Vampires of Venice

Most people just nip stationary from work.

I'm not that big into vampire stories. In fact, I'm not that big into much of any kind of horror monster so a sci-fi twist on historic vampires is not necessarily going to grab me. But I do like Rory and Amy and the Eleventh Doctor so I'm trying to go into this one with a more open mind. I recall it not grabbing me with any great gusto the first time but it's also sandwiched between two stories that I really, really like (Angel two-parter and Amy's Choice) so it may be more of a case of being lost in the shuffle.

Plot Summary

A man named Guido petitions the patron of the city of Venice, Rosanna Cavlierri, to accept his daughter Isabella into her school. Rosanna accepts and Guido is promptly thrown out while Isabella is sequestered with the other girls. Guido later tries to see her but he is rejected from entering and Isabella reacts with no recognition when he approaches her on the street.

Meanwhile, the Doctor crashes Rory's bachelor party, concerned when Amy tried to kiss him. He takes the two of them to Venice in 1580 for a romantic getaway. The Doctor is immediately put on his guard when the city magister informs them that the city is in quarantine due to plague outside the city, despite the Doctor knowing that the plague has receded in Italy by this time. He is even more intrigued when he sees Guido being rejected by the passing mass of girls coming from the school. He approaches Guido to learn his story.

Rory and Amy begin to walk through the streets and enjoy themselves when they hear a woman screaming. They rush to the scene and chase off Francesco, son of Rosanna who had attacked and bitten the neck of a flower selling girl. Rory gives chase but Francesco dives into the canals and Rory loses him. The two then go looking for the Doctor.

The Doctor has Guido distract the front gate guards while he slips in via a side gate. The Doctor makes his way down to a chamber where he becomes distracted by a fancy mirror. He is approached by several girls who do not reflect into the mirror. They are puzzled by him but give him the chance to flee as they have no orders concerning him, though they do bare long teeth at him as he lingers.

The Doctor reunites with Rory, Amy and Guido where Amy is excited about the possibility of vampires. They return to Guido's house and devise a plan where Rory will pretend Amy is his sister and he is asking for her to be admitted. Once she is in, she will let the Doctor and Guido in. Guido also notes his stockpile of gunpowder that he had amassed in order to blast his way in if left to no alternative.

Rory takes Amy in and she is accepted due to the psychic paper giving her reference from the King of Sweden. Rory is thrown out while Francesco takes Amy away. She is taken to the girl's room. Most of them slip out when called but Isabella hesitates, allowing Amy to talk to her and tell her about getting her out. Amy then slips down to the ground floor and unbolts the door leading to the cistern from which the Doctor and Rory are climbing.

Amy is grabbed by one of the servants and taken to a chamber. Rosanna was not fooled by the psychic paper and has Amy tied to a chair. She bites Amy's neck and drinks fluid from her. She tells her that others will do the same and her blood will be replaced by that of their kind, transforming her body into them. Amy angrily kicks Rosanna, hitting a perception filter on her body. Rosanna's form transforms briefly into a large fish creature before going back.

Before they can suck Amy again, they are alerted to the Doctor and Rory's presence. The Doctor and Rory work their way through, holding off the vampires with a large UV light. As they are chased, Isabella frees Amy and escorts all of them to an exit. Rosanna orders Francesco to seal the building. The Doctor, Amy and Rory rush through the door to Guido's waiting boat. Isabella comes to but shrinks away from the rising sunlight. This allows the others to grab her and drag her back in. The Doctor tries to follow and grab her but he is electrocuted and knocked out by the door security.

For refusing to fully obey, Isabella is knocked into the pool internal to the building where she is eaten by the brothers of Francesco, too immature to be brought and hidden by perception filters. Rosanna heads back to the throne room to find the Doctor. They interrogate each other and the Doctor learns not only that Isabella has been killed but that the aliens are from the planet Saturnyne and escaped through a crack, similar to that in Amy's bedroom, when their planet was destroyed. With no female survivors, she has transformed girls to repopulate the race after sinking Venice.

The Doctor vows to stop her but she sends the girls to kill him in Guido's house. The Doctor, Rory and Amy escape but Guido kills the lot by luring them in and exploding his store of gunpowder. Unaware of the girls' death, Rosanna activates a weather augmentation machine, designed to sink Venice. The Doctor sends Rory and Amy back to the TARDIS while he tries to stop the machine.

As Rory and Amy run past the Cavlierri palace, Francesco sees them and decides to finish them. He corners Amy but is lured into attacking Rory instead. Rory tries to hold him off but is eventually knocked down. As Francesco leaps on Rory, Amy catches a ray of sunlight in a mirror and shines it directly into Francesco's face. The concentrated sunlight causes his entire body to burst into flame, killing him. Amy and Rory then run back to the palace to help the Doctor.

