New Who 5.6: Vampires of Venice

[strange_complex]

Basically, I loved this episode, except for some reservations about the way the black characters were handled. Because unfortunately both of them died to save the white characters. That would be OK if it were really just about individual characters making individual choices. But two of them within one episode is already a trope, and examples like Midnight show that it's widespread in Doctor Who generally. This really does need to be addressed.

Other than that quite serious flaw, though, it was a really good story. I loved Rosanna Calvieri - what a great villain! I loved the sets and costumes and location footage and general Hammer horror atmosphere. I loved that the Calvieri family crest showed what I think was either a leech or a lamprey or similar, fitting neatly with the blood-sucking fish motif. And I see that it did link in, at least thematically, with The Stones of Venice, insofar as it had strange creatures lurking in the water and someone trying to sink the city.

It's the second historical of the season (after Victory of the Daleks), and I felt made slightly better use of its period setting. At least it was a plausible context in which a corrupt aristocratic family might feed on a fearful population, and successfully hoodwink them into isolation by playing on fear of the plague. I know a Renaissance historian in our University who'll have been thrilled to see the way they used antique-looking maps at one point to evoke the character of the city and figure out how to make its topography work to their advantage. And how interesting to see the Doctor providing the necessary historical orientation at the beginning - Barbara's old job, of course.

Talking of Barbara - OMG William Hartnell on the Doctor's out-of-date library card! a_d_medievalist obviously noticed this right in the trailer after the first episode, but it passed me by in all the barrage of images at the time. Great to see though. I liked Smith generally a lot in this episode, to the extent that for the first time I found myself thinking - do I actually like him more than Tennant now? I don't necessarily mean I prefer one or the other as an actor, but I think I mean I like the way that the Eleventh is generally being portrayed - scripted, acted, directed, filmed. I like the lines he is getting (like asking someone to give Rory's strippergram a jumper!), the way he is delivering them, the way he's generally quite sweet and self-deprecating but can lose his temper when he thinks people are being idiotic around him, and the way he doesn't seem to look for huge adulation when he has saved everyone's lives - just gets the job done and then smiles to himself in a satisfied manner.

His final choice in this episode, to kill off the Saturnine(?) race entirely in order to save one human city was interesting, and I felt had resonances with what Ten did in The Fires of Pompeii. It's not quite the opposite case, because there he destroyed one alien race plus one human city in order to save the whole human race, whereas here he destroyed one alien race to save one human city. There were reasons given for this. First of all the Doctor refuses to help Rosanna and her family because she did not know Isabella (the black girl)'s name - a regular theme with the Doctor, which follows particularly well from him being careful to establish cleric Bob's name in the previous two-parter. And then they just generally prove themselves to be evil, ruthless killers anyway. But it's still questionable ethical position for him to take, rather like what he was planning to do to the Star Whale in The Beast Below, and one which Rosanna Calvieri draws explicit attention to at the end of the story. I wonder if this is something which will come back and bite him (*boom-tish*) at the end of the season?

It's also interesting that there was no reference at all to the effects which allowing the Calvieri family to sink 16th-century Venice might have on the development of the human race or the course of history, which could have been another perfectly plausible reason for getting rid of them. Slightly worrying, actually, as I'm pretty wedded to the idea that Doctor Who treats Earth history as something which can't be altered and needs to be protected. This is the second time this season that the conflict between the events of a historical story and what we as viewers know of real history just hasn't really been addressed - and I'd like to see that being dealt with more directly.

Meanwhile we get some interesting development of Amy, Rory and the relationship between them. I liked the Doctor's explicit statement that Amy's experiences of time-travel would drive a wedge between her and Rory if he hadn't shared them too - a common concern for former companions. Mind you if I'm right about Rory being the person River Song will kill in the final story, that's also obviously going to throw a bit of a damper on their future together... :-/ Anyway, for now I liked how he had been learning about other dimensions on the internet since the events of The Eleventh Hour, and his slightly ham-fisted attempts at sword-fighting, and his agitation about Amy's attempt to kiss the Doctor - right up until she rescues him and snogs him madly and he understands and realises that she really does love him after all.

