History Recap / DoctorWhoNSS4E2TheFiresofPompeii

** Well, Caecilius, Quintus and Metella do. Evalina is made up. [![GovernmentConspiracy Probably...]]

* CityOfWeirdos: The Doctor assures Martha they won't stand out, as ancient Rome is "like Soho, but bigger." It still applies after it turns out they're in Pompeii.

The casting for this episode turned out to be quite auspicious: Phil Davis ("Lucius") would play the first antagonist in ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' (a series run by the same show runners as ''Doctor Who''); Tracey Childs ("Metella") [[hottip:*: who had previously appeared in AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho)]] would go on to become a regular BigFinish companion; Creator/KarenGillan (Soothsayer scout) would return as [[YouLookFamiliar Amy Pond]], one of the longest-serving companions in the series; and Creator/PeterCapaldi ("Caecilius") would have a supporting role in ''TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth'' and later [[spoiler:take the helm of the show as the Twelfth Doctor himself.]]

The casting for this episode turned out to be quite auspicious: Phil Davis ("Lucius") would play the first antagonist in ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' (a series run by the same show runners as ''Doctor Who''); Tracey Childs ("Metella") [[hottip:*: who had previously appeared in AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho)]] would go on to become a regular BigFinish companion; KarenGillan (Soothsayer scout) would return as [[YouLookFamiliar Amy Pond]], one of the longest-serving companions in the series; and Peter Capaldi ("Caecilius") would have a supporting role in ''TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth'' and later [[spoiler:take the helm of the show as the Twelfth Doctor himself.]]

The casting for this episode turned out to be quite auspicious: Tracey Childs had [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho025Colditz previously appeared]] in AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho as Elizabeth Klein, who would go on to become a regular BigFinish companion; KarenGillan would return as [[YouLookFamiliar Amy Pond]], one of the longest-serving companions in the series; and Peter Capaldi would have a supporting role in ''TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth'' and later [[spoiler:took the helm of the show as the Twelfth Doctor himself.]]

The casting for this episode turned out to be quite auspicious: Tracey Childs had [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho025Colditz previously appeared]] in AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho as Elizabeth Klein, who would go on to become a regular BigFinish companion; KarenGillan would return as [[YouLookFamiliar Amy Pond]], one of the longest-serving companions in the series; and Peter Capaldi would have a supporting role in ''TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth'' [[spoiler: and later took the helm of the show as the Twelfth Doctor himself.]]

The casting for this episode turned out to be quite auspicious: Tracey Childs had [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho025Colditz previously appeared]] in AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho and would go on to become a regular BigFinish companion; KarenGillan would return as [[YouLookFamiliar Amy Pond]], one of the longest-serving companions in the series; and Peter Capaldi would have a supporting role in ''TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth'' [[spoiler: and later took the helm of the show as the Twelfth Doctor himself.]]

The casting for this episode turned out to be quite auspicious, as KarenGillan would return as [[YouLookFamiliar Amy Pond]], one of the longest-serving companions in the series, and Peter Capaldi would have a supporting role in ''TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth'' [[spoiler: and later took the helm of the show as the Twelfth Doctor himself.]]

The casting for this episode turned out to be quite auspicious, as KarenGillan would return as [[YouLookFamiliar Amy Pond]], one of the longest-serving companions in the series, and Peter Capaldi would have a supporting role in ''TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth'' [[spoiler: and later was cast as the Twelfth Doctor.]]

* CallBack: The Doctor's mention of "Volcano Day" refers to a comment by Jack Harkness in ''The Empty Child''.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Lucius Caecilius Iucundus was a real Roman banker living in Pompeii at the time of the eruption, most well known to modern audiences due to being fictionalised by the ''Literature/CambridgeLatinCourse''.

** Not to mention that 2000 years later, the English language itself still frequently throws ''latin'' into everyday conversation.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The augur tells Donna that there is "something on her back". There will be, in [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E11TurnLeft Turn Left]]. He also tells the Doctor "she is returning", referring to Rose.

* AncientRome: sort of; we do get there eventually.

* ConvectionSchmonvection: [[JustifiedTrope justified]]; most of the heat is being taken by the Pyroviles.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Lucius Caecilius Iucundus

And both KarenGillan ([[YouLookFamiliar future companion Amy Pond]]) and Peter Capaldi (future Twelfth Doctor) are in it.

And KarenGillan ([[YouLookFamiliar who would go on to play future companion Amy Pond]]) is in it.

