Before Karen Gillan was Amy Pond, and before Peter Capaldi was the Doctor, they both starred in this fantastic episode.
When Peter Capaldi was announced as being the new face of the Doctor there were some grumblings from new fans that he couldn't be the Doctor as he'd already been in the series already. Well..let me put them straight by saying Colin Baker was in the series before he was the Doctor and if it didn't stop them casting him then then it shouldn't stop them now! And Capaldi shows here what a great actor he is. I've not long finished watching The Thick Of It where he plays the rather terrifying Malcolm Tucker and when I saw him in this it was like I was looking at a completely different man!
The premise of the episode is that the Doctor decides to show Donna ancient Rome but accidentally takes them back to Pompeii in the day before Vesuvius is due to erupt. Donna is all out for organising a town wide evacuation but the Doctor knows that this is one moment in time that is fixed and therefore he cannot save these people. Donna is far from happy with this and this creates a great deal of tension between the two throughout the episode.
The issue of whether history can or cannot be changed has been the subject of many an episode. In the first Doctor era it was explicitly stated that "you can't rewrite history! Not one line!" As such most early historical stories involved the Doctor and his companions trying to get back to the TARDIS without getting swept along in the events happening around them. It wasn't until The Time Meddler that we began to see that certain events could be changed. In the new series they try to satisfy both aspects by saying that time can be changed (these times are in flux) but some things are fixed and must always happen. The death of Pompeii is unfortunately one of these events.
The Doctor:- "That's how I see the universe. What is, what was, what could be, what must not. That's the burden of a Time Lord, and I'm the only one left"
It's unusual to see the Doctor running away and abandoning an entire town to destruction. It isn't until Donna tearfully begs for him to at least save someone that he returns to save just one family.
A promising start to Donna's journeys in the TARDIS!
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