The Fires of Vulcan

05.04.2022

All over the place. The timey-wimey conflict requires a few forced jumps through hoops to resolve. The slave/master paradigm is underexplored. I imagined some way cooler scenes for those purposes while listening to this play.
Once again, this one feels procedural. And that's the worst DW can be.
2/5 for some nice moments and interesting idea eggs.

nice little pure historical with some interesting plot points, but overall it felt a little lacklustre to me.

MR 012: The Fires of Vulcan

Now this is more like it Mr. Seventh Doctor. This one covers on a lot of topics I find interesting about Doctor Who. The idea that your fate is set in stone by having foreknowledge of events. The idea of changing history and what that might mean. And just a really interesting setting.

Not to mention this is the first appearance of Mel in a BF audio! That's very exciting. Mel gets to be in a story that isn't a panto for once! And she does a fantastic job here. She's every bit as friendly and full of life as I know her to be just with 100% less top of the lungs shrieking.

The TARDIS gets found at the site of Pompeii in the 1980s while the Doctor and Mel land in Pompeii where the Doctor thinks he's just met his fate. It's an interesting idea that foreknowledge of events will lead to a different event in the future. If the Doctor just immediately leaves then he won't know that the TARDIS is found here in the future and thus won't immediately leave, leading to the TARDIS being buried here. It implies that time is constantly happening over and over and over again and would create a double time loop. It changes into something different each loop. Instead the Doctor creates a single loop by letting the events play out.

This itself is an interesting idea because the Doctor often does this: he makes sure to avoid as much foreknowledge as possible. It means that time travellers should NEVER study history either. Because when they go to that time period they can't change anything because they'll create the double time loops.
Speaking of which, this audio only lightly touches on the idea that we can't save people involved in historical events. Which, to me, always felt arbitrary. The Doctor is a time traveller and so there's no reason why he wouldn't have foreknowledge of, say, the Margaret Thatcher government in The Happiness Patrol or not have foreknowledge of Pompeii. These are just events to the Doctor, equally part of history, but because the audience knows about one and doesn't know about others, we can't alter one of them. It's really less so the time traveller having foreknowledge and more the audience having foreknowledge of historical events that makes them unalterable.

I quite enjoyed the setting as well. The idea of the Doctor and Mel being messengers of Isis was said at the beginning, but it has drastic political implications throughout the story. Isis is a foreign goddess to Pompeii, and the Roman priestess sees this as a heretical religion. So you have the priestess wielding her influence in trying to discredit Isis and thus attacking the Doctor and Mel. It then comes out to look like Isis is punishing Pompeii when the Doctor and Mel get arrested and attacked because they are supposed to be her messengers.

There's also another plot thread where the Doctor is constantly getting challenged by a gladiator after the gladiator loses to him at dice which is kind of hilarious. Again, making it look like the goddess Isis is smiting the city for her messengers being attacked. McCoy gets some good stuff here as well when he's yelling at the gladiator about how it won't matter because they'll all be dead soon anyway.

I like that, in the end, we don't actually see the fate of any of the characters. We don't know if they've managed to evacuate or if they've died. And that's better, I should think. It does make me wonder, though, how much history could bend, just a little, if the city was evacuated before the eruption. Hmm...

The Monthly Adventures #012 - "The Fires of Vulcan" by Steve Lyons

One of the many oddities of the Doctor Who IP is the many pseudo-remakes born from the extensive expanded universe. From Jubilee into Dalek or The Star Beast into… The Star Beast, you can find many examples of this phenomenon throughout the revival, with inspirations ranging from the books to, yes, the audios. Perhaps one of the strangest links between Big Finish and New-Who is The Fires of Vulcan, which shares a number of similarities with the Series 4 story The Fires of Pompeii, including in name. But exactly how similar are they? Let’s find out.

