Thoughts on: The Fires of Pompeii

This was a quality episode, a great recovery from the lacklustre series opener. The episode had an excellent story premise which ultimately sees the Doctor implicated again in another ancient Roman disaster. The burning moral dilemma of the story is established early on when the TARDIS duo realise that they’ve landed in Pompeii, not Rome, and it’s the day before Mount Vesuvius erupts. Donna implores the Doctor save the town, but the Doctor rightly insists he can’t. The only criticism I’d have is that, having established the major moral dilemma so early on in the episode, the matter is mostly shelved until the volcano actually erupts forty minutes later. That leaves a lot of somewhat distracting (although not itself uninteresting) collateral plot progression in between, such as the affair with the Sibylline Sisterhood. Nevertheless, the sequence where the Doctor callously leaves the Pompeii people to their doom, only to be swayed to save the Caecilius family by Donna’s impassioned entreaties, was emotionally compelling stuff.

Implied in the moral dilemma that forms the premise of the episode is the Doctor’s burden as a Time Lord. The Doctor knows he has the capacity to save this whole town, if he wanted to, but grudgingly accepts that he can’t, however much it pains him that doing so is permitting an untold horror to take place. This was really effectively played out onscreen, and Tennant portrayed so compellingly the Doctor’s anguish at what he’s being forced to do, and his resentment of the intolerable burden placed upon him as a Time Lord; the last Time Lord. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. The Doctor was also faced with the dilemma he faced on Gallifrey, at the close of the Time War: of wiping out Pompeii, or allowing the whole world to be conquered by the Pyroviles. In this case he resentfully but unhesitatingly chose to destroy Pompeii for the sake of the world. He made the right choice, I think, as his decision on Gallifrey was the right one, although undoubtedly he would have preferred not to have been forced to make either choice in the first place. This is a reason why I wasn’t happy about how Moffat portrayed the Doctor as having wanted to go back and change what he did on Gallifrey in The Day of the Doctor: here the Doctor showed that he would do again without hesitation what he did on Gallifrey, because he knew it was necessary.

I thought Donna was very well-written in this episode. Although I appreciated the chemistry the Doctor and Donna had when we first saw them together, the Doctor-Donna partnership is shaping up to be surprisingly good in other ways. Donna showed herself willing and able to stand up to the Doctor and his “I’m a Time Lord” pretensions, to rein him in if necessary. Donna’s there to keep the Doctor’s moral compass intact, and is proving herself more than capable of doing so. I think the Doctor’s more assertive, domineering incarnations need a companion with a strong personality, like Donna, to keep them in check. I’m reminded of Evelyn Smythe in Big Finish, who was created as a companion able to counterbalance the Sixth Doctor’s assertive personality and occasionally (frequently, in fact) put him in his place. Donna does that for Ten, and, as a result, they make for a very enjoyable pair to watch.

Some final thoughts: Peter Capaldi was excellent as Caecilius in this episode, although the script he was given didn’t do his acting talents justice. I thought Murray Gold’s overbearing music accompanying the scenes of volcanic devastation was really inappropriate; I felt it just seemed to make light of the sheer traumatic horror of what we were witnessing, which was the fiery death of thousands and thousands of people, one of the worst natural disasters in history. That sequence would have worked far more effectively with no music or very subdued, understated music. What we got just made me cringe. Finally, I appreciated the humour of the Romans’ hearing “Celtic” whenever the Doctor and Donna uttered a Latin phrase. Much amuse.

Rating: 8/10.

Thoughts on: Partners in Crime

The Series 4 opener was a good (re-)introduction for Donna Noble, now to be taken on as the Doctor’s full-time companion, but the episode was not without its faults. The main issue that stuck out like a swollen part of the anatomy was the almost facepalm-inducing story premise. It’s about an alien species growing living fat babies from obese humans. I’m not quite sure what was going through RTD’s mind when he decided this was a cracking idea for a series opener… I really can’t comprehend it. What made it worse was that those walking fat babies were realised in CGI so comically (I mean that in a bad way). It was just silly. More than ever before, this show felt like a children’s show. Series 4 is an exceptional series on the whole, but its opener is probably its weakest point for the inane storyline. Granted, this opener was more about introducing Donna—which it did exceptionally—than the plot, but given the quality of previous companion introduction episodes, Smith and Jones and Rose, I’m not as disposed to overlook the poor story that I might have been.

