Filming Location: Cinecitta Studios, Rome Italy. This is the first episode of the new series with filming of the principal actors outside of the UK.

This is the second Doctor Who to feature the destruction of Pompeii and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on August 24, 79 A.D. The first was the Big Finish audio drama The Fires of Vulcan, first released in 2000 and starring Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor and Bonnie Langford as Melanie "Mel" Bush.

Donna: Don't tell me the TARDIS is gone.
The Doctor: Okay.
Donna: Then where is it?
The Doctor: But you told me not to tell you.
Donna: Don't get clever in Latin.

Donna: You beat her back with a water pistol?! I bloody love you!

The Doctor: Some things are fixed, some things are in flux. Pompeii is fixed.
Donna: But how do you know which is which?
The Doctor: Because that is how I see the universe. Every waking second, I can see what is, what was, what could be, what must not. It's the burden of a Time Lord, Donna. And I'm the only one left.

The Doctor: If I might beg the wisdom of the Gods before we perish? Once this new race of creatures is complete, then what?
Lucius: My masters will follow the example of Rome itself. An almighty empire bestriding the whole of civilization.
Donna: But if you've crashed, and you've got all this technology, why don't you just go home?
Lucius: The heaven of Pyrovilia is gone.
The Doctor: What d'you mean, gone? Where's it gone?
Lucius: It was taken. Pyrovilia was lost, but there is heat enough in this world for a new species to rise.
The Doctor: Yeah, I should warn you it's seventy percent water out there.
Lucius: Water can boil and everything will burn, Doctor!
The Doctor: Then the whole planet is at stake. Thank you. That's all I needed to know.

Caecilius, Metella and Quintus are characters from the Cambridge Latin Course textbooks, which are used to teach Latin in British schools. Except in the books they didn't have a daughter.