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Talking of Barbara - OMG William Hartnell on the Doctor's out-of-date library card!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

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Yes, that makes a lot of sense, actually. I tend not to pay that much attention to how plots are finished off, thinking of it as a necessary coda to the tensions and developments of the story itself, so that I don't always notice if the resolution is actually a bit crap. But, looking back, you're probably right about them tending to be a bit rushed this season.