Onto Donna. I liked the Ten-Donna partnership in The Runaway Bride, so of course it’s excellent to see them together again. Donna was re-introduced really well here. She was shown to be a frustrated woman; all the motivation and the energy to make something of herself that the Doctor had inspired in her the last time they met was seemingly frustrated as she found seeing the world and doing something with her life “easier said than done”. This received beautiful exposition in some touching dialogue between Donna and Wilf under the stars as Donna spoke wistfully of her longing to find the Doctor again. It’s all the more ecstatic when the Doctor and Donna are reunited again, in that genuinely hilarious scene involving the Doctor and Donna playing charades through the windows at Adipose Industries. I think the tone of the Doctor’s accepting Donna as his companion at the end of the story was really optimistic and sweet, and I’m looking forward to seeing their “matey” partnership play out over Series 4. One more thing—I like the way Donna has been toned down from her “shouty fishwife” characterisation in The Runaway Bride and made a gentler person. It’s a sensible character development: Donna seems more jaded and humbled than she was when we saw her last. I think her experiences at Christmas and since have given her a lot to think about, which has ultimately changed her outlook and attitude.

Wilf, by the way, is already shaping up to be an excellent recurring character. Also, that cameo of Rose’s was stupefying, and a just a bit hair-raising. Although of course I know what’s coming, it’s clearly setting up something big for the finale, and did that brilliantly. I only wish I’d been a Doctor Who fan when that was first broadcast, so I could hear the sound of fans’ jaws around the world dropping in dumbfounded unison.

Rating: 6/10.

Thoughts on: The Runaway Bride

I don’t really have much to say about this episode. I enjoyed it, probably more than I should have. It was fun, lighthearted, delightfully camp, and exactly the kind of thing you want to sit back and put your feet up to on Christmas night (or Boxing Day night for us in the Antipodes). In the greater scheme of things, it was a pretty mediocre episode of Doctor Who with an unimaginative plot, an extremely camp villain, and overblown action sequences padding out 60 minutes due to the dearth of substantive story. But I didn’t even mind. This episode wasn’t trying to be ambitious or even trying to be a serious episode of Doctor Who, it was some mindless, entertaining fun to settle down to after a tiring day of cooking and feasting and socialising with relatives. In that respect, it did what it set out to do admirably, and I can’t really fault it for not being, or even trying to be, something else.

One aspect of this episode I really liked, though, was the partnership of the Tenth Doctor and Donna. David Tennant and Catherine Tate clearly have great chemistry together, and their characters, more or less from their first encounter, are an absolute joy to watch together. Their personalities complement each other so perfectly, bouncing off each other brilliantly. I would say that, even from this episode alone, the Tenth Doctor and Donna work better together onscreen than did Ten and Rose. I mean, Ten and Rose were cute, but Ten and Donna are genuinely funny. I can definitely see why Russell T Davies jumped at the opportunity to bring Donna back as a proper companion, as he did.

Another thing I liked about this episode was the way the Doctor’s execution of the Racnoss children was portrayed. That was a really, uncharacteristically intense moment in this episode, with the haunting screams of the Racnoss Empress and the flames and flood engulfing the Doctor. It was another of the Tenth Doctor’s “dark” moments. I’ve mentioned before the idea that the Tenth Doctor may have actually been the darkest of all the Doctors, a darkness that, most of the time, he suppresses behind a jovial and affable exterior, but which comes out when he loses control. We catch only glimpses of Ten’s dark side as it comes out only infrequently, but it’s definitely there, lying just beneath the surface, suppressed but not quashed. The Racnoss death scene was a very powerful moment, in general and in terms of the Doctor’s characterisation. The theory is a really compelling one which I’m inclined to think is true, which would make Ten a far more interesting incarnation of the Doctor than he’s usually given credit for. The Doctor definitely has a very dark side to his persona, which waxes and wanes between his incarnations just as his other characteristics do. All of the revival Doctors have had fairly prominent dark sides, due to the lingering effects of the Time War upon the Doctor, and the Seventh Doctor displayed the most darkness of the classic Doctors. I like my Doctors to have a dark side, so I really appreciated this scene.

Rating: 7/10.