Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii

[Tknoel]

Donna Noble is far and away my favorite nuWho Companion. And "Fires of Pompeii" is one of her best episodes, that really sets the stage for the rest of her run. She hadn't made much of herself in her mundane life; but she's tough, she thinks fast on her feet, and she respects herself as well as the Doctor - enough to stand up to him and call him on his crap when he doesn't live up to his own rhetoric. And she returns snark for snark every step of the way. ("Donna, Human, NO.") Speaking of snark, Tate and Tennant have absolutely masterful comedic chemistry.

Sadly, what I consider to be Donna's very best moment in the entire series seems to get glossed over in Chuck's review of this episode. That comes when Our Heroes are trapped inside Vesuvius and Ten is standing with his hand on the Destruct-O-Lever, agonizing over whether or not he can bear to burn the city to save the planet: instead of standing there crying like a child about the unfairness of it all, Donna looks Ten in the eye, places her hands over his, and helps him pull the lever. In just a few seconds, without saying a word, she shows that she understands the situation, acknowledges the horror of it, and then actively takes a share of the responsibility for dealing with it - taking (part of) the burden of guilt from the Doctor's shoulders. We'd already seen Donna stand up to Ten when she disagreed with him; here we see how far she'll go to have his back when she does agree with him, even if she hates it. Perhaps even more importantly: by her conscious, deliberate acceptance in that moment of What Must Be Done, Donna greatly strengthens her later case in favor of What Can Be Done. (While acknowledging that the writers could have gone in any direction they chose, it's all too easy for me to imagine Ten tuning out an endless stream of childish whinging demands for the impossible, only realizing too late that the final demand, there at the end, hadn't been impossible at all.)

Ultimately, "Fires of Pompeii" is one of my favorite episodes of Doctor Who - of any era - mostly because of that one quiet, character-defining moment. So it was a little disappointing, to me, to see the review skim past that moment with just a brief mention that Donna had agreed with Ten on the necessity of Pompeii's destruction. But... Oh, well. If anybody cared what I thought, maybe I'd have a show of my own.

I heartily agree! It’s a truly strong moment in an altogether fantastic episode, and really cements that Donna is a companion who will always come through in the clutch. Definitely worth a mention and worth seeing if anyone hasn’t.

[AllanO]

Because it's not just about the records, it's about what impact these people may or may not have had on others if they were supposed to die there. Ripple effects.

But how would you know event X was a fixed point or not? The Doctor happily blunders into situations willy nilly. My sense is you know X is a fixed because either of personal knowledge or because it is a well known historical fact. Also I thought it more manifested as not being able to change something unless you really tried to push it.

I could be wrong but the only person I think we know by name to have died during the eruption is Pliny the elder either from fumes or (since his nephew wrote about it giving us our first hand account of the eruption). Apparently checking Wikipedia we also know " Jewish princess Drusilla and her son Agrippa" died. There may be some others who were reported to have died, but people did survive the eruption. So yeah random people surviving the eruption occurred so it would not be obvious problem for time travelers. Of course the people you don't save may feel a bit hard done by...

I find it interesting how while large swaths of history remain anonymous and vague, we get this specific windows on the past from first had accounts (plus all the remains of Pompeii and Herculaneum we have dug up with details we can compared to the written record ).

[Percysowner]

Donna is my favorite companion by a ton. I will never quite forgive how Davies ended her story.

I don't get why not saving the family was even considered. The destruction of Pompeii and the death of thousands is a fixed point in time, okay, but I doubt there's any clear record of whether these specific people survived or not, so saving them wouldn't change anything as far as you're aware. Plus, they're right there. The Doctor wouldn't even have to go out of his way to save them; just leave the door to the Tardis open and make a "come over here" gesture.

Because it's not just about the records, it's about what impact these people may or may not have had on others if they were supposed to die there. Ripple effects.

Then just take them back to the present or the future with you and dump them off there. Didn't the First Doctor rescue someone from the Fall of Troy that way?

