The Fires of Vulcan [AUDIO/2000.9.18]

★★★★☆

  I can tell that these days, The Fires of Vulcan has moved on from being a Big Finish adventure that's very much underrated and overlooked... to a Big Finish story that has been talked about (as underrated and overlooked) for so long that it's no longer quite overlooked. For better or worse, it seems that people know what it is by now, and that's just wonderful. This is a fantastic audio drama, not just for Dr. Who but for the medium in general; from Alistair Lock's wonderful score (again, hate to sound like a broken record but he must be one of Big Finish's best ever composers) to Sylvester McCoy's moody, melancholic performance that climaxes in a fiery rant on how nothing that day will ever mean anything because Pompeii is about to meets its deadly fate, this is one audio drama you do not want to miss.

  Fans of The Fires of Pompeii will find this a vastly different, but no less dramatically strong story; instead of the focus being aliens and the futility of saving anyone against time itself, this is about the everyday people of Pompeii reacting to the impending doom, religious fanaticism, slavery and other facets of Pompeiian life that either help or impede the Doctor and Mel from 'saving the day'. Of course, there is no real saving the day in this one -- the Doctor can hardly change history, and he can't really stop Vesuvius from erupting. The TARDIS team is against not just this morally dubious society of servants, false gods and vain gladiators, but against time itself as the Doctor is held back by his "fate" of finding his TARDIS amongst the rubble of Pompeii near 2000 years later. I won't spoil the resolution, but it's quite a brilliant way to write a very satisfying and thematically sound "cop-out (because of course, the adventures must go on)". The Fires of Vulcan is an amazing adventure, with McCoy and Bonnie Langford sounding exactly like they did on the show and giving their all. What if I told you this is a top ten Sylvester McCoy performance in his ongoing tenure as the Seventh Doctor? Not so laughable now, is it?