Italy, 1980: archeologists uncover an impossible artefact in Pompeii - a 1960s British police telephone box. 2000 years earlier, two stranded travellers desperately try to escape a tragedy, and keep their lives whilst they’re at it.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

The Fires of Vulcan, though on the surface incredibly similar to its revival counterpart in many ways, has a vast number of differences, namely that this is a pure historical as opposed to the more traditional alien outing of The Fires of Pompeii. However, both deal with similar themes about time travel and not being allowed to impact the web of time, though they go about it in different ways. The Fires of Vulcan opens with archeologists and UNIT discovering the TARDIS buried under the rubble of Pompeii, which is an instantly startling visual and a great way to open the story. How did the TARDIS get there? How do the Doctor and Mel escape the passage of time? It’s by all means as good as an opening hook can be and it makes for a great premise. Once we get to Pompeii however, we start to notice the cracks, though they’re not that immediately obvious. The story is very fast, we get into the action quickly but still let the story have time to build. Heck, it takes a whole part for the actual plot to begin but I don’t really mind because even that first part is filled with some quality action and some great characters. Whilst said characters certainly don't stand out (god knows I can’t actually name a single one of them but that’s more because of Latin than script), they all feel like real people and work in the confines of the story. Chief amongst them all is the Doctor; McCoy has very quickly gone from the worst performance in Big Finish’s roster of Doctors to quite possibly the best, his mournful attitude as he slowly grows to accept his fate is brilliantly performed.

Unfortunately, the plot of The Fires of Vulcan just does not work for me at all. Despite the very brisk pace and great setup, a lot of the subplots just don’t go anywhere, it consists of a lot of disconnected plot threads that end abruptly when Vesuvius erupts in Part 4, and the whole narrative can only be described as loose in nature. I think the story would be a lot better if it took advantage of its premise, which it mainly does not. The paradoxical elements of The Fires of Pompeii are the basis of the entire plot, it’s the whole thing that spurs the Doctor and Donna onwards and the themes it brings up are central to the entire episode. The Fires of Vulcan is probably the bare minimum you could’ve done with the concept of the Doctor getting stuck in an inescapable disaster. Nobody seems worried at any point in this episode. Mel, a human being who just learned she’ll die tomorrow, is acting as calm as ever. Even during the eruption, no performance or dialogue sells how terrifying this is, everybody is very oddly dismissing this end of days event with a shrug and it makes the whole audio take on this very weird, tensionless atmosphere that adamantly refuses to grab my attention. This story is not boring, not by a long shot - Lyons is very good at keeping a snappy pace, but he never gives me any reason to care about what’s happening, the terror is left underdeveloped. Plus, our threat besides the volcano - our “antagonists” - leave no impression on me, they never feel particularly malicious or dangerous. This entire audio is incredibly odd, it feels like the whole script’s on valium and it has the same pace as a story where a character calmly wanders around an ancient city for a day. Not helping this is the whole conundrum of “how does the Doctor escape when the TARDIS is lost to time?” doesn’t even matter, because he just goes at the end. He doesn’t even do anything clever, he just flies to modern day and then sends the TARDIS back into Pompeii; Doctor, you’re the smartest being in the universe, could you not have thought of this any time in the last 24 hours? The fact that the Doctor and Mel were literally never trapped in Pompeii to begin with detracts from the one thematic element this story had and it makes the last 100 minutes feel pointless.

The Fires of Vulcan was very disappointing to me; I’ve heard some great things about it but it just failed to do anything with its unique premise and, whilst a perfectly fine historical with a well realised Ancient Italy and a well paced script, it was decidedly lacking the tension it desperately needed. The Fires of Pompeii will always be the better of the two “Pompeii stories” for me - a simple but incredibly effective idea executed in a melancholic and beautiful way as opposed to the Doctor and Mel waiting a day to move away from one of the biggest explosions in history.

6/10

Pros:

+ The Doctor’s mournful attitude compliments the tone of the story well

+ Moves fast and smoothly, never drags

+ The characters, if simple, all felt very real

+ Great premise that immediately hooks the listener

Cons:

- Full of wasted time and wandering plot threads

- Antagonists with very little depth or presence

- Very lacking in threat or tension

- Fails to utilise its premise

- Has an ending that renders the rest of the audio pointless

Doctor Who – The Monthly Adventures

#012. The Fires of Vulcan ~ 7/10

◆ An Introduction

Pompeii is a fascinating place, and its destruction is a fascinating yet tragic event. Most people will have seen the story where the Tenth Doctor and Donna visited and fought off the volcanic Pyroviles… but the Doctor had been there once previously too, in what is a far more depressing story than his latter visit.

◆ Publisher’s Summary

Two thousand years ago, a volcanic eruption wiped the Roman city of Pompeii from the face of the Earth. It also buried the Doctor's TARDIS...

Arriving in Pompeii one day before the disaster, the Doctor and Mel find themselves separated from their ship and entangled in local politics. As time runs out, they fight to escape from the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. But how can they succeed when history itself is working against them?

