Who Reviews The Fires of Pompeii by S.F. Cambridge

 

Donna: “You’re kidding. Don’t tell me the TARDIS is gone!”

The Doctor: “Okay”

Donna: “Where is it?”

The Doctor: “You told me not to tell you.”

Donna: “OI! Don’t get clever in Latin.”

 "The Fires of Pompeii" is the second episode of the fourth series of Doctor Who starring my favourite companion, Donna Noble. It is set around the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, whilst The Doctor and Donna are on a trip to Pompeii, where they uncover an alien invasion. Throughout this particular episode we see Donna trying very hard to humanise The Doctor with her views on saving the people within the town as he tries to discourage her by saying it’s a fixed point in history and that nothing can be done. Donna as headstrong as always disagrees with him and is seen constantly trying to warn and save everyone from the impending doom. 

Donna Noble: “What time does Vesuvius erupt? When's it due?”

The Doctor: “It's 79 A.D. 23rd of August; which makes Volcano day-tomorrow.”

Donna Noble: “Plenty of time. We can get everyone out, easy.”

The Doctor: “Yeah, except we're not going to.”

Donna Noble: “But that's what you do. You're the Doctor. You save people.”

The Doctor: “Not this time. Pompeii is a fixed point in history. What happens, happens. There's no stopping it.”

Donna Noble: “Says who?”

The Doctor: “Says me.”

Donna Noble: “What, and you're in charge?”

The Doctor: “TARDIS, Time Lord-yeah!”

Donna Noble: “Donna, Human-no! I don't need your permission. I'll tell them myself.” 

It seems a very political episode centring around family values, friendships and moral dilemmas as the friendship between The Doctor and Donna although still fairly new, is tested to its limits because of Donna's insistence that he save everyone. This episode reveals Donna’s true nature, of her independence and stubbornness and her unwillingness not to be bullied into things she doesn’t agree with, proving she is more than a match for The Doctor when it comes to saving the Earth.

The Doctor and Donna arrive in Pompeii the day before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79. The TARDIS gets sold by accident to a sculptor called Lobus Caecilius who is played by Peter Capaldi – The 12th Doctor although he isn’t portraying that character in this episode. The Doctor and Donna go to Caecilius' house to find the TARDIS and are followed by a soothsayer, played by Karen Gillan, who reports to the Sibylline Sisterhood which is a kind of religious order, that the prophesied man in the blue box has arrived, meaning his arrival brings fire and death. 

Caecilius has a son and daughter. His daughter Evelina is considered a prophet and due to join the religious order of the sister hood. She inhales vapours that come from the earth into her home by way of an open grate in the ground and they help her to see into the future. The Doctor discovers that the vapours are created by an alien race living underground called Pyroviles who are going to use the volcano to convert the human race and conquer Earth.

The family are joined by another prophet called Lucius who has commissioned Caecilius to create stones of artwork for him which turn out to be circuit boards for an energy converter which the Pyroviles have forced him to acquire as they seem to be able to control him via the vapours. 

As usual, The Doctor discovers the Pyroviles plan and aims to stop them and with Donna’s help they “Journey to the centre of the Earth” armed with water pistols as the Pyroviles are mainly made of fire and they make the heart-breaking realisation  that the volcanic eruption is a fixed point in time and must always happen. They manage to get into an escape pod and make the decision together to overload the converter and trigger the eruption, The Doctor tells Donna that he has had to make this decision before and had to kill his own people in order to save them which is why she tells him they will do this together, killing the Pyroviles and launching the pod clear of the blast.  

The Doctor: “But… that’s the choice, Donna. It’s Pompeii or the world.”

Donna: “Oh, my God.”

The Doctor: “If Pompeii is destroyed then it’s not just history. It’s me. I make it happen.” 

The Doctor and Donna run for the TARDIS, leaving Caecilius and his family behind in their home. Donna begs the Doctor to go back and at least save one person from the volcano. The Doctor is adamant he cannot save anyone and if he could go back, he would save his own family but he can’t. Eventually he relents and goes back for Caecilius and his family as a reminder to himself to always be kind. It is pointed out at a later date that this is why he chose Caecilius’ face as his 12th regeneration, as a reminder. 

Six months later, Caecilius's family are living happily away from Pompeii. Caecilius's son, now training to be a Doctor, gives his thanks to the household gods by throwing blessed water on a stone tablet on the wall in the image of the Doctor and Donna, standing next to the TARDIS. 

It’s always good when the writers of Doctor Who created a storyline around an actual historical event and whilst writing this review I have discovered that The characters of Caecilius, his wife Metella and their son Quintus refer to a family featured in the Cambridge Latin Course textbooks, who in turn were based on a real citizen of Pompeii and his family. For those of us who write fan fiction of any kind, episodes like this inspire us to be creative with real life events and enable us to put our own spin on things. Why shouldn’t the volcanic eruption that destroyed an entire city be down to an alien invasion? We can only hope that if aliens do actually exist and are among us, that there is a real life Doctor out there trying to save us from them.