Day Sixty: The Slave Traders (The Romans, Episode One)

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Sixty: The Slave Traders (The Romans, Episode One)

Dear diary,

I've always had one default thought when it comes to the start of The Romans - 'poor Vicki'! At the end of The Rescue, the Doctor assures her 'If you like adventure, my dear, then I can promise you an abundance of it!', and then they spend a month lounging around in a Roman villa and doing very little else! She even draws attention to it with Barbara - 'the way you spoke, I thought we were going to have adventures and see things!'.

What's nice is that I'm already really taking to Vicki. She is very much there to fill the Susan-shaped hole in the TARDIS crew (the way she gets excited over the possibility of the dress put me in mind of Susan's similar reaction to a new dress in The Keys of Marinus), but her enthusiasm is infectious. She's so happy when the Doctor agrees to take her to Rome that she does a little jump up and down that can't fail to make you smile.

Then when they're on the way to Rome, and the Doctor decides to impersonate the musician as it's a great way to meet Nero, we've got the Doctor right back in his old mode of doing anything that will help to satisfy his curiosity. That Vicki warns him no good will come of it seems to suggest she knows the way his adventures work better than he does! Maybe they could pick up BBC 1 on Dido?

Something I've not discussed yet during this marathon, but which is perhaps most prominent during this episode; are Ian and Barbara a couple? Or, at least, very close friends? In my mind (without having seen all their stories together) I've always assumed that, yes, they are. Of course they are! It's Ian and Barbara! Surely once they returned to London they ended up tying the knot?

Here, having been left alone in the vill without the Doctor and Susan, it's not long before they're laughing and joking, Barbara is telling Ian what a 'spendid-looking' Roman he makes and she's doing his hair. A few minutes later, and we find them sprawled out in the living room looking perfectly blissful while they drink wine. Of course this pair are together by this point!

Question is; when did the relationship start? Any ideas? Feel free to Twitter them at me - I'd be interested to know your thoughts! Maybe I'll pick my favourite answers and discuss them later in the story?

For me, I don't think that they were together before they encountered the Doctor and the TARDIS. The way they act with each other in An Unearthly Child is friendly, but really it's more a kind of colleague relationship than one where they're spending lots of extra curricular time with each other. So I'm guessing it will have come about during their adventures somewhere…

Next Episode: All Roads Lead to Rome