◆ The Seventh Doctor

Sylvester McCoy delivers an amazing performance in ‘The Fires of Vulcan’. This incarnation would become much darker and more melancholic as time went on, but this story seems to be where that personality change began.

Upon discovering the date, the Doctor becomes evasive and melancholic. He’d hoped for a while longer; time to prepare before his last trip. He knows they have a habit of attracting trouble, and wants nothing more than for him and Mel to go rushing off back to the TARDIS. The Doctor claims that nothing is wrong: events are proceeding precisely as he knows they should… which isn’t exactly good news for him, or his companion. He critiques what Mel is wearing – claiming that it’s indiscreet – but she tells him that question mark pullovers are hardly the height of discretion. The Doctor can’t understand why humans have such an obsession with money. He believes that it’s a great idea to go gambling with a gang of gladiators, but ends up getting strangled when he loses the game! By the end of this adventure, the Doctor’s want to save himself and his companion has returned, and it’s all thanks to Mel.

◆ Mel Bush

Bonnie Langford made her audio debut in this adventure, and she really hit the ground running. An absolutely marvellous performance.

Upon discovering that they’ve landed in Pompeii, Mel recalls making a papier mâché model of Vesuvius in primary school: she had red liquid coming out of the top to look like lava. She claims to be a messenger from the Egyptian goddess, Isis, which causes her a great deal of trouble in the long run! When Aglae asks if she does sexual favours for the Doctor, she is unsurprisingly shocked and appalled. Mel doesn’t believe that Aglae should need to work in a brothel. The local creep makes a beeline for her, so she decides to hide within the local brothel: talk about giving someone the wrong idea! Mel feels awful, knowing that all these innocent people are going to die, and asks the Doctor if there is anything they can do. She doesn’t think that time is very fair; now she wants nothing more than to leave Pompeii. Mel wants nothing more than to interrupt the ritual sacrifice, and she doesn’t think it fair at all to slaughter an innocent animal. Later in the story, Mel finds herself locked up as an apparent jewel thief, but she is adamant that she could never steal anything.

◆ Story Recap

Pompeii, 79AD.

The Doctor and Mel have arrived on the 23rd of August… a day before Mount Vesuvius will erupt, carpeting the city in a blanket of molten rock, pulverized pumice and hot ash. The thermal energy would be so powerful that it would be a hundred-thousand times worse than that released by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki!

The Doctor knows that this is to be his last journey, as he was told by UNIT in his Fifth incarnation, that the TARDIS had been discovered underneath all the ash of the mountain.

◆ Companion Course Correction

Season 24 has always been something of an outlier in the McCoy era, often being dismissed as nothing more than cheap slapstick, accompanied by the ear-grating screams of Bonnie Langford! Personally, I really enjoy that entire season: ‘Paradise Towers’ has long been one of my comfort stories.

I remember being completely floored when I first listened to this adventure, because it was such a departure from that light-hearted tone. The Seventh Doctor is melancholic and sombre throughout, as he comes to terms with the fact Pompeii is almost certainly where he will die; buried under the ash alongside the his ship and his companion.

Speaking of his companion, ‘The Fires of Vulcan’ is a real course correction. Mel never screams once in the whole story! She interacts with the natives of Pompeii and makes intelligent observations, and she feels like a fully formed character. Steve Lyons is one of my favourite writers for this incarnation – which will become evident when I start discussing the Klein stories – but I’m astonished at how different Mel seems here. It’s a change for the better.

◆ In the Shadow of Vesuvius

“Hey Palin, can you tell us about the world-building in this story?”

But of course I can, dear reader! Pompeii is beautifully fleshed out in Lyons’ script: we spend a great deal of time getting to know the inhabitants of the lost city, their beliefs and their customs. The Doctor and Mel initially claim to be messengers from of the Egyptian goddess, Isis, which attracts the attention of a rather nasty woman named Eumachia.

A priestess of the Capitoline Triad – who worshipped the deities Jupiter, Juno and Minerva – Eumachia was convinced that our dynamic duo were liars, and was prepared to go to great lengths to prove it. She even had Mel framed as a jewel thief, which caused a fair amount of trouble for her and the Doctor! Eumachia is a thoroughly believable villain, motivated by the religious superstition of her age.

