Since my collection of Classic Doctor Who is finally complete, I've decided to start watching an episode a night, to keep me entertained. I've also decided that I'm going to try and review them as much as possible, to get down my thoughts and for the fun of it. I have already watched quite a bit of the First Doctor, so I'm just going to start reviewing at the point I am at.
The Romans:
The Slave Traders (Part 1)
The beginning of our episode find the Doctor, Ian Chesterton (a man even more badass then Rory Williams), Barbara (something or other, I can't remember her last name), and Vicki (the first replacement companion, replacing the Doctor's own granddaughter, Susan) crash landing somewhere in Italy, during the time of the Roman Empire. They quickly land on their feet by squatting in a local villa, while the owner is away no less.
The action starts a bit slow, with the gang chattering away and seeming to enjoy life in the Roman countryside, until Barbara and Vicki decide to go to the marketplace. On their way there, they catch the attention of two unsavoury looking characters, who, as might be given away by the title, are slave traders. The slave traders decide to wait and capture all of the gang at their villa, which gives time for the Doctor to suddenly, and slightly dickishly (as is the wont of the First Doctor), decide to head off to Rome, taking Vicki with him.
With the Doctor and Vicki off for Rome, Barbara and Ian are attacked by the slave traders. Ian, the high school science teacher, has the upper hand against the two trained slave traders, until Barbara, trying to help out, hits him over the head with a urn. Way to go 60's sexism! Soon enough, they find themselves bound as slaves, headed where else, but to Rome.
While Barbara and Ian are enjoying being tied up, the Doctor falls victim to a rather hilarious seeming case of mistaken identity. Apparently, he looks exactly like a famous lyre player, rather like the one he and Vicki had just found dead in a bush. Awkward. The centurion who found him tells him that he is late for his audience with Caesar Nero, and escorts him off to his camp. The episode ends with a sinister looking figure, the same one we saw kill off the Doctor's look-a-like, about to creep into the Doctor's chambers, where the old man is chortling away obliviously at his inability to do anything at all with a lyre.
All Roads Lead to Rome (Part 2)
The second part of the arc opens by resolving the cliffhanger of the sinister man. The Doctor has the man rather evenly matched, and even seems to have the upper hand, until Vicki comes in with a pot and chases the man out a second story window. Vicki seems a bit worried about the repeated attempts on the Doctor's (well really on the guy they Doctor's pretending to be) life, but the Doctor isn't worried, proclaiming that he is a "master in the fine gentlemanly art of fisticuffs".
Meanwhile, poor Barbara and Ian have been separated, with Ian sold to be a galley slave, while Barbara is going to the slave auction in Rome. Once they reach Rome, she is sold to some high ranking official, apparently because of her kindness to another slave, and not at all because he's obscenely rich and she's a hot bod.
The Doctor and Vicki get to Rome and after narrowly missing Barbara being sold, end up meeting with a certain portly gentleman who just purchased a slave (although they don't know that), who whispers some cryptic things to them before the great emperor appears, Nero! The Doctor, who of course can't play the lyre worth shit, proves to instead be an adept liar, charming Nero into playing the lyre instead of him. They then wonder around, again narrowly missing Barbara.
Ian, who was pulling an oar on a ship this entire time, gets a bit annoyed with it, and during a storm, overthrows the overseer and escapes with his oar partner (seriously, Ian is bad-fricking-ass). They conveniently wash up near Rome, meaning that not only do all roads lead to Rome, but all currents do to. Sneaking through Rome, trying to find some clothes so they don't look like escaped slaves, his fellow escapee, in a marvellous moment of cliche, says that their luck is great, and nothing can go wrong, at which point they promptly get captured by centurions (I wonder if Rory was there...). The episode closes with them getting thrown in a cell to be trained as gladiators, fighting LIONS and TIGERS and not bears, just more lions and tigers. Dun Dun Dun.
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