!Tropes

* AnticlimaxBoss: The first Pyrovile that gets taken down with water

* ProphecyTwist: The Doctor says Pompeii's destruction is "a fixed point" that he can't prevent, even though thousands will die. [[spoiler: It's worse than that, he has to ''make'' Vesuvius erupt to {{save the world}}.]]

* TearJerker: "All those people..."

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: While the episode was awesome enough, we know that Jack visited Pompeii several times during his days as a Time Agent. Would it have been so wrong to have the Doctor duck behind a pillar [[MissedMomentOfAwesome to avoid him?]]
** We could have had Jack running around Pompeii in a nice short tunica? Missed Moment of Fanservice.

So they go for the ''other'' secret Time Lord maneuver: running away, much for Donna's frustration. Unfortunately, the TARDIS is missing; while they were walking around, a street merchant seized it (justified, as it ''was'' parked on his market's place) and sold it to a local marble merchant with a dysfunctional family (A drunken slob of a son and a fume-addicted oracle daughter) AND a taste for avant-garde art. It's not the first time [[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E2CityOfDeath the TARDIS has been mistaken for an art installation.]]

The marble-worker who bought it is then attacked by a massive magma-thing (which is stopped by a bucket of water) and it is revealed that the volcano fumes inhaled by his oracle daughter to boost her visions are slowly turning her into stone. Also, a local prophet claims that there's something on Donna's back. This will be important later. And he says that a planet has apparently gone missing. This will be ''very'' important later. Meanwhile, the marble-worker has a freaking computer circuit made of stone, so the Doctor decides to stick around a bit longer.

The Doctor confronts the oracles (with a Walther P38 water pistol) and finds out why someone ordered a bunch of marble power-converters.

The Doctor finds out that Vesuvius isn't going to erupt if he just leaves; he needs to ''make'' it erupt. If Pompeii doesn't erupt, then since the [[MonsterOfTheWeek alien menace of the week]] hasn't been destroyed, a race of lava golems will turn humans into more golems, boil the ocean, and go conquer the world. Donna realizes for the first time that travelling with the Doctor can be very morally disturbing. They make the volcano erupt, both fully expecting to die, but it turns out the explosion device was inside an escape pod. Donna convinces the Doctor to go back and save the marble-worker and his family. Because not everyone is an über-depressed near-suicidal Time Lord, and sometimes the Doctor forgets that. Six months later, Caecilius and his family have their lives back on track, the daughter is finally socialising like a (in our time, anyways) normal teenager, and that wastrel son is making good of himself, learning manners, not drinking anymore and most importantly, studying to be a doctor too (not that kind). And their new house gods altar, with a box flanked by this man and this woman, look suspiciously familiar...

Oh, and KarenGillan ([[YouLookFamiliar who would go on to play future companion Amy Pond]]) is in it.

* AncientRome: sort of, we do get there eventually.

** The Doctor admits that Donna was right - sometimes he needs someone to stop him.
* ConvectionSchmonvection: [[JustifiedTrope justified]], most of the heat is being taken by the Pyroviles.
* CreatorInJoke: Latin students everywhere stand a chance of recognizing Caecillius and his family. They feature in the ''Literature/CambridgeLatinCourse'', a widely used Latin textbook series.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Donna sharing the burden with the Doctor of having to cause Vesuvius's eruption, and later pleading with him to save just one family. It's not hard to see why the Doctor considered her to be his best friend.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The augur tells Donna that there is "something on her back". There will be, in [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E11TurnLeft Turn Left]]. He also tells the Doctor that "she is returning", probably referring to Rose.

* LivingLieDetector: Both augers/soothsayers visibly unnerve the Doctor and Donna by seeing right through their stories and made up identities and telling them things about them they couldn't have possibly known.
-->Lucius: "Is that so? Man from Gallifrey...And you, daughter of... London!"

* MeaningfulName: Lots. but particularly Lucius Petrus Dextrus (literally translating to Lucius '''Stone Right Arm'''!). Apparently these were all deliberate - RussellTDavies was channelling ''{{Asterix}}'' and asked James Moran to put them in.
* MistakenForExhibit: Not only is the TARDIS mistaken for a modern art installation, but an enterprising street trader has sold it to a wealthy marble merchant, kicking off the plot. Probably meant to be PlayedForLaughs
* MistakenForSpecialGuest: Not addressed in the episode, but there's a subtle indication that Donna is seen as someone of high status, when the soothsayers note her true name is "Noble" and that throughout this episode she wears Purple, which was seen at the time to indicate wealth and status.

* PsychicPowers: The Sibylline Sisterhood have them as a side-effect of the Pyroviles' presence.