◆ Sound Design

Pompeii is a bustling metropolis. Busy citizens of the Roman Empire walk through the street of plenty, while farmyard animals can be heard in the distance. Valeria’s tavern is filled to the brim with punters. Vesuvius rumbles as the eruption draws near. Hearing a religious sacrifice of an innocent animal genuinely made me feel sick. Flowing water in a fountain. People screaming in fear as molten rock and fire rains down from the mountain.

Alistair Lock has done an excellent job with the soundscape, conjuring vivid images of this ancient, cosmopolitan society.

◆ Music

A score that perfectly fits the adventure, Alistair Lock provides some soft and sombre music to accompany the destruction of Pompeii.

◆ Conclusion

“This happened a long time ago, Mel. We can’t change it.”

Volcano Day is rapidly approaching, but the Doctor and Mel find themselves trapped in the lost city of Pompeii. While the Time Lord seems to have accepted his fate, his companion refuses to lose hope.

You can’t change established events. That’s been one of the major rules of time travel in this franchise, and nothing has been changed in this script. It puts the Doctor and Mel into a situation where certain death is looming over them, and where all hope seems lost… but not really. McCoy and Langford both deliver phenomenal performances here.

One of the most depressing monthly adventures, but one that managed to kick-start the redemption of the most despised Classic era companion. ‘The Fires of Vulcan’ was truly marvellous.

This was just excellent. Thoughtful, interesting, and a something that has ultimately become a very cool companion piece to the Fires of Pompeii. Mel really gets to shine here with the Seventh Doctor and the story was a lot of fun. I liked a lot of the supporting characters here like that Murranus guy or even the basic set-up of finding the TARDIS in Pompeii. A really great audio on the whole. Sure, this is less thoughtful than some other historicals, or even the show version of Pompeii, in my opinion, I still had a good time, even if I wasn't quite as invested in it as I was in Fires of Pompeii.

✅84% = Great! = Strongly recommended!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time! This time: Seven and Mel visit Pompeii, while Ten and Donna are there (but they, and we, don’t know that).

The Fires of Vulcan builds a simple but compelling mystery about the TARDIS found in modern-day Pompeii, buried under layers of ash and lava. We understand that something will go very wrong at some point, but not when, how, or why. This is what builds the basic timey-wimey fixed-point narrative that runs through the entire adventure.

This is a pure historical drama filled with political intrigue and an overwhelming sensation of dread and anticipation, as we quickly learn that the Doctor and Mel arrived in Pompeii one day before the faithful eruption of Vesuvius. Unable to take any action, they try to flee before it's too late, only to become entangled in the local politics as the clock ticks down.

The script and performances capture the era and setting pretty well—perhaps too well. Some of the dialogue and performances from the guest cast can feel a bit pretentious.

Nicky Goldie (Winter for the Adept) and Gemma Bissix are both good.

Dramatic tension is maintained through the Doctor trying to figure out how to escape his fate without spoiling the surprise for all the poor Pompeiian souls or creating a paradox.

The political scheming isn’t very interesting in itself, though it showcases the thinking of this era well.

Sylvester McCoy presents a softer, more emotional Seven, which I like. Bonnie Langford is really good as Mel, and I like how she gets involved with the people and feels bad for not being able to tell them what's going to happen. This story allows her to show a more humane and emotional side, quite different from the more colourful aspects of her TV appearances.

In the Part 1 cliffhanger, Seven reveals his usual side, stating that they are unable to leave Pompeii due to his knowledge of the TARDIS's discovery in the ashes in 1980. Part 3's cliffhanger is another standout, with Vesuvius poised to erupt and the Doctor facing a sword duel.

The music and apt sound design occasionally paint a pretty cosy atmosphere, even if disaster looms in the background. Part 4 turns everything sinister and dramatic, as the sound design effectively brings the destruction to life.

The story's conclusion instills a strong sense of urgency, keeping us suspenseful about the resolution of the initial dilemma, which is both clever and horrifying. The last few moments are a wildly dramatic and sad affair that makes you feel sorry for all these poor souls.

The Fires of Vulcan sees the 7th Doctor and Melanie arrive in Pompeii a short while before the eruption of Vesuvius. The Doctor is aware that the TARDIS is destined to be discovered buried in the ash of Pompeii by archaeologists in 1980. He concludes that this means this is his last trip as something must have prevented him from leaving. Thankfully, Mel is less doomladen and determines to discover a way out of this predicament and with a little timey-wimey tinkering at the end, the Doctor and Mel are able to leave Pompeii alive and yet still allow the TARDIS to be discovered in 1980.

