Tartarus

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: The Peterloo Massacre

I was ready to rate this one fairly low as the first half was standard Roman fare, nothing really interesting was happening. In the second part though this story really redeemed itself turning from generic Roman debating to an epic little quest full of mythical beings and legendary creatures from all around the word.

The two Roman characters are fairly interesting, particularly Cicero who I think is a unique take on the aristocratic Roman. I'm fairly tired of them all being irredeemably evil so it's nice to have a character who's genuinely good. It helps skip all the usual capture/recapture and general mistrust towards the Doctor and his companions that is so typical in historicals, especially ancient ones.

The scene where Cicero bargains for Marc's life was really good and I think it's telling that the Doctor trusted him to do that on his own (mostly). It'll be interesting to see where the character of Marc goes aswell, especially considering the ominous epilogue at the end of this story. It is odd though when you consider how few Roman companions there are when Doctor Who historicals spend most of their time in either Victorian England or Ancient Rome.

Next Story: Interstitial