Folks (most recently, Dorothy King ... thanks!) keep sending me stuff about the new Dr Who series having an episode set in Pompeii, so I better mention it (I confess I've not seen the new series yet ... it's on CBC but at some strange time) ... Anyhoo, here's the incipit of a blurb in the Daily Mail:

Doctor Who and exuberant sidekick Donna team up following their successful series opener - which attracted nine million viewers - to battle it out in ancient Rome next week.

Newly released pictures show the Doctor and Donna squaring up to a series of outrageous baddies in notorious volcano hotspot Pompeii.

... and here's the most interesting of those released images:



The episode isn't up at the official website yet, but I'm sure it will be soon ...

UPDATE: not on the BBC yet, but it is at Surfthechannel ... (thanks DK again!)

UPDATE II: Nick Lowe adds:

Apologies for inflating the mailbox still further on this, but my 12-year-old excitedly points out that the new print edition of Radio Times (though not, so far as I can find, the website) confirms what has long been rumoured about the Dr Who Pompeii episode shot on the Rome sets that escaped the Cinecittà fire: that the Caecilius played by Peter Capaldi is indeed L. Caecilius Iucundus of Cambridge Latin Course fame, though billed here as a "marble merchant" rather than an argentarius - and the castlist incorporates his fictional CLC family of wife Metella and son Quintus. In the books, of course, Quintus survives the eruption while the others get pyroclasticised; it'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the TV version. Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to find a decent link for this online; Wikipedia has got hold of it (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Caecilius_Iucundus>), but just links to an old BBC press release naming Caecilius and Metella. I expect they won't do anything terribly clever with it, but it's sweet of them to give us a nod...