The Vampires of Venice

Chapter the 247th, where there's something fishy about a Venetian artistocratic family

Plot: 

The Doctor crashes Rory's stag party to confess that Amy kissed him after their last adventure, then takes them both on a trip as a date so they can discuss and make-up. They arrive in Venice in 1580 to rapidly find a mystery involving aliens (it's only to be expected). The Calvierri family has persuaded the Venetians to cut themselves off from the rest of the world because of a non-existent plague, and have set up an exclusive school for girls. Venetians are sending their daughters to this school, never to be able to interact with them again, despite everyone involved in this educational establishment making it clear that they're turning the girls into vampires. Some investigations by the TARDIS team discover that they aren't vampires but instead Saturnyns, carnivorous fish creatures using perception filters to disguise themselves. The mother of the shoal, posing as Rosanna Calvierri, was the only female who survived when they fled their homes from something called the Silence (which isn't explained but which presumably will be covered in Doctor Who seasons to come, probably somewhat unsatisfactorily).

Aside from her son, also posing as Venetian aristocracy, the other males are swimming around in the canals of Venice. She is converting the school's pupils into Saturnyne females by draining their blood and replacing it with her own, Dracula style. With help from Guido, the father of one of the pupils who's desperate to get her back, the TARDIS team attempt to infiltrate by enrolling Amy in the school. They manage to get her out after only one small neck bite, but they fail to free Guido's still unconverted daughter Isabella. Isabella is killed by being thrown into the waters of Venice where the male Saturnyns eat her. The female converted Saturnyns attack Guido's house; the others escape, and Guido blows up some barrels of gunpowder he's been collecting to attack the Calvierris. Not knowing her breeding stock is gone, Rosanna starts up a weather control gizmo that starts storms in order to flood Venice and make it a watery wonderland, perfect for fish people. The Doctor climbs a Venetian tower and does some techno jiggery-pokery to an aerial to stop that. With her plans foiled, Rosanna commits suicide by jumping into the water, her perception filter device jammed on to human mode meaning the males will eat her. The TARDIS team travel off to new adventures as a trio.

Context:

Watched from the BBC iplayer (the Blu-ray remote is broken again) on my lonesome one evening.

First Time Round:

As usual, I can't remember my first encounter with a Matt Smith story. Almost certainly I would have watched The Vampires of Venice on the day of its UK broadcast, probably slightly time-shifted as the Better Half and I had at the time a young baby and a toddler whom we would have been putting to bed at around the time the story went out. In these circumstances in previous blog posts, I have produced an anecdote about the Doctor Who 'wilderness years' (the period from the end of 1989 when the classic series ended to its return as an ongoing new series in 2005). This one is not so much an anecdote as a description of how it felt for a few years of that period, specifically the period from 2000 to 2003. The 1990s, although they form the larger part of that so-called wilderness period, were pretty good for Doctor Who fans. Most would not have seen all the older stories that were being newly released on VHS, there were new original novels being published, and later in the decade Big Finish started to make new stories on audio; there was no shortage of tales to buy and enjoy. There were many repeats of old stories on terrestrial TV in the UK in the first half of the decade, a lot of hoopla around the 30th anniversary in 1993 with a big new documentary and a charity skit featuring new performances from actors that played Doctors and companions through Who's history; then, there was a brand new feature length story starring Paul McGann in 1996. It wasn't a barren wilderness

The decade ended with an entire night (23 years ago to the day as I write this) given over to Doctor Who related programming on BBC2, followed by the launch of an ambitious series of repeats. Starting with the first colour story, Jon Pertwee's Spearhead from Space, the intention was to continue with all the serials from the 1970s in order. Doctor Who would potentially be on British TV screens all year round. It was early in 2000 that things faltered. The repeats didn't get good ratings, so they tried leaping ahead to a Tom Baker story, but things did not improve. The repeats were cancelled, and thereafter no classic series episode would be repeated on the major BBC channels 1 or 2 ever again. Four years after its showing, there was no hope left that Paul McGann's one night stand was ever going to become a series, and the VHS releases were drying up (with less frequent releases of the dwindling number of unreleased stories in the back catalogue, none of which were that popular). DVD came along instead, but the range started slowly with only a handful of releases in the early years of the 2000s. For approximately three years, it was the leanest of times, and the wilderness did finally feel a bit barren. Then one day in September of 2003, everything changed, the sun shone and the land became green and bountiful again. A press release went out saying that Russell T Davies was producing a new series of Doctor Who. After that, all was anticipation, and excitement. Eighteen years later almost to the day, another press release went out saying that Russell T Davies was again producing a new series of Doctor Who. Now that Jodie Whittaker has bowed out, we are in the same kind of period of anticipation and excitement: over a year to go, little bits of filming being spotted, the unveiling of a new logo. If it's anything like the first time round, it'll be worth the wait.

