3 out of 5

Director: Christopher Barry

While ‘The Romans’ is by no means a great Who serial, it should be commended for trying to shake the structure up a little bit, combining the historical setup of some previous eps with a generally comical undertone (…despite Barbara and Ian being slaves…!) that relegates the misadventures to a shoulder-shrug “better luck next week!” sentiment.  But instead of making the proceedings pointless, it allows us to get used to Doc’s new companion, Vicki (infinitely better than Susan, a rapid reversal of my opinion of her introduction in the previous ‘The Rescue’ serial) and by playing loosely with the history, keeps everything feeling somewhat buoyant and light-hearted.  The serial starts off as a ‘vacation,’ and that’s sort of how it translates – a break from the norm.

The TARDIS parks all crooked at the bottom of a cliff, and then in the laziest possible edit, suddenly everyone is bedecked in Roman garb and reclining eating grapes and talking about how its nice to be pampered for once and la dee da by the way we’re in the time of Nero.  There’s some discussion about how the Doctor conveniently found these abandoned dwellings and I guess they’re mooching off the food there?  I don’t know.  They don’t go into this too much, so neither should you.  But Doc gets to be his fussy self, then announces he’s going to Rome, and Vicki wants to come with.  A bit later, Babs and Ian decide to follow… then find themselves waylaid by slave traders along the way.  Bad fucking timing, Babs and Ian.  Further along the way, DW stumbles across a dead body and, picking up a lyre near said body, is identified by a centurion as a famous musician who was intended to be visiting Nero.  Okay fucking timing, Doctor?  From here on out its an odd mashup of as-realistic-as-a-1960s-serial-will-depict of life for Ian – set to row a ship to Rome amongst a line of slaves, during storms, being whipped, being starved – and for Barbara, who’s jailed to await being sold as property in Rome – and the Doctor’s amusing methods of continuing his charade as the musician.  Our two companions get closer and closer to the Doctor – Ian escapes, Barbara is purchased and put to work in the royal court (or whatever it would’ve been called) – and then the last part of the series is a funky Benny Hill series of near misses, no one knowing that they’re all in Rome and culminating in a silly “concert” put on by the Doc.  The serial is never not amusing, but it’s also entirely inconsequential – although the slave aspects are played straight, and Barbara or Ian keeps reminding us how dire life was for these people, there’s not too much threat to it for some reason, perhaps because we’re constantly flipping to the tittering Doctor, who’s having fun fooling Nero and the gang.  Vicki shines as intelligent and capable of playing with / off of any nonsense The Doctor makes up, and Derek Francis as Nero is straight out of a comedy film, all overdone reactions and bravado.

And when they do all come back together, it’s a snap of the fingers and a Three Stooges woop-woop-woop run back to the TARDIS.

So it’s cool that they tried something different.  It was entertaining.  Was it very good…?  No, it was lacking in sense and almost completely lacking in sci-fi.  But its got enough yuks and fun performances (Hartnell in a fight scene!) that you can shrug it off.