This audio marks the first time that Big Finish worked with the character of Mel. Much maligned on TV (unjustly, in my opinion), Big Finish sought to round her out into a proper character and actually allow Bonnie Langford to prove she is a capable actress. The television version of Mel was sullied by prejudiced fan opinion of the time. The insult of ‘panto’ was levelled at the series, and Mel’s character in particular, time and time again. It was an insult wielded by people who clearly have no understanding of pantomime. Pantomime, an historic theatre tradition, is a passion of mine and therefore, rather than view it as insignificant and laughable as many people do, I see it as an intricate art form which it takes real talent to perform properly. It is seen as the last refuge for washed up comedians, soap stars and the like, but is actually a microcosm of good theatre.

Doctor Who, however, has never been ‘pantomime’. It has never included the requisite elements to be a panto (and the series has dallied with many different formats over the years so it isn’t as if it couldn’t have if it wanted to) and the ‘panto’ criticism is really just a euphemism for ‘this is a bit stagey and embarassing’ – an opinion I couldn’t be further from agreeing with in regards to 80s Who.

The Fires of Vulcan is ‘set’ slap bang in Season 24: the season of ‘panto’ as far as some fans are concerned. Delta and the Bannermen, in particular, received fan wisdom will tell you, is generally disliked by much of fandom . The Fires of Vulcan couldn’t be more different to these tales which, ‘panto’ accusation aside, are light-hearted, glossy and at some times, admittedly, silly.

Big Finish clearly set out to give us a serious story which would demonstrate the talents of McCoy and Langford at delivering more sombre material than Season 24 would traditionally suggest. It’s difficult to imagine this story as part of the same season as Paradise Towers and Time and the Rani, and yet the characters of the Doctor and Mel are not a million miles from their TV counterparts. They are just showing a different aspect. Gone is the Season 24 clown of a Doctor and in is the darker version McCoy began to evolve in Season 26. Bonnie Langford gets to play the characteristics of Mel which were already present on screen – her honesty, her tenacity – with a better script and this rounds Mel out into a believable character. I never had the issues many fans had with Bonnie being cast as a companion as I have long been an admirer of her ability. Big Finish simply allows Bonnie to work with scripts that give Mel that bit more depth, whilst not compromising the original character.

In The Fires of Vulcan she is great: determined to prove the Doctor wrong, standing up to people like Celsinus and Eumachia; battling through the devastating effects of the eruption to find the TARDIS and only really giving up when all seems completely lost.

The Doctor, in turn, is melancholy and sombre but also cheeky and manipulative (his game-playing with Murranus the gladiator, for example). This allows both facets of the 7th Doctor to shine through and is one of McCoy’s best performances.

The supporting cast are very good with Gemma Bissix as Aglae standing out in particular. Steven Wickham’s Murranus doesn’t quite sound right to me, his tones are too plummy for a hardened gladiator, but this is a minor complaint in a uniformly good cast.

In the spirit of the 60s historicals, the Doctor and Mel are visiting a ‘famous’ historical event – the eruption of Vesuvius. This horrific event is superbly depicted in audio – explosions, screams, rocks and some good dialogue which describes but never feels unnatural. The fact that the fates of all the Roman characters are left unsaid is quite powerful and allows the Doctor to surmise on the fact that, for once, they will never know if Aglae, Valeria or the others survived.

Other aspects of Roman culture are thrown in here and there including the acceptance of ‘foreign’ gods into everyday life (in this case, the goddess Isis). We have the same Roman staples present and correct as we saw in The Romans: gladiators, slaves, banquets along with a few extra, more salacious aspects such as the local pub, gambling and the local brothel – with a prostitute (Aglae) being one of the main characters – and paired up with the whiter-than-white Mel for most of the story!

This side of history is something which the TV series, obviously, could never really address, but Big Finish, with it’s ability to hint subtly at things and not actually need the actual visuals, takes full advantage in being able to show all aspects of history.

Quite a bit of Roman vocabulary is thrown here and there including words like tepidarium, stola and decurioni and apparently the names of the characters are all based on real people from Pompeii based on graffiti from the uncovered ruins.

The Fires of Vulcan is one of Big Finish’s earliest successes and will probably stand as one of their best plays ever. It holds the important position as the beginning of Mel’s renaissance and continuing the Big Finish revival of the pure historical story. This is a wonderful exploration of an important historical event.