Reaction: 

I can remember every story title from Doctor Who's start in 1963 to the present day, and can recite them to order, except... I never know if it's Vampires of Venice or Vampires in Venice. I have to look it up, every darn time. I had to look it up to title this blog, and as I type this I've already forgotten which it is and have had to take a glance upwards at that title to double check again. It's odd that my mind has this one silly blank spot where it has perfect recall elsewhere (believe me, I've tried to forget some of this stuff). It's not just the title, either; the story's not exactly forgettable, but it is rather superficial. For a plot that hinges on the projection of false images that disguise the villains, it coincidentally ends up all about the surface and not what lies beneath. It's a hell of a good looking surface though. A case in point is a stunning image from early on: beneath a grand staircase, the late and much missed Helen McCrory playing Rosanna Calvierri - whose work throughout the story is powerful, precise and excellent - kneels before a factotum, head back. He is serving her what looks like wine in a bejewelled gold goblet, but the hint is that it's blood. Her big skirts are fanned out flat on the ground behind her. It looks like a Renaissance canvas. Nobody could complain about the story's production design, and the sumptuous look created on screen: the use of the Croatian town Trogir with CGI enhancement to double for Venice, the costume and make-up, and a good number of background extras all add up to an effective and beautiful realisation of time and place. There are many other shots in the story as striking as the McCrory 'hydrating' scene too. But who in the story laid her skirts all flat like that, and why? How long did it take? Why make such a spectacle out of doing something which ought to be covert, and who exactly is the intended audience for this spectacle? There's a figleaf in the script suggesting that the aliens are so arrogant and superior as to be overt about their villainy, but this doesn't seem adequate to me.

This is not to say that the story is 100% superficial. There is some very neat material providing a scientific rationale for many parts of vampire mythology. They are really alien fish creatures using low-level mind control to appear human, but the human brain's survival instincts kick in when it sees the teeth, so they are not disguised. The same technology confuses your brain when seeing the reflection in a mirror, so the creature does not appear; and, as they usually live in a subaquatic darkness, they are sensitive to light. Rory is a nice addition to the regular travelling team, and Arthur Darvill's performance complements - completes - the others. This also allows a little bit of interesting interpersonal conflict between Rory and the Doctor as the former accuses the latter of making people put themselves into danger as he encourages them to want to impress him. The relationship between Calvierri mother and son is nicely sketched in. Matt Smith and McCrory have a couple of good confrontation scenes, where the villain challenges the Doctor's morality related to the fate of his own people (very similar to the scenes that writer Toby Whithouse had between Anthony Head and David Tennant in his story School Reunion, but none the worse for that). Smith does a good line in righteous anger "This ends today - I will tear down the House of Calvierri, stone by stone ... And you know why? You didn't know Isabella's name - you didn't know Isabella's name." There's some nice playful moments too, like Guido appearing in Rory's stag night T-shirt as they've had to swap clothes for Rory to pretend to be a Venetian. Listed out, it sounds like a lot, but it adds up to very little running time, and the rest is stuff that looks good but doesn't always make sense.

Why, for example, if the Saturnyns are just mildly sensitive to light does Amy's reflecting the sun onto one with a mirror make it instantly combust into a cloud of ashes? It's just for spectacle and to bring an end to a fight scene the writer had no other way of tying up, but it doesn't make any sense. There's a lot of other material that doesn't work too: there's the somewhat flaccid opening where the Doctor appears jumping out of a pretend cake at Rory's stag do; it's supposed to be comic, but it isn't because it's not real (has anyone's real stag night in the real world ever involved an exotic dancer jumping out of a cardboard cake, or is it just a TV-land only situation?), and the rhythm of the comedy is all over the place - there's not much of a punchline, and it's not cut so the credits come in quickly enough, leaving the scene to limp on for too long. The resolution is a bit too easy, with the Doctor effectively pressing a switch to turn off the plot (albeit the switch has been placed in a high spot to make it a tiny bit more difficult for him); by that point, the evil plan has effectively been foiled anyway, as Guido has blown up all the young female Saturnyns in a plot development that's heinously telegraphed by the presence of Chekov's gunpowder barrels in act one. There's a major loose end in that the carnivorous males are still swimming around in Venice's waters at the end of the story; how long they'll live to terrorise swimmers is not something that's covered.

