Plague of Options
So The Vampires of Venice didn’t offend me as much as episodes two or three; it wasn’t so much offensively poor as it was deeply mediocre. In modern Doctor Who terms, it has to be the epitome of nothingness. It is practically the same as half the episodes made to date, and in that sense it’s a bit of a shame. It’s a shame because the writer and director were handed piles of bountiful, pregnant, deeply fascinating material and then they came up with… this.
I’m just now watching the Confidential. The writer, Toby Whithouse, is in Venice, chatting with a historian about the city’s relationship with the plague. This brings up a bunch of information from my own plague research — such as the islands off of Venice where, over the years, one fortress after another was built to house plague sufferers. They were sort of horrible leper colonies, where it’s said that today the ghosts of plague victims, tortured and anguished, practically own the place. The historian gets into that, a bit.
Actually, the first thing he asks is, this Doctor Who character — he’s a plague doctor, is he? And Whithouse is a little confused. “Uh, no,” he says, and starts babbling about sci-fi concepts. You can see the historian’s face fall. So to try to bring things back into an interesting realm, he starts talking about plague doctors — you know, with the bird masks and the robes and hats. They’re iconic as hell, and practically ready-made Doctor Who characters. Hell, the secret could be that, behind those masks, the plague doctors were in fact vampires. Wouldn’t that be something.
As they talk, the historian actually has a mask at hand. The writer sort of shrugs and changes the subject. It goes on like this. I feel embarrassed for the guy.
There are at least three areas in which this episode criminally squandered its potential. First, the whole setting and premise — plague, in Renaissance Venice. These horrible plague colonies, filled with victims. That’s neat, and relatively unexplored territory. Next, add in vampires. Vampires are, of course, historically associated with the plague. People have blamed the plague on vampires, and there’s thought that vampire lore exists largely to rationalize, put some comprehensible narrative to, the plague. Also this is Doctor Who. Plague doctors. Imagine a couple of mistaken references in there, crossed wires about which doctor is which. How is it, then, that the only reference to the plague is a line or two at the start, explaining… well, nothing, really. It’s just there to namedrop the villain, to get the Doctor on her track without any effort.
Next, vampires. Aside from their deep relationship with the plague, they are an important, if fairly unexplored, part of Doctor Who lore. They are, in fact, the ancient enemies of the Time Lords. We’ve only seen them once on-screen because the Time Lords thought they killed all the vampires off. The last time we saw them, they were in E-Space, a bottle universe that… well, never mind. Too complicated. They were in another universe, that was locked away. This is, incidentally, the same universe in which Romana was locked away.
So think about this for a minute. Instead of wasting half the episode establishing the vampires then saying, hang on, they’re not really vampires at all; they’re some other kind of alien-of-the-week that nobody cares about in the least, we could have had real (in Doctor Who terms) vampires. Which opens the question: how did they get here? Where did they come from? Well, they probably came from E-Space. What, E-Space is open? What else does that imply? Could… no, Romana couldn’t still be alive, could she?
So the episode squanders the historical and thematic premise it sets up. It squanders some potentially momentous Doctor Who continuity and mythology. And in shooting the story as if it was based entirely on a set, director Jonny Campbell squanders an absolutely gorgeous location. This is some of the flattest direction I’ve seen since “Daleks in Manhattan”; even though the compositing was, in truth, fairly limited, my first impression of anything interesting was, oh, there’s another bad greenscreen shot. There was no dynamism or genuine sense of place. It was all so… matter-of-fact. How can you give a director architecture and spaces like that and come out with something so fake and forgettable?
The only thing that raises this story is the regulars. I’m going to just stop talking about how wonderful Matt Smith is, in his every motion and gesture. How delightfully awkward. Instead, I’ll talk about how refreshing Rory is as a companion. A good male companion always balances out the TARDIS crew anyway — most of the men have been amongst my favorites. Ian, Steven, Ben, Jamie, Harry, Turlough. Not a bad lineup there. And Rory, as awkward as he is in his own way, seems to “get” the Doctor and his world in a way that I’m not sure any new-Who companion has. From the bit when he first walks into the TARDIS to his analysis of the Doctor’s effect on people, Rory is a sharp guy and he makes the Doctor work a bit in the way that none of the female comanions, or Jack, have.
So that’s all nice, though it’s got little to do with the episode per se. Ah well. Toby Whithouse is on my dud list, I guess, next to Chris Chibnall, Gareth Roberts, Mark Gatiss, Tom MacRae, Matt Jones, Helen Raynor, and Matthew Graham. And Johnny Campbell is on my dud list next to Andrew Gunn, Colin Teague, James Strong, and Keith Boak.
Guess what? After next week’s episode, which looks swell, we have:
1) Two Chris Chibnall episodes, followed by
2) a celebrity historical (always a bit dubious anyway) directed by Johnny Campbell again, followed by
3) Hey, a Gareth Roberts episode.
Previously, the two weakest stories this series were directed by Andrew Gunn — the weaker of which was written by Mark Gatiss.
So, basically between next week and the two-part finale we’re on thin ice. Oy.
Why don’t people always consult me before making any creative decisions?