After a stretch of three episodes that were hit or miss, I have to admit I was staring to lose a bit of faith in Doctor Who.
Thankfully, this week’s story “The Fires of Pompeii” while not an instant classic along the lines of last year’s “Blink” or “Human Nature/The Family of Blood” was still enough of a step in the right direction and a return to form that my initial reservations about series four have been calmed. Well, most of them.
The Doctor and Donna travel back in time to the day before Pompeii is destroyed by Mount Vesuvius. When the TARDIS is sold by a Pompeii merchant, the Doctor and Donna must race against time to find it and escape the city. This conflict, which felt a lot like the earliest days of the William Hartnell historical stories, drives the first ten or so minutes of the story and the opens up some more interesting questions about the Doctor’s role in exploring history and what can and can’t be changed.
Donna calls the Doctor on the fact that while he states that history cannot be interfered with, that’s what he does on a regular basis. The Doctor’s point that some things are fixed and some things aren’t works well enough. Again, I found myself recalling the classic Hartnell serial “The Aztecs” with scenes between the Doctor and Barbara about the sanctity of history.
The Doctor and Donna find the TARDIS and are preparing to leave Pompeii to its fate, when things take a different turn. Several soothsayer’s in Pompeii have knowledge of both the Doctor and Donna they shouldn’t have and the Doctor realizes something more is going on. He begins to investiage and finds an alien presence is manipulating events for its own purpose.
It’s in this storyline that we have a number of very compelling scenes, including the initial scenes where several soothsayers and people with ability to divine the future are pointing out the omissions to their background the Doctor and Donna have made.
It’s in this storyline that we get to see the darker side of the tenth Doctor that we’ve seen hints at in earlier stories. The Doctor gets to be truly alien in this story at times. The story sets him apart and emphasizes the sense of loneliness the Doctor feels in the destruction of all of his kind. Also, there are some darker moments in the end as the Doctor must choose between the people of Pompeii and the future of Earth that work well.
And the final debate between the Doctor and Donna that at least one person or something should be saved is among the more compelling the new series has done. It also helps highlight the role Donna will have for the Doctor–she serves as a bit of a conscience for the Time Lord. It’s a role that works well and is beginning to distinguish Donna from Rose and Martha. And I mean that in a good way.
But while all of that works, there are still some things in “Fires of Pompeii” that I didn’t find as compelling. One is the family the Doctor interacts with and ends up saving. They’re reasonably bland and not enough background is given to them. The audience is supposed to care as much as Donna does about their fate, but in the end the fact the the Doctor goes back to save them registered very little with me on a emotional level. Yes, it’s nice he saved them, but beyond that, what’s the point? The thing with the Hartnell story “The Aztecs” was that there were good people in that society as well, but the Doctor and the crew didn’t single anyone out for redemption.
And that’s where I have my biggest beef with “Pompeii” and the apparent direction I can see series four taking. In the past, the Doctor has been an outsider and an engima, someone who comes in and sets things on the right course as needed. But he’s never been a celebrated hero or a legend as the last couple of episodes of the new series are trying to make him out to be. The scene in the final moments when the TARDIS rematerializes and the Doctor opens the door, backlit by the TARDIS seems to be trying too hard to make the Doctor a more heroic, legendary figure. I find it hard to see previous Doctors (even Eccleston) presented in this fashion.
The trend gets even more alarming when the final scene show the save family praying to the Doctor, Donna and the TARDIS as their house-gods and personal protectors. Their likenesses are cut in marble and it does make me wonder if this will come back later this year.
It seems as if Russell T. Davies is trying to make the Doctor more an action hero and the stuff of legend that is really called for and it’s a direction I’m not particularily fond of.
And that’s a shame because it really mars what was a fairly good episode of the new series. That said, it’s still the most solid entry we’ve had since “Uptopia” last year.
Next up: The Doctor heads to the planet of the Ood.
Will says
I can forgive the lack of development of the Pompeii family. It is difficult to give characters with very little comparitive screen time enough significance to cause an emotional reaction to people. It is to me a minor quibble on an otherwise excellent episode.
However, we can see the Doctor as action hero in numerous episodes in this new incarnation. Starting with “Rose”, there have been cinematic action elements throughout and I am okay with that. The Doctor is the last of his kind and now has a level of desperation that previous versions did not have and, as we know, desperate people sometimes do desperate and heroic things.
Jeremy says
The Pompeii family were an in-joke, I think, a nod to anyone who’s studied Latin over the last almost forty years, a majority of whom will have learned from the Cambridge Latin course. Caecilius, Metella and Quintus are the main characters from the first book.
Bronzethumb (from Australia) says
Wait… you didn’t like Sound of Drums last year?
Zippy says
When the Master has just about won and then the Doctor pulls some bullshit and stops him? Then to cap it off they push the big red RETCON button?
No I didn’t like the Sound of Drums much at all either.
Michael Hickerson says
The last three that were hit or miss are: last week, Voyage of the Damned and Last of the TimeLords
DR5by5 says
Hey Did you know that BBC radio 7, has audio commentaries for the Television episodes. Sort of like what was offered for BSG. I just found it myself, Check it out an audio commentary for the “The Fires of Pompeiiâ€
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/bbc7_aod.shtml?bbc7/drwho_commentaries
Chris says
Was I the only one to notice Dexterous’ reference to Rose (at least I assume it was to Rose) in his prophecy. Clearly this is going to be the thing that we’re going to have to be looking out for during the future episodes. So far we’re two for two in terms of this seasons episodes.
As to the ‘hero worship by the family’ of the Doctor, part of me wonders whether this will get weaved into future stories. It would be nice to see repercussions of long past events in future episodes, or more so than we’ve already had.
Didn’t have too much of a problem with the way the Doctor was portrayed at the end. After all, to the family he was a hero because he saved them.
Lambo says
Michael,
I think you are being a little harsh in two respects. The family might have been a bit bland, but not like they have a lot of screen time to develop. The one shot type characters like this on TV, are kinda hit or miss in general.
Also, I think you are being over nit picky about the scene where the doctor reaches out to the family.
He is a hero, he is a legend, the fact that humanity is generally unaware of this…
I didn’t have a problem with the sign on the household wall, since back in the Tom Baker days… There was the one episode with his face carved into rock and he was being worshiped as a god.
I would give this one 4 out of 5 stars….
ClockworkDragon says
Time Crash was stuck in the middle of all those and it was so good I cried. I completely agree with the William Hartnell assessment. I’d even go as far to say that the behavior and manner of speech of the family was much closer to the manner in which William Hartnell historical figures spoke which changed the closer you get to the modern era. It was a very nice callback.
junaid says
*Spoiler*http://bp1.blogger.com/_l-YhEqN0NLY/SAJE2TAw4CI/AAAAAAAAAp0/xS2L6CJXBO0/s1600-h/dwfilmpic02.jpg*Spoiler* for christmas special 2008 🙂
junaid says
S04E01-Partners in Crime
S04E02-The Fires of Pompeii
S04E03-Planet of the Ood
S04E04-The Sontaran Stratagem
S04E05-The Poison Sky
S04E06-The Doctors Daughter
S04E07-The Unicorn and the Wasp
S04E08-Silence in the Library
S04E09-Forest of the Dead
S04E10-Midnight
S04E11-Turn Left
S04E12-TBA
S04E13-Journeys End (“