Doctor Who: 14 Cool Details James Moran Just Revealed About The Fires Of Pompeii

12. The Doctor Makes A Callback To A William Hartnell Story

Doctor Who The Fires of Pompeii David Tennant Catherine Tate Donna Noble
BBC/Twitter: @jamesmoran

At the start of the episode, Donna asks the Doctor if he's been to ancient Rome before. He replies "ages ago", and adds "that fire had nothing to do with me... well, a little bit".

As noted by Moran, this is a reference to the William Hartnell story, The Romans, which was first broadcast in 1965. In this serial, the Doctor accidentally sets fire to a map of Rome, which gives Emperor Nero the idea to burn the city to the ground.

This means that the Doctor inadvertently caused the Great Fire of Rome. Yikes.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.