Day 740: The Fires of Pompeii

Given that The Fires of Pompeii is a story that concerns itself with prophecy, is it any wonder that the episode itself ended up being so prophetic? Not only does it feature David Tennant and Catherine Tate as the present Doctor and companion, respectively, but it also dares to feature a future Doctor and a future companion, with Peter Capaldi (later the Twelfth Doctor) appearing as Caecilius and Karen Gillan (later Amy Pond) as a soothsayer. And once you get over the joy of seeing two Doctors on screen at the same time, what you're left with is a really good story.

The entire point of the episode is to look at the concept of fixed moments in time and point out how heartbreaking they are. As we watch it, we're constantly reminded of how the Doctor sees the world, with moments in time that can't be broken, no matter how tragic they might be. Importantly, the story calls for the Doctor to be implicitly against this, as seen in some of the final moments as he angrily states that he had no choice but to leave Pompeii to die. There's even a throwaway line, stated in a joking sort of manner as the Doctor discovers the Pyrovile's plan, where he states "Then the whole planet is at stake. Thank you. That's all I needed to know". On first viewing, one can see this as just an extension of the joke of having a villain explain their plan in detail to the Doctor, but repeated viewing clearly shows that this moment is clearly the Doctor weighing up between tragedies, and deciding in that moment that it is better for the timeline as a whole if Pompeii dies.

But, perhaps most importantly, the story is not through the Doctor's eyes. Instead, we see things as Donna sees them, a world full of ordinary people, all of whom are going to die. If memory serves me correctly, Russell T Davies, whilst re-working James Moran's script into its final form, worked particularly with the characters to make them feel more real, thus making the tragedy more real. This can be seen, for instance, in the scene between Donna and Caecilius' daughter Evelina where they are just allowed to talk like normal people, with Donna curious as to what young women do for fun in Ancient Pompeii, letting the character, and by extension the audience, grow to have a connection with the family of Caecilius, making their apparent death at the end feel all the more sad.

Of course, Caecilius doesn't die, instead going on to be a beacon for the Doctor in a future adventure. But that's another story for another day...