“It’s Volcano Day.” Where have we heard that before? Well heres the first historic story of Series 4. Does it live up to its promise? Well if I were to answer that question so early on then there’d be no point in reading this entire review. Anyway back to the story. James Moran certainly knows how to write a good Doctor Who story, but really needs to work on the dialogue. Whether its transition from script to screen worked is the real question here does it? It suffers from the same thing as Warrior’s of the Deep. Great story, not so great transition with bad acting and direction and what not.

Donna and the Doctor appear to be working well together. I seem to be the only person who loved Catherine from the moment we saw her in “Partners In Crime”. Donna does have some funny moments, especially the scene where Donna tries out her Latin on a very confused Roman merchant. But other than the start of the story, the rest of it is pretty serious.

The characters are way too one-dimensional which isn’t helped by the appalling dialogue given to the central Roman family in the story. The acting is far from spectacular with some major overacting from “Phil Davis” who plays the antagonist in this episode. I mean the merchant who says “Lovely Jubbly” I mean please let’s not turn this into Doctor Who: Rodney Meet The Romans. But to be honest I can hardly blame most of the actors for the poor dialogue. James Moran had some great ideas in the story but they don’t really shine through the bad dialogue. I think I’ve mentioned the word dialogue enough for one day.

The Syballine reminded me a lot of the “Sisterhood” in the “Brain of Morbius”. To me they seemed to alike. And the whole hand on eye thing slightly reminded me of Pan’s Labyrinth with the monster with eyes in its hands. The scene however with the water pistol was a little silly but instantly laughable. I mean what are the chances he would have a water pistol on him? How much can he fit in those pockets of his? Are they bigger on the inside that the outside, transdimensional pockets eh?

The moment when the Doctor has to decide whether to save Pompeii or the world is certainly the most compelling part of the whole story. Surely it’s obvious which one the Doctor must go and choose.

The effects and animation were brilliant, the Pyrovile’s looked stunning. But like the dinosaurs in “Jurassic Park 3” they didn’t look real enough. But the scenes of the eruption itself and the images of the whole of Pompeii in smoke were brilliant visualised and spectacular to watch. It kind of makes you wonder how they fitted the whole of this story into 45 minutes.

The ending where the Doctor saved the Roman family really went against his whole message of not changing the course of history, I mean what’s stopping him from saving a few of his favourite time-lords. However, it did make the Doctor feel more human and his conversation with Donna about him being the last of the Timelords made us feel again for this broken man.

Doctor Who has a brilliant pace in this story, with something happening all the time. It’s a fun story, but not very well thought out. 2 episodes in and still Doctor Who seems a little second rate. Third time lucky we can hope?.

3/5

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