Doctor Who: The Romans Redux?
Having read in an article on Outpost Gallifrey that Doctor Who would be shooting at Cinecitta Studios in September, I immediately became very excited. You see, I knew that Cinecitta was the studio where the BBC and HBO had previously shot the rather sumptuously designed Rome, and that the studio was interested in recouping costs by leasing the standing sets out to other productions, now that Rome was complete.
The idea of seeing ancient Rome brought to life on those sets once again was exciting enough, but to have the Doctor running around in a toga and trainers was even better. There was no evidence in the OG story to back this up, but I could feel that there was something to this.
You can imagine my horror then, when I read that, just a few days ago, a fire broke out on the Rome set, burning through 3,000 square meters. Surely this meant that there was no way that Doctor Who would be able to give me my much desired Roman episode?
Thankfully, I found this article, which gives some more details about the fire, including the fact that important sets like the Forum remain intact. Unexpectedly, when the article discussed how older movie sets were reused for Rome, I found this little tidbit:
New York tenements from Gangs of New York were stripped down to their wooden frames and rebuilt as houses for Rome, which in turn are now set to appear in an episode of Dr Who, Mr Sperandini said.
Which seems to be confirmation that, yes, the Doctor will be visiting Rome and, yes, it will be on those glorious sets in Italy. This is the first I remember hearing anything about an Rome episode in Series Four.
Now, how about getting some of the cast from Rome to make an appearance? James Purefoy as Mark Antony, perhaps?
The idea of seeing ancient Rome brought to life on those sets once again was exciting enough, but to have the Doctor running around in a toga and trainers was even better. There was no evidence in the OG story to back this up, but I could feel that there was something to this.
You can imagine my horror then, when I read that, just a few days ago, a fire broke out on the Rome set, burning through 3,000 square meters. Surely this meant that there was no way that Doctor Who would be able to give me my much desired Roman episode?
Thankfully, I found this article, which gives some more details about the fire, including the fact that important sets like the Forum remain intact. Unexpectedly, when the article discussed how older movie sets were reused for Rome, I found this little tidbit:
New York tenements from Gangs of New York were stripped down to their wooden frames and rebuilt as houses for Rome, which in turn are now set to appear in an episode of Dr Who, Mr Sperandini said.
Which seems to be confirmation that, yes, the Doctor will be visiting Rome and, yes, it will be on those glorious sets in Italy. This is the first I remember hearing anything about an Rome episode in Series Four.
Now, how about getting some of the cast from Rome to make an appearance? James Purefoy as Mark Antony, perhaps?