Another puzzling aspect of the story, though it's not a fault of this script so much as it is the wider arc narrative of the Matt Smith years, is the references to the Silence. Clearly there was some planning ahead in the arc plotting of this period, and the Silence teased here would be introduced properly the following year. It maybe hadn't been thought out sufficiently to be so bold about it so early, though. The creatures that form the order of the Silence (Silents?) don't make things go very quiet, as suggested at the end of Vampires, it's just a name. Additionally and crucially, it's rapidly established when they finally appear that nobody can remember the Silence after an encounter, so how can Rosanna know that it was the Silence that attacked her home world? And why would the Silence attack her home world at all? They will either be the relatively peaceful religious order that want to prevent the return of the Time Lords to the universe, or a more violent breakaway group that want to kill the Doctor as they believe that will prevent the Time Lords returning. Neither group would have anything to gain by attacking the Saturnyns. I know this is nit-picking, but it's just another example of the story going for an effect without any underlying logic. It all looks very good though.

Connectivity: 

Both The Vampires of Venice and The Edge of Destruction feature William Hartnell (he appears on the library card that Matt Smith flashes at one point, thinking it's the psychic paper).

Deeper Thoughts:

For the Dads? For a long time after this story was broadcast, there were Doctor Who musical events - one-off proms, touring music showcases, etc. - which used the same pattern as had been established early on after Doctor Who's return with the very first charity concerts of Murray Gold's incidental music. There would be many pieces stirringly played, accompanied by clips on a screen and / or creature performers wandering round the audience scaring and thrilling kids. The creature costumes that would most often appear would be the ones you'd expect: Cybermen, Judoon, Ood... and, of course, the fish creatures from Venice in their nightie-wearing girl disguises. Erm? Why that last one again? They appeared in one story, never returned, did not make that much of an impact, and they barely look like monsters at all. Maybe the reason for their inclusion was so some female artistes could appear as part of proceedings (I assume that the big, heavy costumes of the other creatures were mainly worn by blokes, but I may be wrong), maybe it was to still provide some spectacle but take the pressure off backstage for a period as the vampire girls were easier to dress. Maybe. Hmm. I could be being cynical, but I suspect that at least part of it was that they were there "for the dads" as goes the phrase long associated with Doctor Who. Could they have been added to appeal to the fathers dragged along by the kids, who weren't particularly interested in science-fiction or adventure narratives? Though not exactly at the slutty Halloween costume level, the vampire girl outfits and performers in The Vampires Of Venice are clearly intended to have sex appeal for the heterosexual males watching. The script even has the Doctor describe them as "buxom", which I have to say stuck out as a line and put my teeth on edge when I watched the story this time round. Perhaps uncharitably, I am convinced it was a line added by showrunner Steven Moffat, no stranger to including a saucy gag or two in his writing.

Doctor Who has a long history, particularly in the 20th century, of introducing questionable sexist outfits as a way to attract a certain audience demographic that those making the programme thought might not otherwise be interested. Successive (male) producers presented the female companion characters in shorter and shorter skirts in the 1960s and 70s. Tom Baker's companion Leela played by Louise Jameson wore a skimpy savage girl leotard made out of chamois leather; in the 1980s. Janet Fielding as Tegan was hardly ever allowed a hem line below her knee (she finally got to help choose her character's outfit for her appearance in The Power of the Doctor, and wore trousers); in the same decade, Nicola Bryant perhaps got it worst of all, forced into day-glo bikini-top and cut-off shorts combos for her first couple of seasons. It seems to me a ridiculous notion that this would have any impact on Doctor Who's viewing figures, as households would have to be watching anyway for the Dad in this hypothetical situation to get a glimpse of leg - it wasn't the sort of selling point they covered ahead of time in the Radio Times plot synopsis. Is the scenario being envisaged that the Dad would keep tuning in the following weeks, whether his kids were still interested or not? Were the 1960s and 70s so devoid of titillation that these - if we're honest, profoundly unerotic - outfits in Doctor Who were a draw for perverts? If so, is this really an audience that the show wants? If any middle-aged man can't get through a music concert accompanying their kids without the potential for a glimpse of cleavage, they probably need a bromide prescription. Jodie Whittaker, in an early interview with Vulture after debuting as the Doctor, mentioned "the male gaze", and some of these decisions were clearly objectifying and - based on a lot of testimony since - were aimed at heterosexual males (they may have appealed to lesbian and bisexual women's gaze as well, I suppose, but this was not the intention).

