Talk:The Fires of Pompeii (TV story)

References

I'm new to this, but there's a couple of references that you may want to list. Firstly, The Doctor and Donna instroduce themselves both as Spartacus, a reference to the 1960 film of the same name. Also, when Donna is asking what an auger is(Around 13 mins in), The Doctor explains that she's from Barcelona, a reference to the TV show Fawlty Towers, where the main character explained away the oddness of his waiter manuel, by saying 'Oh don't mind him, he's from Barcelona'. Finally, the two scenes around 5:30 and 9:30 in with the family preparing for the volcano are remarkably similar to a scene in the 1964 film Mary Poppins. [[1]] Is a clip of the scene, around 1 minute in. 86.20.208.2 02:45, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a reference as far as the 'real world' goes (your references are almost word for word for the BBC Fact file which is within the external links page on the BBC site), but the references section is for references to the 'Doctor Who Universe' (stuff like the stuff that's listed in there). If you believe it's a valid point please put it under the story notes, or in a subsection within for 'Cultural notes' or something like that. --Tangerineduel 13:09, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Discontinuity, Plot holes, Errors

"If the eruption of Pompeii gave psychic vision of an alternate timeline in which the Pyroviles succeeded and there was no eruption "without the Doctors intervention" then how did Lucius Dextrus see Donna from London, she should not appear in his timeline and be a Pyrovile."

In this scene, they are not seeing the future, they are reading the Doctor/Donna's minds, so even if London didn't exist, Donna knew she was from London, and he read that.

The idea that the Romans did not know volcanos and had no word for it until 79 AD is rather ridiculous. The very word "volcano" goes back to the island of Vulcano, north of Sicily. The Romans thought it to be the entry to the workshop of the Roman god Vulcan. --87.187.139.50^{talk to me} 17:13, August 26, 2012 (UTC)

Non-interference with history

Should this really be on this page as i don't see its relevence to this article. surely it would be better suited on its own article Dark Lord Xander 12:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

The TARDIS translation circuit and the puns

It is clear from Lucius' response that it did a better job of pun-rendering than in TV: The Web Planet. (I mean come on, Isop-tope?) Anyway, my guess is that the harmless/armless pun would be rendered "Sed non est bracchiatus" (bracchium meaning arm), a pun on "bracatus" (meaning foreign, barbarian, or effeminate, lit. "trousered"). And I assume that the sun/son pun would be rendered as a "sol/solus" (sun/alone) pun of some sort. "Every sun must set ... it will rise alone", perhaps? Any other thoughts? - Tawaki 05:37, November 9, 2009 (UTC)

Fixed point in time?

If the eruption is a fixed point in time, then how come the Doctor is able to save someone? So shouldn't "time" know that the Doctor will save someone from the destruction of Pompeii and therefore it has happened, and it was fixed that a group of people were saved.--81.98.0.33 16:49, December 31, 2009 (UTC)

The thing about changing time is that there is logical loopholes, ways to cheat and keep the timeline good, all you need is a bit of imagination.Besides, one family wouldn't have made a lot of difference, and it's been mentioned that in most cases the universe compensates for changes in the timeline. Excalibur-117 17:06, December 31, 2009 (UTC)

The Doctor's Coat

At some point the Doctor re-enters the TARDIS to stash his coat. 107.10.62.59^{talk to me} 22:29, January 25, 2014 (UTC)

The "Lucius Caecilius Iucundus" rumour

When I encountered it, article said:

In the accompanying edition of Doctor Who Confidential (The Italian Job) Davies confirms that Caecilius and his family were based on characters from a series of Latin text books used in secondary schools. Although Caecilius was a real person who lived in Pompeii in the 1st century AD, recent research has suggested he may have died in around AD 62 and not survived to the final destruction of the city almost twenty years later.

Since we appear to be the source of this nasty rumour, and since a number of articles on the web have perpetuated this myth that we started, it is worth pointing out that it is completely untrue. What RTD says in The Italian Job is that he nicked the family name from the Cambridge series. Not the character. Just the family name. And he did it as a gag. Capaldi is not playing the historical character. He doesn't even slightly look like Lucius Caecilius Iucundus, of whom we have an exceptionally well-preserved bust.

The name of this character is absolutely, definitely Lobus Caecilius. That's stone cold in dialogue. (Thanks to User:SawyerDN for pressing this point recently.)
czechout<staff /> ☎ ✍  07:48: Sat 01 Mar 2014

Nicked, to the point that the wife Metella and son Quintus are also the same names as in the textbooks. Wikipedia has a BBC sourced bit on this as well. - Burwellian ☎ 00:52, August 27, 2016 (UTC)

Household Gods inscription

At the end, when we see a carving of the Doctor and Donna as household gods, the Tardis is shown with a Latin inscription where "police box" is normally written. I've not found a picture with a high enough resolution to make out the words, does anyone know what it says and what it translates to? Might be a nice note to add to the article if we figure it out. MrEvers ☎ 17:13, February 26, 2016 (UTC)