This so much. It was one of the things I was shouting at the screen during The Waters of Mars. Basically they were all "killed" in an explosion, so no bodies were found. All he had to do was remove them from the time line take them forward in time and they would be dead in every historical sense of the word. Easy peasy. Instead decides to CHANGE time instead of acting rationally. Then he mopes because it doesn't work out the way he wanted. I could have taken the moping if only he hadn't been so unimaginative about saving those people. I understand writing conflict and emotion, but don't overlook the obvious answers.

[Sir Will]

I mean, I don't see how moving them ahead in time fixes things. It just delays where you're changing time, since they're not supposed to be there.

[Killerbee256]

I mean, I don't see how moving them ahead in time fixes things. It just delays where you're changing time, since they're not supposed to be there.

The 20th century and above is in such flux in the doctor who verse would it even matter? Other than the fact dropping upper class Roman family in modern Italy would be a bit cruel once the doctor's translator stops working for them.

[Artabax]

Because it's not just about the records, it's about what impact these people may or may not have had on others if they were supposed to die there. Ripple effects.

But how would you know event X was a fixed point or not? The Doctor happily blunders into situations willy nilly. My sense is you know X is a fixed because either of personal knowledge or because it is a well known historical fact. Also I thought it more manifested as not being able to change something unless you really tried to push it.

I could be wrong but the only person I think we know by name to have died during the eruption is Pliny the elder either from fumes or (since his nephew wrote about it giving us our first hand account of the eruption). Apparently checking Wikipedia we also know " Jewish princess Drusilla and her son Agrippa" died. There may be some others who were reported to have died, but people did survive the eruption. So yeah random people surviving the eruption occurred so it would not be obvious problem for time travelers. Of course the people you don't save may feel a bit hard done by...

I find it interesting how while large swaths of history remain anonymous and vague, we get this specific windows on the past from first had accounts (plus all the remains of Pompeii and Herculaneum we have dug up with details we can compared to the written record ).

In THIS episode, likewise in Let's kill Hitler Fixed Point in Time makes sense. An event SOOO big that to change it ... [dangerous music] That makes sense. The next FPT is that Astronaut shoots Doctor and is resolved when Astronaut shoots a Robot full of tiny people that looks like Doctor. FPT is meaningless technobabble.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Because it's not just about the records, it's about what impact these people may or may not have had on others if they were supposed to die there. Ripple effects.

But how would you know event X was a fixed point or not? The Doctor happily blunders into situations willy nilly. My sense is you know X is a fixed because either of personal knowledge or because it is a well known historical fact. Also I thought it more manifested as not being able to change something unless you really tried to push it.

I could be wrong but the only person I think we know by name to have died during the eruption is Pliny the elder either from fumes or (since his nephew wrote about it giving us our first hand account of the eruption). Apparently checking Wikipedia we also know " Jewish princess Drusilla and her son Agrippa" died. There may be some others who were reported to have died, but people did survive the eruption. So yeah random people surviving the eruption occurred so it would not be obvious problem for time travelers. Of course the people you don't save may feel a bit hard done by...

I find it interesting how while large swaths of history remain anonymous and vague, we get this specific windows on the past from first had accounts (plus all the remains of Pompeii and Herculaneum we have dug up with details we can compared to the written record ).

I thought it was less a matter of recorded history and more some architecture-of-the-universe thing that time lords could just sense.

[Deledrius]

Sometimes (when it's made sense) it appears to be a "I've personally observed or experienced some direct aspect of this" where changing it would cause a catastrophic paradox. But Doctor Who isn't particularly concerned with the details most of the time, especially in the modern era. Sometimes it does seem to veer into "I know this is a plot point that would resolve things too easily, so I can't do it" sort of meta-sense the Time Lords possess.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I don't necessarily see it as a meta thing. Certain life forms being "time sensitives" is an established part of Doctor Who lore, with one civilization going so far as to hook up time sensitive beings to their space ships to help them navigate the void.

[Deledrius]

I guess I'm of the mind that if it doesn't follow any consistent narrative rules, then it's a meta-ability granted or stymied entirely at the writers' discretion. Generally, based on my recollection of its usage, the Fixed Point in Time qualifies.