"The Fires of Pompeii" is the second episode of the fourth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 12 April 2008. Set shortly before and during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, this episode depicts alien time traveller the Doctor (David Tennant) and his new companion Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) on a trip to Pompeii, where they uncover an alien invasion. Their clashing worldviews present an ethical dilemma for the Doctor.

The episode was filmed in Rome's Cinecittà studios, and was the first time the Doctor Who production team took its cast abroad for filming since its revival. The production of the episode was impeded by a fire near the sets several weeks before filming and by problems for the production team crossing into Europe.

Critics' opinions regarding the episode were generally mixed. The premise of the episode—the moral dilemma the Doctor faces, and Donna's insistence that he save a family from Pompeii—were widely praised. However, the episode's writing was criticised, in particular, for the characterisation of the supporting cast: The dialogue was described as "one-dimensional" and Peter Capaldi and Phil Davis's dialogue as "whimpering and scowling".

The Doctor and Donna arrive in what the Doctor believes to be Rome in the first century AD. After an earthquake and witnessing a nearby mountain begin to smoulder, he realises he has in fact materialised in Pompeii one day before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. When he and Donna return to where the TARDIS landed, he discovers that a local merchant sold it to sculptor Lobus Caecilius. The Doctor and Donna go to Caecilius's house to retrieve it. Unknown to them, they have been followed by a soothsayer who reports to the Sibylline Sisterhood that the prophesised man in the blue box has arrived, and the Sisters fear the prediction that his arrival brings fire and death.

...
Wikipedia