The Romans

She keeps track of the lyres.

The Romans is billed as a comedy and there are certainly a lot of little puns and farcical moments. I personally wonder if there wasn't a bit of an influence from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, which debuted in 1962. The Romans doesn't go that broad and perhaps it might be better if it had.

Plot Summary

After falling off a cliff, the TARDIS is shown covered in brambles. Ian and the Doctor are shown relaxing in a Roman villa where they have been staying for the past month. Barbara and Vicki are heading down the road to market. They stop at a cloth merchant where Barbara chastises Vicki for not doing a better job of trying to blend in. The two are spotted by a couple of slave traders who ply the cloth merchant for information and learn how they are squatting in a villa whose owner is currently in Gaul.

Barbara and Vicki head back to the villa. Also traveling on the road is an older man with a lyre. The older man is waylaid and killed in the bushes by a swordsman.

After dinner, Ian asks if they should check on the TARDIS. The Doctor gets annoyed with him for bringing it up and announces that he will be taking a trip to Rome. Vicki asks to come with him as she is bored and the Doctor agrees. Ian suggests that they all go but the Doctor, put off by Ian's talk earlier, resolves to go without him and Barbara. As the Doctor and Vicki walk down the road, they find the body of the old lyre player. The Doctor takes his lyre and upon emerging from the bushes meets a Roman centurion. The centurion asks if the Doctor is the lyrist Maximus Pettulian and the Doctor gives the impression that he is without saying so. The centurion promptly escorts the Doctor and Vicki to Rome to play at the court of Emperor Nero where he had been summoned and was late.

Back at the villa, Ian and Barbara have been drinking wine when they are attacked by the slave traders. They fight them but Barbara accidently knocks out Ian and the two are dragged to the slave line for escort and sale in Rome. Before they leave, the traders are approached by a man who negotiates the purchase of three male slaves. He shows interest in Barbara but the slavers refuse to sell her prior to arrival in Rome. The other man takes two men from Gaul and Ian.

In Rome, the man who killed the real Maximus Pettulian is berated by the centurion who tells him he must have killed the wrong man. He orders him to kill the Doctor or he will lose another body part besides his tongue. The Doctor however sees him before he strikes and disarms him. He then fights him before Vicki enters and stuns him by knocking him on the head with a vase. Stunned, the man hurdles himself out the window to escape. Vicki and the Doctor discuss how he was probably hired by the centurion but the Doctor has made up his mind to head to Rome and Nero's court anyway.

Barbara and the rest of the slaves arrive in Rome and are stored before the slave auction. Barbara's kindness towards one of the other slaves catches the attention of a man, Tavius, who offers to buy her directly. The slave dealer refuses but encourages him to come to the auction. He does and buys her quickly with an excessive bid. He is the slave procurer for the Imperial household and he takes Barbara back to the palace just as the Doctor arrives.

Ian, meanwhile, has been sold as a galley slave. He and his oarmate Delos make an attempt to escape but are beaten back. Later the galley is caught in a storm and driven on the rocks. In the melee, Ian subdues the oar master but is knocked out by a falling timber. Delos drags him ashore and the two men make their way to Rome to find Barbara. In the city, they are captured and given to the slave dealer who plans to have them fight in the arena.

The Doctor and Vicki arrive at Nero's palace and have a quick audience with Nero. The Doctor immediately flatters him and defers his own attempts at playing to Nero. Nero, pleased at having his ego stroked, bids the Doctor be taken care of and will grant him a full audience later. After dismissal, the Doctor and Vicki discover the body of the centurion who escorted them to Rome, something that had been alluded to by Tavius just prior to the Doctor's initial meeting with Nero.

Barbara is presented to Nero's wife Poppaea as a servant and Nero immediately lays eyes on her. Poppaea assigns a task to Barbara and gives her a warning not to advance on Nero. After she leaves, Nero pounces and begins to chase Barbara through the palace. Nero does eventually corner her after being interrupted several times but Poppaea returns before Nero can take advantage of her.

At this same time, the Doctor attempts to get an audience with Nero. Tavius has alluded to a conspiracy and the Doctor is curious if Nero is in on it. While he pursues Nero, Vicki wanders through the palace and meets a woman who brews poisons. Whilst Vicki is visiting, Poppaea, having broken up Nero's attempts on Barbara, enters and has the woman prepare a poisoned wine for Barbara to be paired with a clean one for Nero to be served during the banquet at which the Doctor will play. After preparing the goblets, Vicki sneaks out and switches the goblets to see if she can poison Nero.

Just before the banquet, Nero corners Barbara and offers her a piece of jewelry to which he expects to be rewarded with a kiss and maybe more. The paired goblets arrive and Barbara offers to drink to Nero's health. She downs the unpoisoned one and runs off. But before Nero can drink the poisoned one, the Doctor stops him, Vicki having told him of her switch. Nero thanks him and then test it on his dressing slave. The man promptly dies.

Her plan having failed, Poppaea arrests the poison preparer and sends Barbara back to the apartments to work, keeping her away from the banquet. After eating, Nero has the Doctor play for everyone. The Doctor announces that he will play a tune so delicate that only the most refined ears will be able to hear it. He pretends to play but the audience acts as though they can hear and appreciate it (The Emperor's New Clothes). Angered at the strong reaction the Doctor gets, Nero races back the apartment, grabs Barbara and heads to a small theater where he summons the gladiator master.

