SO HARD.)

I was happy to see the Doctor admit that Donna was right. He needed someone to counter his opinion, to tell him to stop, to tell him that there’s another choice. And I simply cannot wait to see more.

THOUGHTS

• Hot dude alert: Francois Pandolfo, who played Quintus. haaaaaaaayyyyyy
• I could watch Catherine Tate and David Tennant play off each other for HOURS. Best chemistry between a Doctor and his companion EASILY.
• “You fought her off with a water pistol. I bloody love you!”
• “I just said seriously in Latin?”
• “Well I just might have SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT THAT, SPACEMAN!”
• “I’ll tell you where the wind’s blowing right now, mate.”
• “I mean, everyone here’s dead!” GOD I LOVE YOU FOREVER DONNA
• That’s the second time we’ve heard about the Shadow Proclamation and the second planet/homeworld that’s been destroyed. IS THIS A PATTERN. WHAT IS GOING ON.
• “I love not knowing! Keeps me on my toes. It must be awful being a prophet, waking up every morning, “Is it raining? Yes, it is. I said so.” Takes all the fun out of life.”
• Oh god, you guys, I am so excited for this series. I LOVE CATHERINE TATE SO MUCH.