Tom Salinsky

Doctor Who Series 5 Episode 6 - The Vampires of Venice

As usual, this review contains spoilers. Read with care.

So, Toby Whithouse, the writer who gave us School Reunion, the Doctor Who story in which The Doctor, his companion and her boyfriend infiltrate a mysterious school which is actually the operational base for a group of aliens disguised as humans, is back with a Doctor Who story in which… ah.

As full of familiar tropes as this was, the repetition isn’t the biggest issue and the first thirty minutes seemed rich, lush and full of witty lines. Arthur Darvill makes Rory a doofus boyfriend who is entirely different from Noel Clarke’s Mickey Smith, and the notion of sending Rory and Amy on a date is a lovely one (although Amy being the most important person in the universe seems to have taken a back-seat since the end of the last episode). Croatia, standing in for Venice looks absolutely fantastic, and Jonny Campbell’s camera prowls atmospherically around the architecture, costumes and actors. Murray Gold’s score may have been his finest to date – I particularly liked his new Doctor’s theme rescored for sonorous strings – and the supporting cast added gravitas and weight counterpointing the wit of the regulars.

But around the time that Isabella is fed to the fishes, freeing her father up to make a Noble Act Of Self-Sacrifice – yup, there it is – and especially following that NAOSS which firstly follows a second almost identical running through stone corridors waving torches at vampire girls sequence, and secondly effectively removes the major threat with almost twenty minutes to go, it all starts to seem a bit uneventful. At this point, the one-liners start undermining the jeopardy rather than counterpointing it. Rory’s fight with Francesco is terminally unexciting because of the constant wisecracking, and the stately camerawork is not suited to what should have been a fast-cut combat sequence. Further, Amy’s exploding Francesco with her compact makes no sense whatsoever – very disappointing given that the rest of the fish/vampire/alien business had been if not thoroughly worked out, then at least given some care and attention.

The following supposed climax never really has any power or energy and is apparently composed entirely of offcuts from previous episodes. As dark clouds of alien energy pour out of the Globe Theatre the Calvierri School, the Doctor has to climb Alexandra Palace The Empire State Building The Palazzo and rewire the Adipose Parthenogenesis Saturnynian Tsunami machine before finally looking up and seeing the skies clear of Sontaran gas storm clouds.

And this invites the nitpicking. Why do most of the Calvierri girls turn into vampires, but Isabella just gets a bit light-averse and Amy is entirely unaffected? What kind of vampire story is this when being bitten by a vampire is something you can just shrug off and carry on? Why does the Doctor make such a big deal of Rosanna not knowing Isabella’s name, but nobody notices that she calls him “Doctor” without ever having been introduced? Why does her clothing disappear when her filter fails (suggesting it is illusory) but then we see her taking off much of it before jumping into the lake (suggesting it is real)? Who’s going to mop up all the murderously hungry man-fish still in Venice’s lakes? Who thought it would bring this story to a rousing conclusion to have the chief villain obediently kill herself, saving the Doctor, our hero, from having to lift a finger?

Even more than the misguided Victory of the Daleks, which was ill-conceived but cheerful nonsense from very early on, this is a spectacular missed opportunity. Thirty minutes of creeping suspense, genuinely funny lines, strong character work from regulars and new cast members alike and rich visuals, which get thrown away not in an RTD-style whirl of bewildering last minute plot resolutions but in an excitement-free, drama-light, that’ll do muddle.

Compare the entirely pointless rewiring of the tsunami machine here to the almost identical scene at the end of Partners in Crime. Whithouse just has the Doctor pulling the plug on some bit of whizzy set-dressing and ends the threat there-and-then. RTD builds the tension by having the machine first neutralised, and then not, and then uses the renewed threat to build structure and character by having Donna produce the urgently-needed second capsule to the Doctor’s total delight. If you’re going to re-use an old sequence you have to do it better than the people you’re copying, not give us a watered-down version.

Two stars.