Monthly Archives: May 2010

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?

Yes, well that was about what I expected on the basis of “School Reunion”: some fun, if vapid, character stuff and dialog; a completely nonsensical story; and a curious union of long, boring dialog scenes and rushed plotting. The centerpiece standoff between the Doctor and key foe is almost exactly like the pool scene from “School Reunion”. It’s also interesting that the most profound character observation was quoted almost verbatim from that earlier episode.

Anyway. Matt Smith is doing well as ever, though maybe not guided as well here as in the Adam Smith episodes (1, 4, and 5). He makes the most out of some absurd situations, and generally makes the show worthwhile on his own. Rory is going to be pretty good — we’re verging into 1960s companion territory now, between him and his fiancée. I also like that, in the abstract, he sort of understands what’s going on with the Doctor.

I am intrigued with next week’s episode. I like that it looks to be breaking the mold a bit, the way the show stopped doing after about 1970. Back in the ’60s, before the show was completely codified, there was stuff like The Mind Robber and Planet of Giants and The Celestial Toymaker. I’m excited at the idea that the format is starting to loosen up a bit.

Offhand this also brings to mind “Father’s Day”, a little. Toward the end of Davies’ era, I recall commenting a few times that I didn’t see a story like Father’s Day being done again, the way the show had developed since 2005. And yet here we are again, Matt Smith’s reminding me of Eccleston’s first (and only) series.

I notice I’ve barely talked, or thought, about today’s episode. Well, yeah. I guess it’s not very remarkable. In the most literal sense. New Who by numbers. Nothing special about it, though (as the template decrees) several nice things. Might as well be a Gareth Roberts episode.

It occurs to me how well the Angels, as iconic monsters in the way that we haven’t had iconic monsters or villains since the early ’70s, integrate with the show’s current format. We’ve got a showrunner who, to an extent not professed by previous producers or script editors, is making a point of highlighting both the time travel aspect of the show and its built-in fairy tale qualities (magical door in a junkyard that can open to anywhere you can imagine; ageless, cranky man who leads you into trouble; an individual monster to represent each of your primal fears). And so here we’ve got supremely memorable, carefully crafted baddies who are intimately entwined with time and whose power largely comes out of their overt fairy tale visage — to the extent that if they’re weathered, worn down, they lose their power. And there’s a certain fairy tale logic to dealing with them — face your demons, but don’t look them in the eye. The Angels basically are an icon of Moffat’s vision for the show.

What they remind me of is the way the Master was created to reflect and enhance Pertwee’s Earthbound super spy adventures. He was the iconic foe of the era, as Letts and Dicks weren’t fond of the Cybermen and the Daleks were slow and slim coming after their ’60s overexposure and Terry Nation running home with all his toys. And the Master was basically a summation of that era: a suave Bond villain to set up schemes for our suave Bondish hero to foil, week after week. Basically, if you’re stuck on Earth in one time period you might as well have a meddling Time Lord to provide an excuse for all the action.

It also strikes me how since the early ’70s no one has really put that much thought into creating a menace that really establishes the contemporary tone and concept and stakes of the show. And yet since the start it’s the baddies that have stuck in people’s minds, and brought them back. For a reason! They establish what the heroes are fighting against, what the nature of the struggle is. They provide the show a certain emotional context.

I guess with that in mind, the Earth Reptiles do a pretty good job of establishing some of the other stakes and themes of the Pertwee era — even though they’re not a consistent threat, or even inherently monsters or villains. It’s almost a shame they didn’t get a final appearance in his last season, to wrap up the ongoing threads in the way that they meant to do with the Master.