BASIC PLOT
Mickey discovers a statue of Rose in a museum, dating back to Roman times. The Doctor and Rose head back in time to discover its origins, but soon find they have more on their minds than just sculpture.

DOCTOR
Tenth.

COMPANIONS
Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler and Mickey Smith.

MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
The TARDIS is in London before the story begins, likely at the Powell Estate.

Pgs 17-18 Near Trajan's column, Rome, 120AD (pg 34).

Pg 147 In the sculpture room of the British Museum, present day.

Pg 157/159 In a wood, Rome, 120AD.

Pg 228 An alcove at the back of the shrine of Fortuna, Rome 120AD.

Pgs 235-236 Vanessa's house, Sardinia (pg 84), April 2375 (pg 223).

Pg 244 Gracilis's villa, Rome 120AD.

PREPARATORY READING
None.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES
Pg 9 "'This is the Doctor we're talking about, not Dad.' Rose rolled her eyes. 'He's no salesman.'" Father's Day.

Pg 10 "Howard'll never believe it." The Christmas Invasion.

Pg 45 "I mean, I know there are some people who see stuff - but that's, like, aliens and rifts and that." Gwyneth, The Unquiet Dead.

Pg 65 "But to Rose - who'd been to the dawn of humanity and the very end of the Earth - it suddenly seemed an eternity." Only Human and The End of the World.

Pg 67 "Rose was ripped from a dream about talking cats" New Earth.

Pg 70 "Almost 200,000 years after that, she'd be on a space station, defeating the Daleks. More years than she could comprehend after that, she'd be watching the Earth die." Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways, The End of the World.

Pg 71 "Now he was moving her helpless limbs, manipulating her as if she was a shop dummy from Henrik's." Rose.

Pg 73 "The talking cats had been real and everything since had been a dream - a nightmare." New Earth.

Pg 76 "She had a memory: a man lying in a hospital bed. Petrifold regression, the Doctor had called that." New Earth.

Pg 104 "Where there's life there's hope?" Planet of the Spiders.

Pg 154 "It won't grow back magically like yours did." The Christmas Invasion.

Pg 166 "Or Petrifold regression?" New Earth.

Pg 175 "Abominable snowmen. Werewolves. Demons. Vampires." The Abominable Snowmen/The Web of Fear, Wolfsbane/Tooth and Claw, The Daemons, State of Decay/Blood Harvest/Goth Opera/Vampire Science.

Pg 198 "So... it must be one of those paradox things. Maybe time's trying to heal itself and keeping me here's part of it." Father's Day.

Pg 219 "Did you think you were gonna squash it like so many Slitheen?" Aliens of London/World War Three.

Pg 237 "'I'm all ears,' said the Doctor. Rose dug him in the ribs. Not so much any more!'" The ninth Doctor.

OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
None.

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
Gracilis, Marcia, Vanessa, GENIE.

CONTINUITY COCK-UPS

• Cover: The statue of Rose (which this is so clearly meant to be) only has one hand (pg 12). This is a hugely important plot point and would take only a moment's reading of the relevant passage to determine. (It's not the other statue of Rose, as that one had a helmet and a trident.) Black Sheep may be gone, but their legacy of misrepresentation lives on, thanks to cover designer Henry Steadman.

PLUGGING THE HOLES [Fan-wank theorizing of how to fix continuity cock-ups]

• Given that the wrist stump is said to be "gesturing", rather than hanging down one side, this must be a completely different statue. Which also explains why it looks nothing like her. (Honestly people, does Photoshop really stump you that much?)

FEATURED ALIEN RACES
Pg 176 GENIE, a cross between a baby dragon and a duck-billed platypus. Of course, only people not from Australia feel the need to quantify "platypus" with the adjective "duck-billed", presumably to avoid confusion with all those mouse-eared platypii out there...

FEATURED LOCATIONS
Pg 7 London, present day.

Pg 34 Rome, 120 AD.

Pg 236 Sardinia (pg 84), April 2375 (pg 223).

IN SUMMARY - Robert Smith?
Actually, that was pretty good! It's a bit loopy, with a tad too much jumping around in the TARDIS and plot holes you could drive a chariot through (the entire logic around GENIE's abilities beggars belief in its inconsistency and implausibility), but that doesn't matter too much because the rest is so enjoyable. Okay, sure, it's Ancient Roman fanfic - the Doctor in the Colosseum fighting lions! - but it's goofy enough to get away with it. Most of the time travel stuff makes sense and there are some great twists around Rose's statue. In all, one of the better New Series adventures, if only by default.