Monsters of Television

“Why can we see your big teeth?”

“Vampires in Venice” is not a great episode. In fact, of the episodes aired, it’s probably the worst of the lot.

Worst. Stag. Party. Ever.

Spurred on by knowledge that something wicked is coming for the Earth on Amy’s wedding day, the Doctor decides to whisk Amy and Rory (the gawky guy from “The Eleventh Hour”) on a pre-wedding honeymoon to Venice in the 1800s. Truly, what could be more romantic? Well, vampires for one thing. Because we all know vampires scream romance.

While the premise isn’t a great thing, though they do some inventive things with the vampires, the episode itself is a bit of a mess. And this was a concern as the show transitioned to the writer of the week episodes (Moffat doesn’t have an episode on deck until the two-part finale). Could the momentum that Moffat established keep going? The answer, at least this week, is a pretty resounding “No.”

I was never a fan of when someone from the companion’s Earth-life decided to tag along (coughMickeycough) on an adventure because it means the inevitable “Doctor. You’re a bad influence. You make people do rash things because you’re a charismatic person and people want to impress you but you end up actually getting people killed.” speech. And guess what? We get one of those!  It has the benefit of helping new audiences learn a continuing trope of the relaunched series (not sure if it was a major issue before) but it does feel a little stale at this point.

Making the argument less resonant is, frankly, the show doesn’t give the idea time to breathe. In fact, the episode as a whole doesn’t really breathe. It runs, literally, non-stop for much of the episode, through the back alleys (very few actual canals) of Venice. Indeed, it felt like, at times, the episode had lopped off some sections to fit into an already extended run time. This is especially noticeable as Rosanna walks into the throne room to turn on the weather machine. Where is she coming from? What was she doing before this? The rest of the episode after the Rosanna activates the weather machine seems like it’s missing scenes, bits of action to ease transitions.

The episode becomes frantic, and since the motivations of Saturnynians are only given a short while before the weather craziness starts (but their plan kept the dark for a bit too long, perhaps), everything feels incredibly compressed. That the Saturnynians are running from the crack in time, that one that’s been following Amy and the Doctor for the season, is a nice continuation of the serial element as well as a way to make the stakes of the crack a little clearer: it’s effecting everyone, not just the Doctor and his band of travelers.

Despite my dislike of the crack overall, I found this to be a wasted opportunity to expand on it a bit more. Instead we’re given another “aliens looking like humans” plot, though the fact that the alien’s perception filter can’t figure out what to do with mirrors was actually kind of neat. The disguised aliens was conceit that was pretty popular during the Davies run, so I’m hoping this doesn’t become a trend in Moffat’s time on the show.

Next week seems like it may be a bit of divisive episode (Amy is pregnant and married to a pony-tailed Rory), so I can’t wait to see where I fall.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• The production value on the episode kind of suffered as well: 1850 Venice didn’t feel that different from 1599 London from series 3’s “The Shakespeare Code,” just with a bit more water. As a result, the city felt very tiny. Running around in a building is okay, but running around in a city that doesn’t feel like a city? Not so much.
• Regardless of what I thought of the episode, I thought Helen McCrory was really good in the episode, especially her scene with Smith. While Rosanna may be dead, it doesn’t mean that McCrory can’t come back in another role next series…?