"I'm the Doctor."
"Doctor Who?"
In true New!Who tradition, the Doctor takes his companion to the past and ends up in massive amounts of trouble while he's at it. I'm starting to believe the TARDIS totally ignores his coordinates and latches on to every sign of anomaly she senses. This time, they're somewhere around three hundred kilometers south off from their intended destination, but it's the Doctor, and I've almost come to expect it.
"Pompei. We're in Pompei. And it's Volcano Day!"
There's just too much to say about the episode.
"Don't get clever in Latin!"
They keep arguing, trying to find their place with each other and understanding their differences and making their partnership work. The Doctor might take Donna to the end of the Universe, but her mind works with the here and the now, which is why we get friction between them as they adapt to their new situation as traveling companions.
Even as they bicker and clash, though, they tether each other closer and closer together, in a progression that leaves the Doctor almost unable to function properly without her. Donna, on the other hand, doesn't let him awe and bedazzle her: she calls the shots just as much as he does. She stands on her own two feet and walks what she firmly believes to be the moral higher ground, and I love her for it like you couldn't believe. Not because I think she could possibly save Pompei from the Vesuvio on Volcano Day, but because she tries and openly defies the Doctor, holding true to the character that was introduced to us in Runaway Bride.
So, they lose the TARDIS, mistaken for modern art by the local marble dealer. For a moment I experienced deja-vue and thought I was watching Quo Vadis. (Yes, exactly.)
The soothsayers, male and female without prejudice, were all just frauds. I was expecting the Doctor to go all "I have telepathy, let me show you it!" But he was just caught in the middle of the psychic battle between Evelina and Lucius.
The Sybillines have extreme make up. I approve wholeheartedly, especially of the eyes on the back of the hands. They also have exagerated hand gestures and fanatic ideas, but it's all good.
It is very interesting that soothsayers, who always tell the truth and predict the future without fail, know nothing of the supposed eruption.
After meeting the Sybillines, everything goes sort of confusing. Soothsayers have psychic powers but limbs of stone. Donna is kidnapped. The Doctor is oblivious and tries talking to a rock carapace that climbs out of the fire pit. On a terribly comical moment, he calls Donna like he did on the TARDIS in Runaway Bride. "Donna. Donna! Donna!! Donnaaaaa!!!" He then proceeds to interrupt the Sybillines who want to sacrifice his companion, finds out who the aliens are and what they want, and defeats the high priestess with a squirt gun.
Brilliant.
And while we wait for Donna and the Doctor to climb down the fire pit, we get: more hints that something is wrong with Volcano Day, Donna's declaration of undying love for the Doctor "I bloody love you!", and a Shadow Proclamation mention.
Honestly? Whenever someones says Shadow, I think "Babylon 5, Z'Ha'Dum, John Sheridan and "Do you have anything worth dying for?" "Delenn!"" Beautiful scene, that one.
Right. Back on track, Donna and the Doctor argue some more. This is important. It's the usual: "I'm the only one left. I see everything. I call all the shots," but Donna doesn't accept it quietly. She questions him, makes him face the possible consequences of the actions that he still has to undertake.
Yet, and this is where it all hinges, when the Doctor has to make a difficult choice, she's there with him. When he believes that the planet is at stake, she is right there with him trying to save it. When the lever has to be pulled, signifying that he's decided that 20000 can perish in order to salvage the rest of the world, she wraps her hands around his and participates. When he thinks they won't be able to escape, she doesn't run away in fear, but stays with him.
Also, this species's (which is parasitic) planet is gone. The Adipose's hatchery was lost. I'm sensing a pattern, here.
Donna has a heart and is compassionate. She saves it for when she's back inside the TARDIS, cries her eyes out and begs for him to save someone, anyone. The Doctor's barriers break for this, when fighting and yelling and pushing and sulking didn't manage to dent them.
"Everyone dies," sounds like the reversal of "everyone lives."
In The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, the only person he would willingly have sacrificed was Jack. And Rose requested they saved him. Here, nobody lives except for the people Donna begs for him to save.
Also, if they keep saying "We're not married!" like that? I'm going to become a shipper out of spite. Honestly.