** Donna starts it by trying to say, "Veni vidi vici" to a shop proprietor. He says, drawing out syllables, "Me no a-speak Celtic. No can do, missy!"
** When the Doctor and Quintus are cornered by Petrus Dextrus and his men, the Doctor mutters, "morituri te salutant" ("those who are about to die salute you") and Petrus Dextrus says, "Celtic prayers won't help you now."
* ShoutOut to ''Series/FawltyTowers'' when the Doctor explains away some of Donna's remarks with "she's from Barcelona".
** The scene of the marble worker's family rushing to their positions during the pre-eruption earthquakes could be one of the Admiral Boom scenes in ''Film/MaryPoppins''.

** There's also a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shout-out when the Doctor tells Caecilius that "[he] will be remembered." He is indeed remembered, and is read about by almost every English-speaking Latin student for the past 45 years.

* StealthPun: Lucius Petrus Dextrus is latin for Shining Stone Right Arm!

* TearJerker: "...All those people..."

* WhatHaveWeEar: The Doctor does this to Quintus to bribe him into taking him to Dextrus's house.

This episode was inspired by the very similar BigFinishDoctorWho episode "[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho012TheFiresOfVulcan The Fires of Vulcan]]".

Donna and the Doctor land in AncientRome, ready to have more fun than an amphora of monkeys.

Except they instead land in Pompeii, 23 August of 79 A.D., which means is the day before the Vesubius erupts and Pompeii's streets get re-paved with lava. Donna immediately requests the Doctor's help to organize a mass evacuation and save everyone, but the Doctor claims to be unable to do anything about this: he doesn't ''say'' "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E6TheAztecs You can't change history, Barbara; not one line]]", but he is probably thinking it.

So they go for the ''other'' secret Time Lord maneuver: running away, much for Donna's frustration. Unfortunately, the TARDIS is missing; while they were walking around, a street merchant seized it (it ''was'' parked on his market's place) and sold it to a local marble merchant with a dysfunctional family (A drunken slob of a son and a fume-addicted oracle daughter) AND a taste for avant-garde art. It's not the first time [[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E2CityOfDeath the TARDIS has been mistaken for an art installation.]]

The Doctor confronts the oracles (with a water pistol) and finds out why someone ordered a bunch of marble power-converters.

* AccidentalArt: PlayedForLaughs, as Caecilius is sold the TARDIS as a work of modern art.

* AnticlimaxBoss: The first Pyrovile.

* IAmSpartacus: "And so am I."

* MeaningfulName: lots, but particularly Lucius Petrus Dextrus (literally Lucius Stone Right Arm!). Apparently these were all deliberate - RussellTDavies was channelling'' {{Asterix}}'' and asked James Moran to put them in.

* RunningGag: Because of the TARDIS, Donna (and we) hear the Romans' Latin as English, so if you speak to them in Latin it's translated into Celtic. Several "Oh, you're Celtic" comments result.

** The scene of the marble worker's family rushing to their positions during the pre-eruption earthquakes could be one to a similar scene in ''Film/MaryPoppins''.

* StealthPun: Lucius Petrus Dextrus is latin for Shining Stone Right Arm.

** Although, the first time this occurs, when Donna walks up to a man and says "Veni, vidi, vici," she's mispronouncing it. She pronounces the V's as, well, V's, when in Latin, V's were pronounced as W's, she also pronounces the C in "vici" as "ch" when it's a K sound. Granted, the writer most likely just didn't know how Latin was pronounced.
*** This is a point of some debate, seeing as Latin hasn't been in general usage for 2000 years and no-one knows for certain how it was pronounced
*** It's also strange to walk up to a street vendor and say "I came, I saw, I conquered." for no reason.
*** She's pronouncing it in ecclesiastical, or church, Latin. Which is somewhat more commonly known than "classical Latin" pronunciation which pronounces Vs as Ws and uses the hard C sound.
** Which lends itself to some wonderful FridgeBrilliance that the TARDIS is actually translating Donna's Latin into period specific English, hence the reason why it comes off as sounding ''Welsh''.
*** English was not a distinct language until the fifth century, and even if it was it'd sound more like German than Welsh.
**** Actually, the TARDIS probably made it Welsh rather than the [[GeniusBonus period language of the Anglo-Saxons]] because Donna is from [[BilingualBonus Londinium]]. If she were to say so, [[FridgeBrilliance the TARDIS just made it plausible.]]
* ShootTheDog

*** There's also a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shout-out when the Doctor tells Caecilius that "[he] will be remembered." He is indeed remembered, and is read about by almost every English-speaking Latin student for the past 45 years.