Finished the very next serial, The Romans. After watching The Rescue I really started worrying that the production budget has dropped: The Rescue’s monsters and props really left a lot to be desired. The Romans, however, immediately show a much higher quality: mass scenes, good clothes and props, scenery. Immediately the plot starts smelling of being another palace intrigue variation.
The crew, though, appears to have taken a rest, which is probably a good thing: they were go-go-go all along before, and had a rather wretched time in The Dalek Invasion beforehand. And though Vicki spent a lot of time on a stranded ship, in hardship, she seems to already be bored.
As the serial progresses, the crew is getting split up. The Doctor and Vicki are on the way to Rome; Ian is an oarsman on some boat; Barbara is enslaved and is on her way to be sold at an auction. Things aren’t looking too great for them, but of course the serial has to start and end on reasonably similar terms between everyone, so the crew starts coming together over time. Now the Doctor, Vicki, and Barbara are at the same palace (even if they don’t know it yet), and Ian is heading towards gladiatorial combat in front of the caesar.
Finally in the third episode, we enter the land of palace intrigue with an episode called Conspiracy (doesn’t get more obvious, does it?)…
After much additional intrigue — poisons, tricks, fighting, defiance of authority, and crypto-Christians — the crew finds its way back to the TARDIS and gets on its way. Kind of.
