The Vampires of Venice
May. 8th, 2010 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfold_xAnd I quite liked that, too. I had difficulty concentrating on this story for the first 20 minutes, because I kept thinking of "State of Decay", "Project: Twilight" and "The Stones of Venice", trying to work out if I was supposed to be picking up signs of tie-in to any of these stories. I suppose the closest is "The Stones of Venice" (aliens in Venice, amphibian beings, sinking Venice under the sea, tragic death), but really its not close at all.
Once I started taking it as in independent story, I thought it was quite nice. Not fabulous (felt rather rushed, and had a high body count), but quite good. But the really interesting part of this story was the insights the characters had into each other. The Doctor starts off with a mission to put Amy and Rory on equal footing: he believes it's hard for his companions to 'come back down to Earth' after they've lived the tramp's life in the galaxy. That's certainly been a theme of reboot-Who, considering Rose, Donna, and Sarah Jane's life after the Doctor (to a lesser degree this is also Jack's theme, but he is much more complicated, what with already having been a time traveler). To a certain degree, I think traveling with the Doctor is bound to affect a companion greatly (the more distant from the Doctor in time and technology, the greater the effect), but its also a rather sad realization, and perhaps why so many companions were written off into marriages (to have the experience that only a non-eternal humanoid living in a stationary timeline can give you). It's rather sweet, that this Doctor is realizing the effect and consciously attempting to compensate for it (as opposed to Ten, who just looked sort of baffled every time it happened to him).
The other big observation is Rory's who looked to be going down the Micky road to irrelevance and an alternate universe until he took a few moments to call out Eleven, who up to now, has been treating him pretty badly: "You know what's dangerous about you? It's how you make people take risks; you make them want to impress you. You make it so they don't want to let you down. You have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves when you're around." That's another theme of reboot-Who, intentional or otherwise. The universe is littered with people who sacrifice their lives to make the Doctor's plans work, all the while he's stropping around shouting about how he has to make the big decisions.
And speaking of Rory, I dig him. Like Amy, he came off as smart from day one, but also, a less than adequate substitute for the Doctor (and I could live my whole life without seeing any penis references on this show again, thanks Moff). But in this episode they gave him the chance to shine, to challenge, to be someone who wasn't wet and boring, and I think was entirely the right call on the PTB's part. He's presented as smart from the get-go (not immediately rationalizing away the events of "The Eleventh Hour"), and just got better, with insight and bravery to match smarts. I'm so glad the PTB resisted the temptation to make me love Eleven by tearing down other 'rivals' (which is entirely how they operated Ten). The Doctor was still at the start, unaccountably, a jerk to Rory, but he seemed to get over it as Rory continued to assert himself.
Amy continues to impress, with smarts, bravery(!!) and a lack of screaming. Add to this that last week's kiss/mauling really did seem to be a one-off that came from being scared rather than a true crush on the Doctor, and it's full steam ahead for me.
And, OMG First Doctor fan service. Love you, Moff, even if you could have had Paterson Joseph and picked Smith instead.
Will someone please tell me where to get Amy's jacket. Is that Diesel or what?
Next week's episode looks super. YAY!
Once I started taking it as in independent story, I thought it was quite nice. Not fabulous (felt rather rushed, and had a high body count), but quite good. But the really interesting part of this story was the insights the characters had into each other. The Doctor starts off with a mission to put Amy and Rory on equal footing: he believes it's hard for his companions to 'come back down to Earth' after they've lived the tramp's life in the galaxy. That's certainly been a theme of reboot-Who, considering Rose, Donna, and Sarah Jane's life after the Doctor (to a lesser degree this is also Jack's theme, but he is much more complicated, what with already having been a time traveler). To a certain degree, I think traveling with the Doctor is bound to affect a companion greatly (the more distant from the Doctor in time and technology, the greater the effect), but its also a rather sad realization, and perhaps why so many companions were written off into marriages (to have the experience that only a non-eternal humanoid living in a stationary timeline can give you). It's rather sweet, that this Doctor is realizing the effect and consciously attempting to compensate for it (as opposed to Ten, who just looked sort of baffled every time it happened to him).
The other big observation is Rory's who looked to be going down the Micky road to irrelevance and an alternate universe until he took a few moments to call out Eleven, who up to now, has been treating him pretty badly: "You know what's dangerous about you? It's how you make people take risks; you make them want to impress you. You make it so they don't want to let you down. You have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves when you're around." That's another theme of reboot-Who, intentional or otherwise. The universe is littered with people who sacrifice their lives to make the Doctor's plans work, all the while he's stropping around shouting about how he has to make the big decisions.
And speaking of Rory, I dig him. Like Amy, he came off as smart from day one, but also, a less than adequate substitute for the Doctor (and I could live my whole life without seeing any penis references on this show again, thanks Moff). But in this episode they gave him the chance to shine, to challenge, to be someone who wasn't wet and boring, and I think was entirely the right call on the PTB's part. He's presented as smart from the get-go (not immediately rationalizing away the events of "The Eleventh Hour"), and just got better, with insight and bravery to match smarts. I'm so glad the PTB resisted the temptation to make me love Eleven by tearing down other 'rivals' (which is entirely how they operated Ten). The Doctor was still at the start, unaccountably, a jerk to Rory, but he seemed to get over it as Rory continued to assert himself.
Amy continues to impress, with smarts, bravery(!!) and a lack of screaming. Add to this that last week's kiss/mauling really did seem to be a one-off that came from being scared rather than a true crush on the Doctor, and it's full steam ahead for me.
And, OMG First Doctor fan service. Love you, Moff, even if you could have had Paterson Joseph and picked Smith instead.
Will someone please tell me where to get Amy's jacket. Is that Diesel or what?
Next week's episode looks super. YAY!