Nero orders the gladiator master to prepare the arena for a concert to be given by Maximus Pettulian. In the middle of the concert, lions will be released into the arena to eat him. Nero also orders that a pair of gladiators be brought in for his amusement for that evening. Ian and Delos are brought in and made to fight. Ian disarms Delos briefly but refuses to strike him down. Delos reclaims his sword and this time catches Ian. Nero orders Ian to be killed but Delos refuses and instead goes for the guard. Ian also attacks. The two fend off the soldiers and Ian tries to grab Barbara as well, but Nero has her too tightly. As they run off Nero calls off the pursuit and instead decides to lay a trap for them. Knowing they will return for Barbara, Nero alerts his guards to all the palace gates so that they can arrest them when they come back.

The next morning, Poppaea summons Tavius telling him to dismiss Barbara. Barbara finds him shortly afterward, telling him that Ian will be coming for her and that she will try to escape and that she would appreciate his help. She also informs him of Nero's plan to murder Maximus Pettulian. Tavius thanks her and promises to help her escape if he can.

Tavius approaches the Doctor and warns him about Nero's plan, cautioning him that if he is to kill Nero, it must be done that day. The Doctor then realizes that Maximus Pettulian was an assassin who had been intercepted by the loyal member of Nero's guard who had discovered it. But with the centurion killed, Nero was unaware of the plot against him. Nero enters shortly and the Doctor puts Nero off guard by guessing of the arena concert and throwing in a number of allusions to being eaten as well. While talking, the sun catches the Doctor's glasses behind his back and start a fire on Nero's plans for improvements to Rome.

Seeing the fire, Nero is angered at first that his plans have been burnt but then is overjoyed as he gets the idea that if he burns Rome, he could rebuild it with no one objecting to his plans. He immediately summons a soldier to gather lowlifes from the city and bring them to the palace. With guards around all the entrances, Ian and Delos slip in with the riffraff to gain entrance back to the palace.

Nero gives the men gold and orders them to set fire to the city. While the men line up to get torches, Tavius pulls out Ian and brings him to Barbara. Donning a cloak, the two slip out into the crowd of men. Delos shoves his torch into the guard captain's face and the three break for the outskirts of the city. The Doctor and Vicki also leave in the chaos to avoid Nero's wrath. Tavius watches both groups go, silently biding them well while holding a small cross.

The Doctor and Vicki pause outside of Rome to watch the fire, Vicki ribbing the Doctor that the Great Fire of Rome was his fault. The Doctor argues a bit but seems amused at the idea. Ian and Barbara reach the villa by the morning. They clean up a bit and after refreshing themselves, fall asleep. The Doctor and Vicki find them that evening, believing that they have lounged about the villa the whole time they are gone. Ian and Barbara opt to not tell them and the group returns to the TARDIS. They then leave but the Doctor confides to Ian that some force is pulling the TARDIS towards it.

Analysis

Labeling this story as a farcical comedy does not properly suit it. Yes, the Doctor's scenes are clearly played for comedy to the point of being a farce. But Barbara and Ian's scenes are not. They are played with the same level of seriousness seen in The Reign of Terror. My assumption is that Dennis Spooner (the writer) was attempting to add levity to a potentially dark story by giving the Doctor over to comedy, but in playing the comedy so broadly with the Doctor and giving no levity to Barbara and Ian's scenes, it sets up an almost schizophrenic story.

Episode Three comes closest to being a true farce comedy as Ian is only given a short scene in the middle and then at the end when he and Delos fight before Nero. Barbara's scenes are played for comedy but there is a touch of discomfort in that given that Nero is trying to rape her for the first half and Poppaea is trying to poison her in the second half. Again, it struck me similar to A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with Nero in the role of Senex and Poppaea in the role of Domina, except with a darker flavor.

Nero himself is also played off with him being done as a old fop in Episode Three and then as more of the psychotic he actually was in Episode Four, but with still an air of incompetence about him. The overall focus and tone is hard to truly pick up on throughout.

Making things even more confusing is the way Ian and Barbara play up the ending. When they arrive back at the villa, Barbara lets slip that she was the one that smashed Ian over the head with the vase accidentally. Ian gets indignant and chases after her before forcing her to clean the mess. It's intent is to be played for laughs but there is an air of sexual dominance to the scene as well and that if Ian had done worse than hold Barbara's face into the edge of the fountain, it still would have been seen as justified and perhaps even funny. They also laugh at their adventures after the Doctor and Vicki head back towards the TARDIS, despite the fact that there was nothing funny to Ian and Barbara's side of the story, with a number of people killed or put into great misery around them.

On an overall scale, I think Episode Three was the only one I genuinely liked. I didn't care for the Nero attempting to rape Barbara bit, but there were funny interruptions to the chase and the other parts of that episode, especially involving the Doctor, were quite funny. Episode Four wasn't bad until towards the recap scenes as it took more of a serious tone with comedy only accenting the Doctor and Vicki's scenes rather than creating that sharp contrast in Episodes One and Two. But things went to pot in the end as everyone just dismissed what they had been through with a flip of the hand.

About the only thing I can say for this story was that it was well acted for the most part. Delos and Tavius were enjoyable characters that you were able to get a good bead on through their limited exposure. Nero himself was entertaining in whatever focus he was being pulled by the script. His style was also over the top just enough to fully separate his role in this story from the historical madman, who was much younger and even more bloodthirsty than portrayed here.

I know there are strong defenders of this story and I could see their point if this story had fully decided what it wanted to be. If it was a full farce, I can understand that. If it wanted to be serious, I can understand that too. But stacking farce and drama next to each other just prevents getting a handle on any sort of tone. I could pull down Episode Three and enjoy it for the most part, but if anyone suggested watching the whole thing, I would probably beg off as this one is just not for me.

Overall personal score: 1 out of 5