...NEW DR WHO TONIGHT, 12/04/08, 6.45pm, The Fires of Pompeii...

[Lobo Baggins]

better then the first but still really annoyed by Tate, the character seems fine it just she really bugs me.

Quite - her bellowing of lines which really ought to have more of a subtle impact (particularly 'YOU CAN'T JUST LEAVE THEM!') really got on my nerves.

Nice cleavage, though.

A very good episode, I thought, with some very nice GCI.  I liked the giant Pyrovayne coming out of the cave, but the bits filmed in Wales in September stood out a bit painfully when cut together with the bits filmed in Rome in August.

Plus, everyone seemed to be wearing shades of purple, which is... unlikely, to say the least, as only the Emperor had both the money and access to the resources to make purple dye.

[House of Usher]

It was indeed the Cambridge Latin Course, WoD. I found out by Googling 'Caecilius' because nothing else worked (I had already ruled out 'Ecce Romani', the other popular Latin course from the 1980s).

Reading the course decription, I'm not sure how far beyond Book 1 we read at my school, because I don't remember much about it. I think I've still got all the books somewhere, which may jog my memory when I catch up with them. I remember we read bits of Pliny, Juvenal, Catullus and Virgil though.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Latin_Course" target="_blank">Cambridge Latin Course (wikipedia)

[Gavin_Leahy_Block]

ya the use of purple stood out for me,

"imperial purple"

[dweezil2]

Very weak set up and first act, but by the end it had won me over.
It was almost a taste of old school Who with a decent FX budget!

[Proudhuff]

Huzzah!! Really enjoyed that one, bit of 'how's that then' to deal with us pedants and the assistant, then of on a thinking type adventure. yes there was some running and shouting but the plot needed it, not just for athe oblig chase/reach the red wire in time stuff that RT does

Hints of old Who in there.
I'm back on bourd after last weeks cr#p

Huffovious

[mogzilla]

enjoyed but the cockney roman trader grated a bit though loved the "what if i speak in latin" bit


going slightly off topic.well off episode i read in the making of book that rtd said he would never have a human pointing a gun at another and firing it...titanic this christmas. geoff palmer did just that!

he also said rose would never come back as well.lying git.

[Tiplodocus]

Found myself watching and enjoying that.

Surely the old "Oh my goodness, I need to cause this disastrous event" conuncrum has been done before in WHO, hasn't it?  If not, top marks to the writer.

At first I thought I'd let them away with the Cockernee speech - especially as they did the rather amusing Welsh gag with it (Peter Capaldi was very good).  But the more I thought about it,the more I thought it was a cop out.  ROME managed to give you the feeling that the characters inhabited a different time period with different points of views yet the dialogue still remained accessible - so why couldn't WHO do it?

Only other nitpicks were that bits of it were so rushed I couldn't quite keep up with why all the seers knew who the Doctor was.

And I thought the bloke that played the head seer (Lucius Petrus Dexter) was a bit of a plank - just seemed to be one note and shouty.

But overall, I accidentally enjoyed it.  

Tate was great - made me and Tiny Tips laugh out loud on more than one occassion and was also very good as the human heart of the story.

I can't help thinking that, given that the episode looked so gorgeous and they went all the way to Italy to film, might it not have been better to open it out into a two parter or at least have it as the Christmas Special.  It actually looked "SPECIAL" this episode whereas the one with Kylie on the Titanic looked anything but.

[Buddy]

Actualy thought this was watchable, nice creature effects.

But of course I'll have to complain about something so here it is....

Does every major historical event have to be connected to some alien invasion??

I'm sure this has been done before, has it?

Anyway enjoyable enough. More like this would be a step in teh right direction.

[scutfink]

IIRC Peter Davidson started the great fire of london, but I think that was unintentional...

[ARRISARRIS]

...just another series plot hole for us to concider, in the past no-one has been able to read the Doctors mind, so whats changed here???...

[TordelBack]

Y'see, this is the sort of discussion that's actually fun to have.  Why is this different, why did that happen, what about this?  Much better than "a wizard did it".  Which is where we were recently.  Here's hoping it continues.

[Goaty]

mmmm is it me, or is there clues in this series linked up like "Big Bad Wolf" as this episode mention that aliens's planet gone, like last week's ep aliens' planet as well.

[Hoagy]

I watched this particularly good episode.

It seems, the period piece with offbeat technology fit the Doctor better than future-corp chrome-poled, dry iced and computer blue, setting which leaves me worried for next weeks episode.

But! Agree on the spartan assimilation of the aliens who were obviously working on an archetype. Pompeians totally falling for it made me forgive the attempts to ruin everything by the brattish RTD, " I love Asterix!" So do I but I don't love your Asterix, RTD.

What I mean to say is the believability of the age of people depicted was so strong thanks to the God worshiping system they fell foul to made the fakt they torked cockney quite bearable.

And Petrus Dextrus looked all the world like an Asterix badguy.

It wasn't 'til I watched the confidential I was informed of the comparative elements and I'm glad he chose Asterix as a resource and maybe a little Life of Brian too, rather than the Carry on catalogue.

The escape pod should have just took them to Cardiff thouch and they could have just continue the series from there.

That'd be nice for the whole Doctor Who series to be a continual stream of events rather than it beginning on a decided location and them having to escape that episode or have a part two to escape from.

you, know start from set precedent of safety at the start of the series and bounce around the tim eline continually throughout until reaching a reset of the safety precedent at the end.

[JamesC]

I quite liked that episode.
Tate was very good.
 Thought the aliens were a bit weak though.

[JamesC]

And the whole 'The Doctor is a god' bit is getting a bit bloody tiresome.

My prediction for the end of the series and the 'terrible choice' is that the Doctor will have to choose between Donna or Martha and Rose. I reckon Rose can only come back permanently if she swaps places with someone else.