As one of those heterosexual males, and being a long-term fan, I was apprehensive when watching Whittaker playing the Doctor for the first time. With all apologies upfront for my shallowness (I'm just being honest): I had seen her act in many other things and thought she was attractive. Was I going to end up fancying the Doctor? The way she played the role of the Doctor, though, was completely childlike and un-sexual (unlike, say, David Tennant's handsome swagger necessary for him to become a love interest for Rose and Martha, as the script dictated). It was a wonderful approach to the part; a bit like how Matt Smith mostly played the role (when he wasn't given lines noticing how buxom or not people were). Context is everything, and Doctor Who should not be the context for providing anyone those kind of thrills. It wasn't anyway Whittaker's meaning when she talked about the male gaze; the quote is about "stories being told through the white male gaze" (emphasis mine) not for the white (or otherwise) male gaze. Indeed, although he was a white cishet middle-aged man, Chris Chibnall in his time as showrunner did create the greatest plurality of authorial voices that had ever written for Doctor Who before, and did try in his own scripts to cover a range of subject matter that featured minority characters, situations and viewpoints. Incoming and returning showrunner Russell T Davies will continue this, or course. Won't he? Based on a recent social media reaction against some comments he's made, Davies has upset some of those hoping for a diverse and inclusive Doctor Who, and it also happened to be about a character wearing clothes that are just a little too small for them. (Note: spoilers for The Power of the Doctor follow, although I imagine you've seen it by now). At the end of Whittaker's swan song, the regeneration scene was different in that the Doctor's clothes changed also. The only time previously that this has happened was way back when Hartnell turned into Troughton, so it's not unprecedented, but Tennant plays the moment with surprise looking at his new outfit, and there are hints in the trailer for next year that it's going to link into a future plot point somehow.

Whether Davies's decision not to have Tennant appear in Whittaker's costume preceded or developed from the plotting of the 2023 stories is unknown, but a deliberate decision it was. In Doctor Who Magazine issue 584, the showrunner is interviewed and mentions it. He explains that he felt that the "culture and the dignity" of drag needed to be treated delicately. Because of the size difference between the two actors, he thought it would look like "taking the mickey" if Tennant appeared in Whittaker's outfit. He also believed that there would only then be interest in those images of Tennant in "what [the press] considered to be women's clothes" and it would become "weaponised" to mock feminine traits and drag culture. This upset some people, as Whittaker's outfit had been carefully designed to be gender neutral (some might not have the seen the comments about the press and their capacity to ignore that, though - a screenshot of the interview circulated online that only covered the first part of his comments as they continued over a page). Some others felt it was an attack on any male that had ever cosplayed as Thirteen, though it seems uncharitable to assume that Davies's talk of dignity did not extend to cosplayers. Why wouldn't it? A more valid criticism was that Davies shouldn't self-censor because of possible reactions from the reactionary press. I can sympathise with both sides: in a way, his decision is writing Doctor Who for the white male gaze (as dominates the tabloid press) yet again. Davies, though, wants no distractions from his series relaunch, particularly ones that might be hurtful to a group of people about whom he cares. The social media spat has probably fizzled out by the time you read this, and was mostly just an excuse for fans of one showrunner period to criticise another: this is just another rite of passage for any new era, just like revealing a new logo. It's nice to know that however Doctor Who develops, some things are constant, but also some things can change (the era of putting companion actors into revealing costumes is gone, I think, and I hope gone forever).

 

In Summary:

Looks good, but - on reflection - there's not a lot to it.