And there's a bit more development of the plot-arc too. The vampire fish people have seen silence through some cracks in time, and travelled through another one... and now at the end silence has fallen in Venice too. We're only half-way through the season, but there is a definite sense of gathering momentum and rising tension here. Can't wait to see where it goes!

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Comments

[vectorious.livejournal.com]

Except that in both this story and the last one all speaking characters bar the "core" died - sacrificing themselves so that the stars might live. Indeed it was much more explicit last time - this time the daughter who died expected to save herself as well and needed help, and the father was not saving the core, but rather revenging himself on his daughter's killers. I would say that you cannot call this trope here, as the soldiers in the previous one more explicitly were putting themselves on the line for the stars, whereas here it was an unexpected moment(the aversion to sunlight) and a deliberate choice for revenge.

I would say on the contrary that this is progress as being killed so that the Doctor can live is now an equal opportunities death trap.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I do take your point about a lot of people of all kinds dying to save the core characters in this season. But I also think the script-writers have more control than you're implying over how and why characters are killed off.

Regarding the daughter, I'd say that her aversion to the sunlight was an unexpected moment for her character, but not for the script-writers. An alternative situation in which the problem with the sunlight didn't arise, and she got to live, could easily have been written. The fact that it was could be read as revealing that she had now served her purpose as a living character, and could contribute more to the plot by dying in the canal. Similarly, a scenario could have been written in which the father blew up the vampires without killing himself as well.

I do recognise that this needs to be seen in the context of a theme of sacrifice-for-the-stars, as you say, and that the fact it is happening to black characters is partly a side-effect of the fact that they're in the story at all, which is certainly good. But I also think that there's an extent to which black characters and their fates actually need to be handled with slightly more sensitivity than ordinary white characters, because of the historical legacy of racist portrayals of such characters. To me, it isn't enough to just throw black characters into the mix and treat them exactly the same as white characters. I feel that, just as with queer, disabled, and female characters, the current social climate requires that they are treated in a more positive manner than (straight, able, male) white characters, as an active means of contributing to the gradual overcoming of prejudice in the wider world.

[vectorious.livejournal.com]

I take your point about the extra treatment needed.

I would dispute the point about the script writers - her death was required to a) the father's revenge (which may be part of the problem) and b) the Doctor's decision to eliminate the baddies rather than moving them on ("you didn't even know her name" (which ironically, I have now forgotten)).

I will say I was expecting a rescue when she was executed as it was not quick or unavoidable as most such deaths are. Normally goodies only die if the events are too fast for the Doctor to react to (cf the father's death). Normally if there is time, the Doctor would stage a rescue, he may not succeed, but he would usually try. It is also not clear to me he told the father about her being dead - which is why he did not grieve. Both made me feel uncomfortable.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Her name was Isabella. :-)

I think somebody had to die in the canal in order to help establish the Calvieri family as truly evil, and therefore an acceptable target for the Doctor to wipe out. I'm honestly not sure now if the Doctor himself even knew about it, though - would have to watch again to be sure. But either way I'd definitely have liked a bit more room to be allocated to the impact of her death somewhere in the script.

[vectorious.livejournal.com]

He knew about it after the event from his conversation with Lady Calvieri - that was when he threatened with the line "you didn't even know...".

I would have thought that the attempted execution was sufficient to establish their evilness, but maybe it needed the actual act. I also would have thought it was reasonable to suppose that Isabella was in trouble and thus an imminent rescue was in order which was not attempted at all.

But then I am not a script writer, and probably Doctor Who is all the better for it!

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I'm not a fan of positive discrimination at all, but that's pure opinion and I don't have an argument to back it up.