Big Finish
After reviewing the Tenth Doctor’s and Donna’s adventure in Pompeii, we look back at when the Seventh Doctor and his companion Mel visited the doomed city, in The Fires of Vulcan.
The Doctor and his red-haired companion have arrived in Pompeii. It’s one day before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The Doctor believes they can’t change history. His companion however wants to fight against it.
Sound familiar? This could of course sum up Tenth Doctor story The Fires of Pompeii. But in this case, it’s actually referring to another story entirely: the Seventh Doctor audio adventure The Fires of Vulcan, by Steve Lyons.
Released almost eight years before The Fires of Pompeii, what’s fascinating about this story is that, while there are broad similarities with the TV episode, there are also many key differences, too.
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For example, it’s a pure historical story, containing no science-fiction elements other than the Doctor and time travel. This is rather unusual, even for a Seventh Doctor story. In fact, in the TV series, pure historicals were almost entirely unique to the First Doctor. (The two exceptions to this were The Highlanders for the Second Doctor, and Black Orchid for the Fifth.)
It’s interesting hearing how the Seventh Doctor deals with a story with no alien enemies to fight. In fact, in this story, his main enemy is much worse: history itself.
What’s even more interesting is that, while Ten was against changing history in The Fires of Pompeii, the problem was more about Pompeii’s fate in general. In Vulcan, however, it’s far more personal. Because he’s seen his own future. And his fate looks far too bleak.
Mel
His companion Mel tries hard to convince him that the future can be changed. That they can find a way of avoiding their fate. But the Doctor is far too certain that the future cannot be avoided.
The Fires of Vulcan was the first audio to feature Bonnie Langford as Mel. On television, Mel wasn’t a very popular companion. Naturally, there was doubt from some fans over whether it was a good idea to bring her back.
Thankfully, her depiction in The Fires of Vulcan was enough to relieve fans of those worries. It’s not hard to see why, either. Not only is Bonnie Langford a fantastic actress, who’s clearly far more experienced and confidant here than she was when she initially played the role. Steve Lyons has written her in a much more interesting way, too.
On television, Mel was written far too often as a screaming companion. On audio, she’s someone with strong morals who doesn’t give up. Unsurprisingly, fans liked this interpretation of the character far more.
Like the Sixth Doctor, Mel was essentially redeemed on audio in a big way. The Fires of Vulcan was a major starting point for that.
The society of Pompeii
Because there are no alien monsters to distract from the story, The Fires of Vulcan focuses on a large cast of human characters, instead. So these many characters help to give us a great idea of what Pompeii was like. In fact, better than we saw in The Fires of Pompeii.
Across the course of the four episodes, we encounter gladiators, priestesses, gamblers and many other distinctive characters across the Roman city. We even see slaves, something The Fires of Pompeii seemed to shy away from. Ironic really, consider the very next episode, Planet of the Ood, had slavery as its main focus.
(There are other, slightly more mature aspects of Pompeii society that The Fires of Vulcan revealed more on. Since Doctor Who is a family show, however, it’s understandable why these aspects were avoided on TV.)
The eruption doesn’t truly begin until the fourth and final part of this serial. Which fits perfectly, as the first three focus on both the build-up and the tension leading to the eruption. These episodes also allow us to get to know the citizens of Pompeii better. So when Vesuvius erupts, the characters that are caught up in it are ones that we care about. It makes the tragedy have a great deal more impact by the end.
Next: Retro review: The Fires of Pompeii
The Fires of Vulcan is a fantastic historical story. If you liked The Fires of Pompeii, but wanted a story more fleshed out and focused more on Pompeii and its people than on monsters, then The Fires of Vulcan is well worth a listen.