The Doctor meets Rosanna where she gloats at him until he informs her that her girls are dead. She flees below to the pool where her other children are, leaving the Doctor alone. He uncovers the control mechanism in her throne. Rory and Amy enter and he tells them to destroy the chair, which will send control back to the generator. The Doctor follows the signal of the generator to a ball ornament on top of the bell tower. He deactivates it, causing the storms to stop immediately.

The Doctor finds Rosanna standing near the edge of the pool, having stripped down to her undergarment but also stuck showing her human form due to the damage done to the filer by Amy's kick. With no hope of continuing her race, she jumps into the water where she is eaten by her own children. The Doctor then recollects Amy and Rory where Amy insists that Rory travel with them for a few more adventures. Rory agrees and they depart in the TARDIS.

Analysis

Typically when I find a story that I give middling to low scores for, I can usually cite a number of things that just bothered me or mistakes that were made. In this particular case, I can't really do that except for a few minor niggles. However, this story just doesn't do much for me. I don't think it's the fault of anything particular with the story as much as it is that I'm really not into the gothic vampire genre. Aspects of it worked for me in State of Decay, but here it just came across as more boring than anything else.

What really annoys me about not being engaged with this story is that it's the start of the dynamic between Rory and the Doctor. I'm not much into the whole "Amy choosing between Rory and the Doctor" dynamic but it is a simple fact that the interaction between Rory and the Doctor was very funny and had a smoothness that I just loved in later stories. You can see it already forming in the quiet moments between the two, but the rest of the story just doesn't engage me and I found myself wishing they would ignore Amy and just go back to Rory and the Doctor.

As is the case for most of Series 5, the Eleventh Doctor is in top zany form. He is a nice mix of excitable and happy but also attentive to detail. You can also see a trace of that dark detail that was more prominent with the Tenth Doctor in that he opts to fully deal with Rosanna when she confirms that she didn't know Isabella's name, even after having her killed. He also offers little help when Rosanna opts to let herself be consumed by her children. Though the tone shifts here and there, he shifts and sways with it.

Rory and Amy are also quite good in this story. Rory does the man caught on his heels very well along with the jealous and slightly jilted lover. It gets a touch overplayed in other stories but given that this is his first exposure to it, it's understandable that this would be the driving emotion for him. He is bumbling but also fully committed, the way someone who is trying beyond his means would be.

Amy, by contrast, is acting more in the role of the established veteran. She is seasoned but still impressed by each new situation. She is also confident but still lets the Doctor drive nearly all the decisions. She did not set herself as bait until the Doctor agreed nor did she fight the Doctor about going back to the TARDIS, though she and Rory did go back to the citadel after the fight with Francesco. It's a nice balance for a companion who can be bold but also deferential to the experience of the Doctor.

The villains were very generic in terms of the vampire tropes and the only one I found even partially interesting was Rosanna. She at least had a planning mind and seemed like she could match wits with the Doctor for a time. But even she gave into trope after a while. It made no sense to send all of the girls after the Doctor, knowing there would be a risk of loss in the attack. Likewise, where did Rosanna go after the Doctor told her all the girls were dead and he made to stop the submersion of the city. She could have tried to stop him and nothing was preventing her from starting over once the Doctor had been dealt with. Of course, it made it easy for him to stop the thing without being attacked.

Speaking of attacks, I also didn't like the cop out fight between Francesco and Rory/Amy. It had it's funny moments, especially the makeshift cross of Rory's, but it had too simple a conclusion. We had been shown that the aliens, while they did not like sunlight, could shield themselves from it pretty much through veils and hats. The reflection of a mirror does not intensify sunlight into a concentrated beam but would just reflect the same light that they would have been exposed to if there were no clouds or Francesco was not wearing a hat. It could have easily driven him off but it should have not have caused him to burst into flames. It was a point that gave into the vampire lore a bit too much and was done for a cheap thrill.

The direction was fairly nice, especially with the use of a historical city to stand in for Venice. There was some unfortunately obvious blue screen work but it's at a moment of high action and doesn't detract too much. What detracts more is how it gets prolonged and the lack of other obsticles. Rather than have the Doctor fumble about because of the wind or the height, have him deal with an attack from one of the aliens. That would have probably required a bit too much CGI and been out of budget but it would have been an improvement.

This is not a bad story but if you're not a fan of gothic vampire stories it's not going to do too much for you as that is the only real hook. There is no real twist or surprise save the reality of what the "vampires" actually are. It has action and adventure as well as some comedy but it's pretty rote and can get boring in the middle. Even the ending is something of a let down as Amy and Guido are the only ones who take active steps to actually kill the aliens. It's fine for a mindless watch but the two stories on either side of this one are far better in my opinion.

Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5