The success of "The Fires of Vulcan", a poignant historical wrapped in a clever time travel puzzle, is as much due to what it's not, as what it became. Disaster scenario's are nothing new in Who, from "Inferno" to "The Stones of Venice". Luckily, "Fires" takes a nod from the former, and avoids being overtly whimsical. It could so easily have trodden a path of amusing toga's and hilarious drunken Barbarians, and indeed both of these feature, yet the comedy is used to expose, rather than trample all over, the drama. There's no way Rome is going to be "restored" by Elaine Eves-Cameron and a bit of flimsy magic this time around.

Imagine if it had been. The condition for depicting any famous catastrophe in Doctor Who has to be that the danger is inescapable - note that "Inferno", the series greatest disaster movie folly, also separates the Doctor from his TARDIS in the chosen scenario. We know the terrible thing happens, so giving the Doctor a "magic" way out defeats the story. The menace lies in him getting caught up in history, the fate we know lays before him if he can't somehow escape. "The Fires of Vulcan" understands this perfectly.

No other Doctor (aside from perhaps Davison) could have pulled this off either - the key to the air of reflection which pervades events as we hear them, the shudder one feels when getting to know the doomed, has to be in our subdued leads. Thus it's got to be McCoy playing his most mournful Doctor and "New Mel", practical and reasonable as ever but not silly like on the telly. If this invents and bolts on a contradictory wheel to Season 24, then so be it. Just imagine Sophie Aldred in this - yelling "professor!" all the time and threatening to rivet Eumachia's kneecaps together.

I was lucky enough to watch a documentary on the eruption of Mount Vesuvias at some point. My memory tells me it was just before listening to "The Fires of Vulcan" but it might be lying. It doesn't matter, I have in my mind the exact images of still-preserved people and homes that "The Fires of Vulcan" hopes to remind us of with its smart, present-day opening scene. Imagine if the tale had opened traditionally, with us not aware of where the Doctor and Mel were setting out to explore or what was about to happen. Like "The Massacre", this adventures' sixties cousin, there would have been the not-entirely-unexpected shock value, but the tale would have followed lines so predictable that there would have been little reason to listen. The sunny prelude with Murial Frost makes sure we have to reach Episode 4, just to see how Lyons wriggles out of it, even though we know he will.

The opening also helps cast a reflective light over the rest of the story. We join it at a time when the characters we have yet to meet are already dead and gone. From this point on, the feeling of being in the past is intensified. If the story IS the past, this is less evident.

Perfectly judged, expertly played.

CD Facts

Part 1 - Tracks 1-6

Part 2 - Tracks 7-11

Part 3 - Tracks 1-5

Part